"Las Vegas" a Las Vegas Travel Page by coopergirl2003

Viva Las Vegas dobedoodo etc (mock Elvis singing voice!)

We started our grand American adventure in Vegas in November 2006. After a long flight with an extremely hectic changeover at Chicago we arrived at our hotel, TI, set down our bags and went out. TI is mid strip and having been to Vegas once before (December 2000) meant that we were immediately orientated to our surroundings.

We stayed for 3 nights and managed to fit in shopping, shopping, more shopping and plenty of eating and drinking! Gone went the plans to eat at the top of the stratosphere and the helicopter tour of the strip...in came the Bellagio lunch buffet, an impromptu makeover at Macy's and a little bit of sun worshipping as we strolled from hotel to hotel.

We found the best shops were in the Aladdin hotel, the nicest most laid back bar was actually at our TI hotel, although the I-BAR ar Rio was really nice as was the piano bar at the Bellagio! Oh, so much choice!!

Food was good wherever we went. I'm a veggie and last time we came to Vegas we spent most of the time trying to find decent veggie food, but with the introduction of all the celebrity restaurants, it seems that most other eatieries have picked up the pace a little. In fact, our quick meal on the first night at Planet Hollywood was delicious!

I wasn't surprised to see CSI merchandise everywhere, even at the airport but didn't see any filming!!!

Having been to Vegas once before I expected to see the same hotels, the same beggars on the streets and didn't expect much of the food (Vegas came as part of a bigger holiday package, hence the return trip), but it seems to have really cleaned up it's act. I didn't see any beggars on the strip, the guys pushing strip cards into your hands were few and far between and as I said before, the restaurants were 100% better.

We were lucky in that we had almost $2 to every £1 so money wasn't an object (it was when we last visited as I was a student) so shopping really was high on the agenda!

We also spent time at Rio watching Penn and Teller show which was really good fun - I sat next to a guy who had seen the show several times before and still laughed his socks off!