We left St. George quite early and took the highway straight to Las Vegas. After being in nature for more than a week we really looked forward to be back in a city again. We planned three days of fun, gambling and shopping and we hoped it would be warmer than the past few days.

After about 2 hours of driving we saw a very large city in the valley. We passed some factories and followed the signs to downtown Las Vegas. It all didn't look exactly like we had expected. We saw some hotels and casino's but it was all a bit old.

When we reached Las Vegas Boulevard, I realized we didn't have a map of Las Vegas, so Corine asked a Police officer (who was busy arresting someone) the way to Flamingo road where our hotel (Quality Inn) was located. He told her we were a bit lost, and we should drive about 8 miles further down the road.

We didn't know that Las Vegas is so large. Las Vegas Boulevard is also known as "The Strip" and is the main street of Las Vegas.
After a few miles driving, the hotels were getting bigger, newer and it started to look like I always expected.

Our hotel was located 2 blocks behind The Strip and wasn't as fancy as the bigger hotels on The Strip, but was also less expensive.
Our room wasn't ready yet so we decided to visit the big hotels on the Strip. Three days of fun could begin.

The free hotel shuttle took us to the hotels and we couldn't believe what we saw. The hotels were all so big and special. It was like it wasn't real. Hotel New York was really fantastic and was located at a crossing with other big hotels and they all were connected.
Every hotel has a gimmick of it's own, for example: Hotel New York has a roller coaster going around the hotel. The big towers from hotel New York were all hotel rooms and downstairs there was a very large casino. We really enjoyed the sound of money that was coming out of the slot machines. We decided to gamble ourselves and we played with 5 cents. (We're from Holland remember!)

So that day we did nothing but visit the hotels and enjoy this marvelous city.
Restaurants are mainly located inside of the hotels and are very cheap. Most buffets are between $7 and $12. We tried several buffets, and I liked the one at Harrahs' most.

Las Vegas is, of course, mostly famous because all the lights at night. Well, I have to note that theme hotels that are all lighted at night replace a lot of hotels with lights. That is also great to see, but to view the most special lights you have to got to the other side of The Strip to Fremont Street, which is famous because of the neon cowboy.

Fremont Street is just great. The casinos are not as fancy as the ones in the hotels, but this is the old Las Vegas.
Every hour there is a light show with a different theme every time.

We enjoyed all three days in Las Vegas, just visiting hotels, gambling and shopping. There are a lot of shops in Las Vegas. Every hotel has dozens of shops, but we really enjoyed the Forum Shops at Ceasar Palace most. We had never seen anything like it before. It is a very large indoor mall with dozens of famous shops in Roman style, like Nike World, Gucci, FAO Schwarz, Versace, Christian Dior, etc, etc. They are all connected by big squares which have shows every hour.

I bought myself a denim cartoon shirt at the Warner Bros store and Linda looked for a Disney shirt in the Disney store. After a few hours of shopping we were very tired and we decided to walk back to the hotel.

I still can't believe what we saw in Las Vegas, hotels in the shape of a castle, a circus and a pyramid, pirate battles, light shows and roller coasters in hotels. I wouldn't believe it if I didn't see it myself.

One night we walked to hotel Treasure Island. That hotel has two big battle ships in front and every hour at night there is a pirate battle between the two ships with gun shooting and lots of stunts. At the end one of the boats actually sinks.

In the photo above you can see some of the hotels are located near the airport. They are still building new hotels that are bigger than everything you see above.

Although staying in a hotel on The Strip must be fantastic we didn't regret staying in a cheaper hotel a few blocks from the fun because we only slept in the hotel. We spent all day, every day, on The Strip.
I think Las Vegas was one of the highlights of our trip. Of course it can't compete with Bryce Canyon or the Grand Canyon, but it was so nice to stay in this city of pleasure, enjoying all these decadent things we don't have in Holland. So if you do a trip similar to ours, stay a few days in Las Vegas and enjoy the fun.

  Previous day | Next day