We had a quick getaway to Las Vegas over the Easter weekend after we found a good deal on the web. The last time we visited Vegas is at least 5 years ago. Vegas is definitely a little different this time… lots of new buildings, constructions, etc. You know you are heading to Vegas when you see folks started drinking even at the Rochester airport. By the time we checked into the hotel and had a quick meal in the hotel restaurant, it was already 3 AM… of course, it was only 1 AM in Nevada. We were just dead tired.
The Saturday morning was a little gloomy. We wandered around the Bellagio Hotel before heading for the brunch buffet. That was probably the worst buffet we had for the price we paid. We couldn’t believe our eyes that people came pouring in just to consume the crappy food. There was variety of food, but they certainly didn’t taste that great at all. We headed to MGM Grand Hotel to pick up our “KA of Cirque Du Soleil” tickets for that night. We originally planned to watch “O of Cirque Du Soleil” and “The Phantom of the Opera”, but we couldn’t find the tickets for both shows. O wasn’t showing during our visit dates and The Phantom of the Opera showed on the same night as KA. We really wanted to watch at least one of the Cirque Du Soleil shows… so, we chose KA and The Blue Man Group. KA was just outstanding… really brilliant show. I don’t want to reveal too much details here, but the whole show was just spectacular. I’m most amazed by the hydraulic stages that can be rotated in virtually any direction, including vertical angle… it is truly something you can only see in Vegas. We paid for the front seats which was fantastic, with the acrobats swinging on top of us, provided they don’t fall on us. It was interesting yet unsurprising to know that most acrobats are Chinese when they revealed their masks at the end of the show. In the late evening, midnight actually, we headed to Stratosphere Hotel’s observation deck to capture some skyline shots of the Vegas strip.
On Sunday, we wandered to the Venetian Hotel to pick up our Blue Man Group tickets. We also stumbled upon an opportunity to do a timeshare on Marriott’s vacation ownership, in return, we got a couple of free tickets and free meals. Seriously speaking, we really weren’t interested in this 2-hour timeshare. The good news is we drank a lot of free coffee and consumed lots of complementary snacks at the Marriott Hotel. When the promoter showed us the bedrooms on the highest floor, I spent more time snapping photos of the Vegas strip than browsing the rooms. The best part of this experience is I gave the manager a piece of my mind for calling me a procrastinator. I supposed that was their tactics, trying to push the customers into the corner in effort to make them sign a 10-year contract. Well, tactics like this will never work on me and I would not hesitate to speak my mind regardless of their ranks. I complained to the customer service manager that this particular manager’s attitude certainly reflects well on Marriott’s good name. He promised the Marriott’s representative will contact me within 30 days to make it up for our bad experience. So, from this 2-hour timeshare seminar, we got free Gondola rides, free admissions to Madame Tussauds Wax Museum, free meals in one of the Venetian restaurants and an opportunity to yell at the manager for being rude at me. In the evening, we watched the Blue Man Group show. This show was indeed different from KA, yet it was still very entertaining and hilarious at the same time. For those who love percussion instrument, this is certainly the show to go. It was really awesome listening to six drum sets, all being played simultaneously. Watching this show makes me want to buy some pipes from Menards and start hitting on them… perhaps, I should start my own Yellow Man Group in Rochester. Towards the end of the show, the whole hall was flooded with really long strips of white papers… there were so many white papers that we couldn’t see anyone else, not to mention the flickering strobe light was a little nauseating at times. After the show, we bought the tickets to the Eiffel Tower’s observation deck at the Paris Hotel. From there, we got the bird’s eye view of the Bellagio’s musical fountain and the whole Vegas strip from a different angle.
This short Vegas trip was certainly enjoyable for us. We made up our mind not to cover all the places in Vegas because we simply couldn’t do it. We decided to relax a little bit and watched a show every night. After all, we have been to Vegas before. Sure, we paid $500+ for the show tickets, but it was certainly worth the money and experience. The next time we go there again, we will definitely watch “O of Cirque Du Soleil”.
