Part 5 of Greg & Maria's trip to Vegas.
Saturday was a very interesting day for us in Vegas. If you remember from our post on Thursday we had been approached by some time-share demons and we sold our souls with the promise to attend a time-share presentation on Saturday morning. There was a promise of a free breakfast, so we showed up hungry at the New York, New York hotel where busses were waiting to take us to the meeting at the resort where the time-share was located, a few miles away from the strip.
When we got there, we were greeted by our personal salesman and shown up to a room where we were joined by probably 30 or so other couples. The free breakfast turned out to be a rather lackluster continental breakfast with some plastic wrapped pastries, muffins, and fruit. Not a good way to make a first impression.
I'll spare you the boring details of the rest of the presentation other than to say it was overly cheesy, and somehow we successfully said "No" enough times that they finally gave up on us, handed us our free meal and free roller coaster passes and took us back to the hotel.
At New York, New York just before lunchtime, we decided to go ahead and ride the roller coaster. It was the perfect time since neither of us had a full stomache. We eventually found the entrance to the coaster and got in line. (All these casinos are designed to be very maze-like to purposely disorient you for some reason.) In line, Maria was taking photos when one of the crew caught her and pointed to signs hanging all over the place about loose articles not being allowed on the ride. Despite her protests that she could just put the camera in her pocket, they forced her to exit the line and purchase a 50 cent locker to store it. I was laughing about it until we were on our way up the first part of the roller coaster, when I realized that in my front shirt pocket I had a cell phone, a pen, several receipts, and other random objects that fell much more in to the category of "loose items" than did Maria's camera! I also realized that my glasses could qualify as well and that the coaster was going to spin upside down several times. So I quickly removed my glasses and grabbed on to my shirt pocket and hoped that I wouldn't lose anything.
(New York, New York Hotel & Casino with Coaster track)
The coaster ride itself was relatively fun, but I quickly learned that somehow I've outgrown thrill rides like this. I've never liked mindless spinning rides, which would always get me motion sick, but I've always liked roller coasters. This time, however, the adrenaline rush didn't make up for the discomfort. It's weird because I had such a great time last summer on the Alpine coaster. But that one didn't go upside down, I guess. Anyway, I was glad that we didn't lose our entire Saturday morning at a time-share event just for coaster passes. We still had a $140 dinner coming up later that day.
(The Luxor Hotel)
In the meantime, we had to decide what we wanted to do next. We decided to drive over to the Luxor, a pyramid shaped hotel that had some Egyption/mummy attractions. When we got there, we didn't really find ourselves interested in their shows, so instead we walked across the hotel which is joined to Mandalay Bay, home of the "Shark Reef" aquarium that we'd heard good things about. It turns out the aquarium was about as far away as one could put it from the direction we came, so we ended up walking quite a bit to get to it--a common theme for most of our trip. I wasn't even all that certain I wanted to go to it, but like when I found myself walking miles to get to the Rio, I wasn't going to go all that way for nothing! So we bought tickets, put on our paper shark hats, and went inside.
(Greg, Paper Shark Hat, Audio Phone Thingie.)
The "Shark Reef" aquarium was fairly interesting. They give out these little walky-talky type things at the entrance which contain a little self-guided audio tour. At every tank was a code to type in and learn about the fish inside. The whole thing was somewhat miniscule compared to the aquarium I went to in Atlanta last fall, but it was still cool to see the various fish.
We headed back towards the Luxor afterwards. We actually found a shuttle that went between Mandalay Bay, Luxor, and Excalibur. So we got on, but found out the Luxor stop was closed, so we were forced to pass it by and go to Excalibur instead. Outside, Excalibur has a really cool castle theme, but inside, like many of the other hotels, it just looks like a large casino. There were some interesting theme stores inside, but not enough to keep us there for very long, and eventually we made our way back to the Luxor and to our car.
(Excalibur Hotel)
We went back to New York, New York where we had a 4:00 reservation for our $140 dinner at Gallagher's Steakhouse. We were a bit early, so we found a place to sit and rest while waiting for 4:00. Eventually they opened, seated us and gave us a menu. I ordered some dry-aged New York Sirloin ($38!) specialty steak they had, and Maria got the Filet Mignon ($36). We got some salads, and sides which also added another $30 or so, plus some sodas. Eventually they brought out the food, which was good, but I was disappointed that for the price, this wasn't some amazing ambrosia, but just a nice steak. In fact, I'm sure I've made much better steak at home.
We managed to eat what we could and were sad that for the price, we weren't able to take any of the food home (no fridge or cooking ability at the hotel.) After they calculated the bill they suggested we get something else since we hadn't hit the full $140 yet. We were stuffed, so we ended up buying a complimentary dessert for the couple sitting next to us. According to the voucher, the $140 did not include tip or tax, so I was still expecting to have to pay a lot even though most of the meal was free. In the end I left a $20 tip, since that was the only bill I had and the waitress didn't seem interested in giving us a bill for the tax, so in the end it was a pretty good $20 meal, but definitely not a great $140 one. I was actually surprised at how many people were in the restaurant. Beyond having a free voucher, I can't understand actually paying that amount for dinner. Maria and I had a $100 dinner once, and that was only because we misunderstood the price going in--but that's a different story. All-in-all, our morning spent at the time-share meeting did not make up for our experience with the free items they gave us in return.
After dinner, we were pretty exhausted. It was too early to turn in, but we were too tired to try and go do anything else. We decided to head towards a mall that we passed on the time-share busses that morning where we saw a movie theater. We found the theater and a really nice outdoor mall with a really cute playground which had a large hedge maze. It made me wish that our kids were with us to see it. Anyway, we went to see "Iron Man" which I'd heard good things about and we both ended up enjoying it quite a bit.
(The hedge maze in the children's playground)
After the movie, we once agained returned to the hotel to retire for the day. Hopefully to recuperate enough to pack everything up the next day before going home.
Saturday was a very interesting day for us in Vegas. If you remember from our post on Thursday we had been approached by some time-share demons and we sold our souls with the promise to attend a time-share presentation on Saturday morning. There was a promise of a free breakfast, so we showed up hungry at the New York, New York hotel where busses were waiting to take us to the meeting at the resort where the time-share was located, a few miles away from the strip.
When we got there, we were greeted by our personal salesman and shown up to a room where we were joined by probably 30 or so other couples. The free breakfast turned out to be a rather lackluster continental breakfast with some plastic wrapped pastries, muffins, and fruit. Not a good way to make a first impression.
I'll spare you the boring details of the rest of the presentation other than to say it was overly cheesy, and somehow we successfully said "No" enough times that they finally gave up on us, handed us our free meal and free roller coaster passes and took us back to the hotel.
At New York, New York just before lunchtime, we decided to go ahead and ride the roller coaster. It was the perfect time since neither of us had a full stomache. We eventually found the entrance to the coaster and got in line. (All these casinos are designed to be very maze-like to purposely disorient you for some reason.) In line, Maria was taking photos when one of the crew caught her and pointed to signs hanging all over the place about loose articles not being allowed on the ride. Despite her protests that she could just put the camera in her pocket, they forced her to exit the line and purchase a 50 cent locker to store it. I was laughing about it until we were on our way up the first part of the roller coaster, when I realized that in my front shirt pocket I had a cell phone, a pen, several receipts, and other random objects that fell much more in to the category of "loose items" than did Maria's camera! I also realized that my glasses could qualify as well and that the coaster was going to spin upside down several times. So I quickly removed my glasses and grabbed on to my shirt pocket and hoped that I wouldn't lose anything.
(New York, New York Hotel & Casino with Coaster track)
The coaster ride itself was relatively fun, but I quickly learned that somehow I've outgrown thrill rides like this. I've never liked mindless spinning rides, which would always get me motion sick, but I've always liked roller coasters. This time, however, the adrenaline rush didn't make up for the discomfort. It's weird because I had such a great time last summer on the Alpine coaster. But that one didn't go upside down, I guess. Anyway, I was glad that we didn't lose our entire Saturday morning at a time-share event just for coaster passes. We still had a $140 dinner coming up later that day.
(The Luxor Hotel)
In the meantime, we had to decide what we wanted to do next. We decided to drive over to the Luxor, a pyramid shaped hotel that had some Egyption/mummy attractions. When we got there, we didn't really find ourselves interested in their shows, so instead we walked across the hotel which is joined to Mandalay Bay, home of the "Shark Reef" aquarium that we'd heard good things about. It turns out the aquarium was about as far away as one could put it from the direction we came, so we ended up walking quite a bit to get to it--a common theme for most of our trip. I wasn't even all that certain I wanted to go to it, but like when I found myself walking miles to get to the Rio, I wasn't going to go all that way for nothing! So we bought tickets, put on our paper shark hats, and went inside.
(Greg, Paper Shark Hat, Audio Phone Thingie.)
The "Shark Reef" aquarium was fairly interesting. They give out these little walky-talky type things at the entrance which contain a little self-guided audio tour. At every tank was a code to type in and learn about the fish inside. The whole thing was somewhat miniscule compared to the aquarium I went to in Atlanta last fall, but it was still cool to see the various fish.
We headed back towards the Luxor afterwards. We actually found a shuttle that went between Mandalay Bay, Luxor, and Excalibur. So we got on, but found out the Luxor stop was closed, so we were forced to pass it by and go to Excalibur instead. Outside, Excalibur has a really cool castle theme, but inside, like many of the other hotels, it just looks like a large casino. There were some interesting theme stores inside, but not enough to keep us there for very long, and eventually we made our way back to the Luxor and to our car.
(Excalibur Hotel)
We went back to New York, New York where we had a 4:00 reservation for our $140 dinner at Gallagher's Steakhouse. We were a bit early, so we found a place to sit and rest while waiting for 4:00. Eventually they opened, seated us and gave us a menu. I ordered some dry-aged New York Sirloin ($38!) specialty steak they had, and Maria got the Filet Mignon ($36). We got some salads, and sides which also added another $30 or so, plus some sodas. Eventually they brought out the food, which was good, but I was disappointed that for the price, this wasn't some amazing ambrosia, but just a nice steak. In fact, I'm sure I've made much better steak at home.
We managed to eat what we could and were sad that for the price, we weren't able to take any of the food home (no fridge or cooking ability at the hotel.) After they calculated the bill they suggested we get something else since we hadn't hit the full $140 yet. We were stuffed, so we ended up buying a complimentary dessert for the couple sitting next to us. According to the voucher, the $140 did not include tip or tax, so I was still expecting to have to pay a lot even though most of the meal was free. In the end I left a $20 tip, since that was the only bill I had and the waitress didn't seem interested in giving us a bill for the tax, so in the end it was a pretty good $20 meal, but definitely not a great $140 one. I was actually surprised at how many people were in the restaurant. Beyond having a free voucher, I can't understand actually paying that amount for dinner. Maria and I had a $100 dinner once, and that was only because we misunderstood the price going in--but that's a different story. All-in-all, our morning spent at the time-share meeting did not make up for our experience with the free items they gave us in return.
After dinner, we were pretty exhausted. It was too early to turn in, but we were too tired to try and go do anything else. We decided to head towards a mall that we passed on the time-share busses that morning where we saw a movie theater. We found the theater and a really nice outdoor mall with a really cute playground which had a large hedge maze. It made me wish that our kids were with us to see it. Anyway, we went to see "Iron Man" which I'd heard good things about and we both ended up enjoying it quite a bit.
(The hedge maze in the children's playground)
After the movie, we once agained returned to the hotel to retire for the day. Hopefully to recuperate enough to pack everything up the next day before going home.
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