This is a trip report of our 3 week holiday starting and ending in Las Vegas, via Zion, Bryce, Grand Canyon, Encinitas, Los Angeles, Monterey Peninsula, Big Sur, San Francisco, Yosemite and Death Valley. Decided to do this for three reasons .
1. To hopefully help others planning a similar trip.
2. To put back something to people using this site after all the helpful advice I’ve received in planning my trip.
3. To give us a chance to relive what was a brilliant holiday!
Trip was to celebrate my 50th birthday, and there were just the two of us. I like hiking and scenery, while my wife Janette prefers cities, coast and culture, so I planned the trip to give a mixture of both.
I’ll post each day separately and give a link to other days of the trip report when they are posted on another forum.
Warning : these reports contain opinions and may cause offence! These are only based on brief visits to each place, and are honest opinions, so include both likes and dislikes. Hope you enjoy them, and I%26#39;d be happy to answer any questions you may have.
Trip Report - Brits' 3 week Road Trip (September)
Day 1 - Tuesday, 16th September
(Manchester to Las Vegas)
Arrived at airport after 10.5 hour direct flight from Manchester. Flew over Greenland on our route, which we weren’t expected. Enjoyed the landing approach as we could clearly see the main strip, and even pick out individual hotels. We got the shuttle to the car rental centre which was quick and straightforward. However we then had to queue for an hour at the Dollar rental desk, but I passed the time by chatting to a friendly guy from Indianapolis who gave me some extra useful tips about Vegas.
We’d pre-booked a mid-size car, as we’d bought 3 cases (small, medium, large) and wanted to be sure all our luggage would be out of sight in the boot (trunk). We were given a choice between a Mustang and Chrysler Sebring. The Mustang looked great, but had a tiny boot, so we went with the Sebring. The guy handling the cars was quite abrupt, but to be fair he was seriously overstretched with lots of people around.
I was glad we’d booked the MGM Grand as it was straightforward to drive to, and traffic was heavier than I’d expected. We self-parked and set off towards the hotel. We were amazed at the size of the place, and it certainly feels like the biggest hotel in the world. I’ve never been in a hotel before with overhead motorway-style signs to direct you to various parts of the hotel. At check-in I asked for a good view of the strip as it was my 50th birthday trip, and we got a great 26th floor Grand Tower room with a view of Mandalay Bay and Excalibur hotels.
There were about 16 (!) different places to eat in the hotel, and we picked the Café area. We wanted a light snack, but ended up having more of a main meal. We walked underneath a lion in the casino, which isn’t sort of thing we do that often back in England.
We went out of the hotel and marvelled at the tackiness of New York, New York. We walked onto the Strip for a very short distance, but went back when it started to rain.
By now we were both very tired so Janette went for a nap, and I went off to use our $20 free gaming credits. When trying to understand how to do this, I discovered that jet-lag and 24 hours without sleep brings your IQ down about 50 points, as I kept asking “can you explain that again please?”. Found a simple slot machine which required only the ability to press a button, so after a further 10 minutes head-scratching and asking 2 hotel staff I was ready to gamble. For some obscure reason, you had to put in a dollar of your own before you could use the free credits - very confusing. The machine realised I was using free credits and so gave me only $3 in winnings from my $20, which I fed back in - so ended up down the dollar that I%26#39;d put in.
We then went for a walk on the strip and saw the dancing fountains at Bellagio. These were better and less tacky than we’d expected (I%26#39;d been expecting lots of colours for some reason), and the quality of the outdoor music was amazing. On the way back we stopped at the Hawaiian-style outdoor area, where I ordered a beer and diet coke. This was $7 but I had only brought $3 with me (did I mention jet-lag?) but the barmaid just smiled, put her finger to her lips, and let me have the drinks for $3. It was an early indication of just how friendly and nice Americans would prove to be on our trip.
Tumbled into bed early for a deep, deep sleep in most comfortable beds ever.
Trip Report - Brits' 3 week Road Trip (September)
Wednesday, 17th September
Day 2 - Exploring Vegas
Got up 9-ish feeling fine and ready to see Vegas properly. Opened our curtains and saw the sun, which had been all too rare a sight in our dreadful english summer. Picked another of the 16 MGM restaurants for cereal, muffins, juice and coffee which came to about $30. Looked around the Rain Forest cafe, which was entertaingly naff, with an animatronic croc and simulated rainstorms.
Went to the coke bottle half-price line just after 10am, and saw my friend from the car rental line there. His wife asked “I have a friend in Birmingham, do you know her?” but sadly, we didn’t. We got to the front of the queue after almost an hour, and asked for tickets for Zumanity that evening. This was reduced by 30% from full price. I handed over my credit card and the conversation went as follows :-
Cashier ';May I see your ID?';
Me ';I haven%26#39;t got any ID with me';.
Cashier ';We need to see ID before we can sell you the tickets';
Me ';But I%26#39;ve just queued up for an hour! Do you really need it?';
They insisted on ID, but offered to let me straight to the front of the queue when I returned. This was quite a surprise as we don%26#39;t have anything like that anywhere in Europe. After this, I kept my driving licence in my wallet.
I drove down the strip, which was very slow due to roadworks. Surprised at how much building work was going in the main strip, and also that the main strip of super-hotels petered out after a mile and a half, with everything then looking quite tired and dated.
Came back on the freeway and visited a mall with a designer outlet, but even with deep discounts the clothes were still at silly prices. There was a gift shop, and saw a Xena standee which we agreed we just had to get. There was a damaged version which we got for $16. Well, Vegas is surely the place to buy things like this! It was really quite hot just walking from the car park to the outlet.
We visited Bellagio hotel which was very classy and our favourite – we’d probably rather stay there than the real Bellagio on Lake Como! The Bellagio was simply a luxury hotel with an Italianate theme, which would look good anywhere in the world, compared to the other hotels which were ';best bits of cities';. The Paris exterior was good, and the Eiffel Tower inside was a neat idea.
Caesar’s Palace was next, which was great, though at least a little bit tacky. I liked the aquarium there, and there was a diver in who was feeding meat to small sharks and stroking them, which isn’t something you see every day in the desert!
The Venetian was also impressive, but the air was perfumed which wasn’t so good, and the tackiness factor was a much higher than the Bellagio, though still good fun. New York, New York “skyline” was great and very Vegas, but we didn’t like it much inside, as it seemed more downmarket than the others and there was a lot of building work going on in the casino.
Had a really really excellent afternoon buffet in Bellagio for only $21 each, which set the standard for food quality and price for our trip.
Then got changed and went to see Zumanity. Oh dear. After a promising first few minutes, it was largely gymnasts in basques going up and down on ropes, and not much imagination or content. A few people in the front rows were dragged up on stage to provide cheap laughs – never a good sign when a show has to resort to this. Dull, dull, dull.
Afterwards we walked along the strip. Around Harrah’s, it got crowded and less attractive so we took the monorail back, which was quick and convenient. We hadn’t tried it earlier as we’d heard it was a long way from the hotels, but it was only a few hundred yards from the main strip, and stopped just inside the back of the MGM Grand.
Overall we really enjoyed Vegas. It’s a unique place, and something everyone should see. The sheer size of the hotels is incredible.
Thanks for sharing, sounds like you did a lot.
Funny, I like the tacky Vegas, give me the over the top themed hotels and I am there.
I love the Bellagio Fountains. I am always amazed too how great the music sounds.
What surprised you the most about Vegas?
I enjoyed reading your TR. Your tastes must be similar to mine, Bellagio has always been my favourite by far.
Everything was just so damn BIG! When we arrived, we self-parked, then walked for a while to get to the hotel. Then we walked a while more, past shops and got to reception. Then more walking, then to the lifts and FINALLY to our room.
After a while we got used to allowing 10 minutes to get from our hotel room just to the outside of MGM Grand.
We%26#39;d walk down the Strip, look at maybe 4 hotels, and then realise we%26#39;d walked over a mile. The scale was just amazing.
Also there was an incredible amount of traffic. Not just on the strip, but all the cross-roads as well.
I stayed at MGM my first trip to Vegas in 2000. I was amazed at the size of the lobby. Also, how efficient they are at moving the tons of non-stop cabs, limo, cars, airport shuttles, etc. as they arrived and departed the hotel.
Another surprising thing about Vegas was that I expected lots of really cheap food, but maybe not very good quality. Apparently this was the case a few years ago, but when we went the food was both better and more expensive than I%26#39;d expected.
That walk from self park to the lobby is something else, isn%26#39;t it!! We have used both Valet and self park before - Valet is the way forward!!!
Great start, looking forward to reading more. Love your ';warning';, LOL!
liking your trip report
When we were in vegas last year a taxi driver said to us
havent you got anywhere in the Uk like Vegas?
we said no and he didnt believe us
everything in the USA is 10 times better than the Uk.
We have Blackpool but that is a dump and wouldnt waste my money gonig there.
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