Day 3 was our explore day! We started our day around 8-9am (another 4 hours of sleep day!!) at the pool - after hitting up the starbucks in our hotel.
The view from our room was pretty sweet! Pretty much every hotel could be seen! We were on the 60th floor.
We were prepped for breakfast on this day with normal priced bananas from Wal Mart and apples!
On our way between starbucks and the pool, we stopped to take a picture of this restaurant in our hotel where the waiters will harness themselves to get a bottle from whatever level the one you ordered is from.
Headed to the pool area!
We got to the pool around lunch and ordered some drinks - a mojito an a rum runner. $22 each with a souvenir cup. This is how Vegas gets pricey... these darn drinks! We scored some lawn chairs (it got pretty packed after lunch) and stayed in the pool area for a few hours.
You can't bring food into the pool area, so the food options include $15 turkey sandwiches (this was mine... despite its priceyness, it was pretty darn delicious) and $15 chicken caesar salad for Aleksy.
Wave pool!
Based on tips from others who stayed at the resort, they recommended that we bring our floaties fro home. So we did. So we could float in the lazy river with our drinks like lazy people. It was pretty great except that there were a million kids in the pool and most people didn't have floaties at all!
After some frozen drinks - margarita and pina coloda and a few times around the the lazy river, we decided to head back to our room to get ready to head to Freemont St - old Vegas!
Out of the hotel in the later afternoon - 4pm. We got some tips on taking the bus to Freemont and it was pretty simple. All buses just take you from Mandalay (the southernmost point) to Freemont (the northernmost point). Easy peasy.
We grabbed our beers to go and got our $8 tickets and caught the bus! The bus ride is way longer than we thought. It takes so long to drive down the strip and it was about 45 minuets to Freemont. On 8 hours of sleep in 2 days, we were dying of tiredness on the bus!
Luckily Freemont woke us right up. It was so much better than expected! There were buskers everywhere, the buildings and signs alone were entertaining and there was affordable food and souvenirs everywhere! We walked around in amazement and found this spot - the freemont casino with a restaurant inside - the paradise cafe - with a 3 course steak dinner for 12.99 - unheard of in Vegas! Old Vegas is definitely the place to eat! There was a buffet for 16.99 and we got one trip to the salad bar part, one trip to the dessert part then our main course was steak, shrimp, potatoes and corn. Win!
The best decor ever! So fancy... like in the 80s.
There were stages positioned all around Freemont and when we got out of the restaurant there was a performer hula hooping! Love the availability of free entertainment in Freemont.
This is the canopy that the zipliners were lined up like crazy for. Pretty cool but no time or money for that (save it for the drinks!).
We headed back to the strip shortly after supper because we still wanted to explore some of the other resorts and make the Bellagio fountain show at night! We wished we had more time in Freemont to enjoy the entertainment and buskering (and drinks which were probably cheaper but we only bought beers from the convenience store there).
The bus ride back from Freemont was again tiring and torturous on no sleep! It just stops soo much and Vegas traffic is pretty tough. But we got off at the Venetian to check out the amazing gondolas and casino. Such a beauty resort!
After grabbing some frozen cocktails from the good ol' Fat Tuesdays (mango and hurricane), we found this little street off the strip that takes you to the high roller - this was a cute street. I really wanted to eat at the fish and chip place (Gordon Ramseys) but we were dying of full from supper!
We planned it that we were definitely going to gamble at Caesars. I actually forgot about hitting a casino when in Vegas somehow because gambling isn't really fun for me but we had to play at a casino at least once.
Aleksy lost $20 at the roulette table instantly and we couldn't even stay long enough for his drink to make it back to us from the waitress.
So we did what high rollers do and foudn the 1 cent machines. They still got us free drinks!! beer for me (because wine/champagne was out for the remainder of the trip because of the previous night) and a double of jack for Aleksy.
With $1, I managed to stay on this machine for like 45 minutes! At one point, I made $20 with the $1. If this was home, I would have cashed out and called it a win, but I wanted to stay longer at the casino to experience gambling in Vegas so I played until my $20 was gone. Still felt like I won!
I see how people can get intense on this though - if I played bigger bills, my winnings would have been pretty big!
From Caesars, we went to the Bellagio to watch the fountain show - it is actually really cool. The water danced to "This Kiss" by Faith Hill. Definitely a need to do when in Vegas.
The frozen cocktail from Fat Tuesdays and beer at Caesars really did me in for tired and on the way back to the resort, I was not feeling the drinking (in Vegas... who am I). Couldn't even drink the giant beers we bought from the convenience store in Freemont. Aleksy politely helped drink those.
Aleksy had been talking about tacos since day 1 in Vegas (and had an elaborate conversation with our new friends from Mexico the previous night) and we stopped for some awesome tacos on our way back to the resort. Beef was better than the chicken! The Dos Equis would have been so perfect with it if I could have!
We got back to the hotel around midnight and I was done and ready for a 7 hour of sleep night!! We were leaving the next day (Thursday) at 6:30pm our plane departed.
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