March Madness and My Favorite City

View from room during the day

View from room at night

I just returned from my seventh trip to Las Vegas.  For the second straight year, some friends and I were lucky enough to get to meet up and have a guys weekend for the first weekend of March Madness.   This is the fourth time I have been in Sin City for my favorite sporting event and it never gets old.  Although our main reason for going was to bet on some hoops and watch games, we also enjoyed going to a show, playing some table games, and eating like kings!

Hallway in The Venetian

I took this picture for my daughter because she would love to see a pink tree.

Venetian Waterfall

For our trip this year, we stayed at The Venetian.  It is a beautiful hotel with very nice rooms, a spacious casino, a huge poker room, and several world-class restaurants.  I enjoy placing bets on the basketball games that I feel good about and then finding a restaurant or sports bar to watch games.  Although I enjoy playing poker, craps and blackjack, I usually don’t do much gambling until after the games are all finished for the night.

When most people think of Las Vegas, they think of gambling.  As soon as you exit your plane, you can hear the sound of slot machines at McCarran International Airport.  Those huge casinos were built with the money that was brought in from gambling, but Vegas is a lot more than gambling.  It is also a major destination for shopping, shows, and fantastic food.

Front of The Venetian

Speaking of food, we ate at some great restaurants such as SUSHISAMBA,  Public House, and Carnevino.  I will blog about each of these and give my reviews in the near future.  If you like high-end dining, you can’t walk three steps without finding a restaurant owned by the likes of Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck, Mario Batali, Gordon Ramsay, Bobby Flay, etc.  Some people prefer quantity over quality when it comes to food and Vegas will not disappoint these people either.  Almost every hotel casino has its own buffet.  This trip we tried the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesar’s Palace and it was so good that it will get its own review later as well. 

Getting my eat on during our visit to Caesar's Palace!

If you have never been to Vegas, I would highly recommend taking in a show.  There are a wide variety of shows that a visitor can take in.  There are several Cirque du Soleil acts, musical acts, musicals, and comedians.  Comedian/Actor David Spade, aka Joe Dirt, was doing a show on one of the Friday and Saturday that we were there.  We talked it over as a group and decided it would be fun to go see David Spade.   Some tickets became available the day of the show and we were able to get tickets on the third row, directly in front of Kelsey Grammer.  Apparently we had better connections than he did since we were a row in front of him. 

Since he sat behind us, Kelsey Grammer obviously couldn't afford our tickets

Typical of a comedy show, it began with an opening act and then followed by Kevin Farley (Chris’s Brother).  Both the local guy and Kevin Farley were very funny.  Following Kevin Farley’s set, he introduced David Spade.  But it wasn’t David Spade that came out.  Instead, some little known actor/comedian named Chris Rock came out.  All four of us were shocked and excited that Chris Rock was on stage and we looked at each other with complete amazement.  He did about a 15-20 minute set and was absolutely hilarious.  If given the choice of seeing any comedian, Chris Rock would have been number one on my list and I got to basically see him for free since he was not advertised to be a part of David Spade’s show (at least it seemed free using Vegas logic).  David Spade followed Chris Rock, but although hilarious, he was no Chris Rock.  Getting to see Chris Rock and David Spade might have been the highlight of my trip.

Kevin Farley

Chris Rock

David Spade

Overall it was another amazing, fun, and sleep-deprived visit to my favorite city.  I ended up going 12-9-1 on basketball games and ended up making some decent money on March Madness.  Unfortunately, blackjack, craps, poker, and slots didn’t treat me so kindly.  I still left Las Vegas a happy man.  I got to watch some great basketball, hang out with some great friends, and ate some great food.  I was also smart enough to use some of the money I had left on a gift for my wife.  These gifts to the wife seem to help with met getting permission to go on guys trips.

Don't forget the gift to the wife so she will let you go back next year!