Vegas has been so different to anywhere else we ahve been to!! Our first impression of Vegas was the Airport and yes there was Pokies in the Airport!!. The lights of vegas are amazing and the casios each have their own personality.
Inside the gaming rooms however they are full of slot machiens and are the same.. But outsides they are something different.
Highlights were.
Stratsophere: On top of the casion at the top of the tower are two rides. The worlds heighest rollercoaster and the big shot ride. The tower is 1149 feet high and the view of Vegas is pretty amazing. The sling shot
ride was good for a rush but, nothing compared to our Giant Drop at
Dreamworld.
Nascar Cafe: HAs a rollercoaster on the side of the building. I sware
it went close to 100km/h in 2 seconds.. it was so fast... The
rollercoaster was called SPEED strangly enough.
Cesears Palace: Very much an Italian/Roman theme to it. A 5 star
casino not tacky and hotel section in amazing. Has plenty of shops
(Gucii, Louis Vittoni etc) in a Roman style street where the sky
changes from Dawn to Dusk over a 3 hour period. Amazing. Getting
out of the casion was another story.. The exits are NOT marked.. you
have to go to Hotel Reception to find it. We spent 20 mins trying to find it. We asked for directions "How do we get out" The response.. "You can't! Once your in, you can't get out!"
Belligao: Very flash. The Belliago had a fountain inside. It was great to watch the spurts of water going on and off and up and down in time with the music. Literally hundreds of people were memorized by the water show and sadly enough we were two of them. This is not however as spectecular as the waterfall outside the casino which is illuminated at night. This was the waterfall that they used the the closing sequence of Oceans 11 before they all parted their ways. The lake comes alive each night with more then 1000 fountains dancing to Frank Sinatra tunes.
MGM Grand: The casino where the boxing match took place in the movie Oceans 11. This is very close to the Belliago and has a 33 acre amusment park behind the main casino.
On a sadder note, outside the New York New York casino there is a Statue of Liberty with memorials of September 11. One of the glass cases has clothes from a fire fighter that dies in the rescue attempts. We were there around
6pm on September 10 and it was very sombre and touching as September
11 was on our minds. The next day when we went past on the bus there were
flower tributes outside the monument.
To be honest September 11 was very low key in Vegas (Sin City) but of course it was on the news everywhere about the tributes.
Life as we know it has really returned to normal in America (well in Vegas anyway) 2 years on.