I booked us a room at the Palazzo, which is attached to the Venetian. I loved our room! (Thanks to Sarah's sister for sending us an email with room specials there!) They're all suites, so we had a huge king bed, a big living room, and a huge window overlooking the strip. We looked right down on Treasure Island so we got to see the pirate show from our room every evening - kind of fun!
I got as far as booking our hotel and tickets to see a Cirque du Soleil show in advance, but beyond that we just ran out of time to research and plan. Turns out, you need lots of planning and probably reservations any place you want to eat - even lunch. Now we know. We got in around 5pm on Friday, checked into our hotel, and got changed for dinner. My sister recommended the sushi restaurant, Sushi Samba, in our hotel, so we were able to make a reservation there. We loved it! Our waitress was great and we did a 7-course tasting menu prepared by the chef based on things we liked and didn't like. Everything was delicious! Jeremy tried to take pictures of each course (and almost succeeded)...
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| We started with edamame, a mojito and a Chu-Cumber (shochu, St. Germain, and cucumber) |
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| Left: Berkshire Pork Gyoza (dumplings) with pumpkin puree; Right: crispy taquitos with spicy aji panca sauce |
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| Left: Robata filet mingon; Right: sea bass skewers with Peruvian corn |
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| Jeremy couldn't catch the food on this one! It was 2 sushi rolls and they were delicious. |
After dinner we took a cab toward the opposite end of the strip near Planet Hollywood, wandered around, people watched and walked back to our hotel. We went to bed early for Vegas standards, but with the time difference we were just exhausted!
Saturday we slept in (because what can you do in Vegas before 10am anyway?) and headed out to check out some casinos and get some lunch. Unfortunately by the time we were really hungry every single place we checked had a long, long wait or required reservations. I was getting slightly fussy, but luckily we poked our heads in the Cosmopolitan casino and found the restaurant The Henry able to seat us right away! It wasn't the best food ever but it was very acceptable (we both got chicken salad sandwiches with truffle tater tots!), especially with no wait. Once we regained our strength we walked next door to the Bellagio to see the water show.
We went next door to Caesar's Palace, and walked through the shops. Of course I made Jeremy take his picture with the fountain in the lobby. It was kind of cool to see places where The Hangover was filmed.
I didn't do much shopping - just got some Fresh Sugar lip balm! - but we couldn't get over the number of high-end stores in Vegas. We saw at least 5 Louis Vuitton stores. Probably 10 Coach stores, including a store just for men! Why would you need so many?? We also saw Pete Rose signing autographs at a sports memorabilia store. After shopping we did maybe my favorite thing the whole weekend...
Maybe we couldn't be in New York, but we still were able to visit Serendipity III and try a frozen hot chocolate!! The wait was outrageous to sit down, but nicely enough they have a to-go window where you can get a few treats and drinks without the wait. It was delicious, and we had a nice break sitting outside people-watching.
For dinner we had our concierge make reservations for us at an Italian place in New York New York. It was nothing special to speak of, but it was decent and we didn't have to wait. We had a nice, relaxing dinner and then we were off to see Ka, the Cirque show at the MGM Grand. I do wish we had time to ride the roller coaster in New York New York - that and checking out the Cosmopolitan a bit more are the only things we didn't do that I wished we had. We stopped for a cocktail at Sushi Samba afterwards and there was a guy sitting at the bar, eating and talking to another girl. He looked so familiar - we were convinced he was on the Disney Channel, Jeremy thought he might be Mitchell Musso from Hannah Montana. Here's a sneaky picture Jeremy took (not that you can see his face)...
Jeremy has no qualms about stopping famous people to ask, so as we left we asked if he was on the Disney Channel and he very politely said no, but he gets mistaken often for a Disney star. He asked if we ever watched Million Dollar Listing on Bravo and it clicked - it was Chad Rogers! He was very nice, especially since we thought he was on Hannah Montana. The funny thing is Jeremy and I both watched and liked Million Dollar Listing. Whoops.
Sunday morning we had the sense to make lunch reservations so we wouldn't have to wander around starving. We grabbed a quick lunch at First Food & Bar in our hotel. The food was actually pretty good, but the music was so loud! We sound so old. But it was very, very loud. Obviously it's more of a place to grab brunch after you've been up all night, versus a quick and easy lunch before you're about to sight see. I got the lemon poppy seed pancakes with mascarpone cheese on top, and Jeremy got sliders and onion rings. Mine was delicious, and I think it was a winning recipe on Top Chef a few years back.
We walked around the strip a little more, did a little people watching, and then we decided instead of a fancy dinner we'd like to see another show. We specifically wanted to see O, the Cirque show at the Bellagio performed in water. We went to a discount ticket store to see what they had and unfortunately they didn't have any tickets to O, but they recommended La Reve at the Wynn if we wanted to see a water show. I am a Cirque snob, so I wasn't sure about this one, but we didn't have any other choices that worked so we bought the discounted tickets. I am so glad we saw this show, and the Wynn was beautiful (and smelled less smoky than some other casinos!). I loved walking through to pick up our tickets.
Aren't these flower arrangements gorgeous? I thought it was even prettier than the Bellagio! We picked up our tickets then went back next door to our hotel to start packing since we had an early flight out Monday morning. And you won't believe what we did - we watched the Oscars and got room service for dinner! Pretty non-Vegas-y, but we still spent quality time together and I was happy it didn't involve sitting in smoke for hours on end. We packed and got ready for the show and headed back to the Wynn. La Reve was amazing. Absolutely amazing. If you have a chance, please go see it! The theater is circular, and the "stage" is a round pool in the center. The seats encircle the stage and go up, so you're looking down at the stage. They say the best seats are the highest - you can see more - ours were right in the middle and they were great! They had synchronized swimmers, tumblers, people diving and jumping from high above the pool. It was just amazing. I am so, so glad we went to see it and it was the perfect ending to our trip!
We left our hotel early early Monday morning and made our 8am flight home with no problems. We were home by 1pm, so we had plenty of time to start laundry and get the house organized before picking up Sawyer from school and Dixie from the kennel. We were so excited to see Sawyer!
Our trip was wonderful - we haven't spent that much time alone, together, not working or doing anything else, in a long, long time. It was so much fun - I had the best time with Jeremy, and I am so glad we were able to take that trip! I'm glad we saw Vegas, though I'm not sure I need to go back. It was so, so much fun though!
The only pictures we got of the two of us (since we opted for iPhones only this trip and didn't lug along our huge DSLR!):
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