Hop on Hop off

Woke up at about 7AM, very little sleep from all the noise, but with the time difference this is 11AM at home, no more sleep for us.  I phoned the hotel we would be at for the rest of the week and told them we were already in town and asked for an early check in and if we could park the car in their lot while we went about our plans for the day.  Got to our new hotel,  The Carriage House,  at 8AM and were pleasantly surprised that our room was ready!  First impressions were fantastic, we are one block off the strip behind Planet Hollywood, right outside the shops here.  We had upgraded to a one bedroom suite in case Joey and Liam would be able to join us, but unfortunately this did not work out. 

Dropped off our luggage and off we go for the day.  Today we are spending the day using the Hop on Hop Off bus tour.  We had bought vouchers on Groupon (the first of a few we will use this week).  The tour has 2 routes, one for along the strip and one for the downtown area.  Both routes are included in the tour and just involve a switch of busses part way through. We love using these tours to explore the cities for the first time.  It is amazing how different it is to see the city from an open double decker bus.  It is nice and hot today, so the perfect day for this.  We did not get off the bus at all except to transfer to the downtown route and a stop for lunch on Freemont Street.  What a change on Freemont street from 30 years ago.  This is now a pedestrian only street that is covered and has people ziplining down it.  We will be back later this week to experience it at night.  For today we just found some $1.99 margaritas and $2,00 tacos so we are good for lunch!  This tour also had a live guide, sometimes it is tapes.  Really fun to hear all the stories, and there are lots of stories from Vegas….

 

The two center building are actually crooked.

The Luxor with a statue of the Sphinx in front of it

Would not be Vegas without these

NY Hotel

Did not convince Wendy to go visit this one.

Bartender dancing on the bar to drum up some business

Paris Hotel

The Wynn

Wedding in progress

Another wedding chapel with drive up window

Home of the Pawn Stars

Freemont Street

My Mexican Girlfriends in a showcase

Enjoying $1.99 Margaritas at the Bar

Freemont street, with big screen and zip lining

Heart Attach Grill, waitresses dress up as nurses and they provide you with hospital gowns to eat in. 

Free if you weight over 350.  Did not qualify so had tacos instead

Some of the weird characters we saw

The Stratosphere tower where they bungee off

Where we did not shop

Hugh LED sign

The High Roller similar to the London Eye

Finished our hop on hope off tour, went back to the hotel to meet all of our friends that will be in Vegas at the same hotel for the week. Lucille & Bernie, Jackie & Jean-Guy, and Diane and Andre are along for some fun.  They have all booked studio rooms so I am sure ours will work out to be the gathering room since we have a full living room suite. 

Off to Walmart for some groceries for the week.  Breakfast will just be in the room, and we wanted to pick up some liquor and other supplies as well.  Traffic is not too bad, I think we will do fine driving around for the week.

Supper tonight we are all so tired that we decided to order in Pizza.  Still haven’t hit a casino yet for gambling, but I am sure it will come.  Off to bed quite early and hoping that we will be able sleep the whole night, busy plans again for tomorrow.