I thought we were supposed to be on a stress-free holiday but holiday weekends here can be very stressful!!

To make sure we didn’t have to stand in line too long for breakfast this morning we decided to book. The only time we could get was 6.30!! Then, to make sure we got beds around one of the pools we had to be in line for them opening at 9 a.m. More stress! This morning we arrived at 8.40 a.m. to find a huge queue of people who were queuing in orderly lines but of course once they opened, it was every man for himself!! The pools here used to open at 8.00 a.m. but they changed it to 9.00. Crazy!! Most people on holiday are up and ready to be round the pool from at least 8.00 a.m if not 7.00.

Memo to self – make sure to leave comments for Bellagio!!

At breakfast this morning I happened to mention to our waiter that I thought Bellagio had taken a turn for the worse as they no longer serve jams and marmalades in little tiny glass pots but now arrive in sachets that have to be torn open like a ketchup sachet! Not good enough! Something else for my comments to Bellagio!

Bless him, to make up for my complaining the waiter gave us two lovely pastries for later.

Jam sachet!

Anyway, it’s very windy here today so even those who managed to snag umbrellas were not able to have them open as the wind was too strong. We managed a couple of hours but even though it’s cooler again today, it’s still very hot.

One funny thing I must tell you all about is something that happened yesterday and will always now be known as the ‘Restaurant Incident of 2022’.

Some of our regular followers and definitely some of our friends, will remember the ‘2013 incident’ that Si always refers to as “Sand’s meltdown!”. Well, this one is up there with that!

Some weeks ago I booked four ‘posh’ restaurants here at Bellagio and put them in my phone calendar. Well, I guess as a result of my phone still being on London time instead of Vegas time, one of the restaurants showed as a day later but I didn’t notice!

Si asked me where we were dining on Saturday night and when I checked I told him we didn’t have a booking (should have realised something was amiss then!) but we had a booking for Sunday. Hence, yesterday we set about trying to find somewhere to eat. Not an easy task on a weekend. First of all we booked Gordon Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen, then we get back to our room and decided to try something in-house so that we didn’t have to walk too far. We received a confirmation for the restaurant ‘Harvest’ and confirmed we would be attending then realise we need to cancel Hell’s Kitchen but couldn’t get through to do that. In the meantime, Si gets a message from the restaurant, Spago, here in the Bellagio asking him to confirm our booking! What! According to my calendar the booking’s for Sunday,

In the end I got out the paperwork and sure enough the booking I thought was for Sunday was indeed for Saturday. So, yes, we were confused as we now had three bookings for the same evening! I blamed Si, he should have been checking the booking instead of just believing what I told him.

We managed to sort everything out eventually and went to Spago’s where we had the most fantastic time.

Lesson learned – when in doubt, always double check everything!

Tonight we dine at the Paris Hotel’s ‘Mon Ami Gabi’. This is the first time we have ever been there and it’s supposed to be very nice. Will report back tomorrow on how it went.

Today’s our last day in Vegas until we return at the end of our holiday. Tomorrow morning we collect our hire car and make our way to Capitol Reef Resort in Torrey, Utah just outside of Capitol Reef National Park. It will be a four-hour drive. We will be staying in a log cabin (upmarket one of course!) and fingers crossed, nothing like the one we stayed in during our visit to Yellowstone in 2013!! 😱 🕸🕷

This is where we’ll be staying:

The weather’s going to be a lot cooler than Vegas so note to self: make sure our thermals are packed on top!