25 October,2014
Part of the Venetian Hotel and Palazzo (takes up an entire block)
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We were up with the birds this morning, heading to Orlando airport before the sun had risen. We had given ourselves plenty of time as the traffic is unpredictable, and we had to be at the airport by 7am for a 9am flight. Our first flight was just over two hours to Dallas, Texas, then after about a half hour wait we boarded the flight to Las Vegas. We have always anticipated that Las Vegas would be a highlight of our holiday, so we are looking forward to a busy time there.
Although we had about 6 hours in flying time, we actually arrived in Las Vegas about 3 hours after we left Orlando due to the three hour time difference. Again our shuttle collected us from Las Vegas airport (after a long wait) and we were soon settled in to The Venetian hotel. We loved the Venetian, it is a city in itself, and I lost count of the number of times we got lost trying to find our way out – or to our room! Above is pictured our very comfortable lounge area, and dazzling gold plated bathroom at right.
The Venetian has twenty plus restaurants, a food hall, an arcade of about 80 boutique shops, fabulous swimming pool and garden, a huge casino, a canal with gondolas which we found – and other places such as conference rooms, wedding chapels, theatre etc that we didn’t find! Each time we got lost we discovered yet another facet of this amazing place. The canal and gondolas are at left.
It is very easy to get lost in the myriad of opulent and lengthy corridors at the Venetian
The hotels along the Strip are unbelievable. The New York Hotel has the Statue of Liberty out front, the Paris Hotel has the Eiffel Tower, The Bellagio has a floral theme with the huge dome of their entry foyer covered in glass flowers and lovely gardens and the “lake” out front puts on a fountain display on the half hour every night, the Mirage has a volcano that goes off regularly each night (we could see it from our hotel window), and the Luxor Hotel has an Egyptian theme with a huge Pharoah out front and a huge glass pyramid next door – eyes were popping out of my head! Even though I had seen images of them on the internet, they really have to be seen to be believed.
After having a good look around the hotel we had an early dinner at an Italian Restaurant then got ourselves organised to see our first show at Las Vegas, the Cirque du Soleil production of ‘O’ at the Ballagio Hotel. It was breathtaking! ‘O’ represents the French word “eau” for “water” – don’t know how they did it but at times the stage was a deep pool into which the acrobats dived from on high, to a shallow pool where they danced, or a deeper pool where they were swimming – then suddenly the water disappeared and the stage was dry! It was a fabulous show that we talked about for ages.
The stunning glass flowers in the dome of the Bellagio Hotel (left) and the Casino (right)
The Paris Hotel’s Eiffel Tower all lit up
Tomorrow we have another early start as we are doing a one day coach tour to the Grand Canyon – can’t wait!
