HOW WE PLANNED OUR LAS VEGAS TRIP

As we were approaching our first wedding anniversary, like any other couple we were also super excited to celebrate it. The best part is that ours fell quite close to a 3-day weekend (happy dance). So we decided to take Friday(our anniversary) off and go on a much needed vacation. When it came to the destination, it didn't take us any planning, there is only one place to party and that's (drum roll please) Vegas!!!

We planned a 5nights-4days trip. Why 5 nights instead of 3 nights? Because vegas is all about nightlife. People literally start their day in the evening(relaxing and some tanning on the pool during the day) and party till 4am, so it was only reasonable to spend more nights there. Another thing is, on long weekends, the flight fares are carraaazzzy, so we booked our flights a day early to land there, Thursday night and a day later to start, Tuesday morning(board an early morning flight from vegas and you'll be in Seattle on time to get to work). Talk about win-win!

We booked our hotels through these websites - Hotwire.com, Hotels.com. We stayed two nights in Vegas, one night at a motel in Route 66 (oh yeah!) and two nights back in Vegas. Stay were split because we decided to see the glorious Grand Canyon in this trip and also the weekend rates for hotels in Vegas were skyscraper high, its being the long weekend and all, this way when we split, we spent saturday night at the motel, we had a major drop in our hotel rates. Cheers to us!

First two nights we were staying at VDARA, relatively new hotel compared to all the classic ones in the strip (about 2 miles of Las Vegas Boulevard covering all the casinos and hotels in Vegas is called The Strip). We really liked this place.

The room(deluxe suite) was neat, very spacious, huge windows covering an entire wall, had an amazing view, a kitchen, well stocked refrigerator, we ordered in breakfast, even that seemed not that pricey for a star hotel, the complimentary personal-care items in the room were all organic, paraben & sulfate free. Only downside(not for us) is there is no casino in this hotel, its a hotel&spa (must be a fancy spa, we didn't go). But its very close to Bellagio, there is a bridge connecting these two, you don't even have to go out in the sun, and that's why we liked Vdara.

Third night was in Romney motel on Route 66, in a town called Seligman. It was good, had all the amenities like microwave, fridge(not stocked this one), Air Conditioner, TV(we didn't turn it on though), the wall and ceilings were very old though. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. Perfect for a one night stay to take a break from the road. Its right in the middle of the historic route 66 that goes through Seligman. Good cafes, souvenir shops(pic above), etc nearby. We were very tired and dozed off the prev night and were in a hurry to hit the road in the morning, so didn't take a pic of our motel room, sorry!

Next two nights we were back in the strip, we stayed at the Paris hotel & casino this time. Enjoying the best of both worlds, Vdara - new and fancy, Paris - old and charming. Paris is in the heart of the strip right opposite to Bellagio, you feel like you are in real Paris when u go inside.

All parisian inspired cafe, restaurants and of course the casino as soon as you come down from your room, there is a restaurant on the Eiffel tower as well, with a view and all.

About our room, it was not that big/spacious (we even had an upgrade) compared to Vdara, and it had all the similar amenities, but no kitchen, everything felt old there, we didn't know whether it was intended. We were expecting a view of the Bellagio, but i guess that's for higher level suites or we weren't lucky enough to get the room on the other side, bummer!

To sum it all up, we were very happy with our stay in Vegas. We saved some money with the flight booking and also on splitting our stay at the hotels. Hope this helps when you plan your trip to Vegas or to any other place for that matter. xo, Hems