This weekend 3 of my closest friends and I took a well deserved girl's trip to Las Vegas. We had such a great time catching up, laughing, and of course eating and gambling. It was as hot in Vegas as it was here, but since we took cabs most places, we were able to escape the heat for the most part. It was a quick trip, just 2 nights, but I think that's all you really need when you go to Vegas. I'm not sure our wallets could have made it another day. We spent the majority of our time at the blackjack tables. We didn't have a big winner in the group, but none of us lost a ton either. That's a successful trip to Vegas, if you ask me. We stayed at Treasure Island. It was definitely a bit older than some of the other hotels and somewhat smokier too, but I think it was a good choice for the money.
Overall, I think we all had a great time and we're hoping to make this a tradition that continues. We're thinking a trip to L.A. might be on the agenda in 2 years.
Day 1 (Saturday): Courtney, Kara, and I left Dallas around 10:00 am and arrived in Vegas around 11:00 am. We met Stephanie in the airport and took a cab over to our hotel. After waiting in a very long line to check in at Treasure Island, we walked over to the Wynn to have some lunch. This was our only meal that we didn't have reservations for and we kind of stumbled across Botero. It was a good choice! We sat outside on the patio overlooking the pool.
After lunch we went to the casino at the Wynn to play some rapid roulette. I've played roulette before, but not the video roulette. It was definitely different. With only 40 seconds to place your bet, you had to be on the ball. Once I got the hang of it, I ended up winning around $20. I was way up after hitting 1 number, but quickly lost it. Kara and Steph were not fans of this game though and I'm pretty sure they will never be playing again. After our taking our turn at roulette, we walked back to Treasure Island to play some blackjack before getting dressed for dinner. Unfortunately, we could only find $10 tables at this point, so our money didn't go quite as far.
That night we had dinner reservations at 7:00 for Social House. It was at the City Center at Aria. We have a couple of funny stories about trying to get to the actual restaurant. Let's just say City Center is confusing! Social House was a quaint sushi restaurant. I was super excited about having sushi since it's been so long since I've had some and I wasn't disappointed.
After dinner we walked through several of the hotels, stopping in Monte Carlo so Steph could grab a cupcake.
We were walking by the Bellagio during the fountains and had to take a quick snapshot with the eiffel tower behind us (although our photographer didn't do a great job of showing the eiffel tower).
After a long travel day, we were all pretty tired and headed back to our room around 11:30. Remember 3 of us were still on Central time where it was 1:30 am.
Day 2 (Sunday): We were able to sleep in a little bit this morning and then we took a cab to the Paris hotel for brunch at 10:00 am. We ate at Mon Ami Gabi. This was probably my favorite restaurant we ate at. We sat outside on the patio, with a view of the Bellagio fountains. I got the blueberry french toast and it was sooo good! Filling, but really good. This will probably stay on my list of restaurants that I want to eat at whenever we go back to Vegas.
After brunch, we headed out to find the half price show ticket booth. Luckily, we found one not too far away, at Bill's Gamblin' Hall. We decided on tickets to the Lion King for an 8:00 show.
Waiting in line for tickets
After buying tickets, we decided to check out the blackjack tables at Bill's. We were lucky to find a $5 table where all 4 of us could sit. I think we all had a pretty good run on this table.
After playing blackjack for a while, we took the tram to Mandalay Bay so we could pick up our show tickets.
From there, we took a cab back to Treasure Island where Steph and I played a few slots and Kara and Court played some more blackjack. We headed back to our room after a little while to change for dinner.
We had reservations at 5:30 that night at La Cave, at the Wynn. This restaurant was a close second behind Mon Ami Gabi. It's a tapas restaurant, so we shared 6 different tapas: jumbo lump crab lettuce wraps; stuffed chicken with prosciutto and lemon caper sauce; prosciutto, carmelized onions and arugula flatbread; gargonzola salad; marinated shrimp with tomato and chili oil; beef filet with crostini and blue cheese. For dessert, we had chocolate covered peanut butter and caramel lollipops. Everything was really good! The atmosphere was nice too. Again, we sat outside on the patio overlooking the pool.
After dinner we walked through the Wynn before catching a cab to Mandalay Bay for our show.
We made it to Mandalay Bay around 15 minutes before The Lion King was about to start. We had gotten front row seats from the half price ticket booth and I was a bit skeptical on how good these seats would be. I thought they turned out great. They were far enough back that we could still see the whole show. It was a little hard to see items that were directly on the stage, but overall I liked the seats. We found out The Lion King was closing in December, so I'm glad we got the opportunity to see it. I really enjoyed it (although by the end, I was getting a bit sleepy - it was long!)
After the show, I was able to get my second wind and we headed back to Bill's with hopes of finding more $5 tables. We were lucky again and found 1 where we could all sit together. We were even able to enjoy some great Karoke as entertainment while we played. :) We played quite a while before finally heading back to our hotel around 1:30 am.
Day 3 (Monday): We woke up around 7:30 and headed to the airport to catch our 11:30 flight. After not getting much sleep, I was pretty tired on the trip back!
