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.