II. Las Vegas 08/19/18

At noon we arrived at our hotel, the Planet Hollywood, right in the middle of the Strip. The drive there alone makes your jaw drop with all the blinking lights, advertisements, and music.... It's hard to concentrate on the traffic 😳

After the (automated) check-in, we went to our room on the 7th floor, which unfortunately didn't have a really nice view, but it didn't matter, we were only there to sleep. Then we hit the strip and strolled up and down. Of course, not the whole way, because it's a whopping 6.3km long. But in the vicinity of our hotel, which is in illustrious neighborhood with the Bellagio, Caesars Palace, MGM, Venetian, Paris, Mirage, etc.

Not only the impressive hotels, 16 of which are among the 20 largest hotels in the world, are worth seeing, but also the crowd leaves nothing to be desired. For example, we encountered Darth Vader, Jack Sparrow, Mickey Mouse, and Alan from The Hangover. Everywhere people try to earn a few dollars with photos. This apparently worked very well for two well-built guys in half-naked cowboy looks, who attracted a lot of ladies 😁

Every hotel can be visited by everyone, there are no checks, as long as you stay in the casino and shopping area and don't pass through these areas, you also won't get to your room.

It was fascinating to see the slot machines being fed diligently as early as 7 am.

After breakfast at Starbucks, we made our way to the Vegas Outlet Center South. Here you can spend the money that you didn't lose while gambling in all sorts of stores. We also shopped at Nike, Calvin Klein, etc.

After the credit card sparked a little, we made our way to Downtown LA in the "Fremont Street". Here we also tried our luck at the Golden Nugget, the oldest casino in Vegas, and fed the one-armed bandits with a few "bucks".... unfortunately without success. There is not much left of the former splendor of the old part of Las Vegas, the Strip has created unequal competition. To counteract this, a few blocks have been covered and converted into the so-called "Fremont Street Experience". Free concerts take place here and you can fly right through the car-free shopping and dining street on a zipline.

In the evening, the program included the "Venetian", among other things. The hotel is the second largest hotel in the world with over 7,400 rooms and more than 4,000 suites. The Rialto Bridge is located in front of the entrance and in the hotel you can ship around with gondolas and singing gondoliers, true to the theme of Venice. Now it's also clear why Americans don't come to Europe, they have recreated everything in Vegas. We also visited the Bellagio and Caesars Palace and were completely overwhelmed. Back in our own hotel, we were able to watch the table-dancing girls dance over the gaming tables to distract the gamblers.

We're leaving out more detailed information about casinos/gambling, women/men, alcohol, etc., because: What happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas 🤫😜