On February 26 through March 1, my family and I took a quick trip to Las Vegas just for the weekend. My dad had to go to a work convention, my mom and I just went to see the city and visit for a while. We stayed at the Westgate hotel, which was super nice. Apparently it was one of Elvis Presley’s favorite hotels, he used to perform there nearly every night. They had so many pictures of him and a statue of him that you could see as soon as you walked in. Our room had a great view of the Sphere, the airport, and pretty much the entire city. We ate at a few really fancy restaurants. Everything was super expensive there, but it was definitely worth it.
While we were there, we went to the Sphere to see the Wizard of Oz. It was absolutely one of the best experiences I’ve ever had, I’ve never seen anything as amazing as that. It felt almost as if you were in the movie because the screen completely surrounds you and they include elements like wind, leaves, even falling apples. The tornado scene had to be the best of all the scenes. There was fog, flying leaves, really heavy wind, it felt like you were in an actual tornado. The apple tree scene was my second favorite. There are little slots that open in the ceiling and real foam apples fall, if you catch one you get to keep it. Luckily my mom and I both caught one which we were super excited about. When the movie was over, we all cried of course, but it was so much fun I definitely want to go back. There were so many different things set up in the sort of lobby area where you could take pictures and meet the Wizard himself. There was a ton of merchandise to buy, too. We had been waiting to go see this for months, and it was definitely worth the wait.
After the sphere, we visited the neon sign museum. My whole family’s huge into old vintage things, including neon signs, so we couldn’t pass it up. We saw a bunch of cool signs like the Hard Rock Cafe sign, the original Flamingo sign, and a ton more. Walking through felt a little like walking through a graveyard, but all the lights at night made it beautiful.
The next day we took a thirty-minute drive down to the Hoover Dam. I’ve always seen pictures, but they do not do justice to how huge that place really is. We walked all the way across into Arizona then back. It was super hot so we stopped and got ice cream at a little store they have on the Nevada side of the dam. We didn’t take a tour or anything but, it was still amazing to see everything.
After we got back from the dam, we walked the strip just to see what we could see. There were a ton of cool stores, restaurants, and even more signs. It’s Vegas, so of course there were some weird people, but nothing too terrible. We walked through the Bellagio and saw the Botanical Garden they have inside while we were in the area. They had pandas made of roses and just a ton of different sculptures made entirely of flowers. We saw all the fancy stores like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and even Tiffany’s. I made my family go into Tiffany’s simply because it’s always been a dream of mine to be in there.
We walked for quite a while till we got to the MGM where my dad surprised my mom and I with tickets to the Friends experience. Of course it was called The One in Vegas. They had a ton of props from the show, the sets where you could take pictures, and even had a real fountain in there that looked exactly like the one from the show. We took a ton of pictures, it was really cool to finally be in the apartments after seeing them on tv for years.
After everything we did, we were all super worn out and ready to go home. The flight home felt like it took forever, but when we were home it felt great besides the freezing weather. Hopefully we get to go back in two years and find some new fun things to do.
