We knew Las Vegas was known for gambling, drinking, and other unspeakable sins; none-the-less, we were determined to find some good – some family fun! So, our friends had just been there and we had never been, so we asked them what they did when they were there. They said that you just go and walk around and that there was a lot to find and do for free. For those that don’t know the hotels are connected and you walk through them and see the different sites to see. Each hotel has its own theme and many have something to see or do for free (thanks Erin!). I thought it was a bit weird that you walk through hotels that you are not checked in at, do not plan to check in at, nor even play in the casinos! Once we arrived in Vegas, parked in the parking garage, I completely understood! The adventure was on!
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| Kids in front of Nevada sign! |
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| Frank and kids in front of Planet Hollywood |
We decided the first day that we went into town that we would just check the place out and go from there. Wow! We only brought our camera phone with us as we didn’t want to be the only crazy tourists flashing our camera everywhere… little did we know EVERYONE carried their cameras and acted the crazy tourists that we were! There were so many side shows ~ meaning people do almost anything for money/tips while you are walking around! The kids enjoyed the below gentleman so we had their pic taken with him! We walked and we walked, and we walked! If you decide to take the bus, it drives around the “Las Vegas Strip” and it costs $5 for two hours or $7 for 24 hours. That’s not a bad price at all; but, me being cheap and figuring the exercise could only help us all, I thought no, we’ll pass on the $28. It was fun walking around and exploring; but, wow, we only walked around (including sitting and breaks in between) for about four hours and I was limping by that time!
Through doing research of our destination, I found a website that offered quite a few attractions, museums, and other things to do for a relatively reasonable price. I found a similar site when I was in Houston called the City Pass (www.citypass.com). The one for Las Vegas is called the Las Vegas Power Pass (www.visiticket.com/LasVegas). If you’d like to get it for just one day, you can see as many places as you can or would like to for $80 for an adult or $50 for a child. The more days you add on, the cheaper it is considered per day. For an example, we did it for two days so it was $99 for adults and $66 for kids. So, if you do it for one day for an adult it averages $80 or 2 days for an average of $49 a day. If you do it for 5 days, it runs $35 a day. Before getting it, we decided what we’d like to see in Vegas and how much it would cost us if we didn’t get the pass. Just to see the Beatles concert ($50), Siegfried and Roy’s Dolphin Habitat ($20) and Madame Tussauds Wax Museum ($20), it would have been $90! On top of those destinations, we also had at least another 25+ things to see and do for “free” with the pass. Wow, did we find a lot of educational, yet fun things to do in “Sin City.” Not only did we find educational things but we also found other areas of interest like arcades! I’m not a big video game player or enthusiast by any means; however, with the pass we each were able to play for up to 4 hours in the arcade for FREE (a value of about $30 each). We even had pizza, soda, and some ride coupons!
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Kristi volunteered to go on stage to help the magician! Boy were we proud of her and was she nervous!
She still doesn't know how she made that table rise! |
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| Ta ~ Da! |
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| We were rocking and dancing in our seats (just as a family) and Kristi was dancing so much in her seat that they came up and asked if Kristi would join the Beatles on stage as their biggest fan! People all over Vegas kept coming up to us congratulating Kristi for doing so well up on stage with them! Quite an experience! She was able to take home a little tambourine with all their autographs on it! |
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| With our pass we were able to go to the top of the Stratsophere! It was awesome! Daddy even rode the rides at the top! Yikes, we were afraid he may fall off the top! LOL! (At least the kids were!) :-) |
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| Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat |
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We absolutely LOVED the dolphins!
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| The pass also included going to the top of the Eiffel Tower! |
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| Scenes from the top of the Eiffel Tower! |
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| More scenes from on top of the Eiffel Tower. |
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| The kids driving their first small go-carts! |
More fun on the go-carts!
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Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum with the Pirate's of the Carribean!
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Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum with President Obama!
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Leaving our rv park. Notice the cactus plants! There were so many animals that played around
those plants that we could stay busy watching the ground squirels, birds, and even quail! |
I thought I would write this blog post because my general misconception (along with probably many other people’s misconceptions) is that Las Vegas is not a family friendly place for children. I hope you have fun looking through all the fun things that we enjoyed sharing with each other!
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