Las Vegas, October 2009

Doug’s annual conference this year was being held in Las Vegas. They were trying to cut down on expenses for people (not quite NY, Miami or San Francisco) so they booked rooms at the Golden Nugget in Downtown Vegas, rather than the Strip.

We have been to Vegas several times so it actually sounded good to be in the downtown area, away from the strip. I wanted to go for the rest and relaxation and was glad to know that there was a nice pool at the Golden Nugget. In fact, they had just remodeled it the year before and it included a waterslide that went through a shark tank. This I gotta see!

Doug flew down on Tuesday the 6th and got registered for his conference, then I came down on the afternoon of the 8th. Kaycie and Brad were also down in Vegas with some friends so we made arrangements to meet them for dinner in the Downtown area. Brad had not been to Vegas in several years and had not seen the Fremont Experience, so we thought we would stay in the area. We ate dinner at one of the hotels that had an all you can eat steak buffet. After dinner we did a little gambling and headed out to watch the show. The main plaza between all the hotels/casinos in downtown is closed to traffic and is covered by an arched roof. In the evening there is a laser, light show on the ceiling running the whole length which is about 4 blocks. There is a new show every hour. It’s a fun experience.

On Friday while Doug was at his conference I spent several hours at the pool, and just relaxing in the area. Once he was done around 5pm we headed over to the strip to meet Brad and Kaycie for dinner at Margaritaville. They got our name in, knowing we would probably be waiting awhile. Once we got there they called us within a few minutes. We had a good dinner but they put us upstairs, away from all the action. They had monitors so we could see the main room, but it wasn’t quite as fun as being there.

After dinner we headed to the Bellagio to see the 10pm showing of Cirque du Soleil “O”. We have seen several of the shows, but not this one. It was impressive how the stage performances were done since most of the show is done around water, diving into water, etc. The stage floor elevated so everything was choreographed perfectly to get the right effect. It wasn’t our favorite among the ones we have seen, but it was good. After the show we walked around the strip a little before we went back to our hotel.

On Saturday we stayed around the hotel, went swimming, gambled a little in the area, then in the evening we had made arrangements to meet the kids over at the Rio for dinner buffet. We started out by taking the city bus, however after an hour we still had not gotten very far so we got at Caesar’s and walked over to the Paris and waited in line to take the free shuttle that goes over to the Rio. Even that took about 45 more minutes. We finally got there and the kids had been waiting in line for quite some time to get into the buffet. That took quite awhile too. We finally made it and got seated. The buffet was huge! They had international stations so we had our choice of Chinese, Mexican, Thai, American, Italian, and tons more. The guys really enjoyed going back over and over. Not sure where they were putting it! After dinner we walked around the strip again since we were in the area.
After the show we spent a little time on the strip before we headed back to our hotel for the night. In the morning we got up and packed to come home.