No, I didn't like Las Vegas…

Those who know me might even be skeptical about this because I've already said that I love playing in casinos, but the truth is that I found the city boring and expensive. We spent a week there because Celo had a work conference, but if I were to put together an itinerary from scratch knowing what I know about the city, I would only spend 3 days there.

I usually write the posts of blog in a diary format with lots of details, but since I spent a looooot of time in the hotel room working or relaxing, I'm going to write a summary of what we did there. I hope the tips help you! 😉

ACCOMMODATION

We stayed at the hotel Vdara, which is very modern and has huge, cozy rooms. Since we spent a week there and didn’t want to pay a fortune for breakfast every day (most of the rates don’t include breakfast), we had to live with a kitchen that wasn’t very functional for this purpose, because the minibar was tiny and the utensils were very scarce. This hotel is not on the famous Strip, main street of the city, but you can walk about 10-15 minutes inside the Bellagio hotel – the most famous in the city – to get there. Some pictures of the room:

TOURS

Strolling around the city doesn’t mean going into museums, cathedrals or monuments, but rather into hotels with decorations for all tastes. They are located next to each other on this main street that I mentioned above and practically all of them have casinos, so the fun is going in and out of them to see the decorations and the latest developments. Oh, and an important detail: they let people smoke inside the casinos, so the smell is horrible for those who hate cigarettes (like me… lol).

Some hotels imitate the main attractions and cities of Europe, i.e. Venice and its canals, Paris and its tower, Caesar's Palace, etc., but others have non-European decorations, with everything quite exaggerated, including animals on display, such as birds (Hotel Flamingo) and dolphins (Hotel Mirage). In addition to finding it all tacky, I found it all very senseless. Some photos:

• THE Bellagio It’s the most famous hotel in the city because it’s in all the movies, but it’s not the most expensive, from what I’ve been told. It has a very nice decoration in the main lobby and a water show that happens several times a day in the little lake in front of it. I saw it twice (day and night) and honestly I didn’t think it was anything special…

• Caesar's Palace

• Venetian

• And others…

We thought about buying shows from Cirque du Soleil and David Copperfield, but the Circus was on vacation most of the days we were there and for the days available, I found everything quite expensive (over 80 dollars + taxes). Since we travel all year round and our travel budget was already way over, we ended up not going to anything. (Maybe if I had gone to one of those shows, I would have liked the city more, right? I know… lol)

Las Vegas North Premium Outlets

As we needed to buy cold weather clothes and in Dublin branded/quality items are more expensive than in the US, we went to Las Vegas North Premium Outlets, which is a little outside the city center. We went and came back by bus without any problems (payment to the driver in cash, without the right to change) and we only stopped to buy at Kipling (I love it!!!) and Columbia, despite having hundreds of stores at our disposal. We recommend Columbia for cold weather clothing because they are of great quality and the prices are good (The North Face is more expensive, if you want to compare).

Battlefield Las Vegas

We also went one day to Battlefield Las Vegas, which is a stand of shots (!!!). The husband here is passionate about guns – go figure – so I made a point of going with him on this adventure, but I can already tell you that I will never do it again, lol. They picked us up at the hotel in a car that the American army uses in wars and I confess that I was even a little excited. When we got there, we bought the basic package for me and another one for him and when the time came, I COULDN’T SHOOT PROPERLY. My package included 20 bullets from a gun considered good for beginners (I don’t know what it’s called), but I was so scared by the recoil and the noise of my gun and the other guns inside the little room that I ended up shooting only 3 times. Celo had fun with the rest…

RESTAURANTS

We took advantage of the fact that we had the car on our first night in the city and stopped at Walmart to buy things for the week (breakfast and lunch, mainly). Since we were hungry, we had dinner at a nearby pizzeria, Seven Bells, and I really liked the pizza and the service. Unfortunately, it is outside the city center…

On the day of outlet, we took advantage of the fact that we were there and ate at the only tidy restaurant in the area. shopping, the The Cheesecake Factory. This restaurant is part of a chain and you can find one in every corner of the country…lol. The prices are OK for the well-served dishes, but as the name suggests, their strong point is dessert, so I had to try the traditional one and it really is delicious. Oh, you can go to the restaurant and just buy the dessert to go! 😉

We were missing Brazilian meat (10 months without it!!!), so we took the opportunity to eat at the steakhouse Ground Fire at a promotional time ($35 per person with buffet (free). I was thinking about eating a lot of picanha, chicken hearts and cheese bread, but they only had the first item on my list. I ended up compensating with other things, but I don't think it's worth it for those who live in Brazil, of course.

We had dinner one day at the burger joint chef Gordon Ramsay, the BurGR, which is inside the hotel Planet Hollywood. We waited a looooong time for a table, despite seeing several empty ones from where we were in line, and even longer for our burgers. Everything was good, but I thought the service was bad and I don't know if I would go back.

Another restaurant we visited was Carmine's, which is an Italian restaurant famous for its giant dishes that can be shared by the family (that's exactly what an Italian family eats at home like, you know?) We ordered a very tasty pasta, but the service was very, very, very bad. I almost had to get up to get my wine, but that might have been bad luck...

Last but not least, we went to a restaurant with buffet released from the Caesar's Palace hotel, the Bacchanal. The restaurant is very pretty and spacious and really has a little bit of everything, but I didn't fall in love with any of it. They have a wide variety of seafood, but most of it is cold, which I don't really like. I ended up sticking to Japanese food and fried food, dishes that Americans are familiar with, right?

Important information: What irritated me the most during the trip was the fact that the prices we see for food/objects are not the final ones. Taxes always appear at the end of the bill and in the case of restaurants, they expect you to pay an average of 20% for the service in addition to the taxes. I thought it was a rip-off, especially because we were poorly served in some places, but it's part of American culture. You can understand why I like European culture better, right? (PS. There are several other items, but I'll leave it at that…lol)

That's it, folks. 😉

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