The flight was about 10 hours 15 minutes give or take, a few bits of lumpy air, nothing too serious. The landing was a bit... interesting :o) It roused a round of applause from the passengers! There was an evil southerly wind coming in and the pilot had warned us it may get a bit "bumpy" during the landing.
Gripes; my tray was broken (but I engineered a suitable fix), the food was a bit more naff than usual and the entertainment system needs a bloody good overhaul. Some of the films were not of watch-able quality (the worst of which being the Virgin entertainment September magazine front cover head-liner Prince of Persia! - not even an old film) and the general quality on the screens left a lot to be desired (lots of distortion). I actually think there is little excuse for this, come on Virgin! I know we were stuck in economy but give me a break! It felt like an AV engineer could overhaul the system for minimum outlay with a few hours replacing odd cables/connectors and cleaning things out. The controller system was dirty and faulty for me. Didn't seem so bad for Alison's unit, not sure why mine was so worn and gnarly that it was near uncontrollable. A poor follow up to their faultless V-Room experience.
At least we and our luggage got here pretty much on time and in one piece, which in all fairness is what you want as a bottom line here.
Cab seemed a bit pricey at $25+tip for a relatively short trip (and being dropped off at the wrong entrance to the hotel), traffic was atrocious due to being a holiday weekend - d'oh. Check in at the Bellagio seemed to take forever as it did the last time we were here, but we can't complain as we ended up with a minor upgrade to a suite with a fountain view in the new(ish) Spa Towers.
The suite we have has a hall way with adjacent toilet facilities, a main living room with plenty of fixtures and fittings, large sofa several chairs, desks TV media centre, mini bar, automated curtains and separate air conditioning.
The bedroom has it's own independent climate control along with a large bed, usual furnishings, alarm clock radio with iPod dock, large TV media centre, wardrobes with trouser press, safe, ironing facilities, phones galore, automated curtains. Off the bedroom there are 2 bathrooms - 1 with a whirlpool bath, toilet, TV and sink, the other with a walk in large shower with seat and a sauna feature, toilet, TV and sink.
All in all quite plush.
I was a bit shocked to see no wireless internet access point available and had the devils time finding any in-room information about internet access. After scrabbling around and tracing some interesting looking cables I found a suspicious looking box under the desk in the bedroom with interesting connections to it, and not powered. Assuming it wasn't powered for a reason I left it be. When I queried at reception how the devil one gets internet in these funky suites I was met with a puzzled look of, doesn't it just work? It clicked the instant that was actually said that someone had simply pulled the plug on the internet under the desk, at which point I merrily trotted up to the room, plugged the two plugs in and pow, look an access point for my room :o)
And now the down side. It is noisy. Very noisy. Lots of odd creaks cracks and flap noises with a constant yet intermittent drone of what we believe are the lift motors droning away at regular intervals vibrating through the building. Now, if I was here on my own, none of this would likely bug me, but Alison doesn't sleep well through these sort of things - and as such it drives me potty!
One other point of annoyance with the travelling, it seems Alison's dress hasn't travelled as well as it could have and we may have to get it professionally steamed here (at not insignificant cost as "steaming" in the bathroom did not seem to be sufficient as had been suggested). In the same vein my suit seems to have developed some interesting creases through transportation - bugger! Much cheaper for me to fix that though.
Tonight we went out to eat at Planet Hollywood in Ceasars Palace forum shops. Alison had the Mushroom & Bacon Swiss burger with salad and fries (it was huge), and I settled for a roasted chicken Caesar Salad (it was bloody lovely).
We retired to the room for a chill and I popped back out to source some cheap beverages and to have a look a bit further down the strip at what had changed, more on this anon...
I'll just try and post some of the images from today up now and quit my jabbering...
The toilet just off the hallway as you come into the suite.
Sink area in the toilet.
Crazy marble floor in the hallway area.
View from the main front room window.
View back towards the entrance door from the window in the main room.
Entertainment system :o) AMP DVD/VCR under the LCD TV, mini bar to the right.
Writing desk with phone and computer point in the corner.
Decorative table, plant and mirror in the main room.
The sink in Alison's room :o)
Bath, TV and toilet in Alison's room.
Alison's whirlpool bath.
My walk-in shower come Sauna! This thing is awesome.
The large bed, looking messy as I had only just taken my suitcase off it.
Bedside cabinet with the usual stuff, phones, alarm clock etc (which you can dock your iPod with)
Bedroom LCD TV.
A slightly hurried snap from the hip as we were heading to catch one of the fountain shows this evening.
Some new friends we found on the strip :o)
Random shot.
Shot of Caesar's Palace from where we were standing waiting on the fountains this evening.
Show is about to start....
Hard to see it here, but the various nozzles/jets actually raise up out of the water visibly just before the show kicks off.
Here she goes, the following are a few captures from the "Singing in the Rain" show. I'll try and make videos of these and other oddities on the strip and beyond as time goes on.
Some shots from a little later down the strip
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