Today was our last day in Vegas, time to say goodbye to our wonderful suite, the casinos, restaurants and all that amazing artifice that makes Las Vegas the surreal place it is. We started with breakfast at THEcafe at THEhotel as we wanted to make use of our breakfast credit. Once again by the time we got down to breakfast it was more like brunch. I had the beautifully named 'Sausage Fest' which consisted of two eggs (mine were poached), a big slice of hash brown potatoes and 4 sausages, two rather nice ones, one rather spicy one and one with enough fat inside it to cause an on the spot heart attack. My partner chose the equally filling and unhealthy '2 Egg Breakfast' which came with sausage and hash browns. We washed this down with a pot of okay tasting coffee and some orange juice. How I finished this breakfast I will never know. Suitably filled with enough calories and cholesterol we decided to walk the strip again and hopefully catch a few other places we had not yet seen. Following the same route as two nights before through Luxor and Excalibur we walked through the City Center, (how I imagine Dubai might be) which consists of shiny buildings filled with high end retail stores and huge luxury hotel towers. After this we had a good laugh at the recreation of Paris where everything was Le something just in case you forgot you were in Vegas! Having spent many happy times in Paris I was not confused for a moment, for starters in Paris people only queue for bread and here there were queues everywhere... After that we took a quick peek at the Bellagio though I was disappointed we did not get to see the Venetian after hearing how tacky it was supposed to be. Oh well, maybe one day I will go to Vegas again.
At this point I had made another fatal error of judgement. We were supposed to get our shuttle from the hotel to the airport in about 30 minutes for what had been around an hours walk. We knew if the shuttle was a minute or two late and with a good plan we would just make it in time rather than having to fork out some silly money for a taxi ride. Step one, monorail. Sadly this was only a short an expensive hop that makes the HEX look like good value for money, but it seemingly got us half way back only to lead us the long way through the MGM Grand. At this point we were still just about on time. It was then a hurried dash, though in Las Vegas it's more like an agitated shuffle through Excalibur and Luxor back to Mandalay Bay. Step 2 was completed with arrival at Mandalay Bay. We had five minutes to get up to the room, get our bags, check out and get on the bus. When you are late you wish you were anywhere but the 62nd floor. Dashing downstairs I queued to check out and my partner went to what she thought was the drop off point. Whilst I was waiting to check out she called me to say that the shuttle was 10 minutes late and the pick up point was somewhere else on the complete opposite side of the casino floor. After completing check out and with a map in hand I raced as quickly as possible zigzagging through the tables and slots arriving about 15 minutes late. Thankfully the nice people at Showtime were also running late, more like 30 minutes late. The couple next to use were upset as any later and they would miss their flight. Once on board it was a barely 10 minute drive to the airport and we arrived exactly on time.
Check in and security were largely uneventful apart from the lady in front of me accidentally leaving a half litre bottle of water in her carry on bag and then making out it wasn't hers much to the annoyance of her daughter. After security we grabbed some drinks and made our way to the gate. After a short wait we boarded, this time 12E and F and this time I got the window! The return leg was much the same as the outbound. In short, new comfy aircraft with IFE, mood lighting and a free soft drink. Around 90 minutes later we touched down at SFO where we walked quickly to baggage reclaim then on to the air train and the BART to Montgomery Street for the Palace Hotel.
