TRACE'S PLACE: Las Vegas- Caesars Palace

About mid May, school was winding down and we started thinking about our summer plans. This was the first year (other than Covid last summer) where the kids weren't signed up for any camps and we weren't doing swim team. So we kinda felt wide open until we started looking at the calendar and between softball tournaments and CBAs our weeks for a vacation were choppy. Jimmy and I both agreed our time with Trace before he's an "adult" is dwindling and we still have a bucket list of places we want to see with them. Since our kids are total hotel junkies, Las Vegas popped into mind. None of us have ever been and we've always wanted to see it. There are the coolest hotels in the world in Vegas so we started thinking seriously about it.

My mind is always going to "How much can we see and cram into one trip in case we never get back there again???" Jimmy is not a fan of this way of thinking but he did agree that a few days on the Vegas strip with a 10 and 14 year old is plenty enough and that seeing the Grand Canyon would be worth the drive since we would be "out that way." So the research began...the North Rim was a 2.5 hour drive as opposed to a 4 hour drive to the South Rim where the National Park was. We decided to make the longer drive and spend a night there to break up the trip.

I googled "travel agent" and came upon the sweetest lady, Lisa Tanner. She used to live in The Canyons and has since moved to Ft. Lauderdale. I told her what we were thinking and she had great suggestions. Since booking flights with multiple hotels is not easily done on Travelocity or Expedia, I let her take it and run. We were SO excited and counting down the few weeks until our trip!

Sunday June 6, we drove to Atlanta to catch a 5:00 pm flight to Las Vegas. Because of the time change, our 4 hour flight actually landed us in Vegas at 6:30 pm so we had some time there that day.

The views from the plane were breathtaking and we are pretty sure this was the Grand Canyon we flew over...

We got there and took a taxi to Caesar's Palace where we were staying for the first 2 nights. This place was unbelievable!! We walked around for hours after checking into our room and were so lost. The place is HUGE. One surprise for me was that the casinos were literally right in the middle of the lobby as you walk in the front door. My friend Amanda, who is a Vegas pro, warned me that the kids wouldn't be able to stop on the casino floor. I took that to mean an elevator floor. So imagine my surprise when the casino was right there in every lobby of every hotel we walked into. It was true... while the kids can walk through the casino, they can't stop and linger or watch us play. They shoo them along kindly. We then discovered The Forum which is attached to Caesar's Palace. It's a HUGE indoor mall that is made to look like it's outside with the blue sky roof. There were a LOT of HIGH end stores that you see in the movies in there, so needless to say nothing was bought but it was fun to walk around and explore.

The kids kept asking why there were so many naked statues all over the hotel. LOL!

Day 1- Monday After a much needed night of sleep, we woke up to a ridiculously expensive breakfast before heading out to tour the town...

Gordon Ramsey's Hells Kitchen was right in front of our hotel but had a wait list of 2.5 months for a reservation. So we settled for a picture and his Pub and Grill the next night.

First stop... the Flamingo's at the Flamingo Hotel. This hotel turns a gorgeous shade of pink when the sun goes down. It was very cool!

The Venetian Hotel was beautiful and must be what it felt like to be walking the streets of Italy. We passed on the gondola ride because all those little things add up and were could walk and see everything we wanted to see.

LOVE at the Linq hotel...

Outside the Wynn Hotel...

We rode up to the Strat which is known for it's thrill rides on top but they didn't open until 2. We didn't want to wait it out so we told the kids we would come back another day.

We got back to our hotel and hit the amazing pool. We got really lucky with the weather because the week before we were there and the week after the temps were 105+. Although it's a dry heat in the dessert we were thankful for "cool" mid 90s with a breeze while we were there.

The Colosseum is where lots of huge shows and fights are done in Caesar's but it hadn't reopened since Covid when we were there. We "snuck" in and got a quick glimpse.