We LURVE Vegas. By we, I mean my mom and I. My brother and dad could take it or leave it, but I LOVE it. I don't drink (allergic - sob!), gamble (too cheap) partake of strip clubs (don't swing that way), or go clubbing (don't dance, and being an old lady that loud music makes my head hurt - I mean, I'm traumatized every time I walk past a Hollister, I really don't think I can hack a club) but I still love Vegas. What's there for an old lady to do? Uh, shopping. Hello Forum Shops! And spas. And shows. And the best? The food. Oh, the food. There is nowhere else in the world that has the amount of fantabulous restaurants of all price points concentrated on one measly street. There are little cafes, stands, kiosks, buffets, bistros and immeasurably expensive and fancy restaurants. There's something for everyone. And where else can you see some guy rocking his Wranglers and cowboy boots with poop still on it sitting next to some diva in a ballgown? (seriously. I saw this)
Why this trip though? Because Andrea Bocelli wasn't stopping off in LA for us to see him and the closest location was in Vegas. And my mom and I love Andrea Bocelli (and any excuse for Vegas), so I purchased tickets as a Christmas present for the two of us. Yay! Originally it was just going to be a girl's weekend in Vegas, but as we drew closer to the trip and my dad was faced with the reality of fending for himself for two days (with the dog) he asked to come along. Which was awesome because he just hung out in the room watching TV (which is what he does at home anyway) and I got to bring my dog along since my dad was the built in dog sitter!
Because we are cheapasses, we opted to go on Saturday (the day of the concert) and return on Monday to 1) avoid high prices for Friday nights, which we wouldn't get a lot of benefit out of since I'd be working on Friday; 2) avoid crazy ass Sunday traffic back to LA; and 3) pay low LOW hotels rates on Sunday. All I had to do was take Monday off, which was easily done. Instead of leaving in a hurry after work and slogging through Friday evening traffic only to make it to Vegas around 10 pm, we slept in on Saturday morning and left after a leisurely breakfast and packing plenty of snacks for the road and our hotel room.
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| The drive is long. And boring. So we took pictures of the clouds. And the mountains. |
My mama drove most of the way. My mama drives like a speed demon, though she feels a compulsion to nag at me when she thinks I'm driving too fast. Uh, hello. I drove the last 100 miles, but because of her Nascar worthy driving, we got to Vegas in a little over three hours. Yay!
This time we opted to stay at Delano since they're pet friendly (and also because I got a pretty good mlife rate) and an easy walk to MGM Grand, where the concert was held. I like Delano, just like I like The Signature as they're separate from the casino, so there's no haze of smoke to walk through and no casino to traverse to reach the elevators to your room, but it's also connected to a major casino (in this case Mandalay Bay) so you're super close to gambling, food and all sorts of entertainment. I like the separate but connected types of hotels. Also, Delano smells like a spa - from the lobby to the elevators to the hallways of the rooms - the decor and scent is very serene. I like the separate living area from the bedroom, the big couch and armchair, the nice desk and chair - and I LOVED the entertainment panel, so you could connect your own devices via HDMI to the TV. We streamed NBA games and movies from Amazon to the TV - good stuff!
We were on the 27th floor and had a decent view of Luxor and the strip - my little dog very much enjoyed hanging out in front of the window and looking out. The room was very clean and I aside from the random ginormous picture of some chick's butt underwater (always a little awkward when you're staying in a room with your parents) I liked the decor MUCH more than its previous incarnation as TheHotel. I liked the neutral colors and minimalist lines - it made the room seem MUCH more airy and they also used the space a lot better than TheHotel did. What I didn't love? The walls were thin like cheap toilet paper and you could hear EVERYTHING - from the people farting next door, flushing the toilet, to room service pushing their carts down the hall in the morning. If you're a heavy sleeper (like me) or have ear plugs, you'd be okay - but I can see how this would get super annoying otherwise. You'd think a fancy hotel like this (and you could tell they didn't skimp on the furnishings) would have better sound proofing - but I swear the Motel 6 has better sound proofing than this.
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| scary huge picture of some chick's butt while making out with random half naked man in a pool. |
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| my dog is confused. But he's often confused. I do think though he very much enjoyed his stay in this hotel room. They gave him a little doggy bag with a few doo doo bags and some cookies that he scarfed down. Also, every time we took him outside people would go "awwww!!! what a cute puppy!" and he'd be all excited thinking it was nice of them to recognize his awesomeness. He felt like a celebrity. |
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| magic entertainment panel - good for charging our eight thousand devices and also to hook stuff up to the TV for entertainment |
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| see? He likes looking out the window. He's never seen floor to ceiling windows before. Poor deprived little guy. |
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| Bedroom (we made our own beds - with a dog, we opted not to have maid service as we were only staying two nights. We literally walked our dirty towels out to them and they happily handed us clean towels and some extra toiletries. Win! But this is why the beds look kinda lumpy - we're not so good at the housekeeping stuff) |
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| extra TV and closets in the bedroom. This built in was a good use of space - there are plenty of drawers and space for clothing and luggage |
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| I like the separate shower. I also liked that it was very clean |
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| you can't really see it, but there's a TV on the wall, so you can watch Maury while bathing. |
Being brilliant (not!) I decided to buy my little dog a patch of grass for the hotel room so I wouldn't have to take him downstairs to use their designated dog pooping area. After doing some research, I settled on Fresh Patch and spent about $30 (including shipping) for a big patch of grass to be delivered. This was HEAVY. And a pain in the ass to carry up. The good part? My dog LOVED the grass. The bad? He refused to pee and poop on it. He rolled around on it, he ate the grass, brought his toys on it, dragged his snacks to eat on the grass, he slept on it...he just did not pee or poop on it. FAIL. I spent $30 and labored and toiled to get it to the hotel room only to have him treat it as a playground. No bueno :(
Because we are Chinese and my parents are incapable of being without Chinese food for any amount of time (dude, we left LA 3 hours ago!) we opted for a super late lunch (it's around 4 pm) at the Noodle Shop. Because it's close (in Mandalay), because it serves Chinese food, and we're just too lazy to drive out for real Chinese food. This place has pretty crappy reviews, but as long as you know what to order, the food is pretty good, CRAZY ASS expensive, but pretty good. Stick with the basics - and since we're Chinese, and the servers are Chinese, they're honest with us when we ask them what's worth ordering. We ended up ordering two dishes for the three of us, which was plenty. Fortunately, since we spent like $50 on the two dishes. We got the House Special fried rice (surprisingly good - but I could get the same tasty dish for about $9.50 at Sam Woo as opposed to $18.50) and an order of the super combination seafood soup (it had everything in its mother in it) with noodles for about $30. Yes, the portion was large and it was very tasty, but dude, I could get this soup for like, $12.50 or something at any other Chinese restaurant. But as we're in a casino in Vegas, we knew we'd get butt raped, so we were prepared. I thought about getting something else, but it was a good thing we didn't since this was the perfect amount - we were pleasantly full without hating ourselves and it hit the spot for my parents.
What was fun about this trip? (other than the fact that it's Vegas and unless you do it Hangover style you're GOING to have fun) my cousins came along! They too love Vegas, and it's always more fun with friends, and they stayed at Mandalay Bay so we were super close. Because we had the larger room and the living area, they came and hung out in our room with us when we were in the room. After awhile, it was time for my mama and I to prepare for the show!
The show started at 8 pm, so I told her we should leave our hotel by 7:15 since I'm crazy anal retentive and hate being late with a passion. We didn't think it was appropriate to wear crap jeans and flip flops (my typical uniform when not at work) to the concert, so we each brought a dress and heels - the only time we dressed up the entire trip. After slapping on some makeup and putting on our dresses, we were ready to go. My dad and cousins hung out in the room snacking on the donuts, croissants and cookies we brought along (because we are pigs. And by we I mean me). I wish there was a tram that carried us directly from Mandalay Bay to MGM Grand, but alas, there is not. Instead, we rode the tram that took us directly from Mandalay to Excalibur (the express one, there's one that stops off at Luxor before going to Excalibur too), walked from Excalibur to Tropicana on the sky bridge and then took the escalator to another elevated pedestrian bridge outside Tropicana that lead us into MGM Grand. All in all, it took about 10-15 minutes from our room to get to MGM Grand. Not too shabby. What sucked? It took TEN THOUSAND YEARS (okay, that may be a slight exaggeration) to get from the entrance to our seats inside the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Two factors: MGM was hosting some rodeo championship that week (see what I meant about the cowboys with cow poop on their boots?) which meant the place was CRAMMED with cowboys - as well as special sections and stages and all that good stuff for their rodeo thingy, AND there were about 20,000 people there for the concert - so you're looking at thousands of people moving through the casino trying to push our way to ONE spot (it seriously bottlenecks) while shoving our way past the extra hundreds to thousands of cowboys there for their rodeo thingamajig - not to mention all the places that are blocked off for the mechanical bulls and "gold buckle area" where they were serving jello shots and there were bales of hay stacked everywhere. AND the stages for the country performances. Oy! It's a good thing we left early, because it was a hot mess! Also, we're talking about two VERY diverse groups of people crammed into the small space at the same time. Cowboys and old people who like opera. Hmmm...
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| after we FINALLY got through all the bottlenecking and levels of security. Yay! (okay, bad selfie) |
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| Can you believe we spent like, $180 for these nosebleed tickets? There's another section above us...but man is this overpriced! |
Um...a lot of people don't seem to respect the rules when it comes to no photography or taping. People all around (and there were some morons taking photos with flash) were snapping photos and there were a few guys in the rows in front of me TAPING the songs. WTH??? I had my phone stashed away in my purse - but after seeing all these people taping and taking photos, I readied my phone during intermission to snap ONE photo (without flash) just to have a souvenir. The first half of the show was primarily opera. I'm not really an opera buff - but let me tell you, this man's voice is magical. Yes, I have his CD's, MP3's and even a DVD of his concert in NYC - but watching him live is NOTHING like watching him on TV or listening to him in the car. You can feel his voice inside - it's like your internal organs are vibrating along with his voice...it's something indescribable, which is why it sounds stupid when I try to convey how moving it is to hear him live. My mom was clutching her chest and I was tearing up - I didn't understand a word he said since most of what he was singing was Italian with some Spanish operas thrown in - but you could FEEL the music. I got chills. The first time I got chills was when I watched Wicked at the Pantages and heard Defying Gravity live. I've watched a lot of shows since and though I've enjoyed them, I never got the chills again. Until I saw Andrea Bocelli - and the chills and the tears and the feeling inside - blew Wicked out of the water. Whew!
After a 20 minute intermission (I saw in my seat and obsessively refreshed the Clippers game to follow along with the score) the songs were more pop oriented - there were some Christmas songs as well as some of the more famous of Puccini's pieces. For his many encores, he sang The Prayer and Time to Say Goodbye - and dude, when he started on those, you could see an ocean of cell phone glow pop up as people were filming those songs. Okay. For his very last song he did Puccini's Nessun Dorma, which is incredible live. When he sings vincerò, I felt like I was being lifted out of my seat by the power of his voice alone. I know just how cheesy and hokey that sounds - but seriously, if you like music at all and have a chance to see this guy live - DO IT.
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After the concert is over we shuffle our way out with tens of thousands of people and navigate our way through cowboy land before we get back onto the shuttle from Excalibur and ride our way back to Mandalay Bay. Yes! Back to sanity. Sorta.
Everyone is still in our room watching TV, so I throw on my crappy sweats and we snack and watch TV before my cousins decide it's late enough for them to shuffle back to their rooms. I play with my Bendi and like an old lady, shower and go to bed. What's funny? On our way back to our hotel, a group of much younger chicks crammed onto our tram right before the doors shut. They were...loud. And inebriated. And had just gotten out of the Thunder from Down Under show. They were still very excited about it. It was about 11 pm at this point, and while my evening was winding down and I was dreaming of slippers and bed, their night was just starting. They were rocking some SERIOUSLY tight dresses (which honestly, some of them - okay, MOST of them should NOT have been wearing. I mean, I'm no prude, but there are some articles of clothing you should not be wearing unless you think looking like a stuffed sausage with your cellulite hanging out is a hot look) and some hooker heels that made my feet hurt just to look at them. I always wondered how they could manage to keep those shoes on all night - my query was answered: as one of the girls said, "I'm gonna keep drinking until my feet go numb and I can't feel them anymore." They made me feel like an old fuddy duddy. But seriously, a night spent in sausage casing with shoes that would make me blurt out where my granny hid her gold while squashed in a small space with music blaring and sweaty people dancing around me...that's my idea of being tortured. I'd rather be waterboarded.
Being cheap Chinese people (and people who like to fit into our clothes) we decided to do ONE buffet a day. We'll do breakfast on our own (which is running down to Starbucks for coffee and a muffin or a croissant) - then do a late lunch at a buffet, then a light snack/dinner. I really wanted to do Caesar's Palace's Bacchanal buffet, but I also didn't want to wait three hours in line - and being super lazy people (and also being people who had mlife gold cards - status matching from Hyatt Platinum - who didn't have to wait in line at mlife hotel's buffets and cafes) we opted for Bellagio instead. I wanted to ride the various trams and walk - it would take around 20 minutes. The rest of my lazy family wanted to drive - so we left the dog inside the room and we drove over to Bellagio. We exited near their conservatory and spent a few minutes there acting like tourists while photos of flower bears' butts.
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| whee! |
Our plan of attack? To get to the buffet by 2:45 so we pay by 3:30 and get to eat both brunch food and dinner food! This is how cheap ass Chinese people roll! I think I'm the only one who likes brunch food - so I eat eggs benedict, french toast, and bacon. They also had prime rib out for brunch - mmm. When the dishes change to dinner dishes about 20 minutes into our meal, they bring out a kobe sirloin. Hmm. Most of us have never had kobe before. Because we're not crazy enough to spend all that money. We're intrigued so we try some. Eh. Honestly, it tastes kind of reminiscent of liver. Weird.
Of course there's the mandatory sushi bar with not great sushi - but it's still decent. And the colors are pretty - perfectly suited to food porn!
While everyone else is still working on their savory foods, I am drawn to the dessert table. The macrons...very average. Eh. The texture was okay, but it was kind of flavorless. The white chocolate nutella cup was pretty good - but the mousse was too sweet, so I dumped that out and ate the nutella cup. The fruit tart was pretty good, as was the creme brulee and the flan was good as well.
So...why do we torture ourselves and eat at the buffet? Well, 1) my cousin Henry eats like a horse. Actually no, he eats like 5 horses. That man can put away food like there's no tomorrow. 2) my cousin Ling can put away food as well. 3) at a buffet we can all choose what we want to eat and how much we want to eat without fighting over which restaurant to go to, trying to figure out the entrees and what the portions are and choking down food we didn't really like if we order the wrong thing. For myself and my parents, going to a $35 buffet isn't really worth the money since we don't eat that much. We'd probably spend the same or a little less if we went elsewhere and just ordered a la carte. But it's just easier on a group of people who have different tastes and appetites to go somewhere where all of us can just get what we feel like eating - so to the buffet we go!
After my dad invited himself along to our trip, he started looking into shows he could go to. He asked me to buy him to tickets to the Australian Bee Gees show, which I fortunately found tickets that were 30% off to. They ended up being about $40 a ticket, and as he didn't want to go alone, we decided on the show for Sunday night so mom and I could accompany him. We ended up having a night out (there were some craaazy Bee Gees fans there, lemme tell you) for LESS than the price of ONE Andrea Bocelli ticket. Let's just say these were two very different experiences.
For the Australian Bee Gees show, the production values weren't super high - and they were also located in the Thunder from Down Under showroom, which I couldn't find. I lead my parents wandering around the Excalibur Hotel, which I haven't been to in a good 15 years...at least. It wasn't until we took the escalators up to where the food court was that we saw the Thunder showroom. It's...small. And dark. And I was a bit squicked out about sitting at tables greased up nekkid men gyrate on nightly, but I soldiered on. And had fun! It was a good show. Not that I've ever seen the real Bee Gees live - but these guys could sing, engaged the audience well, and everyone had a good time. Especially the group from the Philippines who went crazy and danced through all the sets. They split their show into two parts: the early years (where they wore some gnarly wigs and bell bottoms) and the later years - where they rocked the black. A MUCH better look for them.
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| crap photo, but no longer in orange bell bottoms! |
The show lasted for about 90 minutes - after which we meandered back to our hotel (the Excalibur really does not improve upon further acquaintance) and snacked. And snacked. My cousins came over and hung out and we watched TV and ate more. Then like old people, we went to bed. Yay!
The next morning I called down around 10 asking for late check out because...well...I'm lazy. I didn't relish the thought (I was still in PJ's) of having to rouse myself up, get dressed and have everything packed up within the next hour - the front desk people were super cool and let us check out free of charge at 1 pm - which I suppose isn't a big deal since it's a random Monday in December. There probably wasn't a whole lot of demand for our room at the time. But this allowed me to wake up, slowly start packing stuff away and taking ALL our junk to the car (while my mom was having way too much fun at the penny slots - a misnomer if there ever was one. Yes, it says $.01, until you realize there are 60 lines and you have to bet 60 pennies each time. You might as well play the nickel slots!) and suck down some much needed caffeine and a snack. I didn't want to eat heavy because our plan to was to hit the M Resort on the way back since we like the hotel/casino and especially their buffet. It's comparable with Bellagio and Wynn (not as good as Cosmopolitan, but few are) and it's only like, $15 for lunch! And it's on our way home, and right off the 15. For those not in the know, the place to get gas is on Las Vegas Blvd heading SOUTH - the prices drop lower and lower as you get further from the strip - and M Resort is about 10 miles off the strip, though on the same road. So we just headed in that direction and found a plethora or Chevron stations, each cheaper by the mile. We gassed up, gave a few bucks to a vet asking for money (I felt bad for him. Even if he's bilking me, the man served our country) and headed to the M Resort. They have a pretty spacious parking garage - so the dog was going to be okay, especially since the weather was cool. We took him out to pee, fed him some water, and left some snacks and toys and chew sticks in the car for him while we went in to pee ourselves (TMI I know) and stuff ourselves at lunch. They really do have a very good buffet - we stop by at least once every trip - either on the way in or on the way out. We've stayed there before as well, and their rooms (we had a kickass corner suite) are very nice as well.
We ate. And ate. And ate. My favorite part? (well, one of my favorite parts) is that espresso drinks (cappucino, lattes, etc) are all free - they're at the dessert station and a nice lady will make them for you on request. They also have decent gelato and a nice selection of desserts. My parents like it because there's a nice sized Asian section - I just gorged on cow. And more cow. And potatoes. And bread. Mmm...that's not even including the desserts. We managed to leave by 3 pm. My mama drove again, and we never stopped once - we managed to make it back to LA around 6:30 pm - just in time to see the Clippers game. BEST. GAME. of the year. Not ever - but pretty damn good. Blake shot a buzzer beating 3 pointer! BLAKE.
So that's it - our short weekend of shows, food, time with family, slot machines, and sin. I'm already wondering when we're going back!
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