Our Trip to Las Vegas- Day 1

On Sunday morning, 2/6/11, Veronica and I had to get up really early to catch our 6AM departure flight out of Newport News, VA.
We were up by 3AM and heading off to catch our flight. We flew from Newport News into Atlanta, where we had an hour or so delay until our next flight.
The flight from Atlanta to Las Vegas was a long one...over 4 hours. We ended up landing in Las Vegas around 11:30AM their time.
We took a quick taxi ride from the airport to the Monte Carlo Hotel. For the money that we paid, our hotel room was pretty nice. We paid an average of about $35 a night for our room and we also received a coupon booklet that contained some discount coupons and several 2 for 1 offers too.
 Here are some photos of our room on the 14th floor of the Monte Carlo hotel.




That night we arrived in Vegas, was the night that the Super Bowl was playing. Needless to say, the bars were very crowded and most were rather loud. There was quite a bit of craziness going on due to the game.
We found a bar in the hotel area that was packed with people and this particular bar/restaurant were selling "front row" couch seating and all you could eat food during the game for $250.00 per person.


Veronica and I walked around quite a bit after checking into our hotel room. We went to the new hotels and upscale mall that had recently been built...the Aria and Vdara hotels along with Crystals Mall.

Here are some photos of those areas:



They had a partial tram system set up between certain hotels on one side of the "strip" and a longer monorail system setup on the other side of the strip. We made use of both systems quite a number of times.
Here are some photos from inside of the mall called Crystals, which is in the new City Center






Veronica and I found the food in the hotels and immediate "Strip" area to be very expensive. Even the offerings in the Food Court area was much more expensive than the same offerings here at home. We had one coupon for a 2 for 1 dinner at the Monte Carlo buffet. Regularly the dinner buffet at the Monte Carlo is around $29.99 per person but with our coupon, we were able to eat for about $15 a piece, which was reasonable compared to other food prices. They do have numerous food bargains but they are usually at "off strip" locations and by the time you figure in the cost of a taxi cab to the location and back to the hotel again, the price isn't such a bargain any more. 
If a person wanted to rent a vehicle for a week or so, you can go wherever you want and you could park it in the hotel parking lot using the valet parking and not pay anything extra. It is included in the "resort fee" that the hotels charge.  
 Veronica and I did a ton of walking every day. The hotels and signs are so huge, that they make it appear that the hotels are closer than they actually are. We must have walked about 10 miles each day that we were in Vegas.
Here are several more general photos of the Vegas strip and surrounding areas.












Tomorrow we start walking the strip going into each hotel. We will start on one side of Las Vegas Blvd and once we are done, we will start on the other side. We planned on going as far as the New York New York hotel to the Fashion Mall on the one side and from the MGM to the Wynn on the other side. We also took the monorail to the end of the route and went to the Stratospere which was just beyond the Sahara. In each hotel that we went into, we would check out the stores that were in there and put $1 into one slot machine that was in the casino. More of our adventure tomorrow.


Just Got Back From Vegas

Last night Veronica and I returned from our adventures in Las Vegas. Overall we had a great time and I will be making blog entries about our journeys in Sin City as the days go by. I took lots of photos to share with you too.
When we left here, we went to Williamsburg for a 2 night stay at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at 6945 Pocahontas Trail, Williamsburg, VA 23185.
We were offered a 2 night complimentary stay at this hotel due to some issues that were previously reported in an earlier written blog entry.
Our stay this time was really nice. The front desk managers, Sam and Leslie, were really friendly and helpful.
Sam even offered us both a complimentary breakfast coupon.
During our stay, we found the staff to be very friendly and helpful, the room to be spacious and well maintained and the breakfast to be very good.
Our room was in the "Quiet Zone"...a hallway of rooms that were in an area that was kid free, alarm clock free and specially designated for those who wanted an additional amount of noise free sleeping.
They even had a wake up call guarantee in this area...if they did not give you a wake up call at the time you requested, your stay in the room was free. They even had a door and a sign letting you know that you were entering a special quiet area of the hotel.
Our stay was completely opposite compared to what we had encountered during our previous visit.
During our visit, this hotel lived up to the high levels expected from hotel displaying  the Crowne Plaza  brand logo.
A special "thank you" to everyone involved in making our stay a very enjoyable and positive experience.
Below are photos of our room in the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Williamsburg, VA




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