Getting to Las Vegas was not without incident. I had booked a flight from Vancouver going via Los Angeles, but it was such an early start that it would have meant going to Vancouver the night before and staying there for a night. Instead, I booked a cheap ticket that went from Victoria to Las Vegas, via Seattle. The flight left at a convenient time and only had a short stopover in Seattle, so it suited me fine. The only problem was that when I told my travel agent I wouldn't be using the flights I'd booked as part of my round-the-world ticket, I was told that I would have to pay £70 plus taxes just to cancel the flight that I'd already paid for and now wouldn't be using. What a rip off and I'm still trying to find out who gets the £23 taxes I had to pay. I thought that the taxes added on to tickets were for flights that you took and I just don't understand why I should pay taxes again, when I'm not even flying.
The Aria casino is actually in a development called City Centre, a massive shopping and entertainment extravaganza that boasts many steel and glass structures by world-renowned architects and also includes a lot of public art together with shops for all the well-known designer labels. As with most of the places on The Strip, Bob has been responsible for some of the internal build-out in many venues in City Centre.
The tables are still much the same, although there are more games available, including Pai Gow, much favoured by the Chinese. I'm not sure of the rules, but it looks a lot like Texas Hold 'Em with a few bells and whistles. There's also something called Three Card Poker, which I think is just Three Card Brag by a different name. There seem to be a lot more tables for Baccarat, a game I've never played, and quite a few Roulette and Crap tables, the latter being very popular and the most noisy. And of course there's the ever-popular Blackjack, the only game I've played here so far. Fortunately, Bob and I are each ahead by about $50, so far. But who knows what's to come? Update: we both ended up over $100 ahead.
The Downtown area still looks much the same as it used to, with casinos like The Golden Nugget still going strong. Bob reckoned that the odds, particularly for the slots, were better downtown as locals use it for gambling in preference to The Strip, which is more for tourists. From what I could see, the only difference so far as Blackjack is concerned is that Downtown they use two decks compared with four on The Strip and that's only an advantage if you're good at counting cards and able to adjust your strategy accordingly.
One thing that did surprise me is that smoking is still allowed in casinos. It's banned pretty much everywhere else in Las Vegas, but the casinos argued that it would be bad for their business and they are such an important income generator for Nevada that they got their own way. The bars and restaurants tried the same tactic, but without success. So gambling is obviously more important that eating and drinking. I must say they, though, that rather few people smoked and that the smoke was seldom really a problem.
The other evening we went to see Love, the Cirque du Soleil spectacular playing at Mirage, one of the huge casino complexes. The show room was specially built just for that one event, at a cost of over $50m. The show has been running for about three years and was rated the best show in Las Vegas for the last two years running and I can well see why. It is truly spectacular and is based entirely on Beatles songs, mostly from the Sergeant Pepper era. It's non-stop Beatles' records from start to finish, but with a fantastic sound that floods the whole showroom with brilliant clarity. A true Wall of Sound, but much more enjoyable than any Phil Specter record ever was. Most of the performers are dressed in costumes reminiscent of the Sergeant Pepper album cover and it's non-stop action from start to finish. Unfortunately, photography is not allowed, so I can't include any pictures. The aerial artistes, skaters, tumblers, dancers and the like are all superb and, in some cases, quite breathtaking. It's amazing that there aren't a lot of accidents, although inevitably they do have them from time to time. Bob's niece works out with a couple of the skaters at her local gym and she said that one of them had a very nasty fall a while back, but that happily he's now back performing again.
As well as Love, Cirque du Soleil has a number of other shows in Las Vegas, including: Mystere (their first show, more circus-based), O (a shocking play on words as this show is all on water), Zumanity (a sexier show for the over eighteens), Ka (martial arts based), Krisangel (not sure what this is) and Elvis (the latest show, with an obvious theme). None of these shows is available anywhere else in the world and so if you want to see any of them, you'd better come to Las Vegas.
A couple of days ago, we played golf at Legacy, a public course just a couple of miles from Bob's house. It's a desert course, although we were hardly ever in the sand, apart from when we hit bunkers. The greens were in excellent condition and quite fast. From the blue tees the course was over 6,700 yards, which is pretty long for me. I was quite pleased to end up with a net 73, just one over par, managing to just beat Bob on the last hole, despite having to use some old sticks that he dug out of his garage for me. On the back nine, I did persuade him to let me use his rather fine Taylor Made R5 driver and from that point on my driving improved significantly. I must look into getting one of these on my return to England.
There's lots more I could say about Las Vegas. It's all a bit zany, but I really like it here. Just for fun, I've included one more picture below, but you can see the full set on my Picasa site at: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/reedpv/LasVegas?authkey=Gv1sRgCIPl7OfWjojoKA#
This 'penis' is actually a restaurant and one that Bob was involved in developing.
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