Trip Report with 12 and 8 year old - Great time!!

We went to Vegas as part of a multi trip over Easter. I have had computer problems and have only just managed to get on-line again.

We had 4 nights in Boston, 4 in Vegas and 4 in New York. The kids liked Vegas best!! It is a great place to take kids as long as you plan family friendly activities. We could have stayed a lot longer but unfotunately time nor money wouldn%26#39;t allow this.

My husband is Nigel (44), my son is David (12), my daughter is Katie (9) - this will help as you read cos I am doing my trip report as a record for us not just on here.

If anyone wants to ask for advice about taking kids ask away and I will be happy to help.

Las Vegas – March 2008

Flying into Vegas was amazing. There were fantastic views over the strip and it is so exciting seeing the hotels you feel you know so well even if you haven’t been before.

Everything was fine at the airport and it was a relief to see our luggage again knowing it had travelled with us from Boston to Vegas via Chicago.

We got a taxi almost immediately and it was very cheap to get to our hotel,– The Excalibur around $10 with tip. It was around 7pm but felt like 11pm due to our body clocks.

I asked at check in if we could have a room in Tower 2, the young lady looked at the computer screen and said that would be fine; she didn%26#39;t ask for any further money so we were very pleased about this. Free upgrade!

Our room was on the 10th floor and had a view of the towers - it was just like the many pictures on the hotel website, I particularly liked the amount of counter space in the bathroom and the hair dryer was quite powerful for a hotel one. The beds were enormous (- no fighting)and it was good to have a safe and there was plenty of storage.

We all unpacked, changed and watch some American programme about telling the truth and upsetting your spouse at the same time – it wasn’t a nice programme but Nige and David were engrossed and wanted to see the end!! What a waste of time. I read the coupons booklet from the taxi and Katie played on her new DS from Boston while we waited for the programme to finish.

At last we could explore – it was so warm after wearing coats, hats and gloves in Boston. We wandered around the hotel and booked for The Tournament of Kings and then went to explore The Luxor and Mandalay Bay. By this time we were hungry so we went to the Luxor for a buffet dinner. This had a good range of food and is high quality, it also has a dessert station to die for! Katie managed a slice of pizza and then fell asleep – it was around 1 am our time. We all ate a lot – especially Nigel, although I did have 7 desserts but they are tiny. We then decided we had to go back to our rooms to sleep because it had been such along day. Nige had to carry Katie most of the way.

We were finally in our room by about 9.30pm Vegas time, they all went straight to sleep and I sat in bed and read info books for about half an hour before falling asleep too.

Trip Report with 12 and 8 year old - Great time!!

Part two etc will follow and I promise it will get more exciting and relevant.

Trip Report with 12 and 8 year old - Great time!!

So far so good. I always think kids when I see Excalibur. I%26#39;m sure everyone had to enjoy the T O Kings show. I know I did =)

Day 2 – Wednesday 26th March - Part 1

We woke up very early – around half five and got up about six. I went down and got some milk to make tea from a little café shop by the lifts ( I take a kettle everywhere) and I was amazed to see lots of people playing the slots – Had they been there all night??

Took our time getting ready then wandered out via the bridge. It was a beautiful, warm sunny morning, we stood and took photos and looked up and down the strip and across to the mountains, it was such a fantastic view.

Eventually we realized that we needed to move and went across to New York New York to find somewhere for breakfast. Got pastries and hot chocolates and sat in a very dingy street scene – it was supposed to be atmospheric I assume but I prefer the real New York; which incidentally, we feel gives the WOW factor the first time you go far more than Vegas.

After a brief look around, we went across the bridge to MGM Grand. Nige and David were delighted to find about 100 tv screens showing different sports including a Manchester United game from the night before. OMG – We’re in Vegas and again the men are distracted by the tele!! I saw that there was about 15 minutes of the match left so let them sit and watch whilst Katie and I looked at an empty lion habitat – we were too early and The Rainforest Café shop. After 10 minutes or so we went back to find the men and found a security man trying to evict David because it was “A Gaming Area!”. I saw there were only minutes to play so distracted the man by chatting about different laws between the UK and USA and how strict it all was when kids play slots at home etc etc and basically didn’t let him get a word in until the game was finished. David was pleased.

We wandered out and found daylight and began our walk up the strip. We stopped at a large gift shop and all bought “designer” sunglasses and then met a great timeshare bloke. There are an awful lot of them around and he started with the usual “Are you English?”, then “Are you from London?” Why do all timeshare people think everyone from the UK lives in London!! He offered us a good deal – Mac King tickets which we were on our way to buy, and lunch at Planet Hollywood. I remarked to Nige that this was the best deal so far and he then thought he had some mugs lined up. There was no way we were going to waste our precious time so I said we would go and look at his timeshare if he could name 10 UK cities. He named London and was stuck! Then he tried to ask Katie for more, he’d even forgot to say Leicester which we had told we are from. He was really fun though and we had a laugh, my son can name over 40 states; do American’s do Geography at school? He said he’d buy an atlas and look up some cities incase he saw us again.

We continued on, looking at various hotels on the walk up the strip, we had a very pushy timeshare woman approach us in Planet Hollywood who had no sense of humour at all. We looked around the Paris Hotel and took more photos before reaching Harrah’s. By this time it was around 12 midday and we went to book the Mac King magic show tickets. We got them for 1pm and went to have hotdogs and chips before going and taking our seats.

The Mac King show was one of the highlights of our whole trip; I cannot remember the last time all of us laughed out loud for so long. I won’t say what happens but I really regret not getting a DVD and seriously recommend it for families and anyone who wants a very reasonable afternoon’s entertainment. He is BRILLIANT!!!

After the show we came out and walked to the Venetian and watched the gondoliers for a while. Katie was starting to get excited about the rides we’d promised and as we had walked a fair way we got a taxi up to the Stratosphere.

More to follow.

More please I have children and was wondering if I should take them or not. This is great !!!

Glad you enjoyed Mac King. Looking forward to the rest of your TR, enjoying it so far. Oh, yes, we have Geography in the states. Maybe the timeshare guy never did!

sounding great!

I am taking my kids, the oldest 8, so nice to hear. I notice lots of people on here taking kids are form the UK- as we are-were they bothered by the %26#39;porn%26#39; images around them in any way and did you have to deal with anything more than scantily clad women %26amp; dirty pics/cards lying around? Did this hamper your trip in any way? Also, did you have to deal with any unpleasantness from people who think you shouldnt take your children?! Or is that just on here?! lol.

so pleased you had a good time. we are flying the end of this month!

Enjoying your report, look forward to the rest

Hi thanks for the positive comments. Only positive so far!! ;o)

Noone seemed to notice that we had kids with us, it%26#39;s only on here that you get a few people trying to put you off, anyone thinking of booking go ahead and if you have booked stop worrying, it must be a very tiny percentage of visitors to Vegas who actually come on here anyway.

As far as porn is concerned, I had to point it out to my husband - he%26#39;d been wondering why old looking Southern Americans had been standing around the strip on the parts between hotels tapping bits of cardboard together, when I said it was porn he went to have a closer look, to my embarrassment and said it was milder than page 3.

You do get a few cards attached to fences by areas where they are building but Katie didn%26#39;t notice, although I think David might have taken the odd sneaky glance. Honestly, they are the size of a playing card and we get far more flesh in our trashy daily newspapers!

Next part coming soon.

When we got inside the Stratosphere, the kids and I looked for the toilets and Nige put a couple of 10 cents into a machine and won $5 – it came out as a voucher though.

Next,we wandered through the building following signs for the tower and got to where you pay. You can pay for rides at the bottom, I knew that I wouldn’t go on anything but Nige thought he would so we got tickets for him to do the 3 and the kids to do one each. You go though typical security and then go in a lift to the top. There is an undercover bit with glass and steps to the top. The views are great but we weren’t taking much notice of the views but looking at the rides instead. David has been on every ride and coaster at Disney and Universal but decided straight away that he could only do Big Shot – (Like The Tower of Terror without the hotel) Katie kept changing her mind, but I was surprised at Nige cos he loves anything and even he declared he was too old. Two of the rides look absolutely terrifying!

Eventually the 3 of them went on Big Shot and Katie cried throughout but loved it when she got off! I videoed their feet and then found out that I’d actually videoed some other family’s’ feet. We had to give the spare tickets away as they don’t give refunds when you get to the top – I bet they make a lot of money this way!

When we’d found our way back downstairs, Nige announced he had to spend his voucher. He tried to lose but kept winning and we got told off because the kids and I were sitting on the stools by the machines waiting. Again I tried my friendly chatting technique to distract but he wasn’t interested so we sat on the steps by the doors to wait for Nigel. We only found out later that we could have cashed the ticket thing in but it didn’t seem worth the hassle for a couple of $.

We then walked from the Strat to Circus Circus – which is supposed to be around a mile but didn’t seem far; we looked in a very tacky gift shop on route and another timeshare bloke tried to get us to go to the Mac King show but when we said we’d already been he left us and gave the kids a pack of playing cards each.

Circus Circus is really bright, a lot of the casinos are dark except for the machines but this is garish. We found our way to the circus acts and watched a trapeze artist – it was ok but only ok. We then let the kids go on the roller coaster and water ride, we waited and watched them; day tickets are worth the money if you have time but we couldn’t afford any more rides for them as individual rides are very expensive. Still they were happy with the two rides and we were ready to go back as we’d had a busy day and it was around 7pm.

We got a taxi back to The Excalibur, taxis are so cheap compared to what we pay in the UK! We went back to our room for a rest and a shower then went downstairs to The Sherwood Forest Café for dinner. Nige, David and I had steak and chips specials for $7.99 and Katie ate from the kids menu for $5. We played with the cards we’d been given as we waited. It was a decent and cheap meal.

It was now nearly 10 o’clock so I took the kids up to bed and Nige decided to stay down and have a game of BlackJack, I had to take Nigel’s key as I’d left mine in the room.

After losing $50 he decide to give up and walked to the lift to Tower 2 however, he was not allowed to get to the lift by security as he didn%26#39;t have a room key. They asked him the room number but he said 10214 ( 14 had been our room in Boston) instead of 10240 and when they rang up noone answered ( This was lucky really because the people in room 10214 obviously didn’t know him and he would have looked really stupid). He asked someone to come up with him to the room so I could verify who he was but they refused. In the end, after a lot of questions and answers at check in they issued a new key. I had been sitting in bed wondering what on earth he was doing, knowing that $50 was the limit and thinking he was either winning big time or losing too much to mention.

He was pretty fed up when he got to the room but we laughed about it later, and I made sure I always had my key too.

Great TR so far! Especially since I%26#39;m going to the Excalibur next week with a 16 year old who also wants to ride the thrill rides. Question for you about the Strat rides: were you also able to purchase tickets for the rides once at the top of the tower? Or only at the bottom? I%26#39;m wondering about the same thing happening to us, buying ride tickets only to get up to the top %26amp; wimp out once we see them.