How I Spent My Spring Break,
or Are We Viva-ing Yet?

March 11-16, 2002

OVERVIEW OF CONTENTS:

Links in text below are to "official" sites not hosted by me, unless otherwise obvious. These are for your convenience should you want more information on the attractions we visited, and also because rather a lot of my own photos did not come out.

MONDAY

We arrive at Las Vegas airport around midnight, collect our bags, and grab a cab ($18) to the Frontier, where we are booked into a suite for a paltry $60/night. The downside is that it feels like a half mile walk from the cab stand at the front door to the room. I think it strange that everything is closed except a lonely-looking junkfood stand in the lobby and the dingy casino where a few rather unwashed-looking people play the slot machines here and there. Isn't this town supposed to be one big 24-hour party?

The suite itself is reasonably nice, more room than we need. A sitting room area (sofa, comfy chair, coffee table and TV), a fridge and sink area, and little dining table and chairs. Large full bathroom. Walk-in closet. King bed, dressers and nightstands, another TV, and an extra vanity area where I set up my toiletries so I wouldn't monopolize the bathroom.

Unpack. Snack at the junkfood stand. Laugh at the odds on the Red Sox. Bed.

TUESDAY

We wake up around 7AM (that being 10AM in Boston), hungry, and head for the Mirage, which is a "walk" from our hotel and Jon tells me about the pretty white tigers there. We arrive a bit before 10 to find the tigers out while the habitat is cleaned.

Mirage Buffet for breakfast. Mediocre, but I like the fact that salsa and hot sauce are available for the eggs. Jon attempts once again to explain craps to me. After breakfast, we stop by a craps table and while it vaguely makes sense to me, I still fail to understand why this is fun. Jon loses his money. Everyone else looks pretty bored too. I ask him if we're having fun yet. He rolls his eyes.

The dude is still squeegee-ing the tiger cage windows. We give up and keep walking down the strip.

I oooh and aahhh at the pirate ships in front of the Treasure Island, but there will be no shows til much later. The town seems much more deserted than I had pictured, and the Strip much more plain. It looks absolutely nothing like the movies or postcard pictures. It appears that nothing opens until at least noon. The hotels are generally set pretty far back from the road, and they are often a quarter mile or so apart. You'd think from the pictures that everything is all clustered together in one glob of lights and excitement. Hardly. By the time we get to the Luxor (Egyptian theme), my feet hurt in spite of our having taken the "Strip Trolley" a good portion of the way.

We buy tickets to the IMAX movie ride(s), which are two short rides and one longer one. We agree that two of them were okay, but the other was just kind of "huh?" (Over the next few days I would realize that such "sit in the moving chair that bumps you around while you watch an IMAX movie" rides are really really common in Vegas.) I start to feel cranky.

There's a sushi bar in the Luxor, and we consider that for lunch, until I notice on the menu that one of the items is White Fish, elsewhere listed as Fish (White). In Boston, we call that "scrod" and it serves as a verb as well as a noun. It is not something one eats as sushi. If it is sushi, you really ought to know what species you're giving me. Not confidence inspiring. Lunch is a mediocre burrito next door. I begin to think all the fuss about Vegas is from people who live in Iowa and don't know any better.

Jon tries to think of something to amuse me. We swing through the Bellagio and pick up our Cirque du Soleil tickets while he thinks. We then head for the Excalibur (Medival theme). Fortunately, I am indeed amused. We wander through the little carnival game area, and I win a psychedelic multicolored dolphin stuffie. Neon jousters. Big purple dragons (grr! rar!). I constantly get the giggles, but my feet hurt again.

We wander over to the New York New York, where we become fascinated by "Aqua Massage" machines set up in the atrium. Basically, you lie in a tube with plastic tarp sleeve keeping you dry, and moving jets of water massage up and down your body. Cool idea. But we find that the water is really hot and so you get all sweaty in it, and the jets really tickle your feet. As for me and my easily bruised body, it hurt my legs til I managed to wiggle out of the direct spray (not easy), whereas Jon had the opposite problem in that the jets weren't powerful enough to give him adequate massage. Oh well. Still a cool concept, and my feet do hurt less.

By now it is mid-afternoon, so we go in search of the roller coaster. $10 a ride??? Well, all right, it's Jon's money and he doesn't seem too shocked. The coaster is a lot of fun - when they say to secure all loose items, BELIEVE IT! One of the corkscrew loops I nearly lost my sunglasses even though I had carefully secured them to my neck scarf.

Too tired to walk back to the hotel to change, so we take a cab ($10). Jon heads off to find the local gym for his workout (cab each way), and I shower and change. When he arrives back, it's a bit late for a leisurely dinner, so we take a cab straight to the Bellagio. A bit of quick math and we agree "should have rented a car. Much cheaper."

It's slightly after 9PM and we are supposed to be seated for the show around 10PM, so there's very little time to eat. We end up at the front cafe area of "Nectar" in the shopping prominade. $12 for a ceasar salad with brown wilted lettuce. Really, what is WITH this town? Do they not eat? And the wine list - weak California reds and low-end Washington whites, listing around $9 a glass for wines I know cost about $5 a bottle retail. At least the $18 fish-n-chips were edible, if oily.

I am relieved to find that the Cirque theatre's bar has Sam Adams beer. Only place in town I saw anything but the watery national brands (Coors, Bud, Miller, etc - Heinekin if you're lucky). Do they not drink either? Or again, perhaps they're all from Iowa...

Anyway, "O" is the best Cirque show I've ever seen. The surface of the pool is level with the stage floor, and the bottom of the pool is adjustable (in sections), from above the water (i.e. solid stage), to a few inches below the surface, to deep enough that divers can jump into it from the ceiling, several stories high. The costuming is no less elaborate for being designed to swim in, and the acts are even more creative. SEE THIS SHOW, and YES it is worth the ticket price (about $120 per seat including taxes and fees).

After the show, I realize that Vegas just really isn't very good at being the 24/7 town it wants to be. We stop at one of the hotel lounges for a drink, but pretty much everyone else clears out of the hotel directly, leaving even the casino sparsely populated - it's only midnight! The dealers look pretty bored. Jon is visibly upset that I'm in such a funk, especially after such a fantasticly good show. I resolve to lower my expectations of the town.

Cab "home." Bed.

WEDNESDAY

I awake depressed, but Jon awakes with a Plan, and today we know not to bother getting out of bed til 10. We hop in yet another cab, and head for the Hilton, which is a bit off the strip, but has the Star Trek Experience. Breakfast at the Hilton Buffet, again pretty mediocre but I'm seeing that the buffets are pretty much the food that mortals can afford around here and the quality in the restaurants is, if anything, worse. We finish eating a few minutes before the Trek thing opens at noon.

The Star Trek Experience begins with a surprisingly in-depth timeline display of most (I'm not enough of a Trekkie to determine "all" or not) major events in the Trek world. All the movies. All the series. Major plot points as well as background points and developments in characters' lives. I found myself reading it from beginning to end and periodically saying "Oh, that's what that was about" because frankly, I haven't seen a whole lot of anything but Next Gen. The opposite side of this area was a "historical museum" including artifacts and garments from the various Trek eras, such as uniforms, phasers, tricorders, and so on. This is not a small budget show.

Once a group has gathered (there was no line when we went), the ride itself begins. Okay, that's not exactly true. First, the group is led through impressively elaborate Enterprise sets with actors setting up the plot for the ride. I won't spoil it by telling you more. THEN, you enter the ride, which is another "sit in the moving chair that bumps you around while you watch an IMAX movie" but is a comparatively good one and the setup plot helps.

Vast expanses of merchandizing upon exit. I find myself suddenly owning a mechanical tribble and a Teddy of Borg bear. Overall, worth the trip off the Strip.

We talk about renting a car, and even call Enterprise, but they won't have one available for a few hours. We take yet another cab over to the MGM Grand, where Jon tells me you can get your picture taken with the most adorable lion cubs. Unfortunately, there are no cubs due to their annoying habit of growing up into lions. However, this does mean there are plenty of lions. We stare at the undersides of three of them in various states of dozing on top of the clear tube that you walk through to get to the habitat when it's open. Strangely, this amuses us for quite awhile.

More merchandizing. Happily the photo of me wearing the lion costume didn't turn out, but YIPPEE here's Jon in the lion head.

Back in the lobby, we happen by a Dollar Rent-a-Car, and rent one on the spot. Keys pocketed, we trot next door to the NYNY again and purchase tickets to the Friday Rita Rudner show, then up to the Excalibur for tickets to that night's "Tournament of Kings" dinner show since I was so vastly amused by the hokey Excalibur and Jon was determined I was going to be made happy OR ELSE! HAPPY, DAMMIT!

Somewhere in here, Jon spots someone with an M&M World bag and becomes fascinated by the concept. I point out that we're right next to it, and off we go. Four floors of M&M brand merchandizing, including a "Colorworks" area where you can buy any color of M&M in bulk. Black, ivory, magenta, aquamarine, teal... you name it. The 3rd floor is a theatre for a cute 3D movie about an M&M who loses his "M" at a roulette table and has to go on an adventure to find it. I tried a package of new caramel M&Ms, which are marvelous! I hope they make it in the market.

We happily climb into our rental car (ahhhhh, so much better), Jon drops me off at "home" before going to the gym while I relax and primp.

Our tickets are for the 8:30 seating of the Tournament of Kings. Vast dirt arena surrounded by long built-in tables on a sharply raked incline so we could see fine from the back row. Authentic Medival plastic steins of Pepsi for toasting. No utensils, of course. Dinner was a whole roast young chicken (tasted like Shake&Bake) which I happily rip limb from limb with my bare hands, and broccoli and fries that could both have used salt.

We sit in the Austria section, so that's who we get to root for in the Tournament, which is a show of jousting, hand-to-hand combat, a bit of choregraphed parade, and special effects and pyrotechnics for the wizards. They do squeak in a bit of plot to tie it together. I thought the show was very well done, with excellent stage combat especially for such a large venue. They must comb the Ren Faires of the nation for their actors and horses.

I leave the Tournament show feeling particularly mushy toward Jon for indulging my whims all day, and we decide to conclude the day with a romantic gondola ride in the Venetian. Unfortunately, we arrive as they were tying the gondolas up for the night at 10:30. Fortunately, many of the shops are still open until 11PM, and we kill a bit of time perusing an art gallery full of Snoopy paintings, of all things. Eventually, that closes too and we are left wondering what on earth to do now. We buy a bottle of chianti at a hotel shop in the Venetian ($36.50, normally sells for $11 retail), and head home. Ah, rental car is a good thing.

Back at the Frontier, I open the wine, to find the cork dried out and the wine totally skunked. Now, I do not object to paying 3 times what a bottle of wine is worth when I am silly enough to buy it in a hotel shop instead of at the liquor store down the block just because I'm lazy. However, I DO object to its having been ruined by improper storage when we pay that much for it. Honestly, what is WRONG with this town!!?!

We order an in-room movie ("Spy Game") and promptly sleep through it.

THURSDAY

We again roll out of bed late, and I request that we check out the "world's largest public wine collection" at the Rio, as an antidote for the previous night's wine experience. After breakfast, of course. So we head to the Rio buffet, which was a pleasant surprise. Huge selection of well-prepared food, really the best food I had in Vegas though that's admittedly not saying much. We sit next to a family from Montana, who are there mainly for the Trek thing but say they make a point of coming to the Rio buffet every time. Every time? Oh yes, the mom says, they've seen the Star Trek Experience 269 times. You get a certificate at 250.

Wow. And she looked so normal.

Anyway, just past noon, we find The Wine Cellar, but a note on the door says it will open at 3PM. We explore the casino and shops, even though we know there's no way we're going to kill that much time, and find a gallery featuring paintings by none other than Billy Dee Williams ... you know, Lando Calrissian from Star Wars? Yeh, him. He paints. Very well. We both really liked his work. Who knew.

Having failed in that quest, we set out to get that gondola ride we had missed the night before. We arrive shortly after 2:00 and acquire tickets for 2:45. We wander the shops and watch the "street performers" until time to get in line. I find the recreated Venice to be really beautiful and peaceful (though it smells much less than I'm told the original does), and particularly admire the "sky" painted on the ceiling far above us. In the gondola, we are not allowed to take pictures on the dock (they want to sell us the ones they take), and so we cut a deal with the couple sharing the gondola to take photos of each other during the trip up the canal. They are from England, and had been to Vegas once many years ago when it was very different. The gondolier has a good sense of humor in his spiel about the hotel and the real Venice, and he sings us something operatic in Italian that I'm sure I ought to recognize, but don't.

While we're making up the things we missed the first time, we head back to the Mirage to see the white tigers there. Jon has never actually seen the Secret Garden of Sigfried and Roy, so we make for that first, only to find upon our 3:45 arrival that it is only open 11-3:30. This strikes me as preposterous for something as heavily advertised as this thing is. At least there is one white lion in the casino hallway cage this time, fast asleep on a perch.

We make an abortive attempt at heading back to the Rio for wine, but upon getting mildly lost by overshooting the right turn, we decide it's time to go freshen up before dinner anyway since we have an early show.

Did I mention that the rental car was a really good thing?

We decide to have dinner at a little Italian restaurant whose interior I had greatly admired in the Venetian, called "Ristorante Zeffirino." It starts off well, as we are seated on the second floor with a view out the window overlooking the canal, with the songs of the gondoliers floating up from below. The staff are friendly, and I order a glass of "pinot nero" (evidently this is the Italian name for pinot noir, though I had never heard of it) which is quite pleasant. Unfortunately, that's where the quality ends. The food is ridiculously uninteresting at that price. The soup could have come straight out of a Campbell's can. My pasta deperately needs salt - or any other seasoning really - and the shrimp are overcooked and dry. Jon's entree, a chicken-wrapped-in-beef thing, tastes like what you would expect at a budget 300-person hotel banquet (Jon is less kind, marking it up as "school cafeteria"). We opt to skip dessert and head for the show. Again, I do not object to paying $100 for a meal in a nice restaurant, but I *DO* object to that quality of food for it.

Off we go to the Treasure Island for the Cirque du Soleil's "Mystere." Jon had seen it once years ago and was happy to see it again for obvious reasons. While not as creative as the astounding "O" show, it is very much up to the Cirque standard in beautiful visual arrangement, lavish costumes, and amazing feats by the performers. The show features another stage that can be raised and lowered as needed to accomodate acts and effects - something that one could not do in a touring show very easily.

The show lets out shortly after 9, so we don't feel much like hanging aroud for the 10:00 pirate show. Instead we head back to the Rio, turning at the correct place this time. I admire the wines on display, and while I am not as impressed as I expected to be with the variety (I can only assume there are some back rooms that are not obvious), they do have some very impressive verticals of premier gran cru Bordeaux the like of which I have only seen here in Boston at the Federalist's cellars. Since the room will be open until midnight, we head back upstairs to catch the 10:00 "Masquerade Parade" show in the casino, which is fun if a bit cheesy and the dancers are very white. The parade floats travel through the air on huge tracks mounted in the casino ceiling.

After the parade, we return to the cellar's tasting room, and I settle on sampling the Dow's vintage ports from '77, '85, and '94. Jon picks a flight of Napa cabs which turn out to be rather weak and disappointing. However, he likes the '77 port, and gets to try a scotch that he's never had (don't ask me what, I don't do scotch). It's a bit much for Jon's low tolerance, and I end up driving home even after we take time to sober up at the Austin Powers slot machine. You really have to ask in person about the Austin Powers slot machine. I don't think I can convey the experience properly in print.

Home. Bed. It will be an early morning tomorrow.

FRIDAY

Jon gets up before dawn to go work out. I roll out of bed around 7:00 (which now feels early), order breakfast from room service, and dress comfortably. Our tour shuttle bus picks us up promptly at 8:55AM and we are on our way to the Grand Canyon.

The tour (booked online by Looktours) leaves from a tiny airport north of the city, not the major one that we flew into on Monday night. This keeps us from hitting any traffic, but gets annoying when we are left sitting in the airport for over an hour waiting for the flight to be ready. Finally, around 11:00, we board the little 16-seater biplane. For the first half of the trip, Jon has all the good views out his south-facing window - the city as we depart, Hoover Dam, really cool side canyons. But as we near the actual Grand Canyon the good views are on my side while he gets plain flat desert. We land without having gotten a clear view of the GC itself, and I wonder if this is really going to be worthwhile.

At the Grand Canyon Village airport, we are herded onto the tour bus and taken to a buffet dinner at a low-end hotel. We're talking carrot-raisin salad and red jello. If you were raised in the south or midwest, you know exactly what I mean. Fortunately, I actually like that carrot-raisin salad. As we leave the hotel, a hawk swoops past us so low it startles me. Looking up, we see 8 hawks circling high overhead, and marvel at their apparent fondness for buffet.

Back on the bus, and we head into the National Park area to our first "overlook." The Grand Canyon does not disappoint. It is a beautifully clear day, and the sheer vastness of the Canyon as you look to the far rim gives it a lack of depth and proportion that makes it startlingly like looking at the classic photographs only life-size. Looking DOWN is another matter entirely. Definitely a sense of depth there. I am not normally afraid of heights - I'm a former MIT roof-and-tunnel hacker for heaven's sake - but I actually start getting nervous as Jon clambers blithely along the edge. We take turns with passers-by snapping photos of each other in front of the Canyon. I send some postcards from the tourist-trap store.

CLICK HERE FOR THE REST OF THE G.C. PHOTOS, of which there are many, featuring Jon and Kriss.

The second overlook we stop at is even more beautiful than the first, being less crowded and more open. Jon and I hike a bit farther along these trails, having random other hikers snap our photo again, and stopping to watch a tiny woodpecker find its dinner and then fly out over the chasm.

Jon naps on the flight back to Vegas. We arrive back at our hotel around 5:30, and change into fresh clothes for the evening.

Since the Rita Rudner performance isn't until 9:00, we eat a quick dinner at the Treasure Island Buffet (again, not very good but not bad either, lots of kid food, and I'm getting used to Vegas fare) and catch the 7PM pirate show. It's crowded enough in front of the hotel that you can't really see both sides of the battle, but it's a fun show anyway, with lots of explosions, the village burning, and the British ship sinking at the end. High energy action from the actors.

One more thing that I really want to do on our last evening in Vegas, and once again Jon indulges me. We go to the top of the model Eiffel Tower at the Paris. From the top, I can see the Mirage's volcano erupting, and just as it ends, the Bellagio's water show begins. The water show is essentially lighted fountains that change height and direction with the music. Jon didn't think he would enjoy the show from up there, but we can hear the music fine if we're quiet, and I like the aerial view of the fountains' patterns.

We decend the Eiffel Tower a bit before 8:30, which puts us right on time for the Rita show. She does a very funny set, over an hour of material, throwing in bits about Las Vegas as well as her usual standards of gender differences, aging, and relationships, all with the gentle wit that leaves you laughing harder the longer you think about it.

After the show, we head all the way up the Strip to the Stratosphere, where we find that the rides are still not running, as they have not been for days, due to "high winds." I have chalked these record-setting winds up to the freak weather systems that occur when I travel. I decide looking around the run-down dirty casino, that the Stratosphere rides are probably no great loss. The place kinda creeps me out, with its aura of prosperity gone stale, still desperately trying to be cheerful and gaudy, but failing miserably.

I decide to call it a night and we head home. Jon pops down to the casino, since ironically in all the brief blackjack sessions he's played amid our travels, the only half-decent game he's found is right in our own hotel. I don't wait up.

SATURDAY

Our final day in Las Vegas. We sleep in, since Jon had come crawling in around 4AM, and then eventually roll out and pack up the room. Suitcases in the car, we check out of the Frontier and head for Circus Circus and its indoor amusement park. As we arrive, it begins to rain.

Rain. The Circus Circus is packed with people not wanting to be in the rain. Jon convinces me to scamper across the street to the Riviera Buffet instead, to get away from all the little kids we were tripping over. I'm a little put out at getting wet, but it turns out to be a good plan. Still not particularly good food, but much quieter.

By the time we finish brunch, the rain has mercifully stopped. Lines for the Circus Circus rides are only a few minutes long, and there are a few really fun ones, including the coaster and a thing called "Chaos." There's time to ride the best ones multiple times, and then, fresh-spun cotton candy in hand, we have to be off to the airport in time to return the car and get to our late afternoon flight.

IN RETROSPECT

Overall, I would say that the trip was worthwhile just for the Cirque du Soleil shows and the Grand Canyon, but the other things were overshadowed by the hassle of getting from one attraction to another (impossible to do in an efficient or timely way), and finding things unexpectedly closed such that we either had to skip them or completely backtrack at another time. The food was generally lousy (though edible), as was the wine selection.

If you find yourself doing Vegas as a non-gambler, my advice is:

  1. Rent a car. Just do it. Parking is free and you'll spend as much on cabs if you don't.
  2. Make a list of things you want to do, from a guidebook, and call ahead to find out hours. Do not assume that Vegas is the 24/7 town it claims to be.
  3. Do not try restaurants at random. Unless you have a reliable recommendation, the buffets are unfortunately your best value.
  4. Get tickets for your must-see shows (like Cirque), and your airline tickets at the same time, so you will not be disappointed. If you go slightly off season, as we did, you will be able to fill in your other evenings with less famous shows once you arrive and have a better idea of your options. (Beware trying this during peak season, though, or you may end up at the scary drag show 3 nights).

This page updated 3/20/02.
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