Over half term we visited Las Vegas with Virgin Holidays. I haven’t been since I was 18 and I think it’s changed quite a lot in that time and not necessarily for the better. But more about that later. For now you can just enjoy this installment of day one of our holiday in Las Vegas.

Our Flight

We flew there with KLM from Manchester with a change in Amsterdam. Unfortunately, Virgin aren’t restarting direct flights until next year. In a way I wish we had waited until then as it was a bit of a worry whether we would make our connection. Amsterdam airport is one giant terminal and we arrived at our gate just in the nick of time for boarding our next flight.

It was such a long flight, I much prefer short haul flights like we had with our Lake Garda holiday. Plus it was a bit of a squeeze in the seats for my over 6 ft boys. People are quick to recline their seats and end up practically sitting back into your knees! But we got there eventually. The flight passed with a few meals, a few films and admiring the views from the window.

Transfer

On arrival we jumped straight into a taxi, the taxis have a fixed fare, and the taxi rank is conveniently located close to the airport exit. We had no wait, there was plenty of taxis lined up that Saturday afternoon. It cost us $30 including the tip, the fare was $22 with cash, more if you used your credit card (we didn’t).

We didn’t bother booking transfers through Virgin Holidays as they were very overpriced in comparison. The fixed price makes the difference too, especially with all the extra delays with traffic because of the F1 preparations. At least you know what price to expect.

Our Hotel

We then checked into our hotel for our holiday in Las Vegas. We decided to go with the Virgin Hotels Curio Collection Hilton because it had no resort fees for Virgin Holiday customers. That saved us $45 (and tax) each night. Also the hotel was about £300 cheaper than some of the lower end Strip hotels. So the money savings swayed us. We had a 2 Queens Chamber Room. You do have to pay a deposit on your arrival (10 days was something like just over £800), its quite steep but it was sorted out promptly when we checked out.

The hotel is slightly off strip. However, I thought that the any money we saved would help towards any transport we might need to book. The location hadn’t put us off, as the hotel itself was gorgeous, all newly renovated. I also liked that they have a door you can close to separate your room so it makes it a bit quieter from corridor noise. I think that’s why its called a Chamber Room. There was an adjoining door and you could hear your neighbours at times. It’s a shame they hadn’t added the adjoining door before the second door instead of after.

We had read lots of reviews with mixed opinions about the location. However, we had no problems walking to the strip from there. It only took twenty minutes and if anything, whenever we walked, we encountered a lot less homeless people than walking the strip. Although I wouldn’t recommend walking it at night, because it might be a little lonely. Least the strip has lots of people about late into the night.

We loved that our hotel had comfy mattresses, effective air conditioning and lots of USB charger points. The shower was always hot and powerful. You could hear planes at times but that didn’t bother us, once you were asleep they didn’t wake you.

Big Chicken

There is an 8 hour difference in Las Vegas, but we wanted to stay away as long as possible. It was a challenge, but we did our best. We walked over to Big Chicken. It’s handy that the hotel, has different options to eat very close by. No complaints about the food from the boys, I had a great milkshake, I couldn’t face food, I just wanted to go to sleep. To give you an idea of food prices, a combo meal including fries, 5 piece chicken tenders and a shake or fizzy drink came to $11.29 (with sales tax added on top).

Our Only Complaint

When we decided we couldn’t stay awake any longer we tucked into bed and just at that moment a full on DJing session started going on.

This was my only complaint for the next 10 nights with our stay at this Virgin Hotel. The noise was ridiculous, the room vibrating. We spoke to customer services, and they sent up ear plugs. Later they admitted that lots of other people had also complained and wanted it shut down.

What was more of an insult was looking out the window and seeing how few people were actually listening to the music.  At least if it was well attended it wouldn’t be quite so frustrating that they decided to let it go on. Anyway, they gave us a $50 room credit which was something. But it is worth checking what events they have going on at their event lawn during your stay.

Finally, we nodded off and day one complete, after a very long journey and a noisy night of music.