Day One in Las Vegas

Today started out really early because we had to be at the airport at 7am.  It was cold and kind of rainy. 

Our plane was late, so we had to wait in the airport for over an hour.  We had breakfast at McDonald's and had some good Cinnamon Melts.  Finally the plane arrived and we got on for a 5 hour and 20 minute ride to Las Vegas that turned into a 6 hour ride because of delays in Las Vegas.

I had a huge surprise when we landed.  It was a stretch limousine with a driver named Tim.  He waited with us while got our luggage and then took us out to a huge stretch limousine.  It was so fun, it had glasses, water bottles and ice.  There were magazines, a moon roof, lights, TV and stereo.  I stretched out and bounced around and had plenty of room.  There are some photos of my ride below.  Tim drove us all the way down Las Vegas Boulevard and we opened the roof to see all the hotels.  Then he drove us to the Tropicana where we're staying. 

We checked in and got an upgrade to a room with a view of the Las Vegas Strip.  Our room is really cool and the view is awesome!

My first order of business was to check out the TV.

Here's the view from our room on the 15th floor of the Paradise Tower (Dad took this when we got back late tonight).

By now it was 2pm in Las Vegas, but to us it was 5pm because of the time difference.  So we headed down to a cafe in the hotel for lunch.  While we ate, there was a wedding by the pool and we got to watch the whole thing!

Speaking of the pool...as soon as we finished eating we went out to the pool so I could swim.  The pool just opened yesterday, it's a five acre pool and it's really awesome.  It goes under the building in one area and you come out on the other side.  It's the biggest pool I've ever been in!

After some swimming, we went upstairs to relax for a few minutes.  Then I took a shower and got dressed and Dad took me to do some exploring.  We started by walking over Las Vegas Boulevard.

FYI:  I like Elvis.

That took us to the Excalibur Hotel which looks like a giant castle.  From there we took the tram to the Luxor Hotel which looks like a pyramid and has a bright beam of light shooting out of the top at night (they say you can see it from outer space!) then the tram went to the Mandalay Bay Hotel where we went to the Shark Reef exhibit.  The Mandalay Bay Hotel was enormous, it took a long time to walk past all the slot machines, restaurants, shops and stuff to get to the Shark Reef.  It allows you to walk in a glass tunnel under 1.6 million gallons of water full of sharks and all kinds of fish.  I bought a real shark tooth that's on a necklace, I wore it most of the evening...even Dad says it's kind of cool (thanks for the spending money Grammy & Pop).

By now it was around 6pm so we went to the Mandalay Bay Buffet.  It was the biggest buffet I have ever seen, they had everything...and I mean everything!  I went up to the buffet line three times and loaded up on my new favorite meal...shrimp!  The deserts were amazing too.  Shark necklace can be seen in this photo.

After dinner we took the tram back and walked over the sky bridges that cross Las Vegas Boulevard.  While I was walking over the sky bridge, my Mom called and I told her all about everything I'd done that day.  It felt like I'd been there a week already because of everything we did...but there was still more to come!  Here's me talking to my Mom on the sky bridge.

Now we started our long walk down Las Vegas Boulevard...a very long walk!  We went to M&M's World where there are four levels of M&M gifts.

There are so many people here.  We walked past a country music concert at the New York New York Hotel & Casino, street musicians in front of the MGM Grand and even Mario from the Super Mario Bros. video game...so I stopped and had my picture made with him!

We even found a crazy bubble machine that's an old man blowing bubbles out of his...well, sorry.  I thought it was funny!

We started walking down toward the Paris Hotel and a huge replica of the Eiffel Tower.  Outside of that we saw some Clone Troopers from Star Wars...so I got a picture with them too!  They were really nice and funny.

From Paris, we walked over another sky bridge to the Bellagio where they have the dancing fountains, we just missed the show so we waited a loooong time for the next one and it got very cold outside.  There were so many people, cars, limos, musicians and noise...this is the biggest city I've ever been in.

After a while the show started and it was worth the wait.  The water shoots up out of the lake and it makes a loud "BOOM" when it falls down.  We talked to a lot of people watching the show and some of them were there for Monster Jam just like we are. 

After the show we walked into the Bellagio Hotel.  It was really beautiful, there are flowers everywhere...even a ceiling made of glass flowers.  They had a carousel and a Ferris wheel covered in flowers and huge butterflies everywhere. 

I didn't want to do the long walk back to the Tropicana, so Dad got us a cab and we went back to our hotel.  Around 10:30pm I finally conked out, but before I did Dad asked me what my favorite part of the day was.  I told him "EVERYTHING!"  This was the best day ever!

See you tomorrow.