A Black Eye, Monsoon Season, and Earplugs: My Las Vegas Adventure

When I left vacation plans with my sister and mother last December, I thought I had convinced them that either Boston or Philadelphia would be great destinations. By the time the plane tickets came in my inbox, our July vacation had morphed into Las Vegas. This struck me at the time as ridiculous (do you know the average temperature in Las Vegas in July?), but it was too late. 

We don't vacation, you see.  It is so hard to feed Dr. BB that vacations aren't fun.  I spent most of my time worried about if he has enough calories. Also, it's just so expensive and I would rather fix things on the house* than spend thousands of dollars on a vacation somewhere I don't really want to go. I just don't find it relaxing and I would rather be at home reading on the couch. But we've missed one vacation after another and the last big one we both went on was a trip to Orlando in March of 2012, when I hobbled around in a boot with my broken leg, so I guess it was time.

Las Vegas. The first day we got there was the first day of monsoon season, so not only were the temperatures over 100, it was also humid. Yay.  So much for that dry heat that people in the Southwest brag about.

Also, something girding our entire experience was that my mom and sister were both wearing medical boots on their right legs. My mom just had surgery to replace a tendon and do a bunch of other things to her right leg and my sister has an undiagnosed weird thing happening with her leg, too. Mom was mostly using her walker, but would use a wheelchair when she was tired. My sister was using a cane.  I bring this up because we did a lot of "touring" in vans and buses, which is not a normal Vegas thing. It was pretty convenient for us, though.

In terms of what we chose to do, everyone got to choose something they wanted to do. That was basically it.  My mom, sister, and brother-in-law did a bit more than we did because we were constantly leaving to go get food, but I didn't mind some quiet time each day, if I'm honest.

Highlights
1) Economy Plus seating on the plane through United. We actually had enough leg room. I would not have sprung for the extra price on the tickets if I had made the reservations, but it was worth it, I think. Overall, the flights went really smoothly and security was a breeze. We didn't have to take off our shoes, take out electronics or liquids, or do anything stupid in the TSA line at either O'Hare or Las Vegas.

2) Our resort was across the street from a grocery store.  The resort also had a full-sized fridge, a microwave, and an oven with a stove top. Yes, we literally had to leave whatever we doing for lunch and dinner, but Dr. BB ate.

3) Ka by Cirque du Soleil at MGM Grand - This show was fabulous. It was also really loud.  We were seated close to the front (handicapped accessible) and when the usher asked us if we wanted earplugs or blankets, I took him up on both. I wore the earplugs through the whole thing and brought them with me to every Vegas place we went from that point on.  Anyway, the theater was amazing, the show was amazing, and the actors/dancers/acrobats were amazing. Just amazing.  It's worth the price of the ticket. Get that blanket, too. It gets chilly.

The theater where Ka was held.  Lots of acrobatics on those balconies.

4) One night Dr. BB and I went out by ourselves. We did all the things that are kind of hard to do with wheelchairs and the like.  The fountain show outside the Bellagio was fun, as was the breathtaking indoor conservatory at the Bellagio, the super high-end stores of The Shops at Crystals were fun to window shop in, and the over the top architecture and decor of Caesars Palace was delightful. It was hilarious and I laughed so hard - every time we turned a corner there would be something even more silly. If I'm saying something was over the top in Las Vegas, it absolutely must have been over the top!

We stood here to watch the fountain show. I was a bit obsessed with the mini-Eiffel Tower.

5) The food was great everywhere. There was a great little patisserie in the Bellagio where I got delicious gelato and picked up some delicious treats for our cat sitter. I spent $17 on a delicious crepe at the MGM Grand and didn't even bat an eye because it was delicious.  I mean, I don't eat dessert every day, but when I'm on vacation, I'm doing it up right.

This set of horses costs over $1000 at the Hermes store at the Shops at Crystals. Just, you know, for your baby to play with.

Lowlights
1) Zak Bagans' Haunted Museum - $44!!! That's the price of admission to this place where a tour guide basically takes you through tiny rooms filled with junk and only lets you stay in each room for a small period of time. Zak Bagan is apparently on a show that does ghost hunting (?) and my mom and sister were super stoked to go, but I just felt gross the whole time we were there. I mean, he has artifacts from serial killers, dead celebrities, and pictures of victims of gruesome crimes. I thought it was exploitative and kind of terrible. Maybe a self-guided tour would be better, but even then the exhibits are just not my cup of tea.

You can't take photos inside the Haunted Museum, so this gargoyle is the best I've got.

 2) Madame Tussauds Las Vegas at the Venetian - This wax museum was SO LOUD. The earplugs barely put a dent in it. I didn't know who half the "celebrities" were and why was Louis Armstrong with the Rat Pack instead of Sammy Davis, Jr?  The wax statues are firmly planted in the creepy uncanny valley.  People packed in like sardines. This was a miserable experience for me. Thoroughly unenjoyable.

3) Hop-on-hop-off bus - We did go on a super hot, humid day, so part of this was our fault. It was just so hot. But the tour guides gave incorrect information and were vaguely insulting/sexist and if you hopped off the bus (let's say you hypothetically wanted to get some water), it was more than a half hour before the next bus would come. I like the idea of an open air bus, but maybe not in Vegas. The public transit system was actually a lot better - it ran more regularly and made more frequent stops on the Strip.

4) The pool was closed for three of the mornings we were at the resort. Since most of my morning plans were to eat, go to the pool and dip in for two minutes, read for an hour, dip in the pool for two minutes, read for an hour, dip in the pool for two minutes, this pool closing thing really put a crimp in my plans.

5) Haunted Vegas Ghost Tour - This is a bit controversial. My mom, sister, and brother-in-law loved it. As believers, they definitely thought they were getting an inside scoop. As the most skeptical of skeptics, I thought the whole thing was hooey.  I also am not crazy about the exploitative nature of going to places where people have supposedly died.  They also show a video of someone committing suicide. I think this one just really depends on your perspective. 

Apparently a child haunts the dark swing. I did not see anything but a swing.

Midlights
1) Titanic exhibit at the Luxor - First, the Luxor has the best public restrooms on the Strip.  You should go to the Luxor just to see them.  The exhibit was really cool.  They recreated the grand staircase, had an iceberg you could touch to see just how cold it was, and had a lot of cool artifacts from the ship, including "The Big Piece." I put it in the middle, though, because there's still something vaguely exploitative about it.  People died and we're taking pictures? I don't know. It was a downer on a vacation, too. Also, the elevator was out of order and we had to take my mom through a service elevator and it was all sorts of not ADA compliant.

2) CSI Experience at the MGM Grand - This was actually a fun experience, but it seemed aimed at a younger audience (Dr. BB and I had figured out the "mystery" about a quarter of the way through) and it was kind of expensive for what it was. I think if I had teens with me, this would have been a go to.

3) Vegas Mob Tour - This was great in terms of learning a lot about Vegas history. I thought the tour guide, JB, was excellent. But, honestly, a lot of the tour was centered around the movie Casino, which is a movie I've never seen and will never see, and so it wasn't as exciting for me to see the house in the movie.  If you're into this kind of thing, you will LOVE this. My brother-in-law did. It definitely was not my thing, but I can see how it could be your thing.

Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel memorial at the Flamingo.  I don't know about a town where a mobster gets so idolized.

4) Gerry McCambridge in The Mentalist at the V Theater at Planet Hollywood - He's a true Las Vegas showman, but I don't care for the touching of the women he pulled on stage, constantly calling them "sweetheart," and, you know, the general idea of a magician.  We wrote some questions on index cards before the show started and I gave a fake name and some fake questions and he didn't call me on any of it when he pulled my card out of the box. I do think some of the tricks he pulled were very impressive, particularly a bit with balls and lottery numbers (I won't say more because I don't want to ruin the surprise for anyone) but did I mention that I'm sort of an extreme skeptic? 

5) Cancun Resort Las Vegas - This was our resort.  Generally speaking, the staff were super nice and responsive to concerns, the place was clean, and the amenities, particularly the kitchen, were great.  We had a view of the mountains that was just gorgeous. Parking was easy and plentiful. But there just wasn't enough staff. We'd call for towels and they'd be delivered three hours later. There was no airport shuttle, which was pretty inconvenient for us. Since we were staying for seven nights, housekeeping only came once, which was fine, but we didn't really know what do with trash or how to get clean towels and restock of things we used like coffee and soap.  The pool was closed a lot.  If we'd been there with small children and we were counting on the pool to entertain kids, it would have been DIRE out there. 

Other notes
1) The scale of The Strip is very misleading. You'll think things are close because they LOOK CLOSE, but they look close because they are enormous. Be prepared to walk long distances.  Elevators exist, but if you're using a wheelchair, it's going to be tough. Downtown is much more reasonable in terms of distances, but is also quite seedy.

2) There's plenty of free parking in Las Vegas if you're willing to walk a bit. We got a rental car because we thought it would be easier to get to and from the resort for meals (we were correct), but if we'd stayed on The Strip, we probably wouldn't have bothered with a car. 

3) You don't have to gamble. As a matter of fact, I spent exactly $0 at the casinos. Also, since smoking is allowed on the casino floors, I was desperate to get out of casino areas as soon as I possibly could.  You can't always avoid the casinos, but there's no reason to go broke while you're there.

4) I got a black eye getting out of the rental car. I was 100% sober. I don't want to give any more details.

5) It's loud. Everywhere is loud. Also, every indoor venue is frigid. Bring a cover. 

6) Postcards are hard to find in Vegas. I send postcards to my nieces and nephews when I travel, but all I could find were hideous, tacky, glittery monstrosities. I finally found some foil ones at the airport right before we were about to leave ($2 a piece!!!). 

7) I have very mixed feelings about Vegas. It should not be there. It's using tremendous resources.  When we would get lost and see all the homeless people there, it was hard not think about how just the wasted food at buffets alone could help feed them.  I can only imagine that images of Las Vegas are partially what make people from other parts of the world despise Americans. We say "Sin City," like showcasing young people's bodies as a form of entertainment watching people go in tremendous debt at blackjack tables while drinking until they fall down is a good thing. But at the same time, it's a tremendous engineering achievement. If you can just go with it and not think about it too much, it's very entertaining.  I don't know. I will probably never go back, but it was a mostly positive experience.

*You GUYS.  The front porch. There is MORE rot and the deck company is being super obnoxious about coming out to fix it. Also, the slats they replaced BUCKLED during one of our super hot, humid days and they are daring to suggest we need to pay them $1500 to get it fixed. I am LIVID and we are still the trashy house with the half-painted porch, but now the half-painted porch has BUCKLED planks. I can't even right now.