Ok, since I didn’t do a good job of updating everyone during the trip I’m going to include what I wrote for my day 1 post with this and then add to it. So if you read the first post already you can skip the first half and pick up there.
So day 1 I ot out of bed at 3:30AM MST to head to the airport, unlike last time, check-in, security and all that fun stuff was extremely quick, last trip lines for each were 25-30 minutes long and we almost ended up missing our flight, this time lines were less then 5 minutes long each. So we ended up at the gate an hour and a half before the flight.
After the hour and a half wait we were on the plane and ready to go, I was pumped to get in the air and on our way, we started backing away from the gate and then quickly stopped and the captain said “Sorry guys, It looks like our re-fuelers have short fueled us, we have called them in to top us off, we should be off shortly”.
Finally about 20 minutes later we got off the ground and on our way. We landed in Las Vegas at about 8:45AM local time. We were sitting in the first row so we were quickly off the plane and on the way to pick up our luggage. My golf clubs were perfectly fine, which I was kind of worried about.
We were quickly off with our luggage and to the hotel, it didn’t take long at all to get there. When we walked into Bally’s they weren’t letting anyone check in but about 8-10 people were in line already waiting, I made the decision (yes I’ll admit it) that we should just go eat and come back later, “the line probably wont be very long at all” I think was my exact quote, so we headed off to eat.
We went and ate at the Sidewalk Cafe for something cheap, quick and close by. It was a decent meal and I will have a review of the place coming up soon.
After breakfast we headed back to check in, and that line that was 8-10 people, was now about 75. Everyone was very impressed with my decision but we stood in line anyways, it took about half an hour to work our way to the front desk and get checked in.
When checking in I got a lady that didn’t seem too excited to be there, I tried asking for a free room upgrade, no go, a fridge delivered to my room? “$10 sir”, no thanks. Oh well. So I checked in, the good part is it took about 1 minute from the time I handed her my CC and ID to her handing me my room keys. So it’s finally time to head to my room.
The fact I stayed in the Augustus Tower for my first trip to Vegas may have up’ed my standards for hotel rooms but I’m not a big fan of the South Tower Room at Bally’s I got, It’s defiantly nothing special. I took a million pictures and will get working on my review of the room when possible.
Once I got done taking pictures, checking my e-mail I took a nap and got ready to slowly head to Mandalay to see Joe Rogan at The House of Blues. We decided to slowly make our way there by taking the monorail from Bally’s to MGM then going to the Excalibur and taking the tram/monorail (i dunno, i forget what they call that one) to Mandalay Bay.
Our first trip we ended up skipping over the MGM some how so I had not been in there at all yet. We didn’t really hang around for very long but we slowly walked through the casino, checked out the tigers and then head on our way. It is defiantly a cool place though, the casino floor seemed huge and it does give off a highroller kind of vibe when you walk around, it was also probably the busiest casino we went through on the whole trip. The casino floor was packed. We left MGM and crossed the street to the Tropicana but skipped right by there and headed to the Excalibur.
We stopped in the Excalibur last trip and I thought it was a pretty cool place, its a cool theme, not too busy, normal people and just a fun place, I wouldn’t mind staying there one time. Anyways, we hung out there for about an hour, I played a little slots, video poker, blackjack, and won absolutely nothing. I think I ended up down about $80 after an hour. By that time it was about time to get going to Mandalay.
The Joe Rogan show was at The House of Blues which seems to be a popular spot for anything UFC related, that is also where they had the after party for the fight the next night. It’s a very cool place, in the back they have a big stage and 2 level seating, the bar below and “stadium seating” as I like to call it above. You could probably fit about 1,000 people in there which is a nice size place for a show like Joe Rogan.
The show was awesome, all three comics were awesome. Joey Diaz opened up the show and hosted it. Up second was Ari Shaffir. He was really funny I wasn’t expecting the two opening acts to be so good but Joe defiantly had the pressure on coming on last because his first two comics were so good but Joe didn’t disappoint he was awesome, he probably did about an hour and 15 minutes of material then started to let everyone shout out a topic. After that all 3 of them got in stage and told a few more jokes about different things that have happened to them on the road. The show was awesome because it didn’t have a pre-produced feel it. It just felt like 3 good buddies giving the best show they could and just having fun.
After the show we headed straight to the taxi line, it had been a longggg day being up since 2:15am Vegas time. So by that point it had almost been 24 hours with no sleep so I needed some rest.
That was the end to day one in Vegas, I was defiantly happy to be back, I’m only 21 but have already fallin in love with the place!
