Las Vegas Day 5, Sunday

Sunday began with church at St Joan of Arc’s, a small church located about 3 blocks from the hotel. It was a nice little church but I couldn’t help but notice that as with everything else in Las Vegas the votive candles weren’t real candles—they were electric lights. Somehow electric votives just don’t seem to satisfy the purpose of the candles.

Today we would go back to the strip and see what we missed on the last 2 visits. We started at Treasure Island the sister property of the Mirage. When we arrived inside we were at the box office area for the Cirque show Mystere. Kathy said she’d like to see that so we got in line, checked on tickets and bought some for the evening performance. Treasure Island wasn’t very remarkable inside. The outside has a lagoon an elevated wooden gangplank and along the “shore” is a re-created pirate’s village with building facades along the rocky cliffs. The 2 pirate ships out there were impressive.


From TI we walked to Wynn. On the way is a large covered mall—the cover looking like an alien spacecraft hovering 100 feet above.

The Wynn is different from all the others. In front of the hotel is a 140 ft tall “mountain” complete with waterfalls and lush landscaping.

The idea at the Wynn is to provide tranquility and sophistication and they succeed. Instead of walking into a casino, in the Wynn you are greeted with calm light, trees, water and flowers.

The bar at the lower level has a ceiling decorated with umbrella-like chandeliers. The outside deck looks over a large lighted pool set off by another waterfall, this one being rectangular.

After the Wynn we drove back down the strip to the MGM Grand. Everything here was huge. Our purpose here was to see the massive bronze lion out front and the real lion they had for viewing in their lion habitat.

The bronze lion poses at the entrance weighing in at a mere 100,000 lbs. No college kid pranksters are going to haul this away in the middle of the night. We had a nondescript lunch at a food court and then headed for the lion habitat.

When we passed the habitat earlier it was empty. Now, however it had a big male in it. Some of the lions they have here are direct decedents of the original MGM lion. This one wasn’t. We talked with a very nice attendant who filled us in on interesting MGM lion facts.

We then headed over to TI to see Mystere. We had a little time before the show so Penny and Kathy got in a little gambling. Penny spent a whole dollar!

Mystere was the first of the Cirque shows produced. I think the guy at the box office said it was 15 years old. Everything takes place in the single “ring” but as you know the comparison to a regular circus ends there. The music, lighting effects, acrobats clowns, jugglers, trapeze artists, dancers and musicians are in a class by themselves. Even though this was our 3rd cirque show in 4 days it was not too much cirque. I was sad to see the big finale’. It meant no more cirque for a while.