Thursday - June 4, 2014
This was a super lazy day. It also started late because for the first night in our trip, I had a bed! Okay, so its a sofa bed, but it's still a bed. And I have to say, it's a surprisingly comfortable sofa bed. Is it as great as a regular bed? Maybe not, but you know what I appreciated? Housekeeping staff was super responsive when I called for linens for the sofa bed and showed up within 15 minutes ready to make up the bed. I ended up just grabbing the bag and doing it myself when the housekeeping girl was clearly afraid of my small fuzzy 15 pound dog. Nice sheets, nice pillows and a duvet. I've never had such swanky linens for a sofa bed!
So it was a lazy, lazy morning. Knowing we were going to gorge ourselves later on at Bellagio, we ate light for breakfast (at oh...10:30 to 11am?) and split off agreeing to meet back at our room at 2 pm so we could head over for our late lunch together. It was such a lazy day that I don't remember what I did. Which honestly, is one of the best kind of days. Someone else also had a good day:
We converged back in our room at 2 pm and soon thereafter set off on our 14 minute hike from the Vdara to the Buffet @ Bellagio. MyVegas pays off once again (thanks mom!) and we all get in free for brunch...which I love because hello! Bacon! And the best part of getting there around 2:30-2:40? You pay for lunch (or our points pay for lunch - and it's MUCH lower for lunch/brunch than dinner) but at 3 pm they change out the brunch food for dinner food. So you get the best of brunch (omelets, bacon(!), pastries, and eggs benedict) as well as dinner choices (better seafood and better meat selections). Yay!
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| comped baby! |
We (by we I really mean I) start off with the yummy deliciousness of breakfast food I don't know how to make:
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| I'm not sure when shrimp pesto pizza became brunch food, but since it's delicious, I'm totally on board with it |
Then we get started on dinner deliciousness:
Even mom and dad had a good time stuffing their faces:
You're limited to 2 hours for the buffet, which is plenty of time. I had to slow down. So I did, we played on our phones after stuffing our faces for the first 30 minutes or so. When I had a bit of room and didn't feel like food was coming out of my ears, I moseyed over to the desserts section. And I gotta say, Bellagio has one of the best dessert selections (sigh).
One of the best parts of their dessert selection? They have a fair number of sugar free desserts for diabetics and those on sugar restricted diets as well! So my mama didn't have to feel bad watching me stuff my fat face. She also got to indulge in sweets as well. Most buffets have like, one crappy cake and maybe a pie for their sugar free selection, Bellagio has cakes, pies, tarts and cookies. My mama is picky, and only snagged 3 - their cake, the napolean, and a strawberry tart: she liked all of it.
We waddled out of the buffet around 4:30. Oy. Mom wanted to play the slots, dad wanted to go watch some sports and I wanted to go shopping - so I headed off towards the Forum Shops @ Caesars. Well...I conveniently forgot that after indulging in shrimp (even with antihistamines, the only way I can have them without breaking into hives) I can't do anything vigorous. Which includes walking quickly. Well, I wanted to get to Caesars quickly, and when I was walking through the Via Bellagio shops that lead to the sky bridge which would take me to Caesars, I started breaking out in hives. Yeah...that's no bueno. Well, there goes my shopping trip. Instead, I stood still for awhile and looked outside trying to slow my heart rate down so my blood wasn't pumping the shrimp poison through my system so fast that the antihistamine couldn't catch up. And saw a very nice view actually:
I stood there for about 4-5 minutes, and in that span, there were about 3 different people who came up and tried to open the balcony door I was standing next to. Really?! I'm guessing though, that you can pay mucho bucks at night to go onto the balcony to watch the fountains, or you have to be some kind of super VIP whale before they'd unlock those balcony doors. But it would totally offer a fantastic view of the fountains.
Moving at the rate of molasses, I decided to find somewhere to sit down where I can pull out my tablet and read until the hives were under control. So I strolled (at the speed of a snail) back towards the Vdara and took my time in the Conservatory since I couldn't move any faster anyway.
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| scary mermaid with too much makeup on |
I ended up finding a nice plush chair by the windows overlooking the Bellagio pools close to the Jean Philippe store. As full as I was, I still considered buying a crepe because I'm a fat ass until I remembered that I was already in the I-hate-myself territory of fullness. Yeah...a crepe would not be a good idea. But into the plush chair I went where I whiled away an hour or so before I toddled my way back to the room. Soon after we had to get ready for Zarkana!
We got the tickets comped through MyVegas and being cheapos, didn't splurge for premium seating, but standard seating for 40,000 loyalty points. And honestly, it was fine? We were a bit to the right and about halfway up. The theater wasn't packed, but it was decently full for a Thursday night - I would peg attendance at around 80%. Even though we didn't have primo seats, our view of the stage was great and we saw everything. None of us brought our real cameras, so all the photos (which they welcome: photos are good. Flash and video are not) are from our phones, so they didn't come out fabulous.
During the pre-show they had a few characters prancing through the audience interacting with people to amuse us and to make the time go by faster. The show started promptly at 7 pm (which I appreciate) and it was super entertaining. The reviews on the show have been mixed, but I liked it more than Ka and about the same as Mystere. I would still rank O above it, but it's hard to beat out O. My dad really, really, really liked it - he was very enthused about it. Unlike Ka where there was a (kind of) cohesive story, it literally was a bunch of circus acts. High class, fancy, super awesome circus acts in a custom theater with live music, but stripped to the core, circus acts. Which is what Cirque du Soleil is anyway - I appreciate that they didn't try to force some kind of overarching theme for the show, but presented great acts in a great way only they know how.
One of the awesome things? Which honestly, isn't even an act, but something they did to buy time during the transition between sets, is the lady with the blue sand. It's this chick who has this ginormous table with blue sand and a camera overhead showing her sand art. She does this all by hand, and this didn't last more than 5 minutes, but she was able to with her hands and blue sand create art pieces super duper quickly. It was amazing. Unfortunately, my mom slept through this part. Sad for her.
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| the white blur on the bottom right? That's the sand lady with the spotlight on her. |
And there were acrobats, tightrope walkers/jumpers, guys in the funny wheel thing like the chocolate man at Jean Philipped depicted, and the spider lady. Who was in the web and sang. And didn't do anything else. I'm not sure why she's on all the signs and the logo because it's such a small part of the show. I kept expecting her to do something other than sing, but she never did.
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spider lady floating around the web and singing while the acrobats are flying everywhere
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It was a good show and we had a good time. Overall, well worth the loyalty points. Really, I think show tickets are the best way to use the points - these tickets are usually $99, the lowest I've seen them for on discount is about $69. 40,000 points is roughly the same as a buffet dinner at a mid-level casino. You're looking at using 40,000 for a $35-$45 dinner or for a $99 (or $69 depending on the season) show ticket. I can spend $10 on a sandwich and fill up, but I can't get an equivalent show for those same $10.
Anyhoo, being an old lady, I was still full and tired enough that I just wanted to go back to the room and veg. So I did. And thus ended our slow and lazy day in Vegas.
Friday - June 5, 2015
Being a Friday, it's unfortunate that the hotel couldn't extend our check out very much since they always expect an influx of guests and have to turn the rooms over quickly for the new arrivals. Even though I'm a gold mlife member, they could only give me until noon to check out. I've gotten until 1 or 2 pm when I check out on Mondays, but Mondays are very different from Fridays. We're up by 9 anyway, so my mom and dI decide to load a few things onto our car so we don't have to each carry 3 bags and wrangle our dog when we actually check out. We also move our car from the roof to the first floor really close to the casino. Yay! We wanted to eat breakfast before we left, but because it was so hot outside, we didn't feel like walking anywhere, so my mom asked if we could just eat in Bellagio somewhere. None of us felt up to the buffet again, so I lead the way to the Cafe Bellagio by the Conservatory. Where there was a long. ass. line of people waiting to get in since apparently, my idea to eat there wasn't creative or ingenious. Crap. Gold card to the rescue! I lead my parents (both looking around worriedly afraid we'd get kicked out for our boldness) to the invited guests line and flashed my mlife card. The ONE AND ONLY TIME I GET A BENEFIT since I don't gamble. And yay! The line parted, lots of hungry and angry people glared at us, and the hostess immediately lead us to the next available table - which had a view of the pool.
Okay, I'm gonna put this out there: breakfast at Cafe Bellagio will cost more than the buffet. Do you hear me? Weekend brunches aside (Saturday and Sundays when it's $29.99), breakfast @ the Buffet is $19.99 a person. And this comes with juices and coffee. Breakfast for the three of us with three coffees, a lobster omelet and 2 orders of French toast came to over $80. So, just saying, if you're a big eater and not burnt out on buffets, that's the way to go if you wanna save a little moola. However, the atmosphere at the Cafe is ever so much more refined. That sounds pretentious and kind of moronic, but it's much quieter. And mellower. And the crowd is older. And better dressed. And this is just the Cafe, not some fancy restaurant. The waitstaff is fantastic there - our coffees were always topped off, service was efficient and friendly and the food was superbly prepared. This ain't no Denny's folks, and I like Denny's.
The only issue with the Cafe? (other than the exorbitant prices), there's not a whole lot of choice. My dad is a simple breakfast eater. He doesn't go for fancy. All he really likes for breakfast is coffee and toast. When he's feeling exciting, he'll go for some eggs, but that's about it. He was very dismayed to find no plain old eggs and toast on the menu. So he went for the French toast, the only other thing he recognized that he found acceptable. And he was upset that he had to pay $16 for something IHOP charges $5.99 for. So he was not really happy at breakfast. That's cheapo old Chinese men for you.
Because my mom is diabetic, she didn't want any powdered sugar on her French toast, and my dad, who doesn't like sweets anyway, opted for no powdered sugar too. I have to say, I've never realized how sad French toast looks without powdered sugar.
On the other hand, my lobster omelet was magical. AND it came with two slices of toast, which I gave my dad. It had big ass chunks of lobster with asparagus. I don't know why it came with half a tomato, but the hash browns were good too. I split the omelet with my mom and had some of her French toast because I like both savory and sweet. Yes, this is overpriced, but where else can you get a lobster omelet?
Anyway, even though my dad was pooped faced, my mom and I had a good time at breakfast. We ate everything (because that's how we roll) and then toddled to our room to finish up the last of our packing. My favorite thing about tech friendly hotels? Expedited check out on the TV's. I'm on the benevolent side of antisocial and hate having to trudge up to the front desk and check out. I reviewed my folio and then checked out - all on the TV. And since we'd already made a trip and moved our car, we didn't have as much stuff to lug and didn't have far to go either!
Sadly, there were no photos on the way home, because well, the desert ain't that pretty. We were fortunately not to hit much traffic on the way home and got home in plenty of time to water the yard and hang out on the patio. The dog was overjoyed once more to see his own personal toilet after a week of sharing with other dogs. I was happy to sleep in a bed and have my own bathroom. But overall, I think we had a successful trip. It was short, but we managed to safely make it to each destination and saw everything we wanted to see.
