Christmas in San Francisco

[Justinf]

Flight time was around an hour and was smooth sailing. Deboarding only from the front which took an ice age for those of us up the back of the bus.
First views of LAS and the airport has become much bigger since the last time I was there.



Into a cab and a quick ride to Paris Las Vegas where we were staying. Check-in took a long time, which I remember well.
The rooms were small and rather dated.





The bathroom was at least a decent size.




Once we'd checked in the 'kids' went exploring as by now it was late afternoon.

 

[Justinf]

The 'kids' were pretty excited to be heading to the outlets tomorrow, and they decided to head out for a burger dinner. Wife wasn't feeling well so ordered room service and I hit the bar until the kids were finished with dinner. Chris, one of the barman, at Paris LV was one of the nicest guys I've ever met. He was a top bloke.
After the kids finished stuffing their faces, we wandered around Paris LV and Ballys for a while. I bought a cigar for $10 and had one puff and realised I'd made a huge mistake. I didn't realise you weren't supposed to inhale the buggers. Blurgh!







We didn't have a lot planned for Vegas during our three-night stay, except to see Ka at the MGM Grand on our final night so tomorrow would be a day of leisure doing whatever.
Obigatory selfie just before finishing up before bed. The kids couldn't believe you could walk around the casino with a beer (let alone walk around on the Strip with one).

 

[Justinf]

Up around 9am to get the most out of my resort fees. 40 minutes running on the treadmill and a few weights and felt brand new again.
Some fruit for brekky and coffee from Le Cafe near the elevator at Paris Las Vegas.
By this time the kids had gone to the outlets so the missus and I decided to wander around the casinos. The wonderful woman that she is let me watch the 2nd half of the Tottenham game. What a gal.



before entering the Venetian, the wife insisted I get this photo. I objected, but had to comply.



After wandering around the Venetian, where I stayed last time I was there, we decided to head out to the South Outlets to join the kids.
I didn't find these outlets to have any significant bargains for me, but the kids found some beauties.
The Venetian was just how I remembered it.




I did get an Adidas hoody for $20 so all was not lost.
We found a cab back to Paris Las Vegas where the kids went upstairs to shower and the wife and I had a drink at the bar, where the awesome Chris was there again.

 

[drron]

Gee mate what did you say to those 2 gals that they would give you a knee to the what nots.I note your hands responded quickly though.

 

[moa999]

Yep. Most of the beers on draught are well over 5% and two or three of those and I'm ready for bed. i don't drink a lot these days, but I do love the multitude of craft brews in the States so it's one of the things I love about going there.

Indeed microbreweries everywhere on the East and West coast and many pubs will have 20+ on tap on a rotating basis (and generally will have a half-pint or taste).
Bud and Coors are pretty average, I don't mind Sam Adams.

 

[Justinf]

Indeed microbreweries everywhere on the East and West coast and many pubs will have 20+ on tap on a rotating basis (and generally will have a half-pint or taste).
Bud and Coors are pretty average, I don't mind Sam Adams.

Sam Adams had their winter ale at a few places. It was very decent.

 

[Justinf]

Gee mate what did you say to those 2 gals that they would give you a knee to the what nots.I note your hands responded quickly though.

I really didn't know what to do. Notice how my hands are well and truly not touching?

 

[Justinf]

I had been to the Grand Canyon a few times already and was trying to convince the others to do a chopper ride out there. There was a special that the four of them could have gone for a total of $500 which I reckon was a bargain, but they opted not to.
We didn't have a lot planned for the day. We walked to Ross and it was not nearly as good as the one in San Francisco.
A view of our 'place'.


There was a place where if you weighed 350lb or more, you ate for free. I almost qualified I reckon.



I popped down to the gym for a 45-minute run and some weights and in no time it was nearly show time. We walked over to the MGM Grand for the Cirque du Soleil show, Ka.
There were long lines for the drinks, but I still managed to get a family selfie before walking in and taking our seats.



No photos once the show started, but I did manage this one just before. The arena was packed.



The show was amazing. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Totally incredible. That's two Cirques I have seen in Vegas now - O and Ka - and both were awesome. The show is lavish and technically advanced. A rotating stage that turns 360 degrees. I found the storyline to be a little hard to follow and like all Cirque shows, it focussed more on the wow factor, which it succeeded in doing.
Still on a high, we had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe and talked about the mesmerising couple of hours we'd just witnessed.

 

[Justinf]

After dinner we walked around for a while and take in the sights one last time as tomorrow we'd be headed for LA.
Paris Las Vegas.

The Bellagio.






Everyone decided to head to the land of slumber, but I played Blackjack at the tables for a while and quit while I was $200 up. Nice.
I was sharing a room with Miss 16 this night and I was awoken at 2.30am by her crying and in pain. She had been vomitting all over the bathroom and was in a really bad way. Food poisoning I suspected. We didn't get back to sleep as all night she was up vomitting.
By the time morning arrived it was clear that she was in no state to travel. She could barley move.
I phone concierge and asked if the two of us could stay on another night while the others went to LA. The hotel was fully booked which was not surprising as it was December 30. They phoned several other places for me and the same result occured. Vegas was chockers for New Year's.
It left us with very little alternative but to just carry on.
Miss 16 was in a really bad state with whatever she had coming from both ends. Got got in the shower and I ran to Walgreens to see if I could get something for her, but anything that was going to help required a prescription. Some electrolyte water was the only thing I could get.
Somehow we managed to pile into a maxi cab out to LAS with Miss 16 still wearing my Qantas F PJ top that I gave her. she loves it and didn't want to change out of it.
Unfortunately I couldn't clean the bathtub up much. There was vomit everywhere. Still, I felt bad for the housekeeprs and left a hefty tip with an apology note. I figured that, being Vegas, they'd encounter vomit in rooms regularly, but that didn't mean it was OK for us to do it.
We made it to LAS and stood in line at curbside but the wife had to take Liv to to toilet in a emergency dash so it took a while for them to come back and us complete check in.
Lines for security were long. It seems a lot of people were leaving Vegas today as well as arriving.
Eventually we got through and got to the gate with an hour to spare.
Our Southwest boarding numbers this time were B35-39, not quite as good as last time. Miss 16 wanted, and needed, to sit in the back row as close to the toilet as possible.

 

[love_the_life]

Oh poor thing. Awful for her. Hope she was able to get over it fairly quickly though it sounds like she had quite a bad case of it.

 

[blackcat20]

Poor kid, nothing worse than feeling that terrible.

 

[Justinf]

We boarded and Miss 16 and I managed to get the very back row with her on the aisle and me in the middle seat. The flight was full so we had a guy on the window with a dog in his carry on luggage. Apparantely it whimpered the whole flight but I didn't notice thanks to my Bose QC35s.
No service on this flight as all FAs had to remain seated. It was like a rollercoaster. However, Miss 16 made it through the flight unscathed which was a relief.
It was 28 degrees in LA the day before we arrived, but by time we got there a cool change had swept through and temps were in the mid teens.
Miss 16 was still quite sick and we decided that we would take her to the doctor the following day if she hadn't improved.




Flight time from nose up to nose down was 43 minutes. We were obviously the final ones to leave the aircraft.
Quite a long wait at LAX for our bags with Miss 16 just sitting down on the floor with her head bowed into her hands. These are the times as a parent, you wish it was you who was sick instead.
We piled into a cab for our ride to our Air B&B in Hollywood. The ride was much longer than I expected and took about an hour and cost $120 including tip. Ouch.




The Air B&B was on North La Brea Ave just 50 metres from Hollywood Blvd. We got in and a nice 2nd floor three-bedroom apartment awaited us.
Miss 16 went straight to bed. By now it was later afternoon and nobody was in any mood to do much.
I volunteered to go out searching for food for four of us, but managed a quick beer and a look around before bring back takeaway.



No pics of the Air B&B but it was nice, although noisey. Wi-fi didn't work very well and the TV channels didn't work as it said the subscription hadn't been paid. I messaged the owner, and she was quick in responding and said she'd fix it up.
We all went to bed fairly early. Wife was staying in tomorrow and the four of us (although it looked like only three would make it) were off to Universal Studios in the morning.

 

[sausagefingers]

I really enjoy your TR Justin, I feel totally immersed.
they're my favorite to read!!!

Cheers,

 

[Justinf]

I really enjoy your TR Justin, I feel totally immersed.
they're my favorite to read!!!

Cheers,

Thank you so much. Sometimes I get the impression not many people have read this one, but that's OK. I love writing them.

 

[drron]

Thank you so much. Sometimes I get the impression not many people have read this one, but that's OK. I love writing them.

To me it doesn't matter how many read my TRs-I also enjoy doing them and rereading later on.
But like sausagefingers I await your every post.You give so much of yourself and convey your emotions through your writing.I love it.
And I hope Miss 16 got better quickly.

 

[Pushka]

To me it doesn't matter how many read my TRs-I also enjoy doing them and rereading later on.
But like sausagefingers I await your every post.You give so much of yourself and convey your emotions through your writing.I love it.
And I hope Miss 16 got better quickly.

Compiling a TR here is like writing a travel diary for someone like me who doesn't like writing them. A permanent record of your thoughts etc with pictures available online 'forever'.

 

[Dr Ralph]

Thank you so much. Sometimes I get the impression not many people have read this one, but that's OK. I love writing them.

We're definitely reading

 

[cjd600]

Loving it...and a fan of Sierra Nevada Pale when in the US

 

[sausagefingers]

Thank you so much. Sometimes I get the impression not many people have read this one, but that's OK. I love writing them.

I've checked this thread a few times already today. I do TR on Facebook when I am away. it's a great way of sharing what my family is doing with my Mum and close friends. I am sure many of my facebook "Friends" think I am being a wanker for writing 300 word status updates daily with a log of where we ate and who ate what. I don't care, I do them for the people who do read them and for myself so I can enjoy looking, reading and enjoying the experience again next year when it pops up as a "memory" Keep them coming Justin

 

[Justinf]

We had a decent sleep and pretty much all slept in. The big question was how was Miss 16 feeling?
Much better. In fact she was pretty much raring to go. Couldn't believe the transformation from one day to the next.
Wife stayed home today but ended up venturing out to the Chinese Theatre and Hollywood Blvd, which I was glad for.
The kids and I jumped into an Uber and headed out to Universal Studios. Rain forecast with a top temp of only 14 degrees? Is this LA or San Francisco?
To my horror I saw on the Uber app that my passenger rating had gone from 4.96 to 4.79 since I'd been in the States. What the? I'd tipped well, was courteous and generally a model passenger. I would become the butt of everyone's jokes from here on in because I was so worried about my Uber rating. Anyone else experience this while in the US?
The Uber driver was great and took us right there on no time. I immediately checked the app after the trip and my rating had gone up to 4.80 which meant he'd given me five stars. Phew!
We lined up to get tickets and contempleted front-of-line tickets, but at twice the cost of normal tickets, we baulked. AUS$150pp for normal and AUS$300 for the front of line. It was just too much.
We ventured in and headed straight for Harry Potter World.





Who doesn't love the Harry Potter movies. It was impressive, but not a lot to actually do there apart from the ride, which of course had a wait time of 75 minutes. No thanks.
(in Jamaican accent: "It's going to be a bumpy ride")





There was some sort of musical play going on where the lead singer also spoke a lot. She had the worst fake British accent I have ever heard. It was mildly entertaining.



I must confess now. The only reason I wanted to come here was to try butterbeer. When I get my mind onto someting I won't let it go. The lines for butterbeer were long, but I was determined.
Something not good then happened. My son-in-law started feeling very ill. Really sick excactly what Miss 16 had. He had to go to the bathroom a couple of times and considering he was looking forward to Universal Studios more than anyone, this was not a good sign.