A long overdue post
Okay, so since I've been meaning to do this and I promised Misty I would, here's a rundown of the last week or so, with the addition of my LegoLAND gallery.
So here's the link to the gallery. Beware that it may take some time to load, as Tim took over 350 pictures in LegoLAND when we were there for one day. Sorry that some of them are sideways, but imageshack isn't letting me fix some of them for some reason. It keeps giving me connection problems.
Friday: My parents and I headed out to Vegas at 4pm. It was cool because we all got exit row seats in the same row. That rarely happens flying non-rev, and NEVER happens on the way to Vegas, so it was a nice surprise. We got a taxi and forgot to tell him not to take the highway, which was a bad idea because it ended up costing $5 extra. Oh well, lesson learned. Tim and I remembered on the trip back to the airport, and it was $8 cheaper! We got to Mandalay Bay and checked in and were able to get rooms right next to each other, although they weren't connecting. Then we went and picked up our Lion King tickets from the box office, so we didn't have to do it on Saturday. Then we went casino hopping while waiting for Tim, who unfortunately missed the first two flights, but made it on the third, which got him into Vegas at 11:30pm Vegas time. We ended up going to M&Ms World. That place is huge; four floors of nothing but M&Ms merchandise. Too fun!
Saturday: We went and had breakfast and then went back to M&Ms World to actually buy stuff now that Tim was there. There's also a Coke store which was cool, but completely made Tim's day since it had Kinley Limon at the fountain and he was able to get a large. (Kinley Limon is a soda from Israel that they have at Club Cool in WDW, and it's Tim's favorite.) Then we wandered back to the casino so Tim could teach my dad how to play craps. Mom and I went shopping in the hotel gift shop and then played some penny slots. Then it was time for Lion King, which was the reason for the trip in the first place. We sat 7 rows back, and it was amazing. It was right next to the percussion, so Tim was in seventh heaven. If you haven't seen this show yet, and you like musicals, it should definitely be on your list!
After Lion King, we went and bought monorail passes and headed for the Venetian. We walked through there, then back through a couple other casinos, and ended up at Rainforest Cafe at the MGM for a late dinner. Our server actually went to the same high school as I did, and graduated a year after. I'll have to find my yearbooks and look him up. :) Then it was time for bed.
Sunday: We sat and dithered about what we were going to do for our last day. Finally, we decided to go to the Titanic Artifacts Exhibition at the Luxor. My mom remembered that you could get half price tickets from near the M&Ms store, so we left Dad and Tim to play some more craps while we went to get tickets. Then Mom wanted to see Paris, so we decided it was just as far of a walk to get there as to take the monorail there and back, since we would have to walk through two hotels from the monorail. However, we didn't count on the 100+ degree heat. It would have been MUCH nicer to walk through air conditioned casinos! But we got there and walked back in time for Tim to tell us his gambling story of woe. ;) Then we went to lunch, and had Tim stand in line for the tickets for Titanic (we'd gotten vouchers that we had to redeem.)
Titanic was one of the coolest exhibits I've ever seen. They gave you a little passenger manifest at the beginning with a name and what you were doing on board. Then they had actual items pulled from the bottom of the ocean set in the rooms of the ship. So in one instance, you walked through a 3rd class corridor, and in another they had you on the promenade deck of the ship. You also got to have your picture taken on the Grand Staircase. It was amazing. They also had the "Big Piece", a piece of Titanic that came off the ship that was about 30 feet long and 13 feet tall. At the end of the exhibit, they had a list of everyone who made it, and those that didn't. There you could look up the name on your passenger manifest and discover if you lived or perished. I bought two books in the gift store, and read most of the first one on the plane home that night.
If that was tldr; summary is Vegas was fun, Lion King was beautiful, and the Titanic Exhibit was awe inspiring.
Tim and I went to go see Up! on Monday at the Market Street Cinemark. We discovered that anything before 6pm there is a matinee, on Mondays at least, so it's a cheap date. :) Up was very sweet, and a great addition to the Pixar movies. "Partly Cloudy" was absolutely adorable. They're going to have to release a new disc of Pixar Shorts to get all the new ones. I loved the thought that went into what dogs would sound like if they could actually talk, and the fact that Alpha's broken translator sounds like the cat from Emperor's New Groove was very cool. :)
Okay, I think that's all that I have to talk about today. I'll post again if I forgot something!
So here's the link to the gallery. Beware that it may take some time to load, as Tim took over 350 pictures in LegoLAND when we were there for one day. Sorry that some of them are sideways, but imageshack isn't letting me fix some of them for some reason. It keeps giving me connection problems.
Friday: My parents and I headed out to Vegas at 4pm. It was cool because we all got exit row seats in the same row. That rarely happens flying non-rev, and NEVER happens on the way to Vegas, so it was a nice surprise. We got a taxi and forgot to tell him not to take the highway, which was a bad idea because it ended up costing $5 extra. Oh well, lesson learned. Tim and I remembered on the trip back to the airport, and it was $8 cheaper! We got to Mandalay Bay and checked in and were able to get rooms right next to each other, although they weren't connecting. Then we went and picked up our Lion King tickets from the box office, so we didn't have to do it on Saturday. Then we went casino hopping while waiting for Tim, who unfortunately missed the first two flights, but made it on the third, which got him into Vegas at 11:30pm Vegas time. We ended up going to M&Ms World. That place is huge; four floors of nothing but M&Ms merchandise. Too fun!
Saturday: We went and had breakfast and then went back to M&Ms World to actually buy stuff now that Tim was there. There's also a Coke store which was cool, but completely made Tim's day since it had Kinley Limon at the fountain and he was able to get a large. (Kinley Limon is a soda from Israel that they have at Club Cool in WDW, and it's Tim's favorite.) Then we wandered back to the casino so Tim could teach my dad how to play craps. Mom and I went shopping in the hotel gift shop and then played some penny slots. Then it was time for Lion King, which was the reason for the trip in the first place. We sat 7 rows back, and it was amazing. It was right next to the percussion, so Tim was in seventh heaven. If you haven't seen this show yet, and you like musicals, it should definitely be on your list!
After Lion King, we went and bought monorail passes and headed for the Venetian. We walked through there, then back through a couple other casinos, and ended up at Rainforest Cafe at the MGM for a late dinner. Our server actually went to the same high school as I did, and graduated a year after. I'll have to find my yearbooks and look him up. :) Then it was time for bed.
Sunday: We sat and dithered about what we were going to do for our last day. Finally, we decided to go to the Titanic Artifacts Exhibition at the Luxor. My mom remembered that you could get half price tickets from near the M&Ms store, so we left Dad and Tim to play some more craps while we went to get tickets. Then Mom wanted to see Paris, so we decided it was just as far of a walk to get there as to take the monorail there and back, since we would have to walk through two hotels from the monorail. However, we didn't count on the 100+ degree heat. It would have been MUCH nicer to walk through air conditioned casinos! But we got there and walked back in time for Tim to tell us his gambling story of woe. ;) Then we went to lunch, and had Tim stand in line for the tickets for Titanic (we'd gotten vouchers that we had to redeem.)
Titanic was one of the coolest exhibits I've ever seen. They gave you a little passenger manifest at the beginning with a name and what you were doing on board. Then they had actual items pulled from the bottom of the ocean set in the rooms of the ship. So in one instance, you walked through a 3rd class corridor, and in another they had you on the promenade deck of the ship. You also got to have your picture taken on the Grand Staircase. It was amazing. They also had the "Big Piece", a piece of Titanic that came off the ship that was about 30 feet long and 13 feet tall. At the end of the exhibit, they had a list of everyone who made it, and those that didn't. There you could look up the name on your passenger manifest and discover if you lived or perished. I bought two books in the gift store, and read most of the first one on the plane home that night.
If that was tldr; summary is Vegas was fun, Lion King was beautiful, and the Titanic Exhibit was awe inspiring.
Tim and I went to go see Up! on Monday at the Market Street Cinemark. We discovered that anything before 6pm there is a matinee, on Mondays at least, so it's a cheap date. :) Up was very sweet, and a great addition to the Pixar movies. "Partly Cloudy" was absolutely adorable. They're going to have to release a new disc of Pixar Shorts to get all the new ones. I loved the thought that went into what dogs would sound like if they could actually talk, and the fact that Alpha's broken translator sounds like the cat from Emperor's New Groove was very cool. :)
Okay, I think that's all that I have to talk about today. I'll post again if I forgot something!