Las Vegas, NV

This day began with a jolly good sleep in. No massive breakfast buffet this time, instead we jumped in a cab and headed straight for the old-school Vegas district, Fremont Street. Home of the Golden Nugget, the Four Queens,and whatever else you may have seen in Diamonds Are Forever or other films of the same period. It was surprising how tiny those casinos seem now, compared to the behemoths at the new end of town. Still, it was interesting to have a good look around and sacrifice $10 to the poker machine gods 🙂 Speaking of poker machines, there must be rounds and of different varieties, at the very least. It seems they will make a poker machine based on internally anything. Today, we played A Star Wars machine, and. Sex nd the City one. Yesterday, one based on one of my favourite computer games, Plants vs Zombies (there’s also one based on another fave game, Crazy Taxi). There are countless other movie and tv show tie-ins (like Survivor which we had a go at as well) … If you name it, there’s a poker machine for it! One productive thing we did at Fremont Street today was visit the half price ticket booth, where you can get a discount on shows that are on the day. And yes we scored the hottest tickets in town … Donnie and Marie Osmond!! What can I say – it was kitsch, a little tacky, and a lot… Awesome! It was a real Vegas show – ok, not totally Vegas, no boobies. But the theatre was a proper ‘tables and chairs’ club arrangement, the songs were plentiful, the dancers snappy, and the stars, well, still pretty much the Osmonds we knew and loved from the 70s. And Donny did Gangnan Style which was all kinds of funny. So yes, a great show in the truest sense of the word – colour and movement, song and dance, and two people who seem to still really enjoy working together some 50 years (!) after Donny started his show biz career. We had to leave at the start of their final number to make sure we made it to our 2nd show in time. It was cirque du soleil’s “Ka”. Now, I’ve run out of fancy words that I could possibly use to describe this show. A triumph of acrobatics, dance, costuming, and engineering. Yes, engineering, for the whole stage rose, fell, tilted and rotated until it was completely vertical at times – apparently it weighs about as much as a jumbo jet or something. Incredible. The story didn’t make a lick of sense but you don’t go to cirque for the story, you go to be amazed. And I was, and then some, and then a lot more. It would seriously be worth going to Vegas just to see that one show. Tomorrow is our last full day in Vegas and yes, it’ll be our last Vegas show.