Viva Las Vegas - Day 3

Ladies and Gentleman - this is about the 4th attempt to right this post.  I kid you not!  For some reason, when I am almost done and I start typing the last paragraph, Blogger erases everything I typed (kind of like a backspace) and despite the fact that I had been saving periodically, NONE of it was saved - so frustrating and aggravating. 

This time, I decided to write it all up in MS Word so if it disappears, yet again! At least I will have it saved somewhere else so I can just copy and paste.

Our 3^rd vacation day in Las Vegas was actually our 2^nd actual day there, since Mother Nature decided to sprinkle some snow on the ground and delay our trip a little.

Since we have been to Las Vegas a few times and almost consider it a home-away-from-home, we have a few traditions, one of which is to eat breakfast in Paris on our first full day there.  

As you can imagine, Paris has a lot of amazing restaurants, but we always like to go to a small, less crowded pastry shop, Café Bell Madeline.  We got a chocolate croissant and a cheese Danish, split and shared them. What a delicious way to start the day.

The last time we were in Paris, my friend had a lot of luck with the nickel machines, so we decided to play in the casino for a while.  However, neither of us ended up having much luck (and sadly, we couldn’t find any nickel machines anymore).

After a while, we decided to head over to the Bellagio.  We think the Bellagio is one of the most beautiful in Las Vegas.  Of course, no trip is complete without watching the synchronized fountains. 

Once inside, we must always visit the beautiful lobby, which has a ceiling full of Dale Chihuly blown glass art.  It is so incredible to see this in person. Pictures just do not do it justice.

We then headed to the conservatory, a must see! Each season, it is decorated with a new theme.  This visit, it was decorated for Chinese New Year – the Year of the Pig. I can only imagine how much time and planning goes into this.

Caesar’s Palace is connected to the Bellagio by a bridge, so we walked over to Caesar’s next. I always like to get my photo take with The David.  Caesar’s Palace is beautiful and HUGE.  Sometimes I think I would like to stay here for one night, but it is so big and the Flamingo is just the right size for me!

We shopped in stores that were WAY out of our price range…Tiffany’s, Coach, Prada, Gucci, you get the idea…hey, girls can dream, right? 

After a big of shopping, we went to The Palm Restaurant.  Since we knew this would be our last trip together to Las Vegas, we decided to splurge a little…but not too much. We chose lunch because it was a little cheaper, fit our schedule better and wouldn’t be too crowded. 

We asked to be seated in booth #88 and from the painting on the wall, I am sure you can understand why.

My friend got the Caesar salad, Lobster Bisque and a steak.  I got the Soup de Jour, which was Asparagus & Spinach Soup and a steak.  We chose steak since they are kind of known for that.  I chose the soup de jour since I have never had it before.  We both agreed that the Lobster Bisque was the best we had ever had…EVER! We also loved the Asparagus and Spinach soup and if I had only ordered that, it would have been enough – it was that good.  We both enjoyed the steak but agreed it wasn’t the best we had ever had (a little tough). 

We walked off our lunch by walking around Caesar’s and around the strip a little more.  We then decided to head back to the Flamingo to rest a little bit before the show that evening.

Also, just so you know...if you want to get the best view of the Flamingo Hotel with the Donny & Marie wrap, the best place to take the photo is from the front steps of Caesar's Palace.

Once back, we decided to visit the Flamingo Habitat.

Bugsy’s Memorial can also be found here.

We played the slots a bit (and I did fairly well) and we went to the room to change and get ready for the Donny & Marie show. I decided to wear a Peacock print shirt to show Donny that I knew the "Masked Singer" was him (remember, this was a week before it was revealed to be him).  No meet and greet but we did meet up with some new friends that we met at the show the night before.

We had great seats again – same as the night before but on the other side of the catwalk and next to Marie’s “favorite fan” as she jokingly discusses in her show.  

The highlight of the show and the entire trip actually – was while singing “It’s a Beautiful Life”, Marie noticed my friend singing along and she came up to her and gave her the microphone!!! So she got to sing with Donny & Marie!!  That was SO EXCITING!! I had never Marie do that before and she picked my friend out of everyone there!  It was AMAZING!!

Also, we found out that Sanjeev Bhaskar was at the show that night too - pretty cool!!

We decided to check out “The Linq” which is a new area since we were last in Las Vegas.  It is a promenade full of shops, eateries and entertainment, including the high roller (which we chose not to ride due to the cost and wait time).  We at a hot dog (since we were just a tiny bit hungry) and we shopped in several stores.  Before we knew it, it was about 2 am and we headed back in and eventually up to our rooms for some much-needed rest.

Viva Las Vegas - Day 2

Thank goodness that the snow in Las Vegas melted very quickly and thank goodness that we were able to get on a flight the next day.

We met a really sweet couple from North Carolina when we were waiting for the flight and we ended up running into them several times in Las Vegas (even though they were staying at the Venetian and we were staying at the Flamingo.

After arriving at the Las Vegas airport, Lynn & I used Uber for the first time (I've ridden with others who ordered an Uber but I have never done it myself). We then arrived at the beautiful Flamingo hotel.

As usual, the check in line was long, so we took advantage of the little kiosk and got our key right away.  We made our way up to room 14096 where we had a great view of the Las Vegas Strip.

Then, as we always do (because it is tradition) - we head down to Margaritaville for a delicious strawberry margarita....but....when we got there, it was "National Margarita Day" and frozen lime margaritas were $5, where as a frozen strawberry margarita (we were told) was $13 so we chose the lime one instead.  We waited a short time and then shared an order of nachos.  This has been our tradition and it wouldn't feel like being in Las Vegas unless we did this!

We played a little in the casino (when in Vegas, you have to play the slot machines a little, right?) then we headed up to our room to get ready for the Donny & Marie show.

We had the BEST seats in the house (at least we consider them the best seats in the house) - I was literally touching the stage and during the show I slapped Donny's hand a few times.

Also, one of the attendees at the show was none other than Michael Lloyd, the famous record producer, who produced many Osmond records, including Crazy Horses!!

(Note: you are not allowed to take photos during the show so I have no show photos).

After the show, we went to the meet and greet and got to talk to Donny and Marie and have our photo taken with them.  We of course LOVE Donny!!  But we really enjoy talking to Marie so much during the meet and greet.  Donny is so swamped and unfortunately I didn't get as much time to talk to him as I would have liked, although we did mention that would couldn't wait to see him revealed as the "Peacock" on the "Masked Singer" the next week (he hadn't been revealed yet) - he said "Nah, that is Neil Patrick Harris" - I replied..."I have been a fan of yours for 50 years...I KNOW it is you" and he just kind of smiled and winked.

Marie, as always, was very chatty with us and told us that she planned to stay in Las Vegas if their show does end at the end of this year (they are still in talks with Caeser's to determine that) because her daughter is still in school so she'll stay there until school finishes before she sells her house.  She is so nice and so friendly and you just feel like you are talking to someone that you've known your entire life.

After the show, we went to the casino a little bit more and then up to the room.  It was about 2 am our time but we didn't even feel very tired but we knew we had a day planned for the next day so we decided to turn in for the evening with dreams of Donny dancing in our head.

Viva Las Vegas - Day 1

I love Las Vegas and I never, never, ever in my life would have thought I would be a "Las Vegas" kind of girl...mainly because I am not a gambler.  But this was my 4th trip and it is starting to feel like a 2nd home.

I wasn't sure I'd get to make this trip but luckily my friend and I were able to make it happen.  I've always gone to Las Vegas with the same friend and we always go for one main purpose...to see Donny & Marie!

We didn't think Donny & Marie would be performing this year but luckily they added another year to their contract and so we got to go again - whoo hoo!!

However, on the day were were scheduled to fly out - guess what?  It SNOWED!! Yes, snowed in Las Vegas, Nevada.  They are not equipped to handle snow at the airport so ... yep, our flight was cancelled.

It snows like every 30 years or so in Las Vegas and of course we picked the one day that Mother Nature decided it was time to snow there.

Thank goodness my friend had the good sense to get to the airport super early (like about 5 hours before our flight).  Since we were there early, we were able to get on a flight the next day.  If we had been one of the later people checking in, we wouldn't have gotten on a flight until Saturday and arrived until after 6 pm Saturday, thereby missing all the shows we had tickets for.

Luckily, thank the Lord, we got a flight for the next day...so...our first day in Las Vegas was spent in my house back in Georgia.  We were very unhappy and mopey.  We put on our PJs and sat in the house looking like the kids in the Cat in the Hat.

So  . . . while we were very disappointed, we believe things happen the way they should and we did end up getting a refund for our show tickets (since we were smart and spent the extra $25 for the ticket insurance. 

At least we knew we were going to be flying out the next day since snow doesn't stick around long in Las Vegas.