Over the Top & Wonderful (Las Vegas)

Member Name: katygriff

Product:	Las Vegas
Date:	14/10/09 (34 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Everything

Disadvantages: Nothing

I got married in May this year and we decided to make our Honeymoon an American adventure and hop to a few places. My husband Dave chose Las Vegas to visit as he had always wanted to go. Myself, I had never fancied it and to be honest the only reason I would want to go is for the lovely heat. Well now I have been to the absolutely wonderful place that is Las Vegas I could not imagine anywhere better and it is now my favourite place in the world I have visited. Here is why.

Las Vegas is in Nevada which is known for the desert and the heat. It is kind of on the West of America and you can get direct flights from London to the airport. It is best known for its bright lights and crazy drive in wedding chapels.

I stepped off the plane in Vegas airport and the first thing I noticed was how friendly everybody was. Everybody asked us we had been to Vegas before and when we said no they were all ready to give us advice. We stepped out of the airport and the beautiful heat hit us and the sun was shining and it was stunning. Now Vegas to drive around I will not kid you is scary as there are so many lanes and everybody is raring to go so we got a taxi everywhere.

The Old Strip
Las Vegas has 2 parts to it which is the old part and the new part which is more well known as the strip. We did not spend much time in the old town of Vegas but what I can tell you is that it is lovely. It has the same shops and casinos and hotels but just on a smaller scale. The casinos have a fairer buy in though so if you are a big fan of gambling then you will find it cheaper to gamble in the old strip.

The old strip is also not as busy but there are still plenty of people around and you feel instantly safe everywhere. You can just walk into any casino and play the games but what astounded me about the old strip is that everything is slightly cheaper so although you are not in the main area, it is nice to spend a bit of time here. I didn't eat in the old strip or go to any bars as we quickly had a look around but if I go back to Vegas I will spend more time here.

The New Strip
The Vegas Strip is the famous part of Vegas and if you watch programmes about Vegas or films, this is probably where it is filmed. My initial thoughts of the strip when I arrived was that everything looked so posh. The buildings are extravagant and even places like the car parks are dressed up and look stunning which I found amazing.

The main thing to do in Vegas is go and look around the new strip so literally walk up and down it and visit all of the hotels and casinos and shops. When I say walk up and down though the strip is miles long so it takes you a good while to get places. Me and Dave walked for about 10 hours one day without even realising as you are just in awe at all the new places and basically the way everything looks.

The new strip contains all of the hotels and casinos you will have heard about so the pyramid hotel (luxor) and the hotel with a roller coaster going through it (new York new York). It is amazing. The strip is very safe and no matter what time you get up in the morning there are plenty of people about. As I said above though you should expect it to a little bit more expensive becase it is so popular.

Things to do
Ok so apart from the amazing hotels, shops and casinos you can see which does take you about an hour for each one to have a good look. Vegas does have some must do things so this is a little bit about what we did.

On the main strip we went to the secret garden at the Mirage which is a dolphin education facility and they have some tigers there too which is nice. We enjoyed it here and spent a good couple of hours. Then we went to a cirque du soleil show at the Treasure Island hotel which was amazing. There are shows everywhere though so you can choose music, magic And even peep shows so a choice for everybody.

One place we didn't get to go to though and I wanted to was the shark tank at the Mandalay hotel and also the human bodies exhibition at the luxor hotel. There is so much to go to though that you will not be bored I can guarantee that.

Away from the strip and you have the amazing place that is the Grand Canyon and if you are in Vegas this is a must see trip! It was amazing and you have such a choice as you can go by coach, car or helicopter. Then you can choose to go to the bottom and even have a picnic or you can go on the sky walk which is a glass bottom platform leading over the Grand Canyon. Seriously you have to do this!!!! I cannot stress it enough.

You also have the Vegas sign to visit just outside the strip and there is also a huge outlet mall about 15 minutes away so if you love your bargain shopping this is a good thing to do.

Eating, shopping and gambling
Lets tackle my favourite thing in the world first which is eating. There are so many places to eat it is unreal but what we found was that you could either go to a really expensive place or cheap place and there was only a handful of medium priced places but maybe I am wrong and we just didn't find them.

We ate the first night in planet Hollywood which was great fun andc ost us around $60 for a main meal, cocktail and a pudding. We ate at a buffet place one night which was $50 but the selection was not great so we didn't enjoy it at all. Then we tended to eat in burger bars such as the Kahuna bar in the Treasure Island hotel and this was simply because we had a budget to stick to.

If you did go with a bit more money though there are so many nice Indians, Chinese' s, steak houses and some very posh restaurants. We looked though and the main meals costed around $30 just for the main meal so went somewhere a bit cheaper. Each hotel has quite a few places to eat though so you can just walk around until you really fancy something.

My next favourite subject is shopping and again there are so many places. You have the cheap souvenir shops which I love for presents and then you have some extremely expensive places which have shops like Manolo Bhlaniks (not sure if I have spelt that right). Everywhere is so nice to look around though and there us a big mixture so you will find somewhere to buy things.

For cheap shops they are dotted all around the strip and even in the extremely posh and expensive fashion show mall. For expensive places we found the Wynn and Palazzo hotel to have the most wow factor shops. We managed to find lots of things to buy though so we were happy. Look out for the discount booths for show tickets though as that is really useful and we saved a lot of money.

Gambling is a massive thing in Vegas as you probably know by now. Every hotel has a casino and there are even some extra casinos dotted around. Now I was nervous about gambling as I thought it would be awkward but it really isn't. There are so many people around and so many machines that slot machines are everywhere and some only cost $1 to play which is great but very very tempting but when in Vegas you have to gamble.

The tables where you find black jack and roulette are a bit more intimidating but the guys explained how everything worked for us and we really enjoyed it. My top tip is don't be scared and just give it a go.

Safety
When I go to any place on holiday I do think about safety precautions. Vegas is one place I have never felt safer. There are just so many people around at all times of the day it is crazy! We had to get up at 5am one day for a trip and we went down into the casino and it could have been 8pm on a Saturday night as it was so busy. I think this is why I felt quite settled in Vegas as safety is my number one concern.


Conclusion
Vegas is now my favourite place in the world. It is beautiful in the day and with all of the sparkly huge buildings lit up at night it looks even more spectacular. I love it and would go back tomorrow if somebody gave me the chance. Five stars from me.

If there is anything you want to know about Vegas which I haven't included let me know and I will try to put it in the review.

Thanks for reading.

xxx

Summary: The Most Wonderful Place in the World