First things first: No, we didn’t get married. We didn’t get rich either. And we didn’t wake up to find a tram stamp tattooed to our backs, nor a tiger in our bathroom. But Las Vegas was still a blast!
Inspired by rumors about the Twenty Dollar Trick, we decided to give it a try. We had booked a “basic” room at The Venetian. When checking in, Jan casually slipped the front desk clerk $30 with his credit card and ID. Her response (not too surprised): “I am looking for the best suite on the highest floor we have available, okay?” It worked! We ended up in The Venetian’s more modern sister complex The Palazzo, in a more expensive suite on the 39th floor. Upgrade achieved.
Not only is The Palazzo together with The Venetian the world’s second largest hotel, it’s also the largest building in the United States in terms of floor space, relegating the Pentagon to the second place. The Venetian is designed in the style of typical landmarks of Venice, featuring replicas of the Rialto Bridge and the Campanile and a partly indoor/partly outdoor Canale Grande with gondolas and singing gondolieri. Eros Ramazzotti, Andrea Bocelli and other Italo-Classics are constantly playing from the loudspeakers. Oh, and of course, it also houses a casino and a shopping mall.
Helicopter flight
Since we hadn’t been able to do a helicopter flight at the Grand Canyon South Rim as originally planned (due to snow), we decided to give it a shot out of Las Vegas. We took the 70-minute flight with Papillon, over the Hoover Dam, to the North Rim and back. We went in the afternoon to see the sunset; if you want to see light-flooded canyons, you need to go earlier.
It was our first time on a helicopter. The start and the first turns feel a bit like a roller coaster—great fun! Poor Simone likes neither flying nor roller coasters that much, but it was worth it. And Jan can’t wait to fly his own (full-size) helicopter one day.
Gorgeous sunset over the Grand Canyon North Rim.After the flight, we cracked a bottle of sparkling wine in our suite before doing casino and hotel bar hopping on the Strip. Our favorite bar was the Parasol Up in the Wynn Hotel, which was decorated with spheres of flowers, upside-down umbrellas and other playful details.
Off the Strip
Thanks to a Freakonomics episode we had listened to while driving, we checked out the newly created Container Park in Downtown Las Vegas at daytime. It’s definitely worth a visit if you want to see a less mainstream part of Sin City. It’s part of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh’s Downtown Project (more about that in the Freakonomics podcast). Besides bars, restaurants and boutiques, the Container Park features one of the last things you’d expect in Vegas: a playground (for children, to point that out).
At that point, however, we had already played enough in Vegas. But the café on the second floor of the container complex provided just the right recovery treatment for us: caffeine and a Bloody Mary.
