After spending 5 nights in LA, we jumped on a plane and flew to Las Vegas for the last 4 nights of our holiday.
We’d not done an internal flight in the US before but it was so easy. The flight from LA to Vegas took around 40 minutes and there’s no immigration on the other side, so you just grab your bags and go.
And you know you’re in Vegas as soon as you land because even the airport is full of slot machines! I’ve never seen anything like it!
Where we stayed
After we landed at McCarran International Airport, we jumped in an Uber and headed over to our hotel. I wanted to stay in a themed hotel and we ended up going with the Venetian because we love Venice. I always assumed the themed hotels in Vegas would be tacky, and while some of them definitely are, the Venetian was actually really tasteful. Rialto Bridge and St Mark’s Campanile looked so real!
Once we had checked into the hotel we headed up to the room. Every room in the Venetian is a suite, and we’ve never stayed in a suite before, so it was pretty special. I did a quick room tour over on Instagram and if you’d like to watch that it’s saved to my Las Vegas highlight. I’m still not over the fact our room had three TVs including one in the bathroom!
We were a bit disappointed to find that our view out of our window was of a wall but I’m sure if we had asked they would have moved us. I mean, it is the second biggest hotel in the World after all!
Inside the Venetian resort is the Grand Canal Shoppes which full of shops and restaurants. You can even go on a gondola ride if you want to pretend you’re really in Venice.
I would highly recommend the Venetian, and I would definitely stay there again, but I’d also like to stop in some of the hotels in Vegas including the Bellagio, the Cosmopolitan and the Wynn.
What we did
The absolute highlight of our trip to Las Vegas, and the main reason I wanted to go to Vegas in the first place, was flying to the Grand Canyon in a helicopter! But I’m going to write a separate blog post all about that.
Apart from that little adventure, we spent the whole trip around the Las Vegas Strip. The Strip probably the most famous area within Vegas. It’s over 4 miles long and is mainly comprised of hotels and casinos.
Neither of us had ever been to a casino before going to Las Vegas and I’ve always had mixed feelings about gambling; I know how addicting and damaging it can be. And while you can go to Vegas and not gamble if you don’t want to, I did want to give it ago but I was very sensible about it.
We ended up really enjoying the roulette machines. So not the roulette tables (we weren’t gambling enough money to go on the tables!), but the individual machines where you can place your bets and spin the roulette wheel. The maximum we won was $70 after putting about $5 in the machine, so we cashed out and that paid for dinner that night.
My favourite casino was the one in the Palazzo, which is a part of the Venetian Resort. I liked it because it seemed lighter and brighter and the other casinos, and a little bit more classy, if that makes sense!
I’d describe the Las Vegas Strip as Time Square on steroids; it’s just crazy! I’m sure it’s purposely designed so that you always end up in a casino, no matter where you’re trying to get to.
I love visiting all of the different hotels, and one of my favourites was the Bellagio. Of course, they have the famous fountain show which runs every 15 or 30 minutes, depending on the day of the week, but they also have a stunning conservatory that has these beautiful floral displays that they change with the seasons.
Another hotel I loved was New York New York. I mean, just look how amazing it is! There is a rollercoaster built around the hotel, and while I do love a good rollercoaster, I decided to give it a miss because apparently it’s very rough.
Where we ate
Ok, let’s talk about food because wow, we ate some good food in Las Vegas. Mostly pizza!
On our first night, we ate at The Cheesecake Factory in The Forum as we’d never been to one before and it was highly recommended by our travel agent. We both ordered pasta and the portions were huge! Sadly the photos are all too dark to share.
Despite not finishing our main meal because of the portion size, we decided to order some cheesecake for dessert. I mean, it would be rude not to right?! We went to order a slide of cheesecake each and our waitress advised us to just order one slide to share and then we could always have more if we wanted. I’m glad she did because the slice was huge and we didn’t finish it! But it was so so good!
The next day we ate at Grimaldi’s. The original Grimaldi’s is in Brooklyn, and we visited it back in 2017 when we went to New York. When we found out there way a Grimaldi’s inside our hotel in Vegas we knew we had to go.
On our final day in Vegas we stumbled across this amazing looking pizza restaurant on the Strip called Giordano’s. I recognised the name and after a quick Google I realised it was the famous deep-dish pizza restaurant from Chicago. Tyrone and I wanted to visit Chicago solely for the purpose of going to this restaurant (well, and to see all The Dark Knight filming locations!) so we knew we had to eat there.
We order a medium pizza pie which was far too big for the two of us; I’m not even sure if we could have managed a small one. But oh my god was it good. It tasted just like those frozen Chicago Town deep-dish pizzas that you can buy in the supermarkets, but even better!
Overall, I really enjoyed my time in Las Vegas. I feel like 4 days was definitely long enough, and although I would like to go back someday, I’m not in any rush. It’s a very mad and very expensive place, but I feel like it’s one of those places that you have to visit at some point in your life because there is honestly nowhere else like it in the world. You have to see it to believe it!
Have you been to Las Vegas? If so, what did you think of it?