Kelly and I got invited to Matt and Morgan's wedding in Las Vegas. Before you think it is was a "Vegas" wedding it wasn't it was simply a normal wedding being held in Vegas since that is where Morgan's mom lives. Since it was over Memorial Day weekend Kelly and I decided to make it more of a vacation. Kelly had never been to Vegas so we planned to do a few things there. We also decided to go to Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon.
We left on Friday morning from BWI. We were able to get direct flight on Southwest which was nice. It left on time and was a pretty uneventful flight. There was a little bit of weather as we landed but not too rough. Once we got to the airport we decided to rent a car for a day. We were going to Morgan's mom's house which was a ways outside the city and we figured round trip cab fair would be more than a rental car for the day. We went to the new Las Vegas airport car rental plaza where eight or so car rental companies are. As we were getting the car it began to rain, kind of rare in Vegas it being a desert and all. It was also only in the mid 60's which was chilly for Vegas. We got a Pontiac G6, more on this and our second car in another post.
After getting the car we went and checked into our hotel until Monday morning which was the Fairfield by Marriott. The hotel is located with 3 others on the other side of I-15 behind the Mandalay Bay. After checking we went for a drive down the strip. I hadn't been in Vegas in about 2 years so there had been some changes. Kelly got to see the fun of sitting in stand still traffic on the strip. After the strip we headed back to the hotel to get ready for the rehearsal dinner. We headed over to the dinner and it began to rain quite hard again. This caused the party to be contained inside the house. There was 130 or so people at the party and it was a little crowded. Also for a while the only people Kelly and I knew were Matt and Morgan. Later some people that Kelly knew from swimming at Johns Hopkins showed up. We left a little early since we had gotten up at 6 AM Eastern and it was 9 PM Pacific.
The next morning I got up and went to get Kelly her daily dose of caffeine from Starbucks before 6 AM. Later we took the car back to the rental place. We took a cab to the MGM. We spent some time in the MGM and then headed out onto the strip. We went to the M&M's store and looked around for a while. You can see me standing in front of the M&M's NASCAR car below.
After M&M's we continued down the strip. We stopped in the Planet Hollywood casino and walked around. We then continued on to the Paris casino. We decided to get some lunch in Paris. At first we were going to go to their buffet but the line was really long. We went to their cafe instead, which was still really busy. After lunch we headed back to the M&M's store to watch the 3D movie, however it was almost painful since it was either our of focus or timing between the two projectors or maybe both. We then returned to the MGM to catch the shuttle back to the hotel to get ready for the wedding.
We got on the shuttle to the wedding at 1 PM. The shuttle took us to the church which was huge. They have something like 10,000 people that come to this church. The ceremony was most of a full service, it wasn't too long though. There a few shots from the ceremony in this set. After the ceremony we all got back onto the busses to go to the reception.
The reception was at cili which is located in the Bali Hai Golf Club just off the strip. It was a really nice restaurant. The whole place was rented out for the reception. They started the night of with hours devours and drinks. After an hour or so we moved in for the main party. There was two rooms with one edging on the bar and the other surrounding the dance floor. The DJ was pretty good, just cheesy enough and not over the top. The dinner was great, I had a steak and Kelly had some chicken. The wedding cake was an ice cream cake which was both unique and very tasty. We left the party at about 8:30 PM and took a cab back to the hotel. There are a few more shots from the reception in this set.
Sunday morning we got up and headed out to the strip again. We took the shuttle over to the MGM. We walked down to Paris and did eat the buffet this time. It was very good. We walked around some different casinos and headed down the strip. Occasionally we stopped to play some slots. Most of which we lost at but sometimes we won a little. Kelly didn't seem to enjoy it much. We walked through some of the malls as well and stopped at both Tiffany & Co. We made our way to the Mirage. Their volcano was under construction as was the lion habitat just as you walk in. We went to the new habitat they built called Secret Garden. We spent almost 2 hours looking at the dolphins and the big cats. We took quite a few pictures that are available in this set.
We walked around a bit more and ended up at Treasure Island for dinner. After dinner we went and picked up our tickets for Mystère. While waiting for the show Kelly and I played a Price is Right slot machine, she did enjoy this and only spent $2 in almost an hour. We got into the theater about 15 minutes before show. The entertainment began early as an actor began playing tricks on people as they came in. Doing things like taking their tickets, sending them to the wrong seats and throwing popcorn all over the place. The show was really good, one of the few downsides was that at times there was too much going on and didn't know where to look. During the show there was also audience participation. My favorite part was some moves done on trampolines and where the actors climbed poles using just their hands at times. Watching this show it made it seem like it was the pro league almost for NCAA gymnasts, there was at least 50 people that were pretty amazing athletes.
After the show we headed back toward the Belagio (correction thanks to Jerry) and the dancing fountains. I took a video of the fountains that will post at another time. We then headed back to the MGM to catch the shuttle back to our hotel. Some other shots from our day are in this set.
come on Mr. Vegas, the "dancing fountains" are at the Bellagio.