Las Vegas Forum: TR - from a first timer

We arrived in LV around 11 pm on a Wed. When I first walked into the MGM I was feeling very overwhelmed and wondered if I had made a mistake coming here. I am a small town girl. Check in was a breeze and we headed up to our room on the 5th floor. The view was not so great, but we didn’t care much. The room was actually a lot nicer than I was expecting and very clean. It was nice that it was close to the elevators, because I have read about people having to walk miles to their room, and the elevator wait was never long.

That first night we walked down the strip a little bit and stocked up on water bottles from CVS. The girls did a bit of slots and actually won! Pretty uneventful first night and we were in bed by 2am. I was too excited to sleep and the MGM feather pillows are uncomfortable. In the morning we grabbed a starbucks and headed to the pool. The lazy river was closed but everyone was promoting this Wet Republic, which is like a nightclub at the pool. It was nice, but very pretentious. Beautiful people everywhere and expensive drinks. They had really nice padded loungers; we set up camp there for about five hours. The girls met lots of guys and drank lots of Mexican beer. I had one $15 drink (on an empty stomach) and I was ready to leave!

Finally headed back into the hotel, stopped at the food court area for Mc Donald’s. Then the girls pretty much crashed for a couple hours. Lying by the pool really takes it out of you! Got all spruced up and decided to head out to find a nice lounge area with some cheap apps…perhaps not. Finally settled on Rainforest café. It was pretty lame. After that we decided to check out Studio54 because MGM was promoting that pretty heavily. It was pretty much what I expected it to be like. Ugly and dirty. We were some of the first people there so that was lame! Finally it started filling up and the dancing got good. My newly single friend got three random make outs, which was hilarious to watch! We decided to take her up to the hotel room and tuck her in for the night. After holding our breath that she would fall asleep, snuck back down to people watch. Walking through the casino I saw my very first quasi-celebrity. Brad Womack from the Bachelor. I am a huge Bachelor fan so I got pretty star struck and snapped some pics of him from across the room. We hung out outside of 54 for a bit people watching and it was very fun.

Next day was back to the pool and to our surprise the Lazy River was open. We got some tubes and drinks and it was a great day by the pool. Drinks were about $10 each. It was a beautiful day and we had so much fun. On this day we actually set a schedule to follow and at 2:00 headed down the strip for a little sightseeing. It was very crowded out on this day (Friday). Ate lunch at Margaritaville and I was not very impressed. The drinks were good. We got a ‘margarita tower’ which is a huge thing they put in the middle of your table, it holds 100 oz of margarita and that was really fun. The best part is you can get to-go cups…I am really starting to like Vegas now….

Out walking the strip we are all getting pretty buzzed. Just laughing a lot and having a good time. Feet are starting to hurt. I was wearing a yellow dress and an old guy passed by me and said ‘yellow is my favorite color’ it was so funny; we laughed about that for a while. Saw the Bellagio fountains and that was amazing. That whole area of the strip was so nice. We walked through the Miracle mile shops a bit. It’s pretty cool in there too. Somehow my feel held up through the walk back to MGM and we all collapsed into bed for a wee snooze.

After sprucing up I texted my club promoter to see what was hot tonight. He said def Blush in the Wynn. We got on the VIP guest list for no line no cover. It was amazing. The club was beautiful (quite different than studio 54) the ladies got free drinks and we even had some high rollers invite us to their table for some drinks. I did not pay for a thing the whole night. The girls all met some pretty hot guys so they were happy, and we had a great time dancing. I definitely recommend Blush to everyone. And the website freevegasclubpasses is legit and all you have to do is text the guy.

After leaving Wynn we cabbed it over to Bally’s for a little gambling. Jarrod, the video roulette dealer there was sooo entertaining. My friend was pretty lucky and won some money on the slots and at War. Cabbed it back to MGM and went to bed. Next day…

Woke up late and scurried to check out. Had all our bags held by bell and then went back to lazy river for a couple hours of pool time. I didn’t even leave the umbrella. My friend and I got a sandwich from the grill to share. It was def big enough to share and the waffle fries were delish. It was $29 for the Sammie, coke and two waters. Yikes. I was not prepared for the expensive prices! After pool time we grabbed our bags, changed in the bathroom and cabbed it to the airport. Oh and by the way we were never ‘tunneled’! Cab fare was only $9.30. I gave him $11. He said ‘thanks for the nice tip’ as we were walking away. Oh well buddy, we’re all out of money!

Final thoughts: I didn’t think I was going to love Vegas this much! I thought it would be much dirtier and stinkier, but it was very clean. I also thought I’d see way more drunken out of control people doing crazy things (see YouTube) but people were all pretty normal. I loved MGM grand and highly recommend it to anyone (especially those under 40). If you are going clubbing you should bring your hottest/sexiest dresses. I felt like I was going to church next to some of these girls! I will definitely need to take more money next time; the food and drinks are sooo expensive! Now I am back to the rain and 50 degree weather. I am having post-Vegas blues!!! Ready to go back any day now…Thanks for reading!