The Hotels

At the recommendation of friend who visits Vegas often, we chose to splurge and stay right on the strip at the Venetian. It was a good choice. Its 4,000+ rooms are large, quiet and luxurious. An upscale shopping arcade is built around the "Grand Canal," a version of which is seen outside.
      Checking in Sunday for four nights gave us better rates. The restaurants were fun, but a bit over-rated in our opinion. The real find was an exhibit of Egyptian artifacts at an in-house museum . Other delights were the dome in the lobby, the "living statues," and the tempting sweets, such as the giant gelato bar.

The pyramid shape and Egyptian theme of the Luxor appealed to us when doing our planning. While the lobby, above, is magnificent, the hotel is at the far end of the strip and the rooms all open onto the area above the noisy casino.

Wynn's ... the new luxury hotel everyone wanted to see

  

The hallways were too packed to get a good concept of what Wynn's, the newest addition to the strip, is really like. The first impression was "sensory overload" with the combo of real and artificial flowers on the inside garden paths and the brilliant floral mosaic tile floors. The outside waterfalls are beautiful, but we had to laugh at the outdoor "sod" being artificial grass carpeting.

Just
for fun

   
Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, though not as extensive as the London version, was one of the more fun stops on our Vegas visit. There were a couple versions of Elvis, of course. Here Mary tells off Arnold and Jack swaps jokes with Bob and George. Being fans, we also had fun at the Star Trek Experience at the Las Vegas Hilton, including lunch at Quark's Bar.