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March 7, 2009: Las Vegas Trip Day 3 |
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March 5, 2009: Las Vegas Trip Day 1 |
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Breakfast on Tropicana Avenue
As you might have read on yesterday's page, Steve found that he had misplaced his cell phone sometime after arriving in Las Vegas. He had it at the airport, and we all thought that he'd left it in his bag or in their room somewhere. I called it a number of times, but got no answer and we could not hear it ringing. On the off chance that he had dropped it in the cab, Steve tracked down the cab company, called them, and found out that, sure enough, the driver had turned it in. Since Ron and Jay had rented a car, we planned to drive by the cab company office to retrieve it sometime after breakfast.
We all met in the lobby, walked to the parking garage and piled into Ron's minivan, and we drove east of the hotel looking for a place to have breakfast. After a bit of driving, we finally came right back towards the MGM Grand and settled on Coco's restaurant right across Tropicana Avenue from the hotel. (Coco's is a chain in the Western U.S. that is something like an IHOP but with a bakery attached.)
We sat down and ordered breakfast/lunch, and Fred and I each took a picture of the group, pictures that you can see here and here.
When we were done, Ron drove Steve out to the cab office so he could get his cellphone, and we stopped by a Walgreens so Ron and Jay could get a couple of things. Then we came back to the MGM via the Rio Hotel (so we could see where the Chippendales Show would be late tonight). We parked the car and headed out onto The Strip. Our first stop was just a few doors north from the entrance to the MGM Grand- M&M World.
Visiting "M&M World"
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The second floor is truly phenomenal. From teal to light purple, the rainbow wall features 22 different M&M's colors (only colors that have actually been made and sold at some point in time are here in the store). Along with the candy itself, this floor concentrates on dispensers and T-shirts. The third floor is dedicated entirely to collector's items. One of the coolest things here was a $275 M&M's guitar. I saw Swarovski crystal and a huge assortment of M&M's "bling." There were even purses and bags made from actual M&M's wrappers.
On the fourth and final floor, there were suitcases, lunch bags, home décor items and even pet sweaters. (Of course, EVERYTHING is plastered with the M&Ms logo or the cartoon figures. This floor also houses #18, a replica of Kyle Busch's M&M's sponsored race car! As we traveled between floors by escalator, there was a timeline of how the M&M’s characters evolved throughout the years. And the walls showcased humorous movie posters as well.
So this is the place large numbers of people come to bring home some creative gifts- beachwear, games like M&M's Monopoly and dominoes, back scratchers, golf club covers, martini glasses, Frisbees, barbecue aprons... the list goes on and on. I seemed to recall that I'd seen some M&M stuff in Jay's house in Dallas, so I called Ron and got a gift idea for him- a set of M&M salt and pepper shakers. We will see if he likes them come December. All of us found things to buy, although we didn't actually come pick them up until Monday, when we made a second visit and returned to the MGM with our M&M shopping bags.
Below are some thumbnail images for the additional pictures we took here at M&M World. Just click on those thumbnails to look at the full-size pictures:
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Right next door was our next stop- Coke World.
Visiting "Coke World"
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Inside that bottle shape structure, there are two elevators.
The building has 4 floors, with the first 2 floors being the place where you buy all kinds of souvenir stuff with the Coca-Cola logo on it or related to Coca-Cola and it history. When you take the elevator to the second floor and look out through the glass wall of the building, you are indeed looking through Coca-Cola bottle glass, and so everything, including the Las Vegas Strip, looks green.
The 3rd and 4th floors used to be the Coca-Cola museum, but it was closed in March 2000. But you can still see the 100 ft. glass Coke bottle front housing the elevators (which also used to play the sounds of crackling ice and pouring soda as you rode it). The museum used to have a 30s-style soda fountain where you could sample Coke from around the world and where you could hear all about the history and production of Coke, complete with a 1920's bottling plant, and stroll through the "Time Walk" or take in the Storytelling theatre. All that is now gone. Bummer.
Of course you can buy a Coke on the first floor, and Fred caught us outside in the middle of the pause that refreshes. Then it was on up The Strip to see what we could see.
Hotel #5: The Venetian Hotel and Casino
Aerial View and Location
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In the aerial view at left, you can pick out some of the features of the hotel complex that you will see frequently in the pictures that we took of it. The most prominent feature is the artificial Venice canal system where, for a fee, you can take a ride in an exact replica of an actual Venetian gondola. All of the hotel architecture and facade work is done in the style of the city of Venice, with lots of columns, arched bridges, overhead walkways and other features. While you never quite feel that you have left Las Vegas, the overall effect is pretty good.
Description
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Within the resort, the casino at the Venetian offers more than 122 casino games. In addition to slot machines and table games, there is a state-of-the-art sports lounge and one of the largest and busiest poker rooms in Las Vegas. There is an extensive indoor retail mall called the Grand Canal Shoppes, which covers 500,000 sq.ft. And in addition to the lake in front of the casino, canals on the second floor of building, in the shopping mall, are used to provide gondola rides. The hotel also hosts the Las Vegas Madame Tussauds wax museum.
History
The resort opened on May 3, 1999 with flutter of white doves, sounding trumpets and singing gondoliers, with actress Sophia Loren joining Adelson, The Venetian's Chairman and Owner, in christening the first motorized gondola. Built at a cost of $1.5 billion, it was one of the most expensive resorts of its kind when it opened.
The Venetian has the largest art museum on The Strip (and one that rivals most city museums). On October 7, 2001, the Guggenheim Hermitage Museum opened within the resort, featuring its first collection- "Masterpieces and Master Collectors: Impressionist and Early Modern Paintings." The second collection, "Art Through the Ages: Masterpieces of Painting from Titian to Picasso," opened less than a year later. In 2003, the third exhibit, "American Pop Icons," opened, and the last exhibit, "A Century of Painting: From Renoir to Rothko," featuring paintings by Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso, van Gogh, Renoir, and others opened that same year.
On March 19, 2004, the Nevada Gaming Commission imposed an agreed-upon $1 million fine on The Venetian for rigging contests and violating state gaming regulations. The Asian high roller at the center of the case, who was also the big loser in the casino over the Chinese New Year weekend in 2002, was preselected to win a Mercedes-Benz. The original complaint said a Venetian executive who rigged the drawing with a cohort hid the winning ticket in his shirtsleeve and pretended to draw it randomly from a batch of entries before announcing the "winning" ticket," all in order to mollify the high roller.
Blue Man Group officially opened at the Blue Man Theatre in 2005 and in 2006 "Phantom - The Las Vegas Spectacular" opened at a new theatre at the Venetian. It is based on Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Phantom of the Opera," and contains music specifically written for the Venetian's show.
Our Walk Around the Venetian
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We walked across the arched bridge (which goes over one of the vehicle entrances to the resort complex) and found ourselves on a long, outdoor balcony on the second floor at the front of the hotel. (You can see this balcony in the center of the picture here. From here, we had an excellent view of the entire plaza in front of the hotel, including the gondoliers. Then we walked inside the hotel (actually the shopping plaza) and descended the escalators to the ground floor, admiring the ceiling artwork as we rode down. Then we turned and went back out to the plaza and Las Vegas Blvd.
Picture Gallery
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Hotel #6: The Bellagio Hotel and Casino
Aerial View and Location
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In the aerial view at left, you can pick out the main feature of the large complex that is the Bellagio- the lake in front of the hotel where the computer-controlled fountain and light shows go on hourly. The front of the hotel extends to the north and south of the artificial lake. The northern wing contains shops and restaurants, while the southern wing has mostly a people-mover/escalator walkway that takes visitors from Las Vegas Blvd. south of the lake right into the hotel and casino complex.
Description
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History
In 2000 it became an MGM Mirage property when Mirage Resorts merged with MGM Grand Inc. to create MGM Mirage.
Picture Gallery
The Bellagio Hotel and Casino
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I took two movies inside the Bellagio, and you can watch them below:
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This movie was taken as I entered the shopping wing of the Bellagio. It lies to the north of the lake out front where the fountains are, and arcs around to come into the main lobby to the west of the lake. I made the movie as I was walking along towards the lobby. |
This movie shows the incredible glass ceiling in the lobby area that consists of over 2000 pieces of Chihuly glass. |
The Bellagio Botanical Garden
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I thought it would be a good idea to make a movie here in the botanical garden to show you what it was like. It was an oasis amid the glitz and glamour of the hotel and The Strip. |
The Bellagio Fountains
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There seems to be an endless variety of songs and fountain shows; I don't think that in either of my trips to Vegas since the Bellagio was built, on any of the separate times I might have walked by the hotel, that I've ever seen the same show and listened to the same music twice.
The picture at left was taken from a position to the south and just above the lake- on the people mover walkway that leads to the Bellagio itself. Fred caught the fountains in mid-show, and you can see the Flamingo hotel in the background. In the one picture I took (that you can look at here) I am standing on the same walkway but nearer the street, so my view is more north (you can see Caesar's Palace in the background.)
It really takes a movie to do these fountains justice, and I've selected two of them to include here:
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Here is a movie that Fred took of part of one of the fountain shows, this one to the musical selection "Luck Be a Lady Tonight" sung by Frank Sinatra. |
This is the best movie that I took of one of the Bellagio fountain shows. This one was entirely different, and has the fountains going off in time to "My Heart Will Go On" sung by Celine Dion. |
The Cirque de Soliel Beatles "LOVE" Show at the Mirage
Hotel #7: The Mirage Hotel and Casino
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The Mirage is a 3,044 room hotel and casino resort located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada (though like most hotels on the Strip, it uses a Las Vegas mailing address). The casino is owned by MGM Mirage. It is connected by a free tram to Treasure Island. The marquee in front of The Mirage is the largest free standing marquee in the world.
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At the time it was built, the Mirage was the most expensive hotel/casino in history, with a construction cost of $630 million. The hotel's distinctive gold windows get their color from actual gold used in the tinting process. It was reported that the resort would have to bring in a million dollars a day to pay off a 7-year construction loan. But in fact The Mirage did so well, the loan was paid off in just 18 months.
Its construction is also considered very noteworthy in that Wynn had set a new standard for Vegas resorts, and is widely considered to be the father of today's Las Vegas. Prior to the Mirage's opening, the city was experiencing a decline in tourism that began in the 70s, especially around the time the state of New Jersey legalized gambling and tourists (in particular those on the East Coast) began to frequent the casinos of Atlantic City. Also, this was a time when Las Vegas was no longer considered a fashionable destination, so a new, high-profile, project was necessary to jump-start the ailing industry. When it opened, The Mirage was the first casino to use security cameras full time on all table games.
From 1990 through 2003, the Mirage was the venue for the Siegfried & Roy show. The two headliners combined magic and the use of wild animals. The closing of the popular attraction in 2003, after Roy Horn was injured by one of the white tigers used in the show, impacted the Mirage for a while. In 1993, the Mirage hosted an extended run of the Cirque du Soleil show "Nouvelle Experience" in a tent in the Mirage parking lot. It was during this time that Steve Wynn decided to invite Cirque to create "Mystere" for the soon-to-be-built Treasure Island resort next door. Finally returning to where they began in Las Vegas, Cirque has a permanent production at the Mirage, LOVE- a show about The Beatles and featuring their music.
We didn't take many pictures of The Mirage- in fact, just two. If you would like to have a look at them there is one that we took of the entire Mirage Hotel from across the street at the Venetian, and you can see that picture here and there is one of the marquee advertising the Beatles Cirque Show (click here); this sign is supposedly the largest free-standing marquee in the world.
The Cirque de Soliel Beatles "LOVE" Show
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If you have never seen a Cirque production, you should definitely do so whenever you have the opportunity. There are six permanent shows in Las Vegas, and another ten or so touring companies. If one comes to a venue near you, don't miss it. You can also rent many of the shows on DVD; while watching the show on television is not a substitute for attending, you will at least know that you will have a floorside seat, and get the best camera angles capturing the best of the performance.
Cameras and video recording were not allowed in the show, and it was not the kind of venue where I might have surreptitiously gone ahead and made some videos. So, unfortunately, I have none to post here. But the show was tremendous, and our seats right next to the stage-in-the-round were excellent.
After the show, the crowds were too thick for us to stop in the gift shop, which a few of our party wanted to do, so we came back the next night when we came to watch the volcano show (see below). In the gift shop I took a picture of a piece of original artwork that was on sale for a large sum, and I also took some pictures in the corridor that leads from the lobby/gaming floor of the Mirage into the theatre where the show is put on.
When you enter the corridor, you are walking on a lucite floor that changes colors in sync with the bas relief on the wall at the end of the corridor. Here is a picture of the corridor taken from a point just a few feet down the hall from the hotel lobby. And from just in front of the bas relief silhouette of the Beatles, here is a view looking towards the hotel lobby.
As I said, I couldn't take any movies in the show itself, but I did take one when we came back the next night:
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When we came back to the gift shop the next night after the show, I did make a movie of the corridor that leads to the venue, so you could see the pretty changing colors that work their way down the wall and then along the floor of the corridor. |
The Volcano Show at the Mirage
Not to be outdone, the Mirage built a small South Seas island in its lagoon which, during the day, looks like a lush, tropical island with numerous waterfalls. At night, it is lit up and is even nicer. People walking by on Las Vegas Blvd. will stop and just admire the fountains and waterfalls, and I guess the idea is that if you can get some of those folks to come into your hotel, then it is all worth it.
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At night, though, is when this attraction really shows its stuff, and we hung around after visiting the "LOVE" Store to watch it from the balcony in front of the hotel. I believe the show is hourly until perhaps one or two in the morning, and we were able to catch the whole thing. I hope you'll watch the two movies below to see what I'm talking about:
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This movie will show you what the "tropical island" out in front of the Mirage looks like for most of each hour at night. the waterfalls are calm, the music is softly playing, and lots of people just stop to watch. |
But once an hour, the "volcano" on this idyllic island erupts, and the entire island comes alive with fountains of fire and lava pouring down the sides of the island into the water. This movie is a few minutes long, but you can see the whole show. |
After we watched the show, we got into the car to head over to the Rio Hotel and the Chippendales Show.
The Chippendales Show at the Rio
Hotel #8: The Rio Hotel and Casino
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The Rio was the first all suite casino in the Las Vegas area. It was named after the city of Rio de Janeiro, and has Brazilian culture as a main theme. The hotel towers are covered in the signature purple and red glass. The Rio hotel's 2,563 suites range in size from 600 to 13,000 sq.ft. and have floor to ceiling windows.
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Opened on January 15, 1990 as a locals casino; the opening acts were the Brazilian Group Sérgio Mendes '99 and Henrietta Alves of New Orleans, bringing the first two-piano act to Las Vegas, with various co-performers. A 20-story expansion tower was added to the current Ipanema Tower in 1993, and Danny Gans opened as the headliner in 1996.
Masquerade Village, a hotel tower and casino expansion including the Masquerade Show in the Sky, opened in 1997, at a cost of over $200 million. The Rio was purchased by Harrah's Entertainment in 1999 for $888 million. The Rio's Samba Theatre was the host venue of the 30th Anniversary Special for the hit CBS game show The Price Is Right, and the Rio hosted the World Series of Poker in 2005, the first time this event was not held at Binion's. Binion's was used for the final three tables and the last two days of the competition as part of the celebration of Las Vegas' centennial. In 2008, the final two days were held in the Penn and Teller Theatre for the first time.
The Carnival World Buffet has been a signature attraction since the casino opened. It was the first buffet in Las Vegas to have multiple live cooking stations and theme sections on the buffet line. The Carnival World Buffet is credited with taking Las Vegas buffets to a new level in quality and price. The Carnival World Buffet was so successful that when the Masquerade Village opened it included a higher end seafood buffet, Village Seafood Buffet. Masquerade Village is a section of the casino that includes Masquerade Show in the Sky. The show is a free show that features dance and style from Brazilian Carnival, and Mardi Gras type floats. The show has a stage with a dance and singing show while floats on guide rails hang from the ceiling and go throughout the Masquerade Village. Performers on the floats toss Rio-themed plastic bead necklaces to the show's audience.
We took only a few pictures while at the Rio, and you can click on the thumbnail images below to have a look at them:
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The Chippendales Show
We had some supper in the casino before the show, and afterwards we just rode back to the MGM. Fred and I went out for a bit to take some pictures that are included elsewhere in this album.
You can use the links below to continue to another album page.
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March 7, 2009: Las Vegas Trip Day 3 |
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March 5, 2009: Las Vegas Trip Day 1 |
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Return to the Index for Our Las Vegas Trip |
