Las Vegas, Las Vegas and more Las Vegas!

We stepped out of the airport to dozens of black limos, I only wished one of those had been for us.

Unfortunately, they weren't and we settled for a shuttle bus to our hotel, Polo Towers, which is on the strip by the MGM Grand. Polo Towers is another one of Sarah's parents timeshares, and we were so grateful for more 5* luxury for the week.

Our room balcony overlooked the Bellagio, Planet Hollywood, and New York New York. Eager to get out and explore the strip we dumped our suitcases and headed out. The first thing that struck me was the amount of people walking down the street with beers and yard long margaritas!

Feeling pretty hungry and ready for an afternoon glass of wine we found a place that offered 2-4-1 meals. The food was pretty good but the service was pretty terrible. We later looked at the small print on the menu and they included an 18% gratuity in the price of your meal, hence, why they had no reason to be polite!

We didn't go back there again. One thing that has come to annoy me about Americans is everybody expects a tip...even taxi drivers!

We had a walk down to the far end of he strip by the Venetian, and had a look around in there. All the major hotels in Vegas are amazing.

The Venetian has a canal running through it where you can ride on the gondolas. It looked a bit too romantic for me and Sarah so we decided against it and instead headed upstairs to find where the nightclub and bars were. We had found out that Audrina from The Hills was hosting her brothers birthday party in Tao, at the Venetian that night, and as huge Hills fans, there was no other place to go so we got ourselves on the guestlist.

However, although we had a good night, we were a little disappointed. Even though we were on the guestlist we still had to queue for half an hour and when we did finally get in there the place was so huge and packed, we could barely move and had no idea where to go. Suffice to say, we didn't see Audrina from The Hills! And to top it off, a round of drinks for just the two of us was $24!!

There was a gorgeous rooftop pool at our hotel so we pretty much spent the week sunbathing and topping up our tans. We did do a bit of shopping but for two backpackers coming to the end of their travels, the price tags were a little out of our price range.

The night after a not so brilliant night in Tao we went to a club called Body English, which is in the Hard Rock Hotel. This was a much better night. We had met one of the guys who worked on the door the night before so when we arrived he took us to the front of the queue and got straight in.

As soon as we walked in, some Canadian guys who had a table asked if we wanted to sit down with them...of course, we did and then drank free vodka all night. They had bought 4 bottles of Vodka at $500 each!

They said they needed help drinking it, so of course, we obliged!

We woke up the next morning still slightly drunk. Unfortunately, we couldn't sleep it off as our hotel shuttle was picking us up at 9am to take us to the supermarket.

Drunk shopping is never a good idea, we somehow managed to spend $116, which included a big bottle of vodka which we reasoned would save us money in the long run!

We had a couple of nights in after that to recuperate and decided to check out some of the rides Vegas has to offer, so we headed to the Stratosphere.

We could almost see if from our hotel so we thought it would only take half an hour to walk..... two hours later we arrived! Las Vegas strip is much longer than it looks! The Stratosphere is basically a huge tower which overlooks the whole of Vegas, and on it are three rides. We went on two as the third was closed due to high winds. The first was called The Big Shot, which shoots passengers up 160 feet at 45 mph until they are 1,081 feet above the Strip. We bought our picture of this one as we looked hilarious on it! The second was called X-Scream, which propels you 27 feet over the edge of the Tower, and about 866 feet above the ground.

On our last night in Vegas, we had a night at the Bellagio. Every evening there is an incredible fountain show outside the hotel which can be seen every 15 minutes.

It is played to music and is phenomenal to watch.

We then headed for the casino in the Bellagio and decided to play roulette. As we didn't have too much money to gamble, Sarah and I thought it would be safer to play together, so we each put in $10. Unfortunately, that money went pretty quickly, so we thought we'd try our luck again with another $20 between us. Luck was on our side this time and we came away with $104! I could've so easy carried on betting, but Sarah was there to keep the game sensible so we decided to cash it in while we were ahead.

In hindsight though, I feel we could've won a little more...... maybe that's the gambler in me talking!

To make the night even better, we went to the Bellagio's club, Bank, which is by far the best club I have ever been to. All I can think is the guys on the door must've taken a shine to us as they escorted us to the front of the queue, then explained to us that a big client of theirs was coming that night and did we want a reserved table with free vodka all night, courtesy of this guy!

We didn't meet the client but i will be forever grateful. We had our own waitress pouring us our drinks all night (and she wasn't shy with the measures either!), we didn't spend a cent, and we were up by about $40 each! I vaguely remembering stumbling out of the club...

My week is Vegas was amazing, and I would go back in a heartbeat. It especially works to your advantage if you are young and single! I can imagine it is very expensive if you are a bloke or in a couple...... Thank God we were neither!

I have decided I have to have my hen do there...All I need to do now is find the lucky guy who wants to pay for me and my friends to go!