USA Trip: Las Vegas 2nd visit - part 1

Got up about 9.30am, showered, dressed & headed out to find The Cheesecake Factory to have brunch. Saw signs to the Forum Shops when I got out of the elevator so followed those & found myself on the 2nd level of the Forum Shops at Ceasars Palace. Made my way past all the amazing shops - Tiffany & Co., Christian Louboutin, Fendi, Gucci, Valentino, Christian Dior, etc, etc, etc. Suffice it to say I did not go into any of the shops on my way, I just looked through the windows. LOL I made it to The Cheesecake Factory and the 'Fall of Atlantis' animatronic show was on, which I had seen a few times before, so I went around to The Cheesecake Factory and found it didn't open until 11.10am (it was 10.55am by my watch), so I waited & watched the fish swim around in the aquarium they have there, along with about 20 other people who were waiting for it to open. It finally opened at 11.15am and everyone started being seated. I got my table and remembered that last time I ate FAR too much so I was only going to have a small lunch & a slice of cheesecake. The waitress came along, I ordered a drink, she came back with my drink & we laughed coz it looked more like a dessert than a drink - I had ordered a Rockin' Rocky Road spiked shake. I then ordered the smaller lunch portion of the Pasta Carbonara and had the waitress leave the menu so I could investigate fully the cheesecake options. When she brought my pasta I asked her if the chef knew the meaning of small, coz it was not what I would consider a small portion. It was very delicious tho but I was only able to eat about two thirds of it before starting to feel full & stopped so that I had room for cheesecake. I then had a very tough decision to make & the waitress was very helpful and I ordered the White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle cheesecake, and oh it was delicious!!

Day view looking down on the pool area from my room.

Day view looking right from the window.

Day view looking left from the window.

Rockin' Rocky Road shake - Knob Creek Whiskey, Godiva Liqueur, vanilla ice cream, almonds, chocolate chips & marshmallows. Was extremely tasty. :-)

White Chocolate Raspberry Truffle - creamy cheesecake swirled with white chocolate & raspberry on a dark chocolate cake base. It was very simple but very, very delicious.

After I finished lunch & headed out onto 'The Strip' for a walk & to do a bit of souvenir shopping - there were a couple of people I hadn't bought souvenirs for yet!! Oh so remiss of me!! I made my way down towards MGM Grand & stopped at a few shops along the way - found an awesome magnet store, visited M&M's World again and went into the Coke Store, where I got my photo taken with the Coca-Cola Bear, and of course bought a few things.

Entrance to the Coca-Cola store.

Got my picture taken with the Coca-Cola bear. This was taken with my camera, I also got 3 pictures taken with their camera with backgrounds added.

2nd floor of the store, mainly housewares - plates, bowls, trays, tea towels, biscuit tins, lunchboxes, glasses, mugs, salt & pepper shakers, etc, etc, etc.

A few of the clothing items available on the 1st floor of the store.

New York New York Casino Hotel - this actually has meaning now that I have been to New York.

At about 5.30pm I finally entered the MGM Grand & headed to the casino to find the slot machines my friend Vickie had won big on a few years ago. Finally found the right machines, put in $18 and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lost it. LOL I put in another $15 and . . . . . lost that as well. After a few texts with Vicki I found I was on the wrong machine, same game name but different format, so I went for a wander, found the correct machines, put in $100 and . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . lost that as well. I had given myself a budget of $250 so I put in another $100, lost $60 and then . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . I won $180!! Woohoo!! So, of course, I continued playing and . . . . . . I won again!! Only $30 this time, so I kept playing, lost a couple of time and then when I was down to about $20 credit in the machine I won again - $390!!! And I know everyone is saying "I hope you took the money & left" and I did, but I went to another machine & played that for a bit and lost, then I went to a few more machines and lost some more. In the end I walked out with my original $193 & $10 in winnings. I headed back to the hotel, got back to my room about 8.30pm, freshened up & decided to visit one of the hotel restaurants for dinner. I really wanted a steak so I chose the Old Homestead Grill, and this is where I learnt another lesson - always check the menu at the entrance to the restaurant before being seated. I got seated, got handed a menu and almost choked when I saw the price of their steaks - the first one in the list was $129!! And it came with nothing - no potato, no salad, no veggies nothing!! I thought about getting up & walking out but my self conscious wouldn't let me, and this was my indulgent time so I thought 'What the heck, you only live once', apologised to Mum & my farmer relatives and stayed at the restaurant. I looked at the wine list & they only had 1 merlot you could buy by the glass & that was $15 so I decided to have a cocktail instead and ordered a Cosmopolitan, that also helped to ease the sting of the price of the steaks. I then ordered French Onion Soup for starters and couldn't decide between a couple of steaks, also having the weights in ounces threw me, so I asked the waiter what the conversion of a couple of them were & finally went with the 16oz Ribeye on the bone at a cost of $68USD!! According to the waiter's conversion it was equal to about 500g & that included the bone. I also ordered a couple of sides - asparagus and brocolli with cheese sauce, as I had been craving fresh veggies for a while. In future I will use a conversion app coz the waiter was way wrong, the steak was HUGE!! All the food was absolutely delicious & cooked perfectly so that took some sting out of the cost, as did the 2 Cosmopolitan's I had, and the waiter that brought me my steak was very cute. I only managed to eat half of my steak so had the rest boxed to go for me to much on tomorrow and waddled back to my room. It was about 10.30pm by the time I got back to my room & I debated whether to have a jacuzzi or not and the fact that I could have music playing via my tablet in the bathroom sealed the decision to have one. So I filled up the tub, got the music set up, got in the tub & relaxed for a bit. I had a wee bit of a snooze and when I saw the time was 11.58pm I swiftly got out of the tub, dried off & went to bed, as I had to be up at 6.30am to get ready for my Grand Canyon bus tour the next day.