Living it Up, Vegas Style

This year we were celebrating my fiancés birthday and I wanted this to be a special trip so I decided that I wanted to splurge a little and stay at the Bellagio. I've stayed at the Bellagio before and I'll tell you once you stay here, you won't want to go anywhere else.

On this trip our main focus was to relax and have a few days to ourselves, the Bellagio made this easy for us to do. Our room was incredible as usual and this time we had a pool view. Our standard room had a marble and granite entry and bathroom, large soaking tub and separate shower, beautifully decorated room and a comfortable bed. Between the piano bar, conservatory, fountains and the excellent dining we felt very content inside our hotel.

The conservatory is always an amazing sight to behold. The amount of labor and ingenious design that goes into all of the details of their layouts is astonishing to me. This year they had two greenhouses with real butterflies flying around inside. Then the rest of their décor resembled springtime: with vibrant tulips, lilies, hydrangeas, large butterflies and glass flowers.

Our most relaxing time on our trip was spent by their beautiful Italian pools with the sun shimmering down on us while we sipped on Chi Chi’s from their poolside bar and gazed out onto the water.

Our trip was incredibly romantic and relaxing. From the moment we arrived we felt pampered and taken care of which is an amazing thing to feel in such a large hotel. I’m so glad that I splurged on the hotel because we truly had the time of our lives.

The Palazzo Hotel opened in December of 2007 which makes it one of the newest hotels on the Las Vegas strip at the moment. The Palazzo hotel is basically an expansion of The Venetian Hotel and they both connect through the Venetian’s Grand Canal shopping center and the Shoppes at the Palazzo.

One interesting movie tidbit that I discovered was that The Palazzo while under construction was used in an early scene in the movie Oceans Thirteen.

The Palazzo has more of a modern Italian theme rather than the old world charm of the Venetian Hotel. The Palazzo was designed with soft muted color tones on the inside giving it a sophisticated and elegant feeling. While this hotel has plenty of items giving it splashes of color such as their waterfalls and granite flooring medallions, it still at times feels too conventional. My favorite area of this hotel was the front lobby with the incredibly beautiful mirrored mural on their back wall and the fountain that shimmered underneath the clear glass dome.

Although we didn't stay at this hotel on this trip we thought it would be a fun place to try. They had plenty of shops and wonderful restaurants to choose from and everything inside this hotel was beautifully done. I would recommend this hotel to anyone who wanted to stay somewhere luxurious and wanted to be pampered.

I was excited to see that the Village Seafood Buffet had been remodeled since my last trip. I’ve always enjoyed their food but thought their décor was a little old feeling. With the remodel they redid the floor, tables, food stations and even their dishes. There was allot of metallic silver and blue colors while the floor had some hardwood tones with allot of metallic accents.

My fiancé and I made a pact to get their early because we’ve always had an hour or longer wait. We ended up getting there when they opened at 4pm and got right in. The nice thing was we had the place pretty much to ourselves.

This Buffet has everything Seafood: lobster (although its small it’s good), crab legs, Ahi Tuna, salmon, Clam Chowder, Sushi, Halibut and even prime rib. Luckily they have normal desserts. They recently added a Gelato assortment to their dessert bar and that ended up being my favorite. I loved their latte flavored gelato with ground pieces of coffee beans and chocolate.

This was by far the best Vegas Buffet we ate on our trip. It may be a little pricey but it’s well worth it if you enjoy seafood.

While strolling through the Grand Canal Shops at the Venetian Hotel, my fiancé hinted that he would like to try some Italian food for dinner. We finally found a restaurant called Canaletto that we both thought we might enjoy. Of course being dinner time and in the midst of Saint Marks Square during one of the music performances, the restaurant was full but we decided to put our names in and wait for a spot.

Everything went smoothly, our table was ready when they said it would be and we had a great spot close to the front of the restaurant where we could look out onto the crowd of people in the square. The inside of the restaurant was simple yet elegant with rich dark woods and white linen tablecloths. The thing that I really enjoyed was the servers were professional but did seem pretentious.

For dinner I decided to try their Vermicelli al Pomodoro which is an angel hair pasta dish with marinara sauce and fresh basil. My fiancé ordered their Ribeye steak. Both were excellent meals with plenty of food to spare. I loved my pasta everything about it tasted fresh. Our biggest problem was that we filled up on their tasty fresh bread and didn’t expect our meal to come as quick as it did but it all worked out.

Overall our visit to this restaurant was a wonderfully remarkable night filled with great service and fabulous food. I look forward to returning to Vegas and eating their again.