Viva Las Vegas!

"What happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas"......... except when you go to Vegas with your kids!  Going into Las Vegas I had the "Been There Done that" attitude. I had been to Las Vegas several times on business meetings. I commented to Karen about only staying a few days, but she had different plans. I wanted to go somewhere that had the Christmas feel and I didn't think Vegas would be that place.  Boy, was I wrong! 

We had so much fun at the city of sin!  The 1st day we headed to the strip and started walking through the hotels New York-New York, Aria, Crystal, Monte Carlo, Excalibur, Luxor, MGM Grand and a few others.  Six hours and probably 5 miles of walking later we called it a day.  The Hotels are so big and spaced out you need to plan your attack, which we did for next few days.  We hit just about every big name hotel there was, and even ventured down to the old original hotels such as The Golden Nugget, and Binions. We even found the "Pawn Stars" shop in down town Vegas.  They have a show on the history channel if you don't watch much T.V.  Needless to say their shop is very small and dumpy nothing like its portrayed in the show.   Karen's much anticipated and favorite hotel was the Venetian!  The Venetian has a canal system that runs throughout the hotel and you can take gondola rides and be serenaded in Italian! This is also the hotel where I found Christmas carolers.  We stopped and enjoyed a few songs sung a capella!  To my surprise and enjoyment Las Vegas is a great place to be around the Christmas season.  It seems like no expense is spared from massive Christmas trees to giant wreaths and more lights than you could imagine!  The beauty is all the hotels allow you to drive right up and valet park for no charge!  We tipped our valet staff each time, which I thought was a deal compared to some previous parking fees in California, New England and so on. 

We enjoyed the lighted water show at the Belaggio and also their second to none Christmas decorations with animated ice skating penguins and giant polar bears made of carnations!  The kids got an opportunity to get their picture taken while petting a lion cub, at the MGM Grand.  We even went to a magic show, in which Bryson had numerous questions on how it all worked!  Las Vegas was a pleasant surprise and probably one of the top 20 places we have visited on this trip and if you can stay out of the casinos it can be very affordable!