Las Vegas Day 1!

Hey all, it's Lauren, if you have read any of our blogs before you may have met me. But with in the last few months I have been given the opportunity to come on full time as Medelberg's Travel Services, Marketing Director and I am branching out into the wonderful world of travel. I always have been apart of the business just never completely full time, that's why some of you have read blogs I have written, or a few years back you may have seen my vlog series from Mexico.

​I​ know this has been a long time coming, I have been very naughty on not sharing with you all my adventures I have been on as of late, but as you all will learn, I am quite the procrastinator. Luckily for you, due to my crazy busy schedule and procrastination, I will have lots of content to entertain you with. Now, enough about me, lets talk about the amazing opportunity I had to travel to the bright city of Las Vegas September 19th -22nd . It was an amazing time, I learned a lot about what sin city has to give to the many people that visit, besides just casinos.  Also, for any wondering, I only lost $4.00 gambling while in Vegas, I also only played $4.00, I learned slot machines are not my thing. Which is why this trip was great because I didn't have to gamble to have fun in Vegas, it actually has a lot more to offer to its travelers, if you continue to read you will see some of the cool activities you can do. In this specific post I will be talking about the first day I spent in Vegas, all the fabulous things I would have never imagined being able to do. Now, on with show! I mean blog!
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,​I was very fortunate to be allowed to wake up at the crack of dawn drive 45 minutes across town, in rush hour traffic, to Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix Arizona. Now I have been to Sky Harbor on a few occasions but I have to say this was probably the most simple of all the times. It was a Tuesday so there were not to many travelers. TSA was a little bit of a challenge due to one of the machines breaking down, making everyone from my lane having to go to the back of the other lane. Luckily enough though they dealt with the chaos quickly and kept the lane moving pretty fast.  After that I found my gate and waited to catch my flight.  

​I was so lucky to be able to fly South West Airlines. It was probably one of the best flights I have been on, although at first I was a little confused because unlike most airlines you get to choose your seat based on your boarding number and not from buying a seat assignment. Luckily I had a decent number and I chose a window seat towards the middle of the plane. I was able to watch the morning sun rise from my seat.  When we landed in Las Vegas I grabbed my bag from the baggage claim and headed outside to find my Super Shuttle bus for my ride to my hotel. 

​The Super Shuttle was a decent ride they showed up not to long after I had arrived, and on my bus I would later learn were two of the ladies from my group. We rode in silence and awe for the 20ish minutes to our hotel called Sam's Town. Unfortunately we were unable to check in to our rooms so I walked around. I actually had quite a bit a time to kill, about 2 hours. 

​Sam's Town is a beautiful hotel/casino that gives you the wild west feel. With a waterfall and forest in the middle it gives a very peaceful aura, and they have a water fall light show every day at 6pm.  The hotel also has almost everything you could need right then and there, full casino, multiple different kinds of restaurants, an arcade, movie theater and much more. These amenities are nice due to the hotel not being on the strip. It is about a half hour drive but there is a free shuttle to the strip and the hotel has free parking.

​We met our whole group at 6pm on the viewing deck and we got to see what our beautiful hotel had to offer by having a full site inspection. When we were done with our site inspection we headed to the main restaurant in the hotel, which was buffet style. The food was fabulous and then we were on our way to our next destination. We stopped off at our hotels sister property the Cannery which has a beautiful banquet hall overlooking the Las Vegas sky line. It was absolutely beautiful. The only sad part is, is that you have to actually rent the floor to be able to see the view, you can't just go up there and see it. Definitely worth a see though. We had sangria and some deserts over looking Vegas then we looked through the hotel and saw the different room options. It was a beautiful hotel very modern and spacious. It is still about a 20 minute drive to the strip but each room has a glass wall looking out over the city so you trade beauty for closeness, it all is about what is more important to you. The hotel offers free parking as well.  

​We finished up the site inspection at the Cannery and off we were to our next adventure.  Which was a short ride to the airport to Maverick Helicopters. The staff at Maverick had champagne for us while we waited for our turn to ride the helicopters.  We only had to wait about a half hour and then it was our turn. They weighed us with our things we brought because they had to take into account how much weight was on each flight. Then they divided us up into 3 or 4 helicopters. They had us get with our assigned group and that is where we met our pilot who would walk us out to our helicopter. 

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Our pilot (pictured above) is from New Zealand. He was a really nice guy, not very talkative but he answered all our questions, and made us all feel very safe. We put on our seat belts, which was actually a lot more complicated than you would think. We put on our head gear and waited for take off. I must say being on a helicopter is probably one of the coolest things you can experience. The view is phenomenal and it's all so close. I've seen views from the windows of planes, but a helicopter is so very different. I really enjoyed the experience and another cool aspect was in our headphones was an auto explaining all the different sites we were flying over, giving us information about each one and what made each property special. Definitely an experience everyone should try in their lifetime.  

This beauty was waiting for us when we got off our flight. Now I must say, I was pretty excited about this because being the princess I am, I have always wanted to ride in a Limo but I never had the chance before. It was so cool, exactly how I felt a limo ride should be, glamorous and exciting.  They didn't have fancy drinks on board or anything but there was music and music videos playing. The interior was all lit up in neon colors and the seats were comfortable and spacious. 

So, the reason I was able to ride in this fabulous ride was because we were on a photo tour. Which meant we went to various famous Vegas landmarks and took pictures there. Now I personally didn't necessarily enjoy climbing in and out of the limo a whole bunch but I suppose the exercise was good for me. This photo tour was pretty bomb, we started out at the strip spent about 10 minutes there, got back into the limo and off we were to the world famous Welcome to Vegas sign, where we spent about 15 minutes and then we were back in our charrette. The sites we stopped at were beautiful (check out below for some pictures) I honestly was just really excited to be in the limo so I took my pictures and got back in to absorb as much fabulousness as I could. 

Much like the helicopters I really recommend going on a tour like this, I mean if your in Vegas you might as well go all out. These activities for most are a once in a life time activity, so go to sin city, be driven around in a stretch limo, have a personalized helicopter ride, and enjoy. I honestly never really thought I would enjoy Vegas this much because I am not a gambler, but just wait my adventures get better, I know, I know it hard to top what I did on my first day but trust me it gets better. Tune in next week for my blog about day two.  Now, here are some pictures from the Photo Tour.