Still on EST, we both woke up at 300, but fell back asleep.  By the time it was 600, I’d figured out what to do.  Went down to the Starbucks in the casino to fetch coffee.  By the time I’d gotten back, Dad was dressed and raring to go with the day. I was like, chill, I have to drink my coffee and take a shower.

We decided to book a walking tour of Fremont  (the ‘old’ Vegas) and I did that online, for the afternoon. Decided to ask about bus tours at the concierge desk, which we did after the (very nice) breakfast at Primrose, the hotel’s nice restaurant not in the casino. Concierge sold us Big Bus tickets. I see the hop-on/hop-off buses all the time in NYC, but I’d never been on one.

We went out of the hotel/casino to find the Big Bus stop, which wasn’t far, but more confusing than we thought.  To CVS to buy sundries, then back to room.  (I’m now realizing that we should have prepared to go out for the day when we went to breakfast. Just the journey to go back to the room in the hotel was a real slog). Once we did that, we were too late for the first Big Bus, but got the 2nd one at 10:30. 

Tour started right across from “New York New York”, which we found amusing.

Big Bus tour was really fun! It was a beautiful day. We rode on the top, listened to the prerecorded commentary.  It was a 2 hour loop of the whole strip, plus downtown Las Vegas, which we’d come back to later. Seeing all the hotels and casinos on the strip was a hoot – especially Excalibur. I was like, “why didn’t we stay here?”. I thought the most interesting thing about the tour was the factoid that most casinos on the strip have a short shelf life – they’re considered old and shabby after 20 years or so and are often completely razed and replaced with a new one. There were several empty lots that were ‘between casinos’, I guess. Also, we saw the Trump hotel (that is, we passed by it, we didn’t go in it), which not long after had the Tesla truck explode by it. It was weird, because it wasn’t near anything else and it wasn’t clear whether it was a casino or what. It was kind of exiled off in its own space.

Got off the Big Bus where we started, across the street from the Park MGM. We had lunch at Eataly (I came to Vegas to go to Eataly? I live in NYC, we have them here), split a sandwich.  Back to the room for a bit.  Then off to our tour of the Fremont district. (We probably could have driven, but we took a taxi – and in general, we found in the big cities, it was easier to Uber places than to take our car.)

The two-hour walking tour was really interesting. That part of Vegas (which is not the Strip) is the original Vegas, where the town started. The first few blocks of Fremont Street are now covered with a canopy and it’s a big pedestrian mall with three performance stages, but tour guide Kelly pointed out to us what it originally looked like and where you could see original facades and designs peeking out. Unfortunately, he was always having to compete with loud piped music or buskers, very annoying. 

The tour finished at Downtown Container Park, which was really cool, but we were both fading so didn’t explore. While we were waiting for the Uber back to the Park MGM, the giant bug went off and did its thing, quite startling.

(not my video – it was more sunset when we saw it)

Another factoid: the local Waldorf Astoria is the only hotel in Vegas that doesn’t have a casino. This was an easy walk for us, , and it has a nice rooftop bar, so we went there for cocktails, very cool. A nice cocktail apiece, really classy, and then back to the casino for dinner.  I’d been pushing for the noodle place, but Dad didn’t seem enthused and I offered the steakhouse instead. No table for us, but they seated us at the bar. And this was a great meal, one of the best of the trip.  We each got little filet mignons, sourdough bread, haricots verts, wine, and then he got carrot cake and I got a chocolate cream pie, which was really more of a chocolate fudge pie with whipped cream.

And to bed quite early.  Did fell asleep at 8:15, I lasted until 900.  And thus more waking up at 300.

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Our sum-up of Vegas – fun to see it, but no reason to rush back. It’s very artificial, like going to an amusement park. And pricey, although I’m sure there’s ways to make it cheaper. If I went back, I think I’d make a point to push my sleep schedule back and then see as many shows as I could, while also exploring the more famous casinos.