Las Vegas—Day 1, Wednesday

I actually have to start my Las Vegas story with some comments about the hotel we stayed in. We made the reservation through hotels.com and got a good rate. The reviews about the hotel were about 50/50. Half saying DON’T STAY HERE and the rest saying for the money it’s OK. We didn’t know what to expect at The Plaza Hotel and Casino.


Our room turned out to be adequate. It was about the level of any number of 2-star hotel chains. We did have a bonus of a refrigerator and we put it to good use during the week. The only real negative was our air conditioner didn’t cool adequately. Across the hall Kathy and Joes room A/C worked too good and tried to freeze them out. We had a 'great' view of a roof and another tower of the building. Kathy’s room had a view of the freeway and in the distance, mountains.

Day 1 saw breakfast at McDonald’s. We had no idea where anything was at this point. Then we all piled into the Chrysler Pacifica we were upgraded to by Dollar and took

our first drive down Las Vegas Blvd to the “Strip”. Our itinerary was taken from an article on the web that laid out a logical course to hit all the major “must-see” attractions in LV. Driving and parking in LV were probably the least fun activities we had. I, being the driver, got the full experience. The others just got the screaming and panic part of the experience.

There is sufficient parking in Vegas and it is free. Getting there and finding a space in the parking garages added adventure to our visit. Our plan was to park on the South end of the strip and see it. The next day we would park on the North end. The Strip is about 4 miles long.

Our first stop was the Luxor. This hotel/casino follows an Egyptian theme. The building itself is a 30-story pyramid with a 10-story sphinx and lots of Egyptian statues and monuments outside.

The lobby of the Luxor is advertised as the worlds largest. At night a powerful beam of light shoots straight up out of the tip of the pyramid. (They claim it can be seen from aircraft 250 miles away.

Next stop – Excalibur. The Excalibur looks like a Disney castle and has a medieval theme. There wasn’t a lot here to see. It would be a good place to stay for a family. They had suits of armor and a game room downstairs where Kathy and Joe played some air hockey.

Our tummies were telling us it was lunchtime as we headed for New York—New York. The outside of NY-NY is a Manhattan skyline incorporating the major buildings as actual hotel towers. I guess you can stay in the Empire State Building if you so desired. In front of the buildings is a replica of the statue of Liberty and you can leave NY—NY via the Brooklyn Bridge Walkway to the Bellagio. But we’ll cross that bridge later.

Inside we first were tempted by Nathan’s hot dog stand. There was no place to sit there so we ventured into their “food court” which was laid out like a NY neighborhood street. We checked out a few places and finally settled on having pizza and beer.

Now it was time to cross that bridge and go to the Bellagio—The "crown jewel" of the strip. It has an Italian theme, and an eight-acre lake with a water show.

We arrived after they had done some maintenance on the fountain and were treated to a double song show. They usually just do a single piece for each show. The fountain show is nothing short of fantastic. The nozzles can send water 200 ft in the air. They can sway back and forth or circle to make spirals. The combined effect is awesome. The sound system is great and the coordination with the music is perfect. I enjoyed the show doubly because in addition to drinking in the musical water ballet I was marveling at the technical achievement of hydraulic engineering. Anyone who has worked on a sprinkler system has an understanding of the difficulty of providing the correct amount of water at the needed pressure over a wide area. There are a total of 1,214 fountains in the "show" and at least 28 different shows. The fountain show was the high point for me on this day.

This is the picture I wish I had taken

Inside, the Bellagio was beautiful. The lobby features a ceiling adorned in a breathtaking display of 2,000 hand-blown glass flowers, created by world-renowned artist, Dale Chihuly.

The hotel has a Gallery of Fine Art, Conservatory & Botanical Gardens (we took lots of pictures here) and, of course, it is where we would see the Cirque de Soleil show “O” on Saturday night. A final note on the size of the Bellagio- The resort features 13 restaurants, 6 bars and 3 lounges.

By this time we were all getting worn out. We were probably 2 miles from the car. We decided to walk across the street to Paris Las Vegas. From there I would take the monorail back to where our car was and come back to Paris and pick everyone up to go back to our hotel.

Paris Las Vegas’s most notable feature is the 540-foot tall Eiffel Tower. We didn’t go up to see the view from the observation deck. Inside the building there is the Streets of Paris walkway with more shops and restaurants.


Back at the Plaza we all rested for a while and then had dinner at the hotel’s buffet the “Lucky 7’s” where it was all you can eat for $7.77.

I think we then took a walk down Freemont St (I’ll talk about Freemont St on another day) which was right at the entrance to the hotel before retreating back to our rooms to go to sleep with our tummies full.

We had a very full day.