For our Southwest National Parks tour, we flew in and out of Las Vegas. Because of this, we thought we would show the girls some of the fun things in this crazy city! The city was having record-breaking temps, and we were a little tired of the heat already, but we managed to find some fun things for the girls to experience without TOO much craziness being seen.
By the time we landed, got the various rental car shuttles, and got on our way, it was already dark. Hubby and I decided we should cruise down the strip to give the girls their first taste of Vegas.
We were lucking enough to be going past the Mirage at the same time that the volcano was going off, so the girls loved seeing that, too.
We stayed at the Plaza, right across the street from Fremont, so after we checked in (our room had an epic view of Fremont Street), we went over to hit up the ABC store and buy water and sunscreen.
The next day we left the area for Valley of Fire Park and Zion, so we were done with Vegas for a week. When we returned, we stayed at the Rio, off of the strip, and resumed our Vegas adventures.
The first morning back in town, we got up and ate breakfast at the delicious Polaris Diner. Sooooo good! Then it was off to the strip to explore. The Venetian has free parking, and I love checking out the gondolas, so we started there.
Hubby bought us a gondola ride, and the girls were so excited…until our gondolier told Hubby and I that it’s good luck to kiss underneath the bridges. That caused a bit of embarrassment for Wormy and Squid, making it a fun adventure for Hubby and I!
We also visited the Wishing Tree in the Venetian, which had a QR code setup to make your wish. It wasn’t working on my phone on the first few tries, and I wasn’t about to spend a whole lot of time trying to make it work. We just appreciated the prettiness of the tree, and moved on.
We walked through a few casinos to get to the Flamingo, because Wormy is a big flamingo fan. She enjoyed seeing the flamingos getting a shower to cool down.
We went farther down the strip to the Eiffel Tower (still walking through all of the indoor casinos we could). We paid for admission up to the observation area, and watched the Bellagio fountain show from the top of the Eiffel Tower. The girls really enjoyed the views of all of Vegas and the water show.
We continued farther down the strip to the M&M’s store. It had a bit of a wait outside to get in due to Covid capacity restrictions, but the line moved quickly. The movie inside wasn’t playing (again, due to Covid), but the girls liked the giant wall of M&M flavors and seeing the NASCAR car.
We also visited the Coke store, but they weren’t doing the samples due to Covid. We kicked it back to the Monorail so we could get back to where we parked (and grab some food!)
After eating at Virgil’s BBQ restaurant (where Wormy just about exploded with excitement due to the fact that they had ribs AND mac & cheese together as a meal on the kids’ menu), we headed over to Caesar’s Palace, because I thought the ceiling still changed from day to night and back. Helpful hint – it doesn’t do this anymore. However, since Squid just got done reading Percy Jackson and the Olympians books, she was ecstatic to look at all of the Greek God statues.
We pointed out to the girls and pretended we were in each ‘country’ represented by our visits – we went to Italy by visiting the Venetian, France by seeing the Paris, and Greece by hanging out into Caesars Palace. They seemed to really get a kick out of that.
By this time, it was sunset, so we went to watch the Bellagio fountain show, hoping to see it lit up this time. It did not disappoint, and the girls were very curious as to how different it would look from the ground level this time (and it was a different song – Celine Dion’s “My Heart Will Go On” this time).
Wormy had to go to the bathroom after this (something about watching water flying in the air that really did it for her, I guess), so we went into the Bellagio. The security guard at the Eiffel Tower told us we HAD to check out the gardens in the Bellagio, so we were headed inside anyway. The gardens and hotel lobby were GORGEOUS! I didn’t want to leave, but it was starting to get late and we had a long walk to get back to our car yet.
When we left the Bellagio, the fountain show was going again, so we watched this show as well (I couldn’t name the song this time). It was beautiful in the dark, as well, but much busier. Afterwards, we did see some more ‘adult’ behavior/clothing, so Hubby and I kept joking about pointing out stores along the other direction from whatever we were steering the girls’ attention from. Squid caught on pretty quick, however, and soon started pointing out stores of her own! Wormy was a little disappointed because she wanted her picture taken with Mickey Mouse, and I said we would save that for Disney World. One very nice showgirl offered to take a picture with my husband and promised to keep it ‘family friendly,’ but he was not convinced, as her outfit (or what apparently passed as an outfit) wasn’t ‘family friendly.’ Hahaha. It was entertaining to walk down the strip as a parent for certain!
The next morning was our last day in Vegas, but our flight didn’t leave until 7:30 or so. We hung out in the hotel pool in the morning, as the girls were definitely in need of some less busy activities. We went off to lunch, and then did some glow mini golf at Bally’s. This was hands down everyone’s favorite activity we did in Vegas. It was not busy at all, and we all got free friendship bracelets that glowed as well. The price was really inexpensive, as far as Vegas activities went. The mini golf was Twilight Zone-themed, not that the girls knew anything about that, but they had a blast regardless.
We had a long list of other things we wanted to do – ride the High Roller Ferris wheel, visit the downtown container park, or do the slotzilla zipline. I wanted to do the Neon Museum and the Atomic Testing Museum, but it’s important to note that in Las Vegas, everything will take longer than you expect – travel to a location, getting in, the activity itself…so it’s not as possible to really cram in the sights and experiences like I usually tend to do. However, there is definitely fun to be had in Vegas with kids!
Car Full of Harmony 