Las Vegas (Tuesday & Wednesday)

Our first full day in Las Vegas started with a breakfast at the local restaurant and bakery, Coco’s, it was most hospitable and we ate cheaply but well. Later I was disappointed to discover that Coco’s was a chain as up to then we were under the illusion that it was run by a Mr. & Mrs. Coco, possible their first venture after Mr. Coco left the circus.
Our appointment with the time-share was at 11.00am, so after breakfast, with some misgivings, we set off for the office block where we were to be sold something in exchange for free show tickets. When we got there it transpired that we had failed to bring our passports, it specifically demanded that we had photo-id on the contract Julia had signed the previous night. I guess they want everybody there to be able to commit themselves to the deal fully and irrevocably. Anyway we had the option of running back to the motel to get our passports and being rescheduled for later in the day or getting our $20 deposit back. With some relief we went for option B and were now free to plan our own day in the resort hotels. We booked the 8.30 comedy show at the Tropicana, which was the non-smoking show and we felt was quite reasonable at $21 each including a free drink.
The Tropicana is one of the oldest and most established of the casinos, and while we were there we decided to have a look at the Titanic Expedition that they had going. We made several discoveries about casino geography in this time. Firstly there are signs to everywhere you might want to go but the rule is that they all must send you through the gambling part of the establishment. Secondly if the thing you want is even vaguely educational it must be placed in a basement or attic to avoid it detracting in any way from the temptation to give them their money. So based on these rules, we found the Titanic Exhibition in the basement but they wanted to charge $28 each for us to check it out. We decided against and retraced our steps through the maze.
In the casinos we enjoyed watching Blackjack, which is the grown-up name for pontoon, so we understood it but we had to marvel at the speed of playing. We never gambled and are therefore not drawn to casinos but you have to admire the quality of the planning, everything has been considered. Any circumstance was met by a system, which was clearly time tested and fool-proof. To illustrate this as we walked through the casino in the MGM resort, we saw a senior member of the casino staff refusing to allow someone play on the basis they were drunk. There were at least three other staff members on the scene and the pit boss was patiently explaining that it would be unfair to let the guy play with less than full concentration so he could stay in the casino area, they gave him a card to get as much free non-alcoholic drink as he needed to sober up and when they thought he was ready he could play again.
We returned to the motel mid-afternoon and had a swim in the provided pool and, even better, sat in the hot tub. We were surrounded by student aged travelers from Europe; I guess they spent the morning in bed, the afternoon in the pool and the night in the bars. Along with many others from Europe they seemed completely unable to survive without a cigarette.
The timing of the comedy show combined with us having raided Subway mid-afternoon meant that we couldn’t eat dinner before getting back to the Tropicana; we had also resolved to video the fountains after the show, so we were anticipating eating late in the town that never sleeps. We enjoyed the comedy in quite a full bar, we were sitting with a newly wed couple, who helped us out with our latest installment of baseball questions. I’m convinced that live comedy venues spray a chemical on the audience which produces amnesia because I cannot remember a single joke told to us all night. Despite that I remember that there were three comedians, who each did a 30 minute spot while the compere kept things moving in between the acts.
By 10.30pm we were back on the strip and I tried to video the fountain show – we have not downloaded any video yet so we don’t know the results. Seemingly, unless you are in one of the casinos, the restaurants close at about 11.00 and this was happening all the way back down the strip as we headed back. Quite hungry by now we settled for a 24hour food court with all the usual suspects. We chose the Panda Chinese, and it was good enough in that level of emergency.
The next day we got up slowly, breakfasted on provisions from the shop, we then went round to the Motel 6 next door as they had internet access and checked our emails. We were to be picked up by the Grand Canyon trip at 11.15 for the 11.30 flight so we were surprised to see the LV Helicopters minibus there at 10.55. We were just getting aboard the bus when the driver received a call on his mobile. He put me on to speak to the controller and she simply said that we had to rearrange to the following day due to technical problems with several helicopters. The customer service aspect of the call was non-existent but in due course I agreed to take a replacement tour at 7.00am the following morning to allow us time to drive on to Anaheim as we had planned.
We were both very upset by the change and we went back to where we had booked it hoping that they could find and an alternative for the same day. Basically they were unable to help and again not very helpful. We now had to find things to do during the 6hours we had allocated to the tour and worry that the trip might not happen the following day.
We needed to cross the major junction diagonally to go from the MGM corner to Excalibur in order to go on the monorail to check out the Shark Reef Aquarium at Mandalay Beach resort. Out of four possible routes we chose to cross at pavement level past the New York New York Casino, their tribute to the 9/11 rescuers was on the way round and it made us see things with a better perspective and our self pity evaporated in the face of it. We had a good day from then on, we caught the monorail (free) to Mandalay Beach Resort, we stopped off at a bar on the way through the casino and had a cooling drink served by Scott, the (I made some bad choices in my life) bartender who did the full Cocktail routine, juggling bottles, pouring several drinks at the same time and generally just being good company.
When we got to it the aquarium was excellent and reasonably priced. We had an audio tour which took us through a flooded temple teaming with South American water life; the piranhas were there in all their glory in an open pool but with a permanent guard to avoid anyone trying them out. We progressed through other sets finishing on a sunken pirate ship surrounded by sharks and, supposedly, turtles but neither of us sighted one of these. It took us over an hour to go round the exhibits and when we came out we refused the photo they had taken on the way in, they are OK but they seem to show two heavier people than us, is it the lens they use? Anyway they are always overpriced.
Having mastered the monorail on our way out, we stopped at the Luxor Casino on the way back and did the usual people watching. We ate a bizarre combination lunch in their food court, I had pizza while Julia had ice cream but the food police missed us. We had already decided to have a Grand Buffet in the evening so we were leaving space for it.
With an early start due in the morning we were back at the casino eating by about 7.30. The buffet was excellent and we tried to do it justice but I suspect there were people there who got much better value out of it, conversely some people came and went unbelievably quickly, more money than sense as my mum would say. It was also an ultimate people-watching venue.