Tuesday 13 January 2015 Las Vegas

There was a fire alarm this morning at 6 am. There was an announcement to stay where you were until they had determined the cause. A few minutes later they gave us an “All clear.”

We had a fairly good breakfast at McDonald’s again this morning (Really! I mean it.), but it was all downhill after that. We first crossed over to New York NewYork where we bumped into one of the twins’ favourite personalities.

We then stopped at the Hershey store for some pretzels dipped in chocolate and caramel, 

and then we wandered on to the Miracle Mile Mall again. Celeste noticed that they offered a coupon book for AAA/CAA cardholders. Armed with the coupon book, we bought some decadent cookies at the Nestle store and a bag of Chicago mix popcorn at Garrett’s popcorn shop. Chicago mix is a blend of caramel corn and with a sharp cheese flavoured corn. Since we had just eaten our cookies we did not open the bag until we got back to our room. We wondered, “Why so many napkins and wet wipes?” We soon found out. It was so buttery and cheesy you needed the cleanup material after every handful. It was deeeelicious, a big step up from the stuff at Costco, but probably not as healthy as fruit and vegetables.

We decided to buy three day bus passes, so we rode the bus home. Our feet said “Thank you!” as we rested up for a while. We headed out again across the street to investigate David Copperfield tickets. Having seen Criss Angel and heard some other opinions, we want to decide for ourselves who has the better show. We got tickets for tonight at 7 pm.

On the way into the hotel to get our Copperfield tickets someone handed us ticket-like pieces of paper. When we read them we learned that they were invitations to critique existing or pilot TV shows. It sounded like it could be fun so we gave it a shot. We watched the pilot of the new Odd Couple show with Matthew Perry. We each had to continuously adjust a knob between zero and 100 depending on how we were feeling about the show at any particular moment. At the end we had to fill out an on-screen questionnaire regarding our feelings about the show we had just seen, our other viewing habits, and some generic personal information. It was actually all quite interesting. Our reward was a package of coupons, one of which was for 2 for 1 Nathan’s famous New York hot dogs. We tried them out, but weren't real impressed. We would prefer Harvest any time.

From there we went back to the Excalibur to catch the free tram that runs between there and the Luxor and Mandalay Bay. We dropped in at the Luxor with our 2 for 1 Dos Equis beer coupon. Sensing a theme here? From there we went back to our room to relax for a bit before this evening’s show.

Having already seen one magic show, we bought the cheap seats for this one. Then, just before the show, one of the ushers came and guided several of us from the back row about half way down to fill some seats closer to the stage. Cool. The illusions were as good as or better than Criss Angel and we thought the show was presented in a more entertaining manner, although I thought one portion was a bit corny and sentimental.

After the show we went to New York New York for a Rueben sandwich that we had been craving since we saw the place on the first day. 

We got there right at closing at 9 pm and got their last little bit of meat, but it was very good. While we were sitting outside the store, but still in the main building there was another fire alarm. Are these things following us around? Same result as this morning.