Vegas - yes again

I know, I know.  We just got back from Vegas a little less than a month ago.  Well that time was to go see Lion King.  This time we went out to see Phantom of the Opera.

We left work and went directly to the airport on Thursday.  After a quick 1 hour flight to Vegas, we picked up our rental car, stopped by Target for snacks and went to our hotel.

Theresa planned out breakfast the next day.  After being so impressed with Randy's donuts in LA, she looked up the best donuts Las Vegas had to offer, according to Yelp.  Ronald's donuts was high on the list, so that we our first stop of the day.  Glad we have a rental car this time.  We've got a busy day planned.

Hmm.  Donuts weren't that great.  Oh well.  Moving on...

We stopped by a Walmart to grab a hair straightener (for me).  No, not really.  It was for Theresa.  In the parking lot though, there was a Krispy Kreme.  And even better, the sign was showing "Hot Doughnuts Now."  What could be better.  

We walked in and watched the donuts coming down the line all hot and fresh.  Our plan was to buy one donut each.  Of course, when they're coming out fresh, they usually also hand out a free donut sample.  Sure enough, we were each handed a free sample and asked what we'd like to order.  We told the worker we really just wanted to buy two donuts and were happy to pay for these.  She wouldn't have any of that though since these were free samples.  She suggested we buy one donut.  In the end, we got 3 donuts for the price of one.  Not bad.

 

We went back to the Trump hotel to hang out for a couple hours then went back out for lunch.

Lunch was at a highly rated pizza place a little off the strip. 

Our pizza's were very tasty.  They were thin crust pizzas, but not with cracker like dough.  On the menu, they suggested having it in the classic style and uncut.  I figured I'd give it a go.

But after 5 minutes with a knife and fork, it was taking way too long, and I just started cutting slices myself.  

Right after lunch we headed over to the mall to a Rave movie theater.  

 We saw Contraband with Mark Wahlberb.  We're loving Rave studios.  Stadium seats, great sound, big screens.  Glad we have one back home.  The movie itself was entertaining too. 

After that, we headed back to the hotel for a couple hours then walked over to the Venetian to see Phantom of the Opera.  On our short walk over there, we went through the Fashion Mall.  Wow, what a huge place!  Our next visit here, we'll need to come back when we've got more time.

A short time later, we were in the lobby for Phantom of the Opera.  Neither of us has seen it before, or even knew the story.  We were glad to be seeing something new.

Again Theresa did a great job getting tickets.  We sat on the front row, just to the right.  It was really cool when during one of the sequences the actors came down off stage and were standing right in front of us.

(Not my photo.  No photography is allowed in the theater)

The whole show started off great too, with the chandelier in pieces and then reassembling above the audience.

(Not my photo.  No photography is allowed in the theater) 

In the end, we both enjoyed Phantom.  The theater was great, the music was loud and powerful too.  It's not our favorite play, but it was still pretty good. 

After the show, we were both ready for dinner.  We'd driven by stripburger a few times and were ready to give it a shot.  

The cool thing was that it was just off the Las Vegas strip.  We sat outdoors and were able to people watch as we ate dinner.

I got a chocolate milkshake, bacon/cheddar burger and garlic fries.  Mmm.

From there it was just a short walk back to the hotel.

Here's the view from the window on the 45th floor.  

 

The room itself was very nice.  Everything was pretty modern. 

The bathroom was nice too.  There was a TV in the mirror.

And jet tub.

Checking in at the Trump was nice.  The person who checked us in was very friendly.  When we requested a quiet room, he picked us something on the 45th floor facing away from the strip.  The room itself was nice, the fridge and microwave were convenient.  

But, here is the reason we aren't going to be staying at the Trump hotel again.  See those train tracks just outside the window?  Overnight, every 2-3 hours, we'd be woken up by a super loud train horn sounding for a solid minute.  So much for a quiet room...

As we were leaving, Las Vegas got hit with a huge wind storm.

We made it to the airport and took the tram to the plane.

Unfortunately because of the wind storm, all flights out of Vegas were cancelled.  With winds hitting 50mph, we were delayed 2 hours out of Vegas.  Once we finally did lift off, we had some pretty good bumps along the way.  The rest of the flight though was uneventful and we landed at LAX no problems.  Another fun trip to Vegas!