During the second weekend of August, we did a quick trip to Las Vegas. We had been wanting to see Celine Dion’s performance at the Colosseum in Caesar’s Palace Hotel for a while as we are both big fan of hers. The opportunity presented itself when I had about $165 of Southwest vouchers expiring by September and had to be used before that. Normally we would drive to Las Vegas as its only about 4 hours from our home but we flew instead.
Our Itinerary:
- Fly ONT-LAS on Southwest Airlines
- Stay 2 nights at the Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites, Henderson
- Attend Celine Dion performance at Caesar’s Palace
- Visit Hoover Dam
- Fly LAS – ONT on Southwest Airlines
After landing at McCarran International Airport late Friday night, we drove to Henderson (basically a Las Vegas suburb) where we were staying at the Holiday Inn Express.
We woke up early next morning and after breakfast we decided to check out the strip. Now I have been in Las Vegas plenty of times (more than I can count) and Karen has been there a couple of times too. So we have already done most of the touristy things on the strip (Bellagio fountains, white tigers in the Mirage, lions in the MGM Grand, street-walks in Paris). This time we were only going to see a few select attractions on the strip.
We started with Aria Hotel (which was built after we were in Vegas the last time).
After checking out the Aria, Bellagio and Vdara, we were hungry for some lunch. I was planning on visiting the famous Lotus of Siam, an off strip Thai restaurant at a very shady strip mall but reputed to be the best Thai restaurant in the country. However, unfortunately they are closed on weekend lunch so we settled on another Thai restaurant (called Komol Restaurant) I had read about on another blog. After lunch, we got back to the hotel to take a quick nap and get refreshed before the concert.
After lunch we passed by the “World’s Largest Gift Shop” located at the end of the strip by Stratosphere Casino. Karen obviously wanted to stop in. 🙂 Lots of useless junk !!
Photography and video is strictly prohibited inside the Colosseum theater and so there are no pictures/video of the show. Suffice to say, it was a once in a lifetime experience for us. Celine Dion puts on an amazing performance and you really feel like she does put her heart into each song. Outside her own songs, she also sang a few tunes by other artists. I was most moved by her french rendition of “Ne me Quitte Pas”. She also sang three James Bond cover songs as well – Goldfinger, Spy Who Loved Me and Live and Let Die. Her accompanying band did a violin rendition of the Michael Jackson song Smooth Criminal which I really liked. The show lasted close to 2 hours.
After the show we walked the Forum shops for a while and then checked out the Venetian and Palazzo Hotels.
We got back to the hotel past midnight and all in all it was a very fun evening. Next morning (Sunday) we woke up kinda late and after the hotel breakfast drove to Hoover Dam which is about 40 minutes from the Vegas strip.
There are free parking spaces available at the Hoover Dam however we used the $7 paid parking because it is right next to the visitor center and also less of a walk to the dam than the free parking spots. We soon realized that we should have come there much earlier. It was very hot out there and there was very little shade anywhere. We didn’t pay for any tours and frankly I wanted to get out of there as soon as we could because of the heat :). So only word of advice is get there before 10 am or sooner !!
Leaving the Hoover Dam, there is a side road that leads to a spot that provides great views of the Lake Mead.
After getting back to the hotel, we checked out around 2 PM and still had about 6 hours to kill before our flight. We decided to check out a hotel that we had never visited before – Circus Circus !! Man that hotel is dumpy !! However, we did watch like 3 acrobatic shows over next 2 hours.
Tired of the screaming children everywhere we decided to get the hell out of there and spend the rest of the time at the Wynn instead.
Pretty soon it was time to return our rental car and we made our way to the airport. I have been in Vegas many times and I know that we will definitely be back but this trip will always be memorable thanks to of the concert.
Cost (Total for 2 travelers):
- Hotel: $190 (2 nights at the Holiday Inn Express, Henderson)
- Airfare: $5 (for Karen’s Southwest Companion Pass)
- Gas for Rental Car: $36
- Long-term airport parking: $17
- Celine Dion Concert Tickets: $226
Miles/Points/Certificates Redeemed:
- 2 Free Rental Day certificates by Avis
- Karen’s Southwest Companion Pass
- Southwest Vouchers (from bumping) during our last year’s Seattle trip
Miles/Points/Cash-back Earned:
- 13,450 IHG Rewards Club points (from hotel stay and various stackable bonuses)
- 1,128 Southwest Rapid Rewards points
- $50 Prepaid Mastercard for paying the hotel bill with a Mastercard under “IHG Vacation pay promo”