March 2007 – This month is dedicated to Sharon and my little trip to Vegas.

Nothing else really noteworthy happened this month. We are just banging out the weekends in Arizona waiting for the Georgia fair to come around.

About a year ago Sharon was sitting home one night with a buzz on when a commercial for a timeshare featuring Alan Thicke came on the television. I'm sure some of you have seen it. It's for a place called Tahitian Village. Anyway, Sharon called them and gave them some info and asked some questions. They sent us some info in the mail and then started calling her cell phone constantly to set up a tour in Vegas. Obviously we weren't ready to go right away. We didn't have the time or the money then. They offered us a three night stay plus $100 towards our airfare. She told them to call back in a couple months and we'd see then. Well a couple months passed and sure enough, the calls started again. Sharon recognized the number so she wouldn't answer, but they just kept calling anyway. Finally after months of dodging and telling them to call back at a later date, February rolled around. I was performing in Arizona and me and Sharon thought this might be the perfect opportunity for us to meet in Las Vegas. Since I was only 45 minutes by air away, my flight should be fairly cheap. And, since the last time we talked to them, they upped the ante to $250 for airfare, 4 nights hotel stay and $200 in gambling play. All we had to do is take a two hour tour. Come on that's less than Gilligan's Island.

That takes us to this month's journal. Our March trip to Vegas baby! We opted to upgrade our hotel from the Frontier to the Hooters Casino and Hotel. It's what used to be the old San Remo Hotel which I hear was kind of a dump. But, Hooters came in and really fixed up the place. Since we 'upgraded' they only offered us 3 nights, so I had to find a hotel for Thursday. Since me and the boys got to stay at Mandalay Bay in January without Sharon, I thought it was only fair to give her a night there. So, I used my travel agent's ID to get the same $100 rate for Thursday.

 

Hooters Room

Sharon at the slots

Hooters Pool

I was to arrive about 7pm and Sharon about 8pm. I arrived right on time but when I went to the baggage claim I couldn't find my bag. I asked at the baggage desk and they said it probably ended up on the next flight. That's fine since I was waiting for Sharon anyway. An hour passed and Sharon's flight didn't arrive either. It turned out that she was running late too. I checked the next flight for my bags and no luck there either. I filed a claim and waited for Sharon. She showed up and got her bags without a hitch. It was 9pm(ish) so we headed for the hotel. We got checked in and decided to drown our sorrows with a little gambling. We played slots into the wee hours of the night before retiring.

Tuesday came and we decided to do a little exploring. We checked out the MGM which was across the street from Hooters. We thought we'd check it out since we got tickets to see KA the next night. It's one of the five resident Cirque du Soleil shows in Vegas which are at MGM. After our exploring we went to Mandalay Bay. I wanted to take Sharon to the Burger bar. It's the really cool restaurant we found at the NATPE convention (see my January journal) with the amazing burgers. We ate our fill and headed back to Hooters to clean up and change for the Cirque show.

 

Jef with the Knights of Excalibur

Sharon at the Burger Bar

KA was amazing. I have to admit, it's one of the most original of the Cirque shows. Many of them have the same elements in them. Juggling, contortionists, trapeze acts, etc. But, this one was very unique. It didn't have any of those things and had a really cool Asian/martial arts flair to it. The stage was amazing. I don't know who thinks this crap up but it's just insane! The stage floor rotated and flipped and raised and lowered, it was all over the map! I highly recommend the show if you can make it. And, while your there, go see O... it's the cirque show at Bellagio and is my favorite of them all. They're not cheap but they're really worth it.

Wednesday was our day to go on the timeshare tour. So after lunch, we got in the bus and headed to Tahitian Village. The people were nice enough and the lady that was our guide was very nice. The only thing that bugged us was that she kept telling us all these stories. I guess she was trying to make a connection (a good sales tactic). The film and tour lasted about two hours and after that it was time to talk money. They started off with a finance offer that was like $600/mo. It didn't really matter since we weren't there to buy. We just wanted to check it out and get the free stuff. When we said no, she sent in her supervisor. The "heavy hitter." He offered us the time share for $199 a month. Hard to say no, I'll bet your thinking. But, then he offered us like 6 trips anywhere in the world as well. It was tough but after several hundred "no's" he gave up and sent us on our way. We got our free stuff and headed back to the hotel. If you're not a push-over it's a great way to get a cheap or free trip to Las Vegas.

After another evening of gambling we crashed since we had to check out and move to Mandalay Bay tomorrow. When we got packed and headed down to check out, I decided to check how many points I had on my Players Club Card. To my surprise, we had $67 coming back and the guy told us we'd get 3 nights stay comped on our trip. How cool is that? I guess we did some gambling after all.

When we got to Mandalay bay we made reservations at Aureole. [Heh - Aureole. Good name. Subtle.  -AB]  It's one of the really upscale restaurants in Mandalay Bay. (There's several of them.) They have a fixed price menu. It's $75 dollars a head for a 3 course meal or $95 for a 5 course meal. The really cool thing about the restaurant is the wine tower. It's a 15x15 four story refrigerated tower made of plexi-glass that contains all of their wines. They have what they call wine angels that retrieve the bottles for them. What they do is put on a harness and use a motorized pulley system to hoist them to your bottle. You may have seen it on TV somewhere. It's really neat. The food was great! Heck, the desert was even wonderful and I don't eat desert. As if this wasn't enough, they had an electronic wine list. They hand you a tablet PC that contains all their wines. It has a search engine that lets you choose from varietals, or regions, or price. The only problem was that with only 2 or 3 exceptions, all of the wines where $200 and up. Sorry, but I didn't win nearly enough to afford that. I have a good palette for wine but not the wallet for it.

 

Aureole at Mandalay Bay

The wine tower from Aureole

Aureole Restaurant from the wine tower

The next day we checked out and I headed for the airport. My flight left like 3 hours before Sharon's. It was the only reasonably-priced flight I could find. I got to the airport and my flight was delayed 30 minutes since the incoming flight crew wasn't there yet.

I got on the flight and we taxied out to the runway and sat for almost 40 minutes more. After that the pilot told us there was a mechanical problem and that we had to go back to the airport. By now Sharon was getting ready to head to the airport. We sat at the terminal for another 30 minutes before they told us we had to deplane. They said it may be two more hours before they had answers. Sharon was now at the airport so I met her on her airside and we had a drink. I saw her off and headed back to my gate. When I got there it turned out that they found us a new plane and it was getting ready to leave. I had to run to the gate, since I wasn't there to hear the announcements. I made it in time and headed back to Phoenix. I arrived 4 hours late. Riki picked me up and I treated him to dinner and a movie. I figured it was the least I could do since this was the second time he had to drive to the airport today for me. Sharon made it home without a hitch. (Thank God)

 

Sharon and the view from Mandalay Bay

The electronic wine list from Aureole

All in all, it was a good trip. Good for vacationing but bad for airlines. By the way, they did find my bag and get it to me that second day in Vegas. All we have to do now is finish up Arizona then we get a week off before starting the Georgia show. I'll be doing more house remodeling and get some pics out for next month's journal. Till then...