Friday, November 15, 2013
We did sleep in until 8am, even Clay. He could have gone to
the fitness room to try for a treadmill after 5am. It is only open 5am to 7pm
and is much smaller than Bellagio’s with I would guess fewer than half the
treadmills. The guy working there told us yesterday he had 35 people in there
between 5 and 7 am on Thursday. I think that may have put Clay off as well.
We putted around and went down to the Roast Bean for
breakfast. Clay had a chicken salad sandwich. I had a strawberry yogurt and a
chocolate croissant with a mocha latte. I was happy. It still cost about $25!
We came back up to the room and it had been serviced
already! Points to The Mirage over Bellagio for maid service, sadly Clay
realized when we got back that he hadn’t left a maid tip this morning. We will
hope the same person comes tomorrow and gets the tip for our entire stay.
The room still smells funky though. We brushed our teeth and
used the bathroom then headed down to the Dolphin Habitat and Secret Garden.
We paid $17 each. Admission was reduced by $3 pp because we are staying here. The admission
charge is good for the entire day. Last admission is at 4pm though. You just
have to get a stamp on your wrist before you leave and then you can come and
go. We should have checked this out more thoroughly earlier because they had a
very cool dolphin painting experience that we would probably have paid the $200
extra for if we had known about it and had a chance to book it in advance. I
still don’t understand The Mirage missing that informational and sales opportunity once
they have you in your room here. Anyway. I am fairly certain we won’t be back
so we didn’t really learn anything from this. We enjoyed our couple of hours there. We
mostly enjoyed the dolphins more than the white lions and tigers even though it
was shadier in the cat part and sunnier in the dolphin part. You can go
underground and watch the dolphins underwater which was cool too. You are
forced to have a green screen photo opportunity to enter the Secret Garden of
the big cats at the back of the dolphin habitat. That is annoying and the
photos were pretty ridiculous. We didn’t buy any but it was funny watching her
move us around like cutout paper dolls to try to convince us to buy some. We thought about leaving and returning but
wound up just sharing a bag of chips and a Coke Icee and watching the dolphins
longer instead. We’ll be eating dinner at about 4pm today, so we didn’t want to
be too full.
So, we are at the early Cirque du Soleil show at the Luxor
tonight. It is Criss Angel’s BeLIEve. We have to be there at 6:30pm. So, our
plan is to walk over to Treasure Island early and get Clay’s Texas-style BBQ
fix at Gilley’s there. They do not take reservations and are open from 11am to
at least midnight. I think we didn’t think there was anywhere we wanted to eat
here or Luxor tonight. Our tickets for tonight's show were purchased online and picked up with the rest at the Bellagio box office. We paid $75 + $7.50 fees for a total ticket price per person of $82.50.
Tomorrow we are moving to Mandalay Bay for 2 nights.
Tomorrow night we are going to Cirque du Soleil’s KA at MGM Grand. We have
dinner reservations at Emeril’s at MGM. I tried to get us into Wolfgang Puck as
our first choice but they had nothing available. I am sure Emeril’s will be
fine. I am sure Clay should love it; lots of oysters on the menu.
So, we had dinner early at Gilley’s at Treasure Island.
Sirens will restart on Dec. 25th. There is a little 2 car tram
between Mirage and TI. It takes about 6 minutes to walk and 2-6 minutes to take
the tram depending on if you have to wait for it. It is very convenient and if
we had known about it we could have scheduled Mystere at TI during our 2 nights
here at Mirage. Oh, well. Dinner at Gilley’s. We spent half the money we spent
on each of our last 2 dinners for twice the food and we really liked it. How can you go
wrong with St. Louis ribs and chicken fried steak? I guess we must just be some
kind of Philistines. Neither of us finished our meals again, but tonight
because we just had more than we could eat, not because it didn’t taste good
enough to eat it all. We were too full for dessert. We walked through the TI
casino to scout out the location of the Mystere Theater for when we come back.
We rode the tram back and asked at the Concierge about 90 minutes being enough time for eating at Fleur on
Sunday night. We made that reservation with the assurance that since we already
had our tickets and were staying onsite that it wouldn’t be a problem. So,
we’ll look forward to that and happy to know it is taken care of. We watched
the 5pm volcano show from the Valet station and that was probably the best
location. But, it is still a ridiculous thing.
The drive 2 miles down the Strip to Luxor took much
longer than you might expect, but it had to be better than walking. All the
pedestrians were probably the reason the cars were so slow. We had an hour and
a half to get there so it was fine. We looked around Luxor to find a place to
eat dessert while we waited. We found another Blizz. Luxor’s Blizz had $.59/oz.
frozen yogurt! Clay had that and I got a S’mores crepe. That flaming volcanic
pool just makes me crave marshmallows every time! Again, it was good food and this time we ate it all.
Then we walked straight into the theater for Criss Angel’s BeLIEve. It was
exceedingly smoky in there. It was a more traditional proscenium arched stage.
It was steeply raked again so all the seats were good. We were in the middle of
a row in the middle of a section again. This time near the front and to the right of the stage. It
was not a full house again, but our section was almost completely full. I
should have gone with my gut on this one and skipped it. When we decided to
come to Vegas and see all the Cirque shows, I knew I wasn’t interested in
Zumanity and why. I read a lot of negative reviews online and I thought I’d
feel the same way. But people were crazy for Criss Angel’s Cirque show, so even
though I have seen him on TV and decidedly did not like him, he actually creeps
me out, I thought we should give it a chance. Mistake. It was a waste of money
to both of us. Didn’t like it, didn’t enjoy it, didn’t appreciate it, can’t
understand why Cirque du Soleil would affiliate their brand with it. It wasn’t
a great magic show, it wasn’t a good Cirque show. I mean he cuts a woman in
half and she dies. Where is the magic in that? Most of the show was
pyrotechnics and other loud flashes of light to blind you as Criss Angel moved
from one place to another. Where is the magic in that? We know what you’re
doing and once would be enough, but that was pretty much his only trick just
repeated in variations. At least we got into the early show and didn’t have to
stay up late to be disappointed. The only other good news was that instead of
over $100 per seat we are only out $82 per seat. I just told Clay that and it
didn’t make him feel any better about it!
So, we’ll be in bed before 10pm tonight and happy to get the
sleep. The jet lag and late nights have been killers. Also, the moving every 2
nights may have been a bad idea. We can sleep in since we have no firm plans
tomorrow except moving to Mandalay Bay for our next 2 nights.
Photos
Photos
