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| The Las Vegas Strip at night Image from Wikipedia |
First and foremost. I don't care how close you think that next building is-- understand that it is NOT. Vegas blocks put me in the mindset of New York City, in that the blocks were long, crowded, busy, and did I mention they were long? Look, I am an AVID walker...and even I was getting frustrated with how long it took to get to places. Even crossing the street could be a lengthy process- because of the large numbers of people walking around, they have installed escalators to take you up and over streets. Which I guess helps drivers, but easily adds time on to your already lengthy walk.Do yourself a favor, and pay the $20 for a 3 day pass to ride the Deuce Bus.
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| It felt like Christmas every time we saw one of these babies! |
With temperatures that easily rise to over 100 degrees in the day time, these frequent, air conditioned beauties will be your best friend! They don't always stop directly in front of where you want to go, but they get you a lot closer, a lot faster than your feet alone will. At most stops there is an actual employee standing there to give directions and help orient you. Quite a few times my sister and I rode just to see the sights. The express version of this, the SDX, skips a lot of stops and gets you out to Downtown Las Vegas (read: old Las Vegas) a lot faster than the often sluggish Deuce will.
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| The Las Vegas Monorail |
Another transportation option is the Las Vegas Monorail. It doesn't stop at every casino, but it's even faster than the express Deuce. We rode it from our hotel (the MGM Grand) to Harrah's where we could transfer to a free shuttle to get to the Rio (which is off the Strip) and see Penn & Teller perform. This baby costs $5 each way to ride, though it's cheaper if you buy your tickets round trip ahead of time.
Another option is to hail a taxi. Let me go ahead and tell you that your best bet for catching a taxi is to hoof it to the closest hotel to you, and waiting in line with everyone else- it's nearly impossible to get a cab off the street! I will say every last cabbie we had was friendly, and the rides were reasonable. I don't think we paid more than $10 to get anywhere, and most of the cabs had the machinery to take credit cards (a huge plus for me as I rarely carry cash!)
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| The Luxor |
There were lots of beautiful buildings along the strip, but my personal favorite was The Luxor Hotel and Casino. Shaped like an onyx pyramid, and for some reason beaming a bright light up into the sky, my sister and I came here often- especially when we found out both the MGM and Luxor (and a host of other properties, including New York New York with it's awesome looking roller coaster that I didn't get to ride...) are owned by the same company. The main perk of the Luxor? They not only had the best tasting food from the casinos we tried, they had the most AFFORDABLE food on the strip! Whereas a breakfast buffet at MGM cost us nearly $40 each, at the Luxor, we paid $18 for the buffet- and they have a non-buffet menu with prices starting at $9 for pancakes. Our wallets were very pleased when we found this place!
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| The famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign |
Then there was that Vegas icon I talked about on my post on the Neon Museum- the famous "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign. Remember how I said that no matter how close things look, they are much much farther away in reality? My sister and I walked for nearly 40 minutes down Las Vegas Boulevard to get a picture of/with the sign. I went at night, following other travelers' advice that said it's let's crowded than in the day- but I paid the price for avoiding the confusion. Because the night is SO dark and the sign is SO bright, it was nearly impossible to get a good picture. There were "professional" photographers there, but they were so busy arguing among themselves they didn't even bother to try and help us until we'd already taken our shots. Take my advice if you wanna see it. Get up early, ride the Deuce to Mandalay Bay (the last stop in that direction) and be prepared for another 20+ minutes of walking. Take the pic early, then scramble back up to the Luxor before it gets crowded for breakfast.
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| The beautiful Bellagio |
My favorite thing of the entire Strip experience, was getting to see the magical Bellagio Fountains. I have been amazed by them, seeing them on different shows about travel, engineering, and the wonders of water. I was impressed by my hotel and all the attractions of Vegas, but when you reach the part of the Strip where the Bellagio is you are quickly reminded that not everyone comes as a budget traveler lol! In the summer, the shows run every 15 minutes, and I was able to catch on of the longer performances, "Luck be a Lady" by Frank Sinatra. You can see my YouTube video of it below:
Well folks, I still have a few more entries for Nevada, and soon I'll be off to OOOOOOOOOklahoma! (Just bought my plane ticket this morning!
As always, thank you for reading my blog, and I'll see you on the next adventure!
