Las Vegas Diary 2011
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Day five - Las Vegas
Today we started out early to go down to CityCenter to explore the Mandarin Oriental. We had breakfast at MacDonald's, which has pictures from Las Vegas as it's main theme. This must be one of the busiest McDonald's in the US. It is perched on the second story of a small space beside Harrah's, below it is the Panda Express and a Mexican restaurant. I love Panda Express and usually get a couple of meals there when we are in town.
We crossed Las Vegas Boulevard in front of Harrah's and took pictures of the hotels on both sides of the street.
We tried the credit card machine at the Deuce Bus stop. It worked like a charm, even though it was an Australian Visa Card that we used.
We got off the Deuce at the stop at the corner of CityCenter, across from Planet Hollywood. We went into the Cosmopolitan and made our way through the buildings to the Mandarin Oriental.
The CityCenter has a road running through the center, with the buildings aligned along Las Vegas Boulevard, but also along the road which leads back into the deep block of land. The Aria Hotel is in the back of the site, the Cosmopolitan is in the front on Las Vegas Boulevard and the Mandarin Oriental is also in the front, but has it's entrance tucked away in the interior of the block. In the middle of the block are the two most striking buildings, the Veer Towers which are built to appear to tilt off the vertical.
The Mandarin Oriental has a reception on the 23rd floor in the tower. There are spectacular views next to reception in the Sky Lobby. The downstairs entrance has interesting art. Everyone was most hospitable and let us have free reign of the public spaces to take pictures of the exquisite interiors. The Mandarin Oriental is more like a boutique hotel than, say, the Venetian.
After taking some great pictures, we crossed Las Vegas Boulevard to visit the M&M's Store, which has everything you can imagine with an M&M's Theme. Along the way we met up with Spiderman and Batman who were kindly posing for pictures, for a gratuity, of course, but since you don't see them in person often, and they have not made the news lately, we felt that the GFC may have necessitated their new profession.
After wandering through the M&M's shop, we walked down the Boulevard to the MGM complex and had lunch at the Rainforest Cafe. They have the most beautiful fish tanks, and we were seated next to one. Here is the video we shot as we ordered our lunch. We did a bit of gratuitous shopping the Rainforest gift shop which is a great place for Kids and us, too.
We got back on the Deuce and headed up toward Ceasar's Forum where we revisited the Swatch shop and took Ken's Big-W watch to the most extraordinary watch store - Tourneua - to get a new battery. They were most gracious, and in fact had to use their considerable expertise to actually fix the watch, not just replace the battery - all for $15. The stock of beautiful designer watches was awesome. This is probably the best place on the Strip to find any type of watch your heart desires.
[pic:A simple watch shop in Ceasar's
We went back onto the Deuce from the stop in front of the Venetian and went up to see how the construction on the Fontanbleu was coming along. Also we stopped and took at look at the Riviera, which has had a make over since our first trip. We wanted pictures of the famous brass chorus line and discovered the stars in the pavement in front of the casino.
From the Riviera we could see the construction of the Fontainbleu, which is closed in now, but not nearly habitable yet.
Also we saw the steel structure that will be the Echelon one day, replacing the Stardust.
So ends our Las Vegas 2011 Diary. Viva Las Vegas!
