Wynncore Vs Cosmo - Day 4

Nothing in particular planned today. Just some casino hopping, exploring the strip and some drinking/gambling. Let's get this show on the road shall we?

Might as well go to the gym, I mean we did pack all that gym clothes, gotta make use of them!

Just kidding! We didn't make it out to the gym today either.

I woke up this morning and I was starved, even though I had a lot to eat yesterday, I think my belly is adjusting to the #VegasPortions of food. Before we could go search for breakfast we still had that macaroni appetizer from GR Steak from last night. I know what you're thinking, gross, cold leftovers! What? People eat cold pizza all the time. But don't worry, we have a microwave in the Cosmo room. So I pop it into the microwave and we split it. We're about to leave the room, then we look over and see a lonely little square box sitting there. Oh right! We still have that cup cake from yesterday to eat. So we split that as well. Okay, now i'm feeling a bit better.

Where to go for breakfast? Neither one of us knows, we didn't have any particular place planned. So I suggested we walk over to The Miracle Miles shops and explore there to see what sparks our interest.

So as we're walking we see a display sign that read "La Salsa Cantina Breakfast, eggs, potatoes, bacon or sausage for $4.29. Add coffee for $0.99 more" Both our eyes were drawn immediately to that sign, so it's settled then, more Mexican food!

I ordered my eggs scrambled, potatoes and bacon with the coffee add-on. She had the potatoes, over easy eggs, with the sausage.



Not gonna lie, I was expecting the American version of this dish, but it came out Mexican, I don't know what I was thinking, or maybe I just wasn't thinking. So needless to say we were both surprised when her sausage looked like a patty and we got wraps with it. As the saying goes, when life gives you wraps, you make wraps with it.

I think they add their own spices in the potatoes as well because it tasted Mexican, but hey at least the Ketchup tasted like Katsup. Regardless, the food still tasted pretty darn good and for that price, yes I would go eat there again!

From our attraction package that we purchased from MGM, we still have one more to go, and that will be Sigfried and Roy's Secret Garden / Dolphin Habitat. So we're headed in that direction now, as we're still walking through the Miracle Mile shops we come across one of those alcoholic slushy places. It's like 10AM but F*ck It, we're in Vegas, plus there's already a small line forming. So we get in line present our ID's and we order one to share. I can't remember how much it costs, just that it was served in a nice strong cup and that it tastes great! This is awesome! I've always wanted to walk around with one. (There use to be one with the guitar as a souvenir cup, but I guess that trend has passed)

We're just about done that drink by the time we get to Margarita Ville near the Venetian. We quickly look at each other and say "refill?" we both nod in agreeance. So we sit down, we order it to go. Step back outside, quickly gulp down the first one and open up the one we just bought and pour it into the first cup. Why? Because the first cup was sturdier, the one from Margarita Ville was served in a cheap flexible cup. (Maybe we accidentally bought the souvenir cup from the first place, who knows).

We finally make it to the Dolphin Habitat and as we're walking by, we hear one of the trainers tell one of the other guest that the "training session" will begin in about 15 mins, so we decide to wait. So we sit in the shade for a bit, then as it's about to begin we walk out towards the pool area where the dolphins are. Man it's hot out today, just standing there for a few minutes I could feel my skin start to burn.

The dolphin show was pretty cool. They had 3 different experiences set up that had guests who already paid in advance to enjoy the experience. One experience was where you could just sort of have the dolphin swim up to you and you could pet it and take pictures with it, the other one was where you held a piece of canvas and the trainer would put paint on one of the dolphins toys and the dolphin would paint the canvas. The kids seemed to really enjoy that one. The final one was probably the most expensive one, where you could be a "trainer for a day". You wore a wet suit, got into the water with them, you got to swim with them, feed them and kiss them.

I didn't record any pictures, but here's a quick video of some of the experience

From there we moved onto the Secret Garden to see the lions and tigers. Immediately transitioning from the dolphin habitat to the secret garden the mood was very different. In here, everyone was very quiet and moving around slowly, kinda like a funeral home atmosphere. I guess everyone in here felt the same we did, sorry for the caged animals. It was very hot out and they are covered in fur and just laying there trapped, looking dead tired and sad.

It was very hard for her to see them like this because she really likes animals and these guys are all caged up just so we could "save them". I tried to brighten her up, by reminding her about the dolphin habitat, that looked pretty good? the dolphins looked pretty happy and they looked like they were having fun, right? That's when she told me that they probably have to put a lot of chlorine or chemicals in the water because they let people in there as well, so it's probably really bad for the dolphins. Oh......

Hey, I know what will cheer us up! Food! That will cheer anyone up! Not just any food, food at the Bellagio! Time for us to use our MyVegas BOGO lunch buffet reward. So we head on over to the Bellagio, by the time we make it there to the buffet line it's already 2:15. Wait, did I read that correctly? It's 2:15 in the afternoon, why is there such a BIG lineup for the buffet? Regardless, we join the line and we wait along with them. OMG. This line is moving so slow, so slow that I leave the line, walk through the exit to see if they're actually letting people in or if the line is at a stand still. Okay, they're letting people in. So I walk back to the line and re-join her. I wasn't hungry before, but i'm starting to get hungry now!

There's a family of five lining up right in front of us, looks like it's mom, pop, a teen and two kids. Pop is holding a beer in his hand and is talking rather loud and his words are a bit slurred. Mom was complaining about something, and the kids? well the kids were just themselves. Anyways, mom and pop get into an argument, I think mom wanted to leave, but pop wanted to stay. I was secretly hoping that they would have a huge blowout and storm out of the line so that we could advance, it's been a long wait. But that would be the Hollywood version of the story, the Vegas version is that mom simply just left the line while everyone else stayed, about 10 or so minutes later she came back and showed everyone that she had just won about $100 at the tables, so mom and pop hugged it out and they were okay.

Okay, it's almost 2:45 now, when does lunch end? So I pull up my phone and look it up, turns out lunch ends at 3PM, and dinner starts at 3PM. Wait a minute, if we make it up to the counter before they jack up the prices by $10, which happens at 3PM and use our BOGO lunch coupon you mean we get to stay for dinner as well? Okay! Now we're excited and a little worried that we might not make it, but we gamble it anyway and stay in line!

By the time we pay it's 2:45 and by the time we're seated down it's around 2:50PM. So we grab a plate and make our first round, there's not much selection going on here. Grab a little bit of this and a little bit of that, that's about it, they must be switching over the dishes. We wait. Around 3:05 we go again, still not much selection out there. We wait some more. We get up and go again, finally there's food! Prime rib, beef flank, chicken, turkey, oh and of course crab legs!



The selection of their dinner menu items wasn't that expansive or great, glad we didn't pay full price for this food, their beef flank was pretty good though, but hey at least the crab legs were bigger and juicier than Aria's. I think we filled up on them and shared about 2 plates.



They also had a pretty big and appetizing dessert selection, way to go MGM!

Once again, the benefit of staying right next to the Bellagio is that it's just a short commute to your room! So we head on back up to the room to rest for a bit. We're planning to go to Container Park and Fremont St later on, but I told her I think she would enjoy Fremont more at night, so we had some time to kill.

She just wanted to relax in the room, while I wanted to take advantage and explore the pool. I mean people would pay extra just to use the pool, where as we could use it because we're already staying here. There are 3 pools and 2 fitness centres at Cosmo, I only ventured to the one pool and the one fitness centre on the West side of the building, was too lazy to make the trek to the East side. Overall, very nice pool and very nice fitness centre.

I've been to Fremont many times, most of the times it was during the day, so I was always missing out on the night experience of Fremont St, so I was also excited to go there during the night time. And of all the times i've been to Fremont, I don't think i've been to Container Park before. So I told her that I wanted to go to Container Park during the day, which was a bit of a half lie, I just needed to get her into the car again, why? because I had another surprise planned!

While we were planning our trip she said she wanted to go zip-lining and I scoffed at the idea, making it seem childish, the truth was that I had already purchased a zip line Groupon to the Rio, where you zip line from one building to the next. So I had to get us to the Rio somehow!

We hop into the car and as we're driving she see's the Rio and asks if I've ever been there before, I told her yes, that the Seafood Buffet is there and I begin driving towards the Rio. She didn't suspect anything of it at the time, she just thought that because she mentioned it, I figured she was curious about it and started driving towards it, thinking she wanted to check it out.

We find the self park and make our way into the hotel. Okay, something is off here, Vegas is #Lit but this place is a ghost town. It's practically empty! We start walking around for a little bit, but she doesn't really want to stay and wants to go already, well because this place is empty, so there's nothing really to see. I'm walking a lot faster than she is, trying to find a sign for the zip line, but nope nada, zilch, no signage. I finally across to the Voodoo Lounge and there's a sign that directs us to the zipline desk. Of course there is no wait, there's no one in the hotel! So this time I remember and I say "surprise, we're going ziplining" but she's not impressed.

I hand over my Groupon and we blindly sign our waivers that probably says we forfeit the right to sue if the zipline snaps and we die. From there, we're directed to take the elevators up to the 51st floor. Has anyone ever been to Disney World and taken a ride on The Twilight Zone - Tower of Terror? Well yeah, if you have, the elevator ride up felt just like it, except this time you're standing, not sitting and there's no safety harness. Skip the Disney lineup and just come to the Rio and ride their elevator instead, it'll provide you with the same experience.

We finally make it up there. OMG. This hotel has people in it! They're all hiding up here, like there's a zombie infestation down there or something. Surprisingly, there are a lot of people here to do the zip-line, they must all have Groupons, I can't see anyone paying full price to do this experience. The view from the Voodoo Lounge is absolutely amazing, a hidden gem!

So it's finally our turn, with this zip-line you get to set and it's made for two people, so we get to sit down side by side, and off we goooo, weeeeeeee. Zip-lining from one building to the next, we're going pretty fast, we're almost at the end of the zip-line uh-oh why arn't we slowing down yet? *thud* At the end of it, the zip-line comes to a sudden stop and jerks you really hard, that was scary, we thought we were gonna go splat up against the wall. From there we are pulled backwards into the direction where we came from, that ride is not that scary. We were gonna look at our pictures to see our silly scared faces, but the pair in front of us was taking too long, it's okay, we're not gonna buy anything anyways.

We're headed to Container Park now! Supposedly this whole place is made out of....containers....hence it's name. I wasn't exactly sure where to park for this, so I just parked at El Cortez, at least they still had free parking, even though their said that parking was only for their casino patrons, but what are they gonna do? Have their 70 year old security guard who's having trouble staying awake chase me down in my Mitsubishi Mirage? I can go 0 - 20 #RealQuick. By the time we get there, it's dark and all the stores are closed, but we're still allowed in, after they check your ID, apparently after a certain hour, you need to be 18 in order to gain entry? or at least entry with a parent. It's a small place, so it doesn't take us long to do a quick lap. They're showing the Minion movie on a big projector screen in the middle of it. Will have to stop by and check this place out during the day on another trip!



We get out, I look across the street. Wait a minute, is that Fremont St? We're that close? of all the times i've been to Fremont, I never once ventured past that giant martini glass? If I did I would have discovered Container Park? *facepalm*



We start walking in and yo this place is #Lit, it's #Poppin, we're both really impressed and are stunned. There's so many people here. We even saw a tour bus full of old people, who looked like they would be judging us if we told them we were going to Sin City, but they looked like they were really enjoying themselves taking pictures with their selfie sticks!

Before we venture too deep into Fremont, we stop by the slushie bar outside of the D and order a drink, it's been hours since our last one, we're long over due for one. So with a drink in hand, we explore the rest of Fremont St.

We saw a lot of streets "performers" there, It was a wide variety ranging from a pregnant lady with pasties on taking pictures with folks for tips, to a handicapped old lady sitting in a wheel chair holding up a sign telling you to "suck my d*ck", along with dancers and musicians from a certain ethnic background entertaining us all.

As we were leaving Fremont, we walked by them again and I turned to her and said "Sorry, guys are just more talented than girls" She jokingly and sadly agreed. Most of the male performers we saw were displaying some kind of talent that they had, whereas most of the female entertainers there were just standing there and relying on their body image for tips.

We both had an amazing time there. Day 4 was definitely a good day. No set agenda, we could just walk around and do whatever we wanted, and most importantly, walk around with a nice cool drink in hand.

END of Day 4 - Total Distance Walked - 23.96KM or 14.89M

Wynncore Vs Cosmo - Day 3

Today is a special day. Why? Because she planned it! While we were planning this trip together, she requested to plan a day. Sure! Go Right Ahead!

Wake up early and go check out the fitness center @ Cosmo? Not a chance! But don't worry, today is gonna be another full day of walking!

We're gonna start the day off right! Breakfast @ Hash House A Go Go @ The Linq! Last time I was in town, they weren't open yet.

We've both done some research on this chain and know that they're synonymous for large portion sizes we both agree to just order one and share. We look over the menu and decide to order the Tractor Driver Combo and decide to upgrade it to a flapjack size for a buck more! Comes with 2 eggs, and 2 sausages or bacon, perfect for sharing!



Our order arrives, and holy cow! That's the size of a flapjack? There's so much food that it's hanging off the size of that plate! Apparently our jaws weren't the only ones that dropped when we saw the plate, the table right next to us, ordered the same thing, but one for each of them. After they saw it, they quickly flagged down our server and told him to revise the order to just one and that they would share.

Luckily we shared, but we did finish it! It was a bit of a struggle though. After that we stopped by the Starbucks to grab some drinks and started walking towards the cupcake vending machine. We only bought one cupcake just for the experience, I was so full, I couldn't think anymore about food! The cupcakes were probably left overs from yesterday since we were there so early in the morning and the shop wasn't even open yet.

We bought these attractions tickets from MGM where you get entrance to 3 attractions for $57. We chose the Shark Reef @ Mandalay Bay, The Bodies exhibit @ The Luxor and the Secret Garden / Dolphin Habitat @ The Mirage.

So first on our list was the Shark Reef and work our way back down the strip. We walked all the way to the Excalibur and decided to take the free tram to Mandalay Bay, you know for the experience, not 'cause we were tired.

OMG. The drop off from the tram @ Mandalay Bay and where the shark reef is situated is soooooooo far away. We finally get there, line up in the Will Call line, which also happens to double as the line where the higher MLife people line up to get their tickets as well. Someone's being served at the ticket window, which is fine, we wait. After the teller is done serving that customer, puts a sign out and closes her window and tells us that we need to wait in the regular line. Yo WTF! Why didn't you tell us before, you wait till it's our turn then tell us to go wait in the other line?

So we go and wait in the other line, this line is long and it's not moving at all! After what, maybe half and hour passes by, we're still in line, but now the Will Call window is open again, and there's already someone at the front of the counter, so I go back into the Will Call line and wait. Finally its our turn and we finally get it!

It's short/small. Doesn't take long to walk through it, it's a bit disappointing, nothing special. The Ripley's Aquarium in Toronto is a lot better, and I hear there's even better ones than that one as well.

We make our way back to the tram so that we can take it to Luxor for The Bodies exhibit. The entrance to this one was smooth, no line ups, no waits, just a quick reminder that no pictures are allowed! This was my second time in that exhibit, still pretty amazing though to just look at all those preserved bodies and read about our muscles.

Okay, the mornings over and it's time to make our way over to Aria to use her MyVegas reward of BOGO lunch buffet. Reservations for dinner is at 5:45PM tonight, so we need to eat and let the food digest before dinner, so we're a little pressed for time, so we just walk right on by pass The Park and the T-Mobile Arena, maybe we'll visit it another time.

No wait time for the lunch buffet, plenty of seating available. The lunch time food selection isn't that bad.  Like I always say, who cares about plate presentation when you're at a buffet. The crab legs were really small though, this is one of the reasons why we chose this buffet too, because they said they had crab legs for lunch! The best part about this buffet i'd say is their dessert selection, they all looked so nice and there were just so many!

Since we're not driving today we wanted to get some drinks in us. Yes it's Day 3 and we haven't had a drink yet. And if we're gonna play, we're gonna play at the Cosmo, in hopes that they'll send us offers in the future!

So we make our way back to the Cosmo. I'm not usually a slot guy, I prefer table Blackjack, but since we were just looking to kill some time until our dinner reservation and get some drinks on, slots was the perfect choice!

When I play slots, I like to find machines that offer bonus games or free games, this makes them more fun. So I come across this penny slot where you can play anywhere between 2 to 8 screens and each screen can be a different game. Sounds fun right? So we sit down and plop a twenty in. We start off playing 2 screens, no hits, try more screens no hits, try changing up the games a bit, no hits. We order our drinks. Play some more games no hits. OMG. This game is sooo boring. At this rate i'm going to lose my buy-in before the drinks even get here. At one point we were just sitting there selecting and unselecting each of the different games we could play, just to make it look like we were actually playing with the "bonus" round, because we couldn't hit anything. Then right before our drinks arrived, this happened:  and we just let the coins keep falling while we sipped on our drinks. I was planning on cashing out and going to another machine as soon as my drink arrived. So from my $20 buy in, turned it into a $170 profit from penny slots! Spoiler Alert: this is my only slot pic.

So after that we just bounced around from machine to machine playing a little bit here and there, trying our luck. We eventually found a machine we liked, I think it was called Gone Fishing or something like that? Where they have a linked play with a giant screen up top and whenever you make it to the bonus round you can grab hold of the handle and pretend you're fishing.

Shortly after that we headed back up to the our room to change for dinner. We were headed to Gordon Ramsey Steak at 5:45PM. We made reservations with them awhile back.

Before we even got there, we both knew what we wanted to order as we had already read up on this restaurant and people kept recommending the same dishes over and over.

When we sat down they offered us the Hell's Kitchen Tasting Menu for $145 per person and it comes with an autographed picture of Gordon Ramsey. Uhh, we weren't that hungry and we already had our stomachs set on the items we read off Yelp, so we'll pass, but not before I secretly snapped a pic of their offer.



(The Hells Kitchen Tasting Menu you can just easily grab it from their website)

Okay, we'll start off with the Macaroni truffle of some sort, she'll have the beef wellington and i'll have the 8oz American Rib Cap and we'll share a Sticky Toffee Pudding for dessert, but not before our server gave us this look that read "that's it? that's all you're gonna order?" We both picked up on that look, so she explained that we just ate a lunch buffet a few hours ago and we're not that hungry.

On the website, it said that the beef wellington would take 45 mins after you order it, it did not take 45mins, it only took about 20 mins for it to get here. Maybe someone ordered it and then changed their mind so we had their "recycled dish" which our server served to us.....maybe.

The bread was interesting, it was an assortment of sorts. I had no idea what was what as I was eating it.

The macaroni was really good, but sad that we could only eat a few bites of it as we were stuffed, we the packed rest of the macaroni to go. Who knew mac n cheese could taste so good!

Both our entrees did not disappoint and were really good. But the "to die for" dish was the Sticky Toffee pudding. OMG. It was just sooo good!

Overall, glad this restaurant wasn't a let down, sure it's expensive, but you're going for the name and the experience. Would we eat there again in the future? Probably not, unless it was free. Not because of the cost, but because there are plenty of other celebrity chef restaurants to try out. Even GR himself has about half a dozen different restaurants in Vegas.

So we head back to our room to drop off our to go bag, then make our way over to the Bellagio. She bought us tickets to 'O'. These tickets are expensive! Even with the 25% off discount we were able to find. According to people on the internet, 25% off is about as good as it'll ever get.

Apparently there's no Starbucks inside the Bellagio? Why MGM why? You have Starbucks in every one of your other properties, but why not Bellagio? I wanted to grab coffee before the show, because I knew that without it, I wouldn't be able to make it through the show. Eventually we found a cafe and I ordered a shot of espresso, and even with that shot, it was still a struggle to stay awake during the show.

Facing the stage, we were sitting to the left of it. She managed to get us front row seats. Interesting, never sat front row to a Cirque show before. The drawback of sitting where we sat is that during the pre-show entertainment, you had to strain your neck and turn around to look behind you to see what's going on, after a couple minutes, your neck hurts. Also, before the show actually begins, the curtains are closed and they'll stand in the middle of the stage doing some stuff, keeping them engaged and making them laugh, since we were sitting to the side we couldn't see any of it. Not really a big deal, but still worth mentioning.

Since this is a water themed show, and you're sitting in the front row, there's a small chance that you'll get splashed on, some of the entertainers will even do it on purpose! But whatever, a little splash here and there will help keep us awake!

Overall, it was a really good show! Worth the money we paid for? I don't know, I can go watch KA again for like the 5th time at half the price and the show will be just as good. It's hard to believe that Cirque almost went bankrupt at one point in time.

END of Day 3 - Total Distance Walked - 23.62KM or 14.68M

Wynncore Vs Cosmo - Day 2

Wake up at 6:30AM and go to the gym, gotta #HustleHart know what I mean? Actually F-That. I'm in a luxurious room, sleeping on a king sized bed with lots and lots of pillows and you want me to get up and go to the gym?

Well going to the gym was always part of the plan, every time I go to Vegas I always tell myself that i'm going to wake up early and go to the gym even if it's for a little while. I mean it's part of the resort fees that we pay, but every time the bed always wins.

Breakfast will be at The Peppermill this time, you know, since it's good and it's right next door. It's probably about a 5 minute walk from Encore and in Vegas leaving your hotel room and actually getting to your destination within 5 minutes is mighty rare. Well, once again that was the plan, but then we would have to walk back to the hotel pack and then walk over to the self park to get the car, why not save some time, just pack up and leave now?

I must admit, I was sad to leave the tip money on the dresser and then quietly tip toe out of my suite and head on downstairs, it felt like I was paying for a certain service that was over before I even knew it. I mean, I didn't even get to go downstairs sit at the felt tables and get my happy ending. Alas, I guess that's what Vegas does to you, always has you wanting more.

We get to the Peppermill and it's just as how I remember it from every other time i've gone there. Same decor, same outfits, same napkins, some of the servers are probably the same as well.

I order the Eggs Benedict  and she orders Joe's San Francisco Special. Which is the exact same two dishes that was ordered the last time I was there #Awkward. I gotta remember to try a different dish next time. But once again, my eggs benny did not disappoint! 
From there we made our way over to Red Rock Canyon. Never been here before. Not bad, nice easy scenic drive. We pay the $7 vehicle admission fee, and drive along the already set out Scenic Route and we would stop at various look points to snap a few pics. We were suppose to go on a 2.6Mile hike that would take about 2.5hrs to complete, but uhhh, I couldn't do it. No shame in telling you guys about it now right?

Silly me, I didn't bring the proper footwear. I wanted to pack light, so I didn't pack my running shoes. I already packed a pair of sandals, which luckily I did not wear that day! So I was wearing these cloth shoes that are similar to chucks, so with every step, I could pretty much feel the rocks underneath my feet. I was not planning on walking on hot stones today.

So we stopped at the look point and began to set out on our planned hike. We walked a few hundred feet, but it seemed like forever under the Nevada sun and we get to a sign that supposedly marked the beginning of the trail. OMG. The hike starts now? This whole time I thought we were already on it? That's when I realized I couldn't go through with it, so we turned back and made our way to the car.



So now that our adventure was cut short, we have a bit more time on our hands. We stopped by the Red Rock Casino on our way back for a quick coffee break, also stopped by their players desk, hoping to sign up for some free play, but nope, sadly they didn't have any promos of that sort. The only promos they had were catered to seniors, ughhh, we're not that old...yet.

Alright, so back to the strip we go! Guess we'll just go check into our hotel and figure out what to do from there. So we're back on the strip and we're stopped at the red light, the red light just so happens to be the Palazzo/Venetian one. Hey, here's a great idea! They have free parking still, let's pull in there and explore the Canal Shoppes!

Yes, it's just like any of the other shopping centres they have on the strip loaded with high end fashion brands that have zero patrons in them, but still it's cool!

Whoa, wait a minute, is that actually people lining up to go on the gondola ride? $25 a person? that's not cheap either.... 

After all that walking, we're finally hungry! Hard to believe, I know.
She remembered reading about this Mexican restaurant that was part of Restaurant Week and had seats right next to the canal, so you could sit there, eat, and watch the gondolas float by. So our quest for that began.

It was an easy, but rewarding quest! Because we found it! The view was amazing and the food was delicious!

Canonita, is the name of the restaurant and they were once again part of Restaurant week, so we ordered from their lunch menu, it was $20 a person, but $4 of it went towards feeding the homeless, and it was a lot of food, so it was really a good deal. So much food in fact that the server should have gave us a heads up about it. One order was more than enough to feed the both of us. But OMG. The food was so good, I think it was the best Mexican meal I've EVER had.

Needless to say, they start you off with some chips and salsa, I opted to go with the Pozole as my starter, she chose a salad, and we both ended up choosing the Santa Rosa Pork Barbacoa's as our entrees, due to our servers recommendation. Boy was she right! Excellent choices!


So now that we're stuffed and all tired out from walking, onto the Cosmo, where it'll be our home for the next few days!

We ended up parking in the East lot, but the front desk and our room was on the West Side of the property, so that was a haul! But the first trip always is, because you never know where you're going and you're just getting acquainted with the property.

The check in line is long, but not that bad, so while we're waiting in line, I pull up my email, it says "Go directly to the Autograph Lounge, do not pass go, do not collect $250" So we bail out of that line and head to the Autograph Lounge, there's only one person in front of us, not bad. Check-in was smooth and simple, they had everything there correct. When we leave the autograph lounge, I see the lady who was standing behind us in the other line already up at the counter, so we saved a little bit of time.

I must have been too excited, because silly me, I was busy snap chatting for my 10 followers that I forgot to take actual photos of the room and the view. We ended up with a balcony view over looking the Bellagio fountains! To make up for it, here is a video of the room that I posted on Instagram: Cosmo Room

Anyways, after I get tired of running around the room like a kid flicking on all the switches and seeing what they do, we're ready to head out again!

We head on back downstairs to their Identity desk so that I can pick up my players card and have them load my $250 free play and $50 resort credit on to it. I walk up to the desk, present my ID's and explain to them that i'm picking up my card, one should have already been created for me and that I should have some FP loaded onto it. She hands me the cards, but says there's no FP on it. So I explain to her a bit more about the situation, and ask her to look again. Oh yes, you're right. I see it now. $250 FP, here let me load it. Okay, so that's loaded, and then I ask her about the $50RC, she goes, oh I don't see anything about that. I say okay, and ask who I should email. She says your host. I then pull up my phone and pull up the email, she asks me for my host's name, I give it to her and tell her I have it written in this email right here. She takes a look at the email, looks at her screen again and goes "oh, you're right, it's here, I see it now". It's just funny how those credits miraculously appeared after telling her a few things, she just made it feel like the money was coming out of her pocket. It could have gone smoother, but in the end I did get it.

I had a surprise planned for her, we needed to be there by 7:45PM, it's about a 25 minute drive, which means we should leave Cosmo around 7:15 in order to get there on time. I've been stressing out about this all day! Because of the timing issue, wondering how i'm going to trick her into going where i'm going and making sure it's timed correctly so that we get there on time and we're not in the middle of something then. We have a little under an hour to kill, and we just ate, so we're not hungry. So we decide to walk around.

Great thing about the Cosmo is that the Bellagio is right next to it! So we leave the property, cross the side street, walk down the street and voila, we're right in front of the fountains. It's almost time for the fountain show, we stand there and we wait, we watch the show, it's amazing. I look back down at my watch, damn, didn't kill enough time, still a long way to go. We ask each other what we want to do? Neither one of us knows, we both just shrug and stand there. I keep looking at my watch, and I seemed stressed. She knows something is up 'cause I keep looking at my watch and my face shows frustration. After what seems like forever, I said screw it, let's go there now!

In order to get her to the car, I make up some lame excuse about how we parked in the East lot and we live in the West lot now, so let's move the car closer. Gah! Can't believe she went with it! It's a good thing we left a little early to go search for the car too, because we kinda forgot where we parked. What? It happens. All the floors and rows look the same. We had to retrace our steps and eventually figured it out!

By the time we got to the car, it was the time I wanted, 7:15PM. So I pull out the GPS and set the coordinates in. By now she's figured out that we're not just moving the car and we're headed some place else, but she doesn't know where and just goes with it, probably just thinks we're just taking a drive around town.

We get to the airport right on time! Phew! She sees sign for helicopters and such, and she's asking me if I was going to fly a helicopter and brought her along to watch. Close, but not quite right!

I was in such a mix of emotions that i'm pretty sure I forgot one of the most important parts of the surprise, to yell SURPRISE. Anyways, we get inside, we check in.  Our scheduled flight time wasn't till 8:45, but they wanted us there an hour early. I assumed it was for forms and safety info.

There's two other couples in front of us, so we're just sitting in the waiting area and this is when I finally remember to reveal the surprise to her and explain what's going on, but she kinda figured it out by now.

I bought the tickets off Groupon, but you still have to pay an additional $25 airport fee once you get there. There are so many of these tour companies that you have no idea who to go with, the one I initially chose, when I called their toll free number, the operator said "This number is no longer in service" uhh sketch. So I decided to go with another company instead. But I did post on the other companies Facebook page telling them the number was not in service, by the time they got back to me and told me to call their local number instead, I had already opted to go with another company.

They have an "upgrade" option, where for an additional $40 you could choose to fly without the doors, they claim it's a better view and you can see the ground. Uhhh, i'm flying in a helicopter why would I want to look straight down and see the ground, as if it's not scary enough already. Just based off of the girls voice who was telling us about this, you could tell it was an upsell. We passed, since neither one of us have been on a helicopter ride before, we didn't know what to expect.

When it's finally our turn, they load us up into a golf cart and take us out onto the tarmack and wait for the helicopter to return, they unload and then we hop on. The couple in front of us did doors off, so when we got there, one of the mechanics had to quickly put the doors back on for us, and it took him less than a minute to reassemble each door, click click and he was done. Uhhh $40 more just for that? That works out to like $5 a click.

The flight was about 15 minutes long, they fly you once around the strip and then back. Worked out to be about $100 CDN per person for this experience. It's alright to do this kinda thing once in your lifetime. This is the kinda thing you want to #YOLO about.

I'm too young for the Vietnam war, but this seems like a fitting song for the helicopter ride up: To The Top Please

This next video was taken while we were flying over the strip, this song is more of my taste: All The Way Up

It was super windy up there, I can only image how much more windier it would have been without the doors! And when the helicopter turns, it's super scary! It's like you're about to fall out, would have been even scarier without the doors. And guys, word of advice if you're planning on surprising your girl with this kind of thing as well, make sure she's wearing pants and not a skirt, so she doesn't have to keep holding it down, and another thing, if she has long hair, make sure you bring a hair tie for her so that her hair isn't flying all over the place and keeps wacking you in your face and so that when she's done with the ride her hair isn't all in knots.

I'm so relieved that I was able to pull it off and that it's over with, no more stressing about that surprise! We headed back to the strip and night time traffic on the strip was beginning to pile up, took forever to make it back to the hotel, and we were only going till mid-strip as well. By the time we got back it was around 10:15PM. I must be getting old because I was feeling tired in VEGAS and we still weren't hungry, so I wanted to rest for a bit and then we would get up and go on another quest to find Secret Pizza. I guess I was more tired than I thought because I couldn't get back up afterwards. By the time I finally managed to pull myself out of bed, it was 1:30AM and by then she was fast asleep, so I didn't want to wake up. So we just ended up sleeping the rest of the night and never went to go look for that Secret Pizza. Oh well, that's money saved by skipping a meal!

END of Day 2 - Total Distance Walked - 11.64KM or 7.23M