Vegas 1999 - Day 3

Rah Rah Ra!

We began today's adventure a little late.  We're on vacation after all and, while we did feel a little guilty having slept in, we soon got over it.  We walked over to MGM and hopped a tram to Bally's.  (This modest monorail is most likely the inspiration for the Sinatra song, "The Lady is a Tram.")

The people who own Bally's (and the Las Vegas Hilton and the Flamingo Hilton) are building a new casino and hotel called Paris. According to the signs, Paris will be completed in September of this year although from the looks of it, I'd say that have a lot of work yet to do.  The replica Eiffel Tower is almost complete but in spots you can see the reinforced concrete structure that will eventually be plated over with faux riveted steel beams.  It's going to have another 25 square mile casino and 45 bazillion rooms.  Now, you would think that there's already enough of this sort of thing around until you recognize two things: for one, casinos and hotels are the only reason Las Vegas exists and, second, most of the establishments are filled most of the time.

We perused the quaint shops in the bowels of Bally's.  These shops are all unique in character and do not at all resemble the other quaint shops in the other casinos except that they all sell the same stuff.  Most notable among these items is the refrigerator magnet that looks like a toilet.  It makes real flush sounds when you open the lid.  Just the thing to put you off of that midnight snack.

With our window shopping complete (I can't tell you how many 'fridge toilets I purchased... you'll find out at Christmas), we trammed back to MGM, walked across to Excalibur and trammed again to Luxor.  Now this place is COOL.  We were walkin' like Egyptians and hieroglyphing with the locals.  Very few of the photos I took do justice to the size and grandeur of this place.  In the picture to the right, you can see row after row of hallways ascending into the point of the pyramid.  You don't ride in an elevator, you ride in an "inclinator."

Down below on the fourth floor, we viewed an IMAX presentation hosted by Omar Sherif called The Mysteries of Egypt.  The film is projected on an enormous screen backed up by an equally big sound system.  The story revolves around the Nile, the building of the pyramids and how this eventually led to the architecture used in large casinos.  The biggest mystery of all though is the big gap in Mr. Sharif's front teeth.  What was it that eighties punk sensations, The Clash, wrote about this?   "Sharif, he don't like it.  Rockin' the Casbah.  Rockin' the Casbah."  C'mon, everybody sing!

I also "rode" a motion simulator ride called "The Mfph bewhef of Egypt."  I should explain the goofy title as I thought it was a bit odd myself.  As I entered the attraction, I was assaulted with the muffled, yet over-amplified voice of the "cast member" assigned to the first station.  She explained that this was a motion ride and that "women who arw prenget or peghpl with heart consthgns shoftd nohf ride."  Where do they get these folks?   Did they not explain that part of the job would require public speaking?  I followed the instructions as closely as I could and ended up with the lap belt over my forehead.

The ride itself was a blast, but I have no idea what it was about.   Stuff blew up, and things exploded.  And stuff.  (And things.)

We visited one of those caricature artist booths.  The nice man drew an incredibly photorealistic picture of us.  I thought he was supposed to exaggerate our features and blow things out of proportion.  Oh well, this will work nicely over the fireplace at home.

Day 4 >>