MGM Grand Las Vegas

Hi there

One of my fave hotel/casinos in Las Vegas is the MGM Grand..

I went to the MGM buffet a couple of times to purr over the little key lime tarts - Mmmmmmmmmm......  I left my camera by mistake at this buffet, rushed back two hours later, and my camera had been handed in!  Honest people in Las Vegas.

Below:  here's a view of MGM Grand (behind the MGM signature lion on the right) .  New York New York (yes, it's said twice) hotel/casino is on the left, a replica of the skyscrapers in that city.

MGM Grand:
If you go to the television survey desk near the entrance to the pool, you can watch new programmes before they are aired.  Because of what you say, programmes can be tweaked or scrapped.  Stars can even be fired..

You cannot pick and choose programmes.  It's all secret squirrel, and you don't know what you're going to see until you're inside the viewing room.  As you watch the show, you have to continually twirl a dial as to your liking of the programme, on a scale of 1 to 100.  Afterwards, you have to fill out a survey as to the show and the actors, as well as your opinion of other shows currently on tv.

I got to rate two shows.  The best one was tentatively called "Angel from Hell".  It starred Jane Lynch ("Glee") who I absolutely love, so straight away my dial was twirled up to almost 100!

The light-hearted Angel from Hell" was about this young woman who suddenly acquired a mouthy annoying but compassionate woman (Lynch)  who popped up everywhere and knew everything about her.  Her guardian Angel?

The other was a reality show, tentatively called "Mr Congeniality" and was about this small-town lawyer who successfully coached women for beauty pagents.  My dial fluctuated from 15 to about 50.

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Buffets:  I know that, before I left, I said I was going to do four buffets in a 24 hour period.  Well, when the time came, I just couldn't bear the thought of it!  On holiday, I am never hungry and with that and with all that heat added into the mix, I only needed one meal a day - usually a buffet.

Prince William, Kate, baby George... and me, at Wellington Airport

Hi there
Today I was at Wellington Airport waiting.... and waiting ... and waiting.  No, not waiting for Prince William, Kate, and their baby George.  They did arrive, but I never saw them.  Their plane taxied to somewhere else away from prying eyes of ordinary people.  It got through the one hour window of opportunity when the fog and rain cleared.  Every airport type of transport - fire engines, ambulances, trucks, vans, luggage trains, shopping trolleys, folk on roller skates, hikers, cats and dogs -   Nah, I'm joking for a lot of that.  But it did seem to be a lot of vehicles trekking in convoy to greet the royals.

Now that I think about it, didn't I miss Prince Harry, too, by a mere whisker a couple of years' ago in Las Vegas?  I was staying at the MGM Grand on a certain Friday night.  He went to a pool party there the same night.  We were ..... that close !

Oh, my plane didn't get through that hour of opportunity to land at Wellington Airport to pick me up today.  I waited 9 hours to eventually be told that the flight was cancelled.  The three strangers who sat the entire time with me in the waiting area soon became true buddies.  In fact, we all hugged as we finally separated.   Ah, adversity does bring folk together....

Oh, but adversity certainly doesnt bring clients and cabbies together.  I hopped into a taxi to get home instead of walking the 20 minutes.  The Combined Taxi driver got really mad at me because he had to pay an airport tax and line up for ages at the airport waiting for a fare, and I only wanted to go down the road and around the corner.  I said I hadn't walked because it was raining.  And he yelled at me that I should have walked in the rain.

I reminded the guy that under the new rules he wasn't allowed to refuse me.  He yelled back, "No, I didn't have to take you".   I yelled back, "Yes, you did".  We were like children in a playground.  He was driving well over the speed limit.  He was in such a temper.

It's "Elementary" - the Sherlock Holmes tv show

Hi there

When I was in Las Vegas last year, I stayed at the MGM Grand.  Visitors to the casino can rate and comment on the bare bones of an (unidentified when you sign up for it) upcoming television show.  Usually, a new season opener.  The background music might not have been added, nor the credits, nor some scenes.  For instance when I attended one session in 2012, a notice came up on the screen at the start of a scene saying something about blood and spatter to be added later. - no prizes for guessing the name of that show:  "Criminal Minds".

I was happy as a sandboy to discover when I got into the screening room last year that we were all (about a dozen of us) to review 'Elementary', which would be shown on American tv screens, I think, the following month. 

As the episode progressed, I was required to twirl a numbered dial expressing my level of interest.  If I felt like turning the show off completely - horrors for tv executives - I would press a button. 

After watching 'Elementary', we had to mark off on a personal computer what we thought of each star, the supporting actors, the music , individual scenes, the production, etc.  Then ... it was a long session ticking off our likes and dislikes of dozens of other tv shows and their stars.

It's hard to take in that collectively we viewers in that room could be responsible for the careers of so many people.

The episode that I rated last year was the new season-starter where Holmes goes back to England with his assistant, and sees his brother. 

Look out for it on NZ television screens this coming week.  Of course, that's if NZ tv play the episodes in the proper order.

Oh, here's a pic I took of The Strip, night-time, in Las vegas:

FYI:  The Cottage in Eketahuna. where I stayed a couple of weeks ago, survived the eartquake, but a house belonging to the owners' relatives, not so well.  They've had to move out and wait for the structure to be assessed.

Why are t-shirts made soooooo looooooong?

Hi there

Here's one of life's most important questions?  Why do manufacturers of t-shirts make them so long?  Souvenir T-shirts, especially?

The first time I went to America on an extended trip, I desperately wanted to buy souvenir t-shirts.  In the end, I left the States without buying even one   I'd tried on dozens.   It wasn't because the shirts weren't cute/pretty/colourful/or symbolic, it was because all the t-shirts were far too long for me.  They were either modelled for giraffe-like super-models.  Or men.

I am, in old language, 5ft 1in.  I used to be 5ft 2in - I guess you grow shorter as you grow older...

On my last trip to America, I was determined to buy a Las Vegas shirt.  I settled on one from the upmarket souvenir shop at the MGM Grand.  A blue shirt with a glittery multi-coloured lion's head on it.  I had sneakily tried this particular shirt on the year before and abandoned it because of length.  It came down to just below my knees.  This time, I determined to make it shorter.  I would cut off about six inches, then re-hem it approximately another two.

But I am so tired of chopping off bottoms of  t-shirts and having to re-hem them (sloppily) by hand.   Over the past couple of years, there have probably been about 7 shirts in total.   To add insult to injury, I can't sew.  I sort of do an uneven back-stitch tacking sort of thing and I get completely lost whenever I reach a seam.  At school, my mother did my Clothing homework for me, and she got 2 out of 20 from the teacher for the attempt at  pyjamas!

Oh, and it's dresses, as well.  In the shop, the hem often flounces around me on the carpet  and it looks like I'm standing in a puddle.  If I chopped off the ankles of trousers, I would lose all sorts of added prettiness, like buttons, ribbing, cuffs, bands, designwork..

Well, no more.  You hear me, you manufacturers' of  t-shirts?   New Zealand, America, Hong Kong - I don't care where you come from or where I purchase your t-shirts.   Short ladies (and surely there's more of us than sky-high models of 6ft tall) are on the verge of revolting.

I can be very revolting when pushed..

Here's the MGM shirt that I have chopped the bottom off, quite jaggedly I admit with rather blunt scissors, then hemmed up not-too-well.   I'm too ashamed to let you see the stitching.

Plantar Fasciitis? - what is it good for? ... (altogether now: ) ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Hi there

A few days after I returned from Las Vegas, I visited my doctor.  Show and Tell Time.  I carried into his surgery a huge bag stuffed with  shoes, orthotic inserts, and gel heels.  I was just about at the end of my tether.

"Do you know what I've been wearing for nine months?  Nine months?  Nine loooooong months?" I all but hollered.  "These - !"  I shook a clunky hiking sandal in my doctor's face.  "And these - !"  I flourished forth a thick-soled pair of  black New Balance trainers.  "And what about these-!   A swag of shoe inserts landed on his desk, followed by half-a-dozen shoes that hadn't made the grade.

My doctor  said he took it that I still had plantar fasciitis of the heel?

"How would your wife like to wear hiking sandals and trainers every time she went out of the house for nine loooooong months!"  I tried not to sound bitter, but I guess the poor guy could see through me.  He commiserated, said he understood.

How could this man understand that for nine months I couldn't wear dangling chandelier-like ear-rings, or a pretty frock, or feminine clothes because "I have to dress down to match my footwear!"

I told him about how by my third to last day in Las Vegas, mid-afternoon, I had to stumble back to my room at the MGM Grand because I couldn't walk anymore.  I told him how I'd spent months pre-Vegas, searching for just the right glitter clothes to wear at night and how because of my stupid foot I couldn't go out at night because by day's end in Vegas, I could hardly hobble. 

I told him how I wore an ordinary pair of pretty sandals for the first two nights of my holiday - only two lousy nights - because I wanted to look normal for a change.  And that those 'normal' sandals, coupled with walking on casino marble floors, ruined my heel for the rest of my stay.

I told him how, whilst staying at the MGM Grand (five nights), the only way I could get around the room was by pushing a wheelie chair ahead of me as a 'walker'.

 And that was when I burst into tears.

The doctor could only commiserate.  "The healing takes time," he said.

Well ....  I've booked for a summer holiday of hiking on Waiheke Island for this coming summer.  Last summer I could only hobble backwards and forwards to the bus stop at Waiheke.  If I can't hike there this year,  I will go back to my doctor, and I will have an honest-to-goodness tantrum.  Sigh.


Oh, above is a pic of me, taken at the MGM Grand, with the wheelie chair that I had to use as a walking frame for the last five days of my holiday.

Eating in Las Vegas

Hi there

Right, let's talk about Las Vegas food.  There's so much food in Las Vegas that just one lunch-time buffet would probably feed, for life, a small encampment of refugees from a third world country.  I revelled in the food, existing on one immense meal a day yet somehow came home not having put on one extra pound - go figure.  On second thoughts, I do figure: it was no doubt all the walking around you have to do in Vegas.  When I wasn't stuffing my face, I was walking-walking-walking, or should I say limping, limping, limping.  My plantar fasciitis of the heel played up continually.   Oh, and don't forget the heat.  Every day the temp reached 40c.

Because I am trained British when using a knife and fork, I was scared that I was going to be thought of as a food-swilling oaf.  Americans cut their food, then lay down the knife, then elegantly fork up small portions.  I, on the other hand, jam as much food as I can onto my fork with my knife, then keep my knife in my left hand whilst simultaneously eating from my tines-facing-downwards fork. 

To give myself some kind of cutlery credence, I went completely Over-The-Top with my elegant eating in Las Vegas.  One would have thought I had been trained at Downton Abbey. I didn't hold my knife like a pencil (which I'm secretly prone to do at home, when nobody is around), I didn't shovel half a dozen peas onto my fork and eat them like I was drinking soup -  No,  I elegantly pushed, with my knife, one or two solitary peas onto the fork tines; this took a long time to eat peas but I'm sure Lady Mary would have been proud of me.

When it came to dessert, I positively excelled.  In my pre-Las Vegas life, I had usually just scooped up dessert with a spoon.  Now, I used a fork to aid said spoon.  I placed the cutlery down periodically and sat, all but simpering, with my hands in my lap.  Oh, I'm telling you I  was more  Downton Dowager Duchess than Maggie Smith.

One morning, I went to 'Serendipity 3" and, for fun, ordered their big breakfast.  It all came on the one plate.  At one end was: potatoes, sausage, sauce, 2 fried eggs, bacon, french toast and butter, At the other end, syrup, pancakes, cream and berries(see pic below).  I hadn 't had a fried egg since I was about fifteen.....I could only get through half the meal.  And how come NZ restaurants never give you crispy bacon, yet the Americans know how to crisp bacon to perfection?

On another day I went to my fave buffet, MGM Grand ,for breakfast (see the two bottom photos).  I reckon they have the best key lime tarts I have ever tasted in America.  I can't understand why we don't have key lime tarts in New Zealand.  How wonderful, for a sweet tooth like me, that Americans have cakes and ice cream for breakfast.   Yum.yum.

 

 

Criminal Minds and me test rating it

Hi there.  In New Zealand tomorrow night (21 January 13) the latest season of "Criminal Minds" starts.  This is the episode that I saw as part of the test audience at the tv centre at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas last August.

We were all given a little hand-held dial with numbers on it.  If we liked the bit of the programme we were watching, we turned the dial up.  If we didn't like it, we turned the dial down.   If we'd have turned off our tv set at home at a certain point in the action, then we were now required to press a button.  One or two of the scenes were going to be digitally altered later on, especially some of the scenes involving a lot of blood.  There was one scene where I actually closed my eyes (well, we all know that 'Criminal Minds' adores its violence, don't we?).  I brought the dial right down to practically zero for a few minutes there.

At the beginning of the episode Garcia has just come back from the Olympics in London and the funny thing was that as I was in Las Vegas watching this test tv programme the Olympics were still on in London!

I also had to fill in (on a computer screen) a form about the episode and whether I liked each actor.  Goodness, it was so mind-numbing to think that I could have been responsible for some actor getting the sack from future episodes.  Jeanne Triplehorn was a new character and I like her in other stuff, for instance "Big Love".  I gave her a big tick.

Stealing from hotels? - Hotel Babylon

Today, I've been re-reading one of my fave books:  "Hotel Babylon", written by Imogen Edward-Jones  who also wrote the fantastic "Air Babylon.  A word of advice, don't, for goodness' sake, read "Air Babylon" just before you're going on a flight?!    Both books have had an anonymous person in the industry reveal all the scams, tricks, what-goes-on, etc in both the air and hotel business.  The happenings have been condensed into a 24 hour period.

Edward-Jones says most definitely that everyone steals from hotels.  I can tell her, most definitely, that when I was at the Las Vegas MGM Grand in August, I didn't.

When I arrived, I glanced down on the vanity in the bathroom.  No soap, shampoo, etc.  I immediately rang Housekeeping.  The woman said she'd send up some toiletries, and she did.  As I got into the shower a few minutes later - oops, there was soap, shampoo on the shelf inside the shower.

I rang Housekeeping to apologise.  The woman was spanish-speaking and obviously didn't understand my kiwi accent because about a half an hour later, another bag of soaps and shampoo arrived.

I rang Housekeeping again to explain that I felt terrible about it all, and the following day, another bag arrived!

Because I was only carrying cabin baggage to America, I was only allowed 7kg of weight in total on the plane.  I had to leave all the toiletries behind.   Darn it!  I could have run a stall.

Signs. And how we interpret them.

Signs.    A few years ago, out walking, I came across a politcal sign for the Act Party, promising to lower the crime rate.   A graffiti artist had scrawled all over the sign.  Oh dear.

When in Las Vegas last American summer, I noticed a sign outside a restaurant that was inside the MGM complex stating that patrons were required to wear 'Seasonal Chic'.  This got me thinking.  No particular 'season' was stated.  In the height of a 42c heatwave, could I roll up in winter ski-woolly hooded anorak-and-Ugg boots chic?  Or if it truly was summer that was meant, what if I wore a jewelled bikini straight from the catwalk of Victoria's Secrets?.  On second thoughts, maybe I wouldn't turn up in a bikini;  I'd clear that restaurant out in a trice.

 One person's 'chic', surely is another person's poison?  Personally, my own personal summer 'seasonal chic' is shorts (most shorts are three-quarter pants, anyway, on me because I'm not that tall) crazy-patterned t-shirts, and rubber sandals.   In winter, it's dreary old black, black, and more black, along with  a smattering of brown  (hey, designers, why don't you let us wear colours in the winter?)

There is a sign at Brisbane Airport in Australia directing folk to the baby-changing room  (aside:  hey, how many parents out there would love to change - if only temporarily - their screaming babies for a quieter version?  Wouldn't a true baby-changing room be a hoot?) 

A couple of German young folk, laughing their heads off, and taking photos of the sign, explained to me that it looked as as if the depicted male was 'interfering'  (!) with the baby.     After that, I must admit, I did feel a trifle uncomfortable.  It just goes to show, again, that different people read different messages in signage.

Prince Harry, Coco at the Roxy, burgers, and Me

What?  Prince Harry was in Las Vegas last weekend?  He was wandering around the MGM Grand where I was staying?  Where I was also wandering last Friday evening?  And I didn't see him?  I didn't even know he was there? 
Mind you, there are over 5,000 rooms at the MGM.  It is reputedly the biggest hotel in America.  You get sore feet walking from one end of the building to the other.  It contains umpteen shops, a huge casino, many swimming pools, walkways, theatres, a stadium, monorail station, dozens of eateries (posh, middle-range, and a food court).  It has a "CSI Experience" where you can solve a crime - I did this easily by just studying the crime scene; didn't bother with all the laboratory stuff.  There's also an area where you help rate upcoming tv shows (yay, I got to rate the first episode of the new series of "Criminal Minds" where Gonzales, the ditzy blonde computer geek comes back from London and the Olympic Games).
The MGM have these huge 'pool parties' every weekend, and this is where Prince Harry was photographed. 
I notice that he was also photographed in his suite at the Wynn Hotel and Casino.  I went to a buffet at the Wynn Hotel.  I was trying to get through all top ten rated buffets in Las Vegas, and Wynns is rated by many as the top buffet.  It's also rated as the top and most expensive hotel.  Of course Harry would stay there.

Changing subjects slightly.  I went to "Wellington on a Plate" yesterday.  They have a rate-a-burger competition at dozens of eateries around Wellington.  I had  my burger at "Coco at the Roxy" in Miramar.  A huge "Silence of the Lamb" burger.  Followed by a sundae.   It was a pity I'd just come away from a couple of burgers in Vegas 'cause the Roxy plate, portion-size, just couldn't compete, big though it was.
Above photos, from top to bottom:  1. my burger meal at an indoor restaurant inside Caesar's Palace Casino and hotel.  2.  The indoor restaurant (trying to pretend it's outside) inside Caesar's Palace where I had the burger.  3.  My burger meal at Wolfgang Puck's inside MGM Grand.  4.  A floral walkway inside Wynn's Resort in Vegas.   5.  A hallway, Wynn's Resort, Vegas.

Back from Las Vegas!

I've returned from Vegas.  What is it about me that I always get tested at Customs?  At all points I got frisked and also tested for explosives!  - they run a little brushie-thing over your clothes and across the top of your things in your case.  I figure it's because on the airport monitors they must be able to see how fidgity I am and according to all those airport security progammes I watch, it means I'm a smuggler.  What the silly airport folk don't realise is that all old folk fidget at airports.  We check that we've got our ticket/passport/itinerary/boarding card/money/hotel info etc.  Then we check again.  And again.  Then we switch stuff around various pockets and bags.  Then we forget which pockets and bags, and have to search through everything again.  And again.  

I also went through the new x-ray machines that show you naked.  You stand on a spot, and raise your arms. Happy viewing, airport folk.  I was the one with the Angelina Jolie figure.  Yeah, right.

I stayed at three hotels.  1  Paris Hotel, LV.  2  Rio Suites, LV.    3  MGM Grand, LV.

I took photos of Paris and Rio, but forgot MGM Grand.  However, they can be found on the web.

In the MGM Grand I was in one of their new rooms, which was smaller than the Rio and Paris, but very modern and I had a magnificent view of The Strip.  I left my (electronic) blind up every night and went to sleep admiring the neon lighting of all the casinos along The Strip.  Fascinating.

All the hotels asked if I wanted to upgrade for a better view.  I declined but I still got lovely views. 

The first three pictures are of my Paris rooms, the bottom three pictures are of the Rio Suites hotel (where every room is a suite).  The Rio is a little bit of f The Strip but there is a free shuttle bus.  I loved everything about the Rio, including the huge floor to ceiling windows, but hated having to take that darn shuttle bus.

I didn't like the fussy old tired Versarilles look of the Paris rooms.

The heat was very very (very) bad.  There all-time heat high was 112f.  When I was there, it hit 111f.  Goodness knows what that is in celsius but it's probably way into the forties.

You will be hearing a lot about my trip in future blogs.  Sorry about that.

Las Vegas scams. And tipping

Attached is a photo of New York/New York Hotel and Casino (on the left of photo) and MGM Grand Hotel and Casino (on the right of photo). Note the MGM lion, apparently the largest sculpture in America.

I was very scared about tipping when I was in Las Vegas. How to do it? When to do it? Do I give it to a person, leave it on the table just sitting there all by its lonesome? Will someone steal the tip? Will the wrong service person take it? How much should I leave? It was all a giant mystery. Luckily on my first night I watched the young women at the table next to me to see how they left the tip, and I followed suit. I estimate that I tipped over a hundred American dollars during the two weeks I was in Vegas. And I didnt tip a lot of times, especially the times when I felt it was absolutely positively stupid to do so.

When I moved to the convention hotel (The Rio All-Suites -' everybody has a suite' . See attached photo of view from my hotel room), the hotel was one road back from The Strip, and there was an advertised free shuttle bus to get you to a couple of sister hotels that were on The Strip. All the Americans tipped the driver! Just imagine you tip when you got off then when you caught it back to the Rio, you tipped again. Well, I didn't, neither did a lot of foreigners.

Going on my Colorado river rafting trip, people tipped the bus driver who collected us from our hotels, then the driver who took us to a meeting spot, then the driver who took us to the raft, then the raft driver (I tipped this guy), then they tipped all the earlier guys again in reverse order on the way back to our hotels.

Because the 'free' shuttle didn't start until 10 a.m. we were virtually prisoners in our hotel. Well, this annoyed me so I decided to take a taxi to Paris (Hotel) for breakfast. I had to go to a valet standing on the footpath, hand him a dollar, and he signalled a row of cabs that were lined up about 10 paces away (I could have done this myself!). The valet stuck his head in the taxi window and shouted 'Paris' to the driver. I slid in the taxi and repeated 'Paris'. The driver raved and rattled on practically the entire journey to me about how I was only going a short trip and he'd been waiting in line for ages and now he'd lost his place in the line for my tiddly little fare. Then he said "We'll be at the Palms in a few minutes".

I said, "I'm going to Paris"

He slapped his forehead and intimated what a silly billy he was, but that sorry I would still have to be the additional fare as it was automated on his meter. And I tipped him! Everyone has since told me how I was taken.

When I booked an afternoon tour to Red Rock Canyon, I told the concierge not once, not twice, but three times that I wanted to be picked up at the MGM Grand, not the Rio where I was staying because I would be at that end of The Strip at the given time. She handed me my ticket and said "pick-up at the Rio at 1.15." I politely pointed out "This will be the fourth time I've asked to be picked up at the MGM Grand." She altered my ticket.

Guess where I wasn't picked up? The MGM Grand. After waiting till 2 p.m. I buttonholed another driver and he found out that they'd been hunting for me all over the Rio. Well, they sent an emergency guy to pick me up. When I got back to the hotel, I kicked up merry hell. I got my money back the following morning. I refused to leave Reception until I got satisfied.