Las Vegas 2021
Day 5: Thursday, December 23
As the week went on, I would manage to wake up later and later in the morning, missing that beautiful sunrise that I was experiencing when we first got here. Don't get me wrong, I was missing the awesome, brightly, colorful display of affection that Vegas would give me in the mornings, but this was telling me one thing...I was over doing myself and needed the rest, which I was real grateful for when it happened. Today, I woke up at 8:30am. I imagine the reason I slept in much longer would be due to the weather today. I woke up to rain. It was gloomy outside. The rain was hitting our windows in both rooms and running down ever so gently. I love sleeping when it rains. I feel more rested.
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I took a quick look at the weather for today and it looked like we were going to have rain all day. Well normally when we are vacationing and it rains, it's no big deal. We're usually in the water anyhow and it's usually hot so the rain doesn't matter. However, this would be a whole new experience and learning new ways to cope with it. At least it wasn't going to be freezing cold out.
I decided to head to the shower...yes there was water and I think those waterless morning were past us now.
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I did watch a little tv in the living room. The hubby was up and headed for his coffee. Once I got ready, it was time to wake Sakari up and get her moving. Ehh, it's gonna be rainy and gloomy so Sakari decided to just throw her hair up and call it a day. No sense in either one of us "getting ready" because we have the same textured hair...when it rains, we both give new meaning to the phrase "messy hair don't care". It's more like "yes hun, I have a messy bun, but here I am still getting stuff done" kinda day.
We were hungry! We decided we would head back to Planet Hollywood for another cheap breakfast. Maybe this time we would try out Blondie's.
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On the way to the bus stop...
It wasn't raining anymore, so that was a good thing.
Now remember we had purchased 3 day passes. Well, they had expired now. We went to the bus stop on our side and decided we would purchase a 24 hour pass ($6/each).
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We had learned a new trick to save steps getting to the bus stop and we would apply this to every day after that...we were hopping across the road to the bus stop and hoping that it wouldn't be our last hop during this vacation.
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While waiting at the bus stop, I went on the RTC app and seen something that said "My Bus-Transit App" I decided to click on it to "see where is my bus???" and it had me download something and up popped WHERE my bus was. Actually it told where every bus was. Wait what? Why am I just now discovering this part of the app? We didn't have many days left but from now on, I'll know exactly how much longer we will be waiting on a bus and where they are all located. How great was that?? Better late than never I guess.
We waited 10 minutes for the bus and it finally showed up...right on time according to the app that said it was coming and when it would be coming.
We got off at Planet Hollywood and at least this time we knew where we were going and headed that way in the mall. We went up to Blondie's, told them 3, then for some reason I confirmed "you are still serving breakfast right?" The lady told us "no, breakfast is over" My heart dropped. I have to have my breakfast. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. Breakfast gets your body going and prepares you for the day. It's the most important meal. Isn't this the city that never sleeps? Don't people stay up all night here and need breakfast when they wake up? ...no matter what time it is? Well, I would be wrong about that. "Nevermind" I told her.
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We headed across the hall and ask El Salsa Cantina only to be told they had just switched their menu to lunch as well. WHAT TIME IS IT???? Well, little did I know it was 12 noon! I had no clue it was this late already.
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We walked away hoping to find something...anything...then we ran across a place called Ketchup. This was a place that was on my list because on certain days they have cheap hamburgers. I was having a battle with myself and trying to let myself down easily while convincing my stomach I was going to have to settle for anything other than breakfast. As I looked over the menu, we discovered they had something called a "Breakfast burger with fried egg, hashbrown, bacon, cheese and...fries. Score! I was going to get my breakfast after all.
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We put in our order for 3 meals and sat down with our drinks. The hubby is looking at the receipt. He said "I don't think this is right" and went up to the BARTENDER who took our order in the middle bar section and ask him about it. Well, he didn't ring up any of our meals and had only rang us up for 3 drinks for that $18.43!! He now rang up the meals and that was another $48.78!!! Hey at least Brandon got the hubby's chocolate Hazelnut shake right and the hubby claimed it tasted like "morning glory".
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Our food came and I guess I was so thrilled they had "breakfast" that I didn't realize this was still a hamburger with all of those breakfast items on it. Both Sakari and I picked off the hamburger and enjoyed our sandwich...once again not realizing just how big these sandwiches would be and we should have just shared a meal. I'm learning...just not quick enough! The hubby would only be able to eat half of his sandwich, but in his defense, he didn't pick his hamburger off like we did.
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We finished up and walked along the mall and did a little bit of shopping. Sakari wanted to stop at a store to get these 2 squishy little stuffed animals, which I ended up now putting them in my newly purchased "bag" that was bigger than my purse and held all my goodies AND my old purse AND things that we would buy (within a reasonable size) from here on out.
Now I did miss this ship/boat on the corner of one of the hallways in the store the last time...how could someone like me miss a ship????
So what were we going to do today since it was raining? We had plans to go back to the STRAT today to let Sakari jump off a building (rolls eyes) but it was raining so I guess that wasn't going to be today (sigh of relief). My next plan was to try to get in as much hotel exploring that I could. Our week was winding down quickly and we still hadn't been in but a handful of hotels to take a look around. I pulled out my printed map and said, let's catch the bus to Venetian and look around. So off we went. It felt somewhat warmer than the rest of the week so that helped out a lot when coping with the rainy weather.
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This area is so pretty...maybe it's the bright blue little lakes that go around it reminding me that I could have been somewhere nice and warm on the beach in the Caribbean but instead I decided to come somewhere cold, now turned rainy, instead. But it sure was beautiful there. If you look closely, the guys with the gondola's were hiding under the bridge between the rain spurts.
So, let's head in and have a look around.
Now this floor was enough to make anyone think they were drunk...free of charge! Anyone remember the video game Q-bert?
I took so many pictures of this place because it was absolutely stunning...inside and out.
This area was kinda cool. At first glance, it looked like the water and buildings continued on. However, the water ended and it was a solid building with a mural painted to look like the water and buildings continued. I had to take a double look at it. Then after taking a picture is when I noticed it wasn't real at all. I hate that you can't really tell it's not real when looking at the picture (more so than in real life).
More pictures of the outside...I just loved it!
Now as we are walking around, I start to notice that the hubby is holding his chest off and on. I ask him what is wrong and his says "my heart is racing for some reason". I ask him if he wanted to stop for awhile and he said "No, I feel fine, just my heart is beating fast". Um, ok...we walked a few more steps and he grabbed his chest again. "Do you have any pain? Any pain in your shoulders? Your arms? Anything?" He said no, just a fast beat. At that point I decided we were going to stop and sit down whether he liked it or not. I felt his chest, you could tell it was beating fast, I checked his pulse, it was rapid, it was bounding and slightly irregular. He had me worried but he was still saying that he felt perfectly normal...well, a rapid heart rate and irregular pulse isn't "perfectly normal". He said "it was the cheeseburger I ate...it didn't happen until I ate that". While eating that greasy, over caloried cheeseburger this morning wasn't a healthy choice of a meal, that's not "all of a sudden" causing your heartrate to go crazy. Yes, we've made bad choices in our food decisions, but nothing differently than we normally do...which is probably why I can't lose all this weight I've gained since breaking my leg and not being able to exercise on top of being told I'm post-menopausal and didn't even know I went through this already. Go me for getting older. Yes, it could be a combination of years of bad choices, but please don't let my hubby be thrown into a heart attack...not while on vacation...please! Not anytime as a matter of fact.
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We sat for quite some time, with me randomly checking his heartrate...and him constantly telling me he's "fine". Finally it slowed back down and he assured me he was ok to walk and we started down the street and over toward the Mirage headed toward Caesars Palace.
We made it to Caesars and in we went to explore. I knew there was a "show" they have there and I wasn't quite sure if it was going to be anything that we liked, but it's a rainy day and we were killing time, so why not check it out.
They had those winding escalator's in here. It must be a Vegas thing because they were plentiful.
The blue ceiling skies were a thing here as well because they had some in this mall as well.
The fountains were beautiful and I really liked the area with the blue skies above.
We finally made it to the Atlantis Show and we would sit and wait for the Hail Caesar show to begin.
There was an aquarium that wrapped along the back of the display and we would sit and watch the fish swim by as we waited. The crowd was gathering quickly and before long, there wasn't much room.
You ever get the feeling you're being watched? Well, we were. This little guy was very curious and wouldn't take his eyes off us. He looked so grumpy...like he woke up on the wrong side of the aquarium, which he probably did because this thing was huge.
It was time for the show to begin....
I didn't go in with high hopes to be thrilled with this show and I'm glad I didn't . Honestly, it didn't make my day and it most certainly wouldn't be something I would talk about when I got back home...or even something any of us talked about after we took that first step to walk away after the show. It was something that filled in a time slot during our day, it was something that got us out of the rain, it was something that we can say "we did that" and move on. To me, it's more of a show for younger children who are easily impressed with moving objects and lights with fire and water and who can fantasize about what might have just happened...if they could understand any of it. It's a big open room, it echo's and to me, very hard to completely hear what they were saying...but you get the gist of it all by watching.
We headed to the bus stop and decided to head back to the room to rest. Well, my foot needed to rest and was in a lot of pain at this point.
When we arrived back to the room, we would find that our maid didn't like our blankie's this time around and our beds were made but our blankie's were thrown over on the luggage rack. As Sakari always says (and did) "How dare!"
We ended up staying in the room long enough for the swelling in my foot and leg to go down ever so slightly and it was dark already. We did know that we had a ways to go to get to the Strat, so we had better head out. Better early than late and we needed to still eat dinner. The hubby did continue to have issues with a racing heart off and on but it was getting better, not lasting as long, and few and far in between.
Now even though it had rained all day off and on, it was what I would think, extremely warm to be at night after a rain, and warmer than it had been here all week. It actually felt comfortable. We took our "shortcut" to the bus stop and the Luxor was all lit up with it's beaming light at the top.
It was 7:45pm when we made it to the bus stop and I checked my newly found handy-dandy map to locate the bus and seen it was only 2 minutes away.
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We made it to the Strat and was walking down the street toward it at 8:41pm! So, almost an hour to get there by bus! You have to keep this in mind if you are using this system to get around while in Vegas and have a show or something planned.
So where were we going to eat? Hmmm, we headed upstairs to see what we could find. We hadn't had pizza this entire trip, so we managed to find a little pizza shop and it was right outside where our show was going to be. It couldn't get any better than that right?!
Slices of pizza would cost you $8 each. If you wanted an entire pizza, it would be $24. Now this pizza was ginormous and we knew we couldn't eat it all, but you do the math...so we went for the entire thing.
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When it came out, man it was huge!
Of course when you add pop to the equation, that's where the price's go up and would end up costing us $41.72. We slowly ate and just kind of hung out until it was time to go in. Sakari was anxious and by this time she knew what show we were seeing...iLuminate! She squealed with joy and did the foot stomp thing and said "I've watched them online and LOVE them! I can't believe I get to see them in person!"
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iLuminate performed on America's Got Talent back in 2011 and have danced with their light up outfits on stage with many stars like Christina Aguilera, Black Eyed Peas, Chris Brown and so on.
It was almost 10pm (yes, 10pm and that was the only time we could pick from when I booked the show) so it was time to head in. We flashed our tickets and they pointed to the "correct" row and said "anywhere along that row in any chairs you want". Hmmm, that's really weird.
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So there was a row of regular kitchen looking chairs you had to pick from. Super weird to me. Then there was a row of the same chairs DIRECTLY behind me. So why the caps? Because when I say directly, I mean up against us...like no leg room. If you pull the chairs out, there was hardly any room for those in the row behind that (which went to a rounded table and benches) to get in. Then there was a row in front of us which had a table with chairs around it. Now all of these 4 rows were on the same "level". There was another level below us and a level above us. I learned with Blue Man that there were NO bad seats in the theater...but this place...anything but the lower section would turn out not so great because you had multiple rows on the same level, which made it hard to see at times.
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We decided to pick the middle of the room and took our places.
The room was quickly filling up and then along came a family...a rather large family. The lady that sat directly in front of me was so tall and I immediately knew this would compromise my viewing pleasure. I just had to pick the middle seats when we walked in didn't I? I would have gotten up to move if the seats in our row wasn't already filled.
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The lights went out and the show began.
Man these guys could dance! They were so good and the show told a story, switching from story to story and song to song in different time era's. We were mesmerized and fully immersed in the show. I'm sure there was a lot of stomping going on beside me. #sakaristomps
The following video didn't turn out the greatest and with the lady in front of me...made it even worse...but it is what it is
Here's another video. This was the portion that was the hip-hop section and represented dancing in the streets of New York. It starts out somewhat blurry but clears up. I struggled with my camera...when the lights would go out I would struggle to get back in focus off and on. I should have just used my phone like Sakari was doing and probably wouldn't have gotten such a bad video. Then this lady's head in front of me....
This group was non-stop energy! It was unbelievable. They just didn't stop.........ever!!!! The entire show was non-stop.
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How about a little Lady Marmalade?
Here come my favorite part of the show...the King of Pop! I could have watched this over and over....and over again.
So what happened next??? They came out into the aisles and started dancing around. Sakari stomped her feet and began to shriek! They were getting closer and closer to her...her favorite dancer, which was the lady that was in all the sceenes during the hip-hop portion of the show and she was DJ Sammie. She was approaching Sakari, she stopped, she looked at her and I'm sure Sakari's face turned 50 shades of red, but you couldn't tell since it was dark, then she grabbed Sakari's hand and ask her to dance with her!!!! WOW!!! I hurried and grabbed my PHONE this time around and was recording. They danced for quite some time. DJ Sammie went to spin Sakari but she thought she was leading her back to her chair and sat down...but no...it wasn't over. She helped her back up and said "spin". So Sakari did just that and continued to dance.
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When the dance was over and DJ Sammie headed back up to the stage for the show's ending of introducing all of the dancers....Sakari sat back down and continued with more stomping, a little bit of shaking (which resembled convulsing at this point) and smiling from ear or ear. I might have even seen a small tear run down her face. Either way, she was the HAPPIEST kid ever!!! DJ Sammie has been the one she has always watched online and not only did she get to see her in person, she got to DANCE WITH HER!!!
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After the show, they said a few of the dancers would be outside for pictures and we headed out. Well, guess who it was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Man this girl is short!!! Sakari was taller than her and DJ Sammie had a hat on!
We headed back out to catch the bus (quite some walk from the Strat going in the direction we needed to go in) and I got to listen to Sakari brag about dancing with DJ Sammie all the way.
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Once we got on the bus, she said "I know you probably didn't get a video of me dancing with her did you?" Me-"Of course I did...are you kidding me?" I started looking at my camera and it wasn't there. My heart sank. Then I remembered I had picked up my phone (and the ONLY reason I decided at the spur of a moment to use my phone is that I knew Sakari was going to ask me to "send me that video"). I went to my pictures...I found footage of the ending where they were introducing the dancers, some video of blackness which appeared to be the floor, back up again to the dancers....AND THAT WAS IT!!!! ARE YOU FRICKEN SERIOUS???? Did I really miss this entire dance? I must have turned my phone off and on several times thinking it was miraculously going to show up. No matter how many times I did it, it wasn't there. I had missed it. I must have been recording and forgot to turn it off then when I thought I turned it on, I actually turned it off during the dance. How could I have done this! Such a let down. I was so disappointed no matter how many times Sakari' told me it was ok. But now my kid had no proof that she could show her friends. Nothing at all. #completemomfailure
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I sat in complete silence all the way back to the hotel. There was nothing I could do or say at this point.
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Once back to the room, we all headed straight to bed. It was a long draining day and truth be known, I was still upset about it and just wanted it to be all over.
