Our trip started with Air Canada moving our original seats so that Z and I were not sitting together. How annoying.....we've been fortunate not to have experienced this before, thankfully it wasn't that long of a trip. Unfortunately I couldn't entice my seats mates to trade aisle for window either. The flight was an AC Rouge flight which is very crammed in the back. It's interesting that AC has moved so many of their flights to Rouge....I guess it's all about trying to save costs and cram more paying customers into a plane. Too bad customers just accept this as the norm. In flight service is provided through their app which you have to download prior to flying and the entertainment selection quite frankly sucks! No recent movies available for my viewing pleasure. Again thankfully it wasn't a long flight and it was a means to get us to our destination. Not only did we no get seated together but somewhere along the journey Z's suitcase handle got broken....we're blaming AC!!
Hello Vegas, it's been a few years!! Let's see how you've changed (if at all) since the last time I visited. Had a very pleasant taxi driver take us to our hotel, The Cosmopolitan. Turns out he'll be volunteering at the race this weekend in one of the medical tents; really hope we don't see him again!!
Our check in was easy and we managed to get ourselves a pretty stellar upgrade. At first the desk clerk indicated that hotel management was cracking down on upgrades and people were losing their jobs by giving upgrades that weren't allowed but as we went through the process. We asked for a Bellagio fountain view room which he agreed he could do but it would be two queen beds...we preferred a king bed and as we continued talking and he remembered we were here for the runs, he decided it would be better to put us in the east tower as it was closer to the strip and where the runners' exit would be. Turns out he ended up putting us in a king sized terrace suite with an awesome view of the Bellagio water fountains. Oh yeah, one of the cool things about the Cosmo is that the rooms have balconies, something you don't find at other hotels.
After settling into our room we went for lunch at Milos, one of the many restaurants at the hotel. Here we enjoyed a pre-set three course lunch....the service was fantastic, our server was ever so friendly and made some really great recommendations that we throughly enjoyed. We each started off with a tomato salad which turned out to be a very tasty take on a Greek salad, I had the chicken skewer as my main which included immensely moist chicken breast that was seasoned to perfection, Z enjoyed the sea bass....they fly their sea food in fresh in every day and they actually display it on ice in front of the kitchen area, along with other fresh ingredients....Z really enjoyed his fish, and for dessert we shared the fresh fruit plate and the walnut cake which was one of our server's recommendations. The walnut cake was heavenly......so moist and difficult to keep up my end of the bargain in sharing, but I was good and did somewhat to Z's surprise.
Z had bought a discounted ticket for the High Roller, so we made our way there after lunch. The High Roller is a relatively new attraction in Vegas and is like the London Eye, a big ferris wheel but with enclosed cabins that can hold up to 40 people. It wasn't really busy when we arrived so we only had 9 people in our cabin. The ride takes about a half hour and gives some of the best 360 views of Vegas as you ascend to the highest point of 550 ft. I wasn't entirely sold on doing this when Z first mentioned it, but very glad he bought the tickets anyways because it was a pretty cool experience. The views were stunning and we hit it just at the right time and got to experience the sun setting. Just absolutely breathtaking and hard to describe the light effect on the dessert mountains when the sun sets and you can see that from up high.Leaving the High Roller we strolled along the Linq pedestrian street and enjoyed some ice cream despite the cool weather. This ice cream place also had cookies and cupcakes and because we are in the city that "never sleeps" they even have a 24-hour cupcake ATM just in case you have a need for a cupcake at 3am.
We capped off our first day with O....an aquatic performance by Cirque that combines Cirque's astonishing acrobatics with a giant water pool that also turns into a dry(ish) stage at various points in the performance. This show is unlike any others I've seen before.....the cast consists of acrobats, synchronize swimmers and divers, all of which end up in the water at some point and usually in a very spectacular fashion. This is definitely a show to be seen. I was amazed at every aspect of it. The only criticism I have is that at time there were so many cool and amazing things going on it was hard to know where to focus my attention. I would highly recommend this one and suggest a seat higher up in the venue so to have a better view of the show without having to constantly be looking up.
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