Well, I finally made it with my fellow travel agent, Cookie to Vegas. I flew out on Allegiant Air, my friend flew out from Denver on Soutwest. My flight was late a half hour due to fog. But otherwise, very easy and simple to fly out of FC-Loveland airport. Cookie flys with her little blue furry cookie monster who gathers flight wings from different airlines to wear in his fur. You would be amazed at how many grown men who fly our skies want their picture taken with cookie monster!
Cookie had some wonderful conversations with flight attendants involving her travel Cookie Monster. One flight attendent's mom used to work at the Play Boy Bunny Club in Las Vegas. The flight attendants I flew with were friendly and had a keen sense of humor. Cookie and I met in the Las Vegas airport. Pretty big airport that is easy to get around.
Our room at The Rio, is fantastic...great view of the strip and on the 12th floor. Downside to the room is no coffee maker! There is a refrigerator but nothing else. Also, the pool is closed till the 12th of March. We have been thinking about changing hotels if the weather gets better.
After checking in, we dumpedout the contents of our bags. I have a confession to make here. I over pack. If I didn't my round trip plane ticket on Aligent Air would have been only $75.00. But since, I just can't pack without having the right shoes, ect, I had to check in a bag which cost me $40.00. The upside of that is, I didn't have to dump anything out or pay more for a heavy bag! I can help other people travel, but never been to pack lightly for myself.
Cookie's bag was filled with snacks for us, (yep, I felt guilty), and Italian binkis that she was hoping to market at the swimming pool.
Semi organized, we left the hotel room and headed for the strip. To get there, we had to take a shuttle. Amazingly enough, it showed up, right when we sat down. The shuttle service is free. Most people, however, tip the driver a dollar or two.
After we arrived at the strip, we walked for miles and miles. By this time it was wet, raining, and cold. On the upside, I should lose some weight....I am a weird person who has been known to lose weight on vacation. I hope this is that vacation where the weight comes off! Since it was too cold to dress up, and we just wanted to explore, capris jeans with a nice top and sandels was in order. I didn't think I looked super spectacular in what I had on but I managed to get hit on a few times, and in the strangest of places...McDonalds!
My fellow travel agent and I agreed that cheap meals were what we both could only afford, so Mickey'D's was what we settled on for dinner. A hot fish sandwich, side salad, and ice cream hit the spot! A conversation with the guys from the East Coast, led us to an outside dance club/bar at Carnival Court. This bar is one where bartenders are able to balance many things on their forehead as well as juggle glasses and bottles. After watching a few dare devil tricks, we started waundering through the casinos.
Some have really good prfromaces that are free. One we saw was a Elvis impersonator on the casino floor in the Imperial Palace. We also chatted with the men on stilts in Jimmy Buffet's Margaritaville, and listened to tourists as well as locals do karoke. In addition, we took in part of the Planet Hollywood mall, and the Pink Flamingo where the was a young girl with not a lot of clothes on dancing on a stand in front of the door. Good thing she was moving around or she would have frozen her petunias off! We then stepped into Sephora in the mall, where I discovered that they give away some free samples of perfume that they make for you.
Since I had not too long ago, watched a movie on Cocoa Channel, I had to get a free sample of Chanel #5. I hope I have not found a new expensive addiction!
Our trip to the other side of the strip proved interesting. In both elevators there were homeless men trying to get out of the rain and cold. The first man was eating, awake and friendly. The second one was asleep. I did not want to go in but my friend didn't get the unsafely part of being in an elevator with a man who was asleep. I am not a snob who was bothered by the man being homeless, as I have worked overnights as staff in the homeless shelter in FC. But my concern, I told her later, was what if the man woke up, had some flashback of some sort, and saw us as someone or something else? We had no way to get away as we were in an elevator. Any way, I hope I educated her some on safety.
After we got back to the Rio, we went to their midnight show of Masquerade in the Sky that was free. It was terrible. Half naked girls, some guy with no shirt, some singing that was hard to understand, and it lasted all of 10 mins! I guess in the past it used to be pretty spectacular with Arial floats and beautiful Mardi gras costumes. We did get beads as Cookie, jumped up and ran and got some that they were throwing out of floats that were attached to the ceiling that they were riding in.
At one am, we were on the 51st floor at the Voodoo Club at the top of the RIO. The trip up consisted of a ride in a glass elevator that is attached to the outside of the building. This is not for the faint of heart! The view of the Trump Hotel, and the strip was spectacular! We ended up chatting with some people who were from Orlando. I saw an opportunity to network and when the girl said she always wanted to take her boys on vacation to Colorado, I whipped out a card and told her to email me!
The down side of the night was when I started getting tired and begun to see some empty faces. Then, I knew it was time to go to bed.
Stayed tune for March 8th adventures!
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