What Happens in Vegas...

The first time I visited Las Vegas was as a 22-year-old traveling by Amtrak. The train pulled trough the desert into this neon mecca, and I was hooked. Back then, I stayed in a youth hostel and fell in love with the city when I won on the nickel machine. Vegas, and me, have changed a lot over the last 10 years. I have returned many times since, and though I don’t stay at the hostel these days, I still love those nickel slots.

Vegas really does cater to everyone. You see little old ladies throwing their life savings into a slot machine, big-spender business men on the "minimum ,000" tables, hagged-out-looking strippers heading home after a busy night, families with kids, squealing bachelourette parties, college boys hoping for some first-time action, gay men checking out the "marvelous" architecture, and frat boys at the all-you-can-eat buffet.

The hotels are amazing. It really doesn’t matter which one you stay in, because half the fun in Vegas is walking through the themed hotels and checking them out. Each year a newer, bigger, better hotel is built. It’s like Blackpool on acid (you guys from UK will know what that means).

The gambling here is world-renowned. Now, I’m not a gambler, but you can easily fill your day without even touching a blackjack table. The shows are world-famous, as are the food buffets.

Being from England, where gambling is commonplace, it’s not such a big deal. However, when I take trips here from Dallas (where there are lots gambling restrictions), the anticipation just on the plane is unbelievable. There are grown men loud, boisterous, and giggling with excitement. I have to add that the atmosphere flying back is usually a little more subdued, with tales of woe as to who lost how much and what the hell will they tell the wives !!

Las Vegas doesn’t sleep unless you want it to. If you want to stay in your room all night, it’s okay. If you want to gamble and dance the night away, that’s okay, too. The nightlife doesn’t just revolve around cabaret shows anymore. Some great party/trance clubs have sprung up in recent years. No one will care what you do, and no one will judge you here. However, as Britney Spears found out what happens in Vegas… doesn’t always stay in Vegas.

Quick Tips:

• If you want to do any of the shows, try booking them in advance over the Internet from home. They get full really quickly, especially over the holidays.
• Drink lots of coffee, Red Bull, or other such energy enhancer!!
• Catch the "free" shows in front of the hotels, like the water fountains of Bellagio or the pirate battle at Treasure Island.
• You can walk the hotels at any age but must be over 21 to enter the gambling areas. Bring ID, as they will check.
• Same goes for the clubs. You need to be 21 to drink, though some clubs will allow entry, but they will stamp your hand so no one will serve you drinks. Again, bring ID.
• Try to get away from the Strip if you have time. There are great places close by, such as Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, and Red Rock Canyon. A few hours’ drive can have you in Los Angeles or the Grand Canyon
• Leave your watch at home! There’s a reason the casinos don’t have windows or clocks. They don’t want you to know what time it is. Go with the flow.

Best Way To Get Around:

If you want to experience some of the places around Las Vegas, a car would be best, especially for seeing the Grand Canyon. However, all trips can be arranged as a tour. If you plan on staying in Las Vegas, the bus runs up and down the Strip all day long. Taxis are plentiful and not too expensive.

Most sights are within walking distance if you stay on the main drag, but don’t forget that this is the desert, so it’s hot. Also, distances can be deceiving, as the walkways will take you all up and around the entrance to each hotel rather than in a direct route. What looks like a very short distance can, in fact, take awhile.

One word of warning, if you are walking the Strip with kids, watch out for the little guys handing out leaflets for strip bars or worse. Ultimately, most of these get dropped on the ground and build up. Sometimes you can be walking over hundreds of semi-naked women in different erotic poses, not something you want little 8-year-old Billy to see.

I stayed at the Aladdin Hotel for my 30th birthday.

Normally we do the Luxor, but at the time, the Aladdin was quite new and offering good deals. The original hotel was blown up (imploded) in 1998, and this new one built in its place. I just loved it, though the rumors circulating Las Vegas are that it is already suffering financially. Apparently, the major problem is that it has a Middle Eastern theme, which is "just not so popular these days." That seems quite ridiculous to me, and I would certainly return here.

Room prices can vary wildly from website to website. I have found them as low as $59 on travelworm, but you can also see what the hotel website has them going for. Usually the cheapest hotel prices come when you book a package hotel/flight.

The rooms at the Aladdin are lovely. They have a Moroccan theme without being over-the-top and all the modern amenities you would expect, such as safe, hairdryer, radio, TV, desk, and phone, as well as a few extra touches, like marble vanities and a computer set-up.

The Moroccan theme runs throughout the hotel. The outside looks like Arabian Palace with golden domes and turrets. Our room actually overlooked the pool (there's two heated pools), with the domed roof tops in the foreground and the mountains of Nevada in the background. Quite stunning.

Inside the hotel, the shopping area is set out like a market street. They have all the regular shops, as well as many Indian market stalls selling ethnic wares. The shops are set on a "cobblestone," street and the ceiling is painted like an Arabian sky.

There are plenty of great restaurants within the hotel, including Italian (Tremezzo), Elements (seafood), and the Spice Market buffet, which has a breakfast buffet for $13, a lunch buffet for $16, and a dinner buffet for $24. We only did the dinner one, and I really thought it was great. As well as all the usual buffet items, they had a great selection of Middle Eastern and Moroccan foods to choose from.

Another cool thing about the Aladdin was the oxygen bars situated in the casino. You choose your oxygen mix (from invigorating to relaxing to passion-fueled) and clip little plugs in your nose. Sit back and enjoy the aromatherapy. I'm not sure if I felt extra invigorated afterwards, but it sure made for great photos.

The club Krave is also in The Aladdin, though this caters more to a gay/lesbian crowd. It does play some of the better house music, so it’s well worth a visit. The 24-hour café is also very handy for snacking between clubs.

We have stayed in The Luxor more than any other hotel in Las Vegas just because it houses my favorite nightclub Ra. The Luxor is difficult to miss and usually the first one you will see flying in. This is not only because it’s just 1 mile from the airport, but also because it’s a giant pyramid with a laser light on top that, we were told, can be seen from space.

The Luxor is at the far southern end to the Strip, so it’s a bit of a walk to the Venetian/Cesars shopping areas. However, there is a monorail that links it to Mandalay Bay and a moving sidewalk that goes to Excalibur. Nothing is really too far along the Strip; it’s just the humidity that can wear you out

Our hotel rooms have always been just the regular room. On the website, they cost anywhere from $79 to $169, but as with all Vegas rooms, they can be so much cheaper when booked as a package with a flight.

Even our standard room was very large. The outside of the pyramid makes up the whole glass side of the room, so the window is actually a sloping glass wall. The bathrooms were large, with an extra big bathtub and shower. The room door leads out onto a balcony overlooking the casino, yet there is no noise from inside the room.

There is an "inclinator" to take you to the casino. This is really just an elevator, but more unusual because it travels at an incline instead of straight up and down.

If you are amazed by the outside of this hotel, you will certainly love the inside, too. All the decor is reminiscent of Ancient Egypt, with a Sphinx and Egyptian cats standing 30 feet tall.

As well as the Ra club, Luxor also houses the Blue Man Group and 10 different themed restaurants.

N9NE steakhouse is inside the Palms Hotel and Casino, which is actually one of the newer and trendier places to stay. The Palms is the casino in which the Real World Las Vegas cast stayed. It's also home to the Ghost Bar and Rain Nightclub (see other entries for these). It's set off the Strip and involves a not-so-safe walk along a highway or a $4 taxi ride.

The restaurant is open from 5-11pm. It’s not cheap, but then, for the setting and atmosphere, it’s not horrendously expensive either. In fact, if you are arriving from England with all your high-value pounds right now, well, it will almost seem a bargain. N9NE is a fantastic place for a special occasion, and as it was my 30th birthday, it was okay to splurge a little.

N9NE is primarily a steakhouse, but the choices on the menu were very extensive. Not being a steak eater, I opted for the ahi tuna, which was seared to perfection, just how I like. Other non-steak choices included chicken, salmon, scallops, and pasta. They also have caviar and a variety of crustaceans.

My husband did go for the Porterhouse and said it was amazing. We live in Dallas, so good steak is not rare for us; therefore, I know it was good.

They have all the usual liquors and cocktails, beers, and wine that you would expect in a restaurant like this. When we went, it was still fairly new, so you had to have reservations, but that might have changed now. The decor is super-modern, with two giant waterfalls as you enter and all neon and blue glass. The crowd is very trendy, pretty, and young, unlike many steakhouses. Opposite us was a very attractive businessman with two ladies who were all over him. I think he had bought them as well as the food!! Vegas... baby... Vegas!!

The Ghostbar is also in the Palms Casino and is a lounge, rather than a club. Having said that, they do have DJs at the weekends, and the small seating area quickly becomes a dance floor. This lounge is very small and has a space-age feel to it, with modern furniture and lounge chairs, as well as funky, futuristic chairs strung up like hammocks to relax in.

You enter this bar by an elevator, and that’s the only way you can get in. The wait when we were there was 2 hours, but as we had eaten at N9NE, I think they gave us preferential treatment and let us go up when we showed our dinner receipt. I’m not sure if they always do this, but it's worth asking. I heard some people say they had waited the weekend before for 4 hours!

On getting out of the elevator, the other three walls are all glass, and so the view of all Vegas is worth the $10 cover charge. There’s also an outdoor patio which has a glass floor, so you can see the ground 55 floors away. Don’t venture out there if you are afraid of heights, though plenty of folk were dancing away on it without a care.

This is the bar you often saw on The Real World when MTV did the Vegas show. It's also often featured in the magazines as a favorite place for Britney (pre-baby) and the Hilton sisters. Of course, I bet they don’t have to wait 4 hours. Check out this website for more info and pictures.

The nightclub RAIN is in the Palms Hotel and hasn’t been open as long as some of the other clubs. Since MTV filmed a lot of the Real World Las Vegas here, it has become one of the IN spots to hit for dance-floor action.

Be sure to check the schedule because as well as a nightclub and DJ lineup, Rain also hosts shows (P.Diddy, Britney Spears, etc.)

I loved the set up of Rain; according to its website, it's 28,000 square feet, with a huge dance floor, which is always packed. You enter through a long, mirrored tunnel, which I liked, and inside, along with the big dance floor, there are smaller areas and podiums set along moats of water, with the rain being gigantic sheets of water that fall from ceiling to ground. At intervals through the night, these walls of water become huge walls of fire and giant fireballs (14 feet) shoot from the sky. It gets hot just with the crowds, so with the fire too, expect to sweat.

It’s a great place to come in a group and party the night away. I personally wasn’t keen on the music. It was a mix of very mild house, hip-hop, and R&B, but this particular night was a Saturday, and I’ve heard that Thursdays ("drenched" at Rain) have a better DJ lineup for more hardcore tastes.

Rain is open from 10pm-5am. Normally, I don’t recommend going early to a club, but the night we went to Rain, we had just gone early to the casino and saw the line of people waiting before the doors even opened. We joined the line quickly, and from the doors' opening, it took us an hour to get in. By the time we were entering, the queue was massive and was at least a two-hour wait.

The cover charge was $25, but you can pay a more for VIP entry and a lot more for the special skyboxes, cabanas, and water booths (don’t ask--I didn’t pay the $1,000 asking price, so I can’t tell you much about them). Drinks are also expensive, but not any more than any other club here.

Ra is my favorite nightclub in Las Vegas. It's inside the Luxor (big Pyramid-you can’t miss it), and so we tried to stay at this casino whenever possible, just to be close by. I brought my best friend here from the UK, and we had a great time running up to our room to change outfits throughout the night. Why? Because we could.

See the Ra website for information on the upcoming DJs. I have been here quite a few times, and the resident DJs are great. Duane King was the best, though I'm not sure if he is still a resident now. Ra also hosts some of the big-name international DJs (we have seen Boy George spin here and DJ Sammy).

The cover is $20 for men and usually $10 for women, though I think on Thursday nights, women get in free, and local women always get in free.

Ra is much less glitz and glitter than either Rain or Rum Jungle, but it’s certainly not without its special effects. As you enter, the far side of the club has a gigantic ‘Ra’ god whose eyes light up with lasers throughout the evening. The sound system here is fantastic, and the DJ stand is right by the dance floor, which I like, as it causes the DJ to interact more. There are cages and podiums with go-go dancers. They are not topless but wear very little and dance more like pole dancers than true clubbers, but that’s just Vegas for you!

I like this club; it's more intimate than most. It gets crowded quickly, and if you stay through 2 or 3am, the pretty people leave, and the true clubbers remain to finish off the night Rave style.

The last time we went, they had trapeze artists swinging above the dance floor, which was fun. They even hoist you up if you want.

Like most of the clubs, the doors open at 10pm, and people will line up for usually an hour to get in. You are lining up inside the casino, though, so you will not get too hot (or cold) during the wait... in fact, you can buy a beer from nearby; it will make the time go more quickly.

Red Rock Canyon is about a 30-minute drive from Las Vegas. I went on this trip as a tour for about $30. The entry to just the park is only $5, though, so it does make more sense to drive yourself if you have a car.

The tour in question started with a trip to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory, which resulted in me eating far too many chocolates, so this was a great place to hike off those extra pounds.

The tour guide we had very informative and told us about the history and facts of the geology of the area. He was also keen to impart any knowledge of Las Vegas: where to eat, which shows to go to, and where the best gambling odds were. So, all in all, we learnt more than I had bargained for.

If you drive yourself, the hikes you can go on would be longer and more extensive. However, our tour guide knew all the little nooks and crannies and took us to see the Petroglyphs and to just the right spot to see the sunset in all its glory.

Now I know why this place is called RED ROCK CANYON.

Inside the Mandalay Hotel there is a really cool little bar/restaurant called the Aureole. We have been here many times for drinks, though as yet, I have not eaten here. I have seen the food menu and I can tell you it looks great.

Even if you don’t want food, this place is perfect to just come and stare. On entering, you are immediately above the bar on a metal staircase. Directly in front of you is a 42-foot glass wine case. In fact, that staircase curves down and around the wine house, giving you views from all angles. Now don’t think you are dreaming if you see James Bond-style women dressed all in black, propelling themselves up and down wine house on pulleys and ropes. Really!These are the ‘wine angels’, whose job it is to stock, check, and receive the bottles as they are ordered. It really is quite a sight to see.

Another thing I have never seen before which just amazed my tech-loving husband was the food/wine and drink menu. It’s a tablet PC - a personal computer where you use a stylist to browse the computer screen and make your selection.

Just the wine alone has over 2,000 choices and with 35,000 stocked bottles, it might take a while. However, be sure to look at the prices before ordering. This is a place for serious wine connoisseurs, and we found one bottle for $40,000. You can certainly find a cheaper wine by the glass for under $10.

I’m a big fan of cocktails when I am on vacation, so when I saw the martini list, I was excited. The list was long and with some really interesting names. The ‘Gumitini’ struck my eye, and when it arrived, everyone laughed at me. Here I was, dressed to the nines in a swanky bar, holding a neon orange martini with real gummi bears set on top of it. You know what, though; it was great--tasted like a big Jolly Rancher. The guys in the group had to order wine. Not to just see the pretty girls heading up. No, of course not!

For more details, you can see their website HERE.

Las Vegas is smack-bang in the middle of the desert, and that's an easy thing to forget with all the waterfalls, fountains, and abundance of pools. When all the smoky casinos and clinking of quarters get too much for you, try getting out and about.

My friends and I rented a convertible car and decided to drive to the Grand Canyon. You have to get an early start, so we actually got the car the evening before and did a drive along the Strip with the top down that night to see Vegas from a different angle.

So, back to the trip in question… It's a good 4-hour drive to reach the South Rim. To me, this was a great time to enjoy the scenery. You pass through beautiful desert lands, and eventually the parched land gives way to pine forests and green mountains. On the way, we had to stop many times along the Indian reservation sites to buy turquoise jewelry and pottery.

On arriving at South Rim, I couldn't wait to see the faces of my guests on seeing the canyon for the first time. I had been here before and knew how awesome it was. What I wasn't prepared for was how this mere hole in the ground would leave me speechless for the second time around!! There's a hush that envelopes everyone as they look over the edge, and I can't describe that well enough to give you the feeling of how it feels almost creepy.

Suddenly, everyone who stands there looking into this HUGE geological wonder becomes a speck, a tiny, tiny speck on this very large planet. I don't believe that there is any feeling more humbling than this.

Well, enough philosophy... With it being such a long drive, it might be better to stay the night, but we hadn't planned ahead and all lodging was full. We will be better organized the next time. For a luxurious stay in the Grand Canyon Park, try Bright Angels Lodge.

We were there in September, when it’s still very hot. In fact, the hiking trails had warning signs with a skull and crossbones that told of certain death if you attempted to hike to the bottom. We had no such lofty plan anyway, so we just hiked a little ways down towards Hermits Rest, which was sufficient to escape the crowds and get a better sense of being "inside" the canyon. There's a shuttle bus that runs around the rim, and this is another good way to get away from people a little.

With it being 4 to 5 hours from Vegas, we really didn't have a lot of time, but it’s still worth doing that way. You can also get tours by bus or helicopter if you prefer to be driven.

Some words of advice if you are driving: more than likely, you will be driving back though the dark, and the roads from the Grand Canyon to Las Vegas are pitch-black in places. There are not many street markings, so make sure you have excellent night vision. However, on a positive note, this does give you some amazing views of the stars, and arriving back to Las Vegas this way, with the neon slowly approaching, can be a great end to an exciting day.