A Very Vegas Christmas – My Birthday!

After traveling to Sacramento to see Chris’ family for Thanksgiving and hosting my Mom in mid-December, we really weren’t planning on going anywhere for Christmas, thinking that staying home in our quiet house (as quiet as a house with three large dogs can be - they even make noise when they're sleeping!) sounded lovely.  However, a few months ago, we got word of a great deal being offered at the Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas over Christmas, including a room with a view of the Strip and a $50 resort credit per day.  Honestly, we couldn’t refuse!

We woke up on Wednesday, 12/23 at home, had a meal of our traditional Christmas breakfast casserole, and opened presents, since we didn’t want to drag them all the way to Vegas with us.  We didn’t know what the holiday traffic would be like, so we decided to be conservative and leave on the earlier side, getting out of the house around 9am or so.  We stopped for a quick coffee/tea and ice cream break (it's my birthday, so I'm fully justified eating ice cream at 10am - whatever) at the Chaparral Ice Cream Parlor in Wickenburg, and we made it to our lunch stop in Kingman right around noon.  We originally planned to eat at Floyd’s BBQ, but they were closed for the holidays, so we picked the Garlic Clove, an Italian place down the street, instead.  Although not initially what we planned, it was delicious!  They even had a stout on tap from Black Bridge Brewing, the local microbrewer down the street, and it was quite good, too.

Fortified with food and drink, we hopped back in the car and continued the drive northwest.  Thankfully, the roads were mainly clear, and we made it to Vegas around 1:45.  While it was nice to be in town at a reasonable time, this posed a bit of a problem, as we had 3pm tickets to take a tour of the Neon Museum, one of the attractions in Vegas we hadn’t made it to by that point.  The tickets clearly said no exchanging them for another date or time, so we needed to find something to do for an hour; we decided to head down to Aria to check into the hotel and drop our gear in our room before heading back to downtown for the tour.

Vegas traffic on the Strip is infamous for a reason, so we zigged and zagged on back streets, finally reaching our destination and parking in the garage.  The day before, I received an email from Aria allowing me to pre-check-in, and after seeing the massive line for regular check-in, I was glad I did (seriously, if anyone stays there and they give you this option, do it).  We still checked-in through a regular counter clerk, but we waited in a way shorter line than the main one.  We raced upstairs, ditched our suitcases, used the loo, then ran back down and out to the car.  Unfortunately, we didn’t factor on the 15 freeway being completely snarled with traffic, so it was more zigging and zagging on the way back to the Museum, causing us to miss the start of our tour and be about 20 minutes late.  Thankfully, the wonderful staff there were happy to fill us in on what we’d missed and walk us to our tour group (I apologized to our tour guide when she had a moment, and she was extremely kind as well).

On to the tour!

The tour itself was really cool, and I highly recommend it if you’re in town and have the chance to get off the Strip for a little while (the site is not in a great area, and it's 6-7 miles north of the main casinos on the Strip, so you need a car/cab).  Most of the old signs are in various states of disrepair, but they all have a great story, and our guide filled us in on topics ranging from art and architecture to Vegas history to business to all sorts of other things as we wandered along and took shots. 

From the Moulin Rogue,
the Strip's first integrated casino.

Me: "We heard about it on Drunk History!"

The desert sun can be hard on these guys

Posing in the "boneyard"

What surprised me was in addition to what I think of as the “classic” Vegas signs (the Sahara, the Stardust, and so on), there were some from the 90s and 00s that I actually remember being on the Strip, including the fiberglass skull that hung from the Treasure Island casino.

I also remember that yard long margarita glass...

The Treasure Island skull -
you can see him grinning up at you if you look
the Neon Museum up on satellite view in Google Maps.
Seriously, take a moment and do it - it's pretty funny.

The iconic Stardust sign

The Visitor Center is also a cool piece of architecture, being housed in the lobby of the historic La Concha hotel.  What a neat building!

The restored La Concha sign

Although the tickets were a bit expensive ($18 a person, I think), I’d recommend the tour, as it was really good. Also, the museum is not for profit, so the tour tickets and other donations are the way they can raise money to have the signs restored and kept up.  Go give them money, everybody!

After we finished up at the Museum, we headed back to the Aria to settle in more fully and unpack.  We grabbed some tapas at Julian Serrano in the lobby, which was delicious!  We ate there a few years ago when we stayed for our 10th anniversary, and we were happy it hadn't been replaced (this is an issue in Vegas, where things change all the time).

Posing in the pigeon chair outside Aria

I had a few vouchers for the rest of our evening, including passes to the buffet at MGM Grand (not too shabby, even if we had been paying for it) and a drink credit at the Bar at Times Square, a dueling piano bar at New York-New York (a great time with talented musicians, but the $15 per person cover charge to sit at a real table was a bit steep).  After that, we headed back to Aria and off to a much needed slumber!

Later!

Amy