This covers 3 trips: Venetian in March with the family, solo trip in June, and family trip in July.

Hotel

Venetian—Venezia tower (March). Don’t stay at the Venezia tower!!! It sucks!!! Stay at the regular Venetian tower instead!! All I wanted was some packages to be delivered and some room service, and I had to wait an hour for each. Maybe they didn’t hire any additional staff when the new tower went up. Or maybe it just takes the staff too long to take the elevator to the Venezia lobby, walk all the way down a long hallway, then take another elevator to the room. I chose the Venezia because you get access to an additional pool area, but then read here later that all guests have access to it? The room is very spacious and well appointed, but I think it’s basically the same as a regular Venetian room. Strangely, I had free high speed internet throughout my stay. I can’t believe they charge more for the Venezia tower.

Bellagio spa tower (June). I like what they’ve done with the place. The walkway to the tower is filled with light and has chairs and tables that look out onto the pool area. Great place to enjoy some ice cream from the new candy shop. I did not notice a difference in the quality of the new areas, but then again I don’t usually notice such details. The rooms themselves seem the same as the original tower, except perhaps a little smaller, even though they are advertised as having the same sq footage. Perhaps they used more space for the bathroom. Service was great. No problems getting packages delivered, towels delivered, or odd requests for the time to clean the room.

Mandalay Bay (July). I think this will be my last stay here. I chose it because the family I was traveling with needed something close to the pool and not too pricey. But I found the beds very hard, just like last year. Also, even though the room is supposed to be large, it feels a little cramped, I think because of the strange location of the bathroom doors. This location requires extra space between the bathrooms and the bed, and that space seems wasted to me. While Mandalay may have started out as an upscale place, I think they are now more focused on the conventioneers and events, and just want to pack people in and out. Although maybe the real reason I don’t like them is that they are a Pepsi-only establishment.

Shows

Jay Leno (March). Even though this was the second time for me, I still enjoyed his show immensely. If you are a fan of the Tonight Show, you will love his standup. He goes for a full 1:30. There is a country band as an opening act, which I found boring, but at least Jay still went for the 1:30.

KA (March). Also the second time, first time was in December. On the plus side, the stage is simply unbelievable. It is completely moveable and rotatable. A true engineering marvel. The “wheel of death” sequence is also very good, and done without any safety wires that I could see. On the minus side, what did they do, subcontract the development of this show??? The costumes are very traditional Asian, with little or no Cirque flair or sexiness. The skinny scary dude who is fixated on the sand stuff, along with a couple of the sequences that are classic cirque, seem like they were just grafted on. The martial arts comes across either as playing with sticks or just energizer bunnies flailing about. As I have previously complained one not-so-short sequence consists of two people making various shadow puppets with their hands, which was interesting, but not a good value for a $150 ticket. BTW, there is really no pre-show to speak of.

Le Reve (July). I liked this show! It’s like Cirque with a twist. The theater is very nice and there truly is not a bad seat in the house. This show is the opposite of KA: warm, inviting, offbeat, funny, and sexy. The show borrows a lot from Cirque but does things in a fresh way. I saw elements from O (obviously), Mystere, and Zumanity, but a lot of new stuff as well. And it doesn’t follow the Cirque rules: people actually talk, using real words! And men and women are making out in parts of it. And there is one female performer who is topless but I wish she was not because she was just too masculine to appreciate. There’s plenty of sexiness although, unfortunately, the guys reveal a lot more than the girls, who are frequently dressed in knee-length skirt things. They have a funny preshow, and they allow pics of the theater to be taken prior to the show starting. I wish I had seen this show twice instead of KA.

Burlesque

I have now seen the burlesque shows at Forty Deuce, Tangerine, Pussycat Dolls, and Risque. My favorite is Tangerine. It strikes a good balance between real dancing and a sexy show. And one common theme among all the different sets is lots of butt wiggling, jiggling, and wagging, which I love!! Interestingly, I like it better *before* they take off the dress/skirt. It’s very sexy to see them dancing around in the very short skirts with their undies peeking out with every gyration. But then they take off stuff, and the underwear they are wearing underneath actually looks kind of large and granny-ish by today’s micro-thong standards. A little bit of a let down. The shows I saw in June were one song long, but in July they were two songs long, with a different performer for each song. The performances are at 45 after the hour or immediately after the pirate show, and they start on time, so don’t be late! BTW the eBay passes work just fine here.

Second best is Forty Deuce. The show there is the longest by far. Two girls and almost 20 minutes. But, it was a little too athletic for me. These girls are very talented dancers that made me feel exhausted just watching them. They do a lot of physical stunts. For me, the emphasis on dancing took away from the sexiness of the show.

The pussycat dolls show was just sexy singing and moving around. Not really burlesque, and their trashy style of outfit doesn’t do it for me. Vamps at Risque is barely burlesque. There are several girls that do a little number right behind the bar. There is no real burlesque dancing, they only each have about 3 feet in which to move. I had a lot more fun watching them while they were hanging out outside the bar, while I was imagining what they *could* be doing……

Food
Turkey platter at Caesars marketplace, chicken soup & fries at zazucrackers at Wynn, chicken soup at Canters at TI, salmon at Fix at Bellagio, guac at Isla at TI and Diego at MGM, ice cream at the new candy shop at Bellagio, shrimp and margaritas at the bar at MIX at TheHotel, dinner at Diego (MGM), various meals at Raffles (Mandalay coffee shop), Grand Lux Cafe. Nothing of particular interest to report at any of these places. I also ate pretzels at Wetzel’s pretzels in the Carnival Court. I prefer Wetzels to Auntie Annie’s because they are less greasy and they are not slightly charred which seems to be part of the Auntie Annie recipe. The pretzels at the place on the 2nd level or NYNY were so greasy that I just had to give mine up midway.

Clubs
Teatro—wow, what happened to this place?!?!? I guess cool lounges with music low enough to talk over, just doesn’t work in Vegas! This is now an ultralounge. It was hopping one night I went, but dead on a Tuesday night. I guess I still like this place. The go-go dancers dance right on the bar.

MIX bar at TheHotel—wow!!! This place is nice!!! There is a bar on one wing and a restaurant on the other. It has absolutely stunning views. I don’t think too many people know about it, though. I was there at about 6:30 and it was empty. Or, maybe it’s too expensive. I looked at the menu for the restaurant portion of it, and got the distinct impression that they just made up prices with no correlation whatsoever to the food you’re getting. At the bar, I had 2 margaritas and 2 of their version of fancy shrimp cocktail (only 4 shrimps but also some cheese I didn’t recognize and other stuff) that cost me $87 including tip! I guess I was hungry, or perhaps I just wanted to impress the hot cocktail waitress who didn’t seem to take me seriously. That will teach her!! I went back up to MIX on a Wed night and it was still not packed!! I took a bunch of pictures and was able to get an open space on the patio outside. Even though it was not crowded there were still couples there making out and rubbing on each other—I guess the view had an effect on them.

Tangerine at TI was great on Tuesday but Wed it was just way too crowded for a mid-30s guy like me. $8 for a margarita in a plastic cup with lots of ice. I was drawn there primarily for the burlesque, but also to see if I could find some women dressing more hootchie to take pics of. Instead of finding those women, I got hungry and went to Canter’s deli for some chicken soup.

Studio 54 was also great on Tue, not too crowded. Tuesdays are supposed to be EDEN—erotically delicious entertainers night. Unfortunately, I didn’t observe much erotic deliciousness around that was different from the regular crowd of hotties.

Pure at Caesars seems to be popular but nevertheless on Tue night they let everyone in who was in line—no picking. And Caesars guests go through the VIP line. But I just stayed for the pussycat dolls show and then ran over to Tangerine.

There was some filming going on. On Tue they were at Pure. On Wed at Tangerine. One guy with a camera, and a very statuesque woman who knows she is really hot, but was mostly standing by herself looking self conscious and bored as she towered over everyone in her high heels. I wanted to ask her what she was doing, but the music was too loud. Or maybe I was just intimidated.

Attractions

Mandalay Shark Reef. Great for kids. Boring for me, just a bunch of fish and the sharks seemed fairly small.

Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden. I had previously been scared to visit this place due to the name. But it was a pleasant surprise. The dolphin “show” is interesting. They also have various large animals. Kids loved it and I was not overly bored.

Misc Observations

Wynn. I really liked it, and actually more than Bellagio. It has a more intimate, upscale feel. But it deserves all the comparisons to Bellagio. It’s essentially a small Bellagio. Both have conservatories, art exhibits, water shows inside and out, and the same basic look and feel except for stronger colors at Wynn. The shopping areas are virtually identical. Seems to me that Wynn loved the Bellagio so much that he simply refused to have a different design. Wynn is almost like a tribute to the B. The cocktail waitresses are definitely the hottest in town. They vary in age, race, and height, but they are all hot. The little cocktail dresses are not the most revealing in town, but they are the sexiest, with a long slit up each side. I had a margarita at the bar next to the sandwich shop that cost $12. It was good, but $12? One strange thing—the entrance area is tiny. It must get really clogged with cabs and people at peak times. Also, for some reason the temperature there is more reasonable. I did not find it excessively cold either in June or July. The light show, however, needs a lot of work. It is basically nothing more than solid colors projected out on to the lake, with an accompanying soundtrack. Very much a let down. I will try staying there once they have worked through the kinks with the reservation system that I have read about.

Tue-Wed are great time to go to the clubs if you just want to get a quick drink, people-watch for a bit, and then be on your way. They are not crowded at all, but have enough people so that the place doesn’t feel dead. At Tangerine on a Tue you can watch the pirate show and the burlesque show without having to elbow people out of the way. Wed is their “moonshine” theme though, and it does get crowded.

Best margaritas and guac are still at Diego (MGM) and Isla (TI). If you eat at the bar the guac may be “pre-made” but in the restaurant they will make it for you fresh right at your table.

I liked the new Centrifuge bar at MGM. They have some go-go dancing by the staff, which you can also watch while you are gambling. I like this trend of go-go dancing, as far as I am concerned you can’t have enough of it. Women will be happy to know that the male bartenders at Centrifuge also dance, although fortunately they are not scantily clad. As confirmed by several skits in Le Reve, the only reaction a man in a thong should get is laughter!

If you are plugging in your laptop to hotel LANs, be sure you have a firewall. The Avast webshield does not work. You need to turn on the Windows firewall or you can download ZoneAlarm for free. If you don’t have a firewall, you will get 10 billion annoying attempts to get you to click on stuff that I am sure will insert a worm or virus or something. You get these even with Firefox pop-up blocking.

It has been a while since I have stayed at Mirage or TI but I miss their mirrored wall. I don’t know why other hotels didn’t do this as well. It is Vegas after all…..

Posted by Rog on LVTalk