New York New York was first, and we booked the Spa Suite. After I finished working for the day, I headed over and checked in. The room was really nice. We had a corner room in the Empire State Building, and we looked north and west.They are doing construction just west of NYNY on a new arena, and we got a pretty good view of that. I was also able to watch the sun set beyond the rollercoaster of NYNY which I always love. Even though the room wasn't a Strip View room, we could still see 12 resorts on the strip! The following morning, we ordered room service and I had the best french toast ever!
As we checked out of our room, we explored the rest of the building. At the end of each hallway were windows that looked out onto the strip, so we were happy to take in the views! We could even see our apartment!
After we took in the view, we had to come back to our apartment for a few things, but that was ok, being we lived here!! That's the beauty of a staycation! After we got back to Mandalay Bay, we headed right to the pool. All resort pools only allow access to their guests with proof of keys, so we had never been to their pool area before, but we had heard good things about it. The Mandalay Bay pool area has 5 different pools, including a huuuge wave pool and a lazy river. It is also the only pool area with a beach! We were anxious to get in! And we were VERY satisfied with what we experienced! . We found some chairs on the beach, and headed into the lazy river. After about 4 go-around's in the lazy river, we played in the wave pool for a while, and capped off our time in the lagoon. It was such a great and relaxing pool day!
Before we headed out of our room for the night, we watched Vegas go from day to night, and watched all the glittering lights come on throughout the strip and the rest of the city! It was the best opportunity to do this, as we were able to see all the hotels! I stood at the window for about an hour trying to soak it all in. Vegas will never get old for me!
That night we headed to the casino to do a little gambling. We started at Mandalay Bay, then went to the Luxor and Excalibur, and ended back at Mandalay Bay. It was a fun night, and we ended our night up on the casinos!
The next morning, Saturday, we took advantage of the pool one last time, relaxing in the lazy river and the hot tub before checking out. We didn't check out until exactly 11am, right on the dot!
After Mandalay Bay, we headed to Harrah's for our stay. We got to the registration counter around noon, and it turned out that our room wasn't ready, and we weren't going to be getting the strip view that we had requested. Harrah's wouldn't do anything to accommodate us, so we decided to go to a different resort. We headed to the Venetian, which was just north of Harrah's. The Venetian was able to check us in right away, and they had great customer service to boot! Our room, which ended up being a suite, was a north-facing view, looking at Treasure Island, the Palazzo, and Circus Circus. Haha! But we did have a nice view of the pool just below us! Also, it was the only room we had that weekend with a sunken living room! That made it feel more like a home than a hotel room.
That evening, we went to dinner at Buddy V's, an Italian restaurant conceptualized from the TLC TV show Cake Boss featuring Buddy Valastro. This restaurant was the very first one he opened anywhere in the country, and he put together the menu using only family recipe's. When I eat at an Italian place, I like to order an Italian chicken dish, but after looking at the menu, something told me to go with the spaghetti and meatballs. Turned out my intuition was right. It was the best dish of spaghetti I have ever had! I usually stay away from spaghetti in restaurants because it has the highest mark-up of any dish, but I would've paid $200 for this spaghetti! And the meatballs....Yum-Mmmy! I knew I wanted to save room for dessert because that is what Buddy is famous for on Cake Boss. For dessert, Robbie and I split a cannoli. A cannoli is an Italian dessert, shaped almost like a dog bone consisting of a hollow waffle-like shell filled with italian cream, with either side topped with chocolate chips and hazelnuts. It tasted like Christmas! Over dinner, we discussed going to a show, but dessert pushed us over the edge and we needed to be rolled out of the restaurant when we were done. Needless to say, we weren't going anywhere after this! It was, however, one of the best meals we have had at a Vegas restaurant!
After our stay at the Venetian, we headed over to Planet Hollywood for our night at the highly-anticipated Panorama Suite! We had to wait a couple hours before we were able to check in, but we had football to pass our time! When we were headed to our room, we noticed that the entrance to our room was 2 sets of double doors at the end of the hallway. I've never stayed in a hotel room with double doors before! We were greatly satisfied with what we saw when we entered the suite. It was literally a panoramic view of Vegas, with windows spanning from the very left end of the room, all the way around to the right end of the room. We had a southeastern facing view. We even had a completely separate guest room off the main suite, but we didn't have a use for that. From our bed, we could see 4 resorts!
Being the Packers were playing on Sunday Night Football, we invited a few of Robbie's coworkers over to watch it with us. I think I was more interested in the view than I was the game! We were definitely living the high life that night! If the suite hadn't been complimentary, we wouldn't have stayed there....the Panorama Suite usually goes for $500 a night! The room type isn't even listed on their website; you have to call directly to inquire!
We were surprised to hear that we had the Panorama Suite for 2 nights instead of 1, so we took this extra time to sleep in and relax on Monday morning. We decided not to spend the second night in our room as we both had to work on Tuesday morning. Either way, it was fine because we could take our time leaving the suite, and it was good to know that we had the suite all night, in case we wanted to go back for the view.
This staycation is exactly what we needed! I liked that we were able to experience 4 new hotels with 4 different views. However, if you can believe it, we were never able to see the Bellagio Fountains, nor the Eiffel Tower! After all the traveling we do in different city's, it was nice to stay 'home' for this one!
"I'm still a kid inside, and adventure is adventure wherever you find it." -Jim Dale
