The Cosmopolitan's stunning lobby
Busy poolside at Cosmo
Celebrating the green
'Let me play you a tune'… Oops, forgot my guitar's full of beer!
What do you do when you have 6 dear friends planning a girlfriends’ getaway to celebrate a Landmark Birthday, and the birthday girl declares all she wants to do is see Celine Dion in Vegas? We book it, of course!
Then Celine cancels on us. Her doctor has advised her not to sing until June. Disaster! Can the girlfriends’ getaway be salvaged?
Well, we’re just back and had a blast. Largely because we chose to stay at the Cosmopolitan, the newest hotel on the Strip. Take a great location beside Bellagio, add jaw-dropping modern décor and huge comfy guest rooms and you’ve got a winning combo. There were some service issues but on the whole the staff attitude throughout the property – and throughout Vegas – was astounding.
Doubly astounding when you consider what the locals have to put up with. It was March Madness (a tornado of U.S. college basketball games and the attendant hordes betting on them) plus St. Patrick’s Day, resulting in much wearing of crazy green clothing – and my favourite sign of the weekend, outside an Irish pub: Soup of the day: Whiskey.
Sans Celine, we still enjoyed entertainment including “O”, the surreal combination of artistry and athleticism which is my favourite Cirque du Soleil show. The roller coaster careened around New York New York resulting in appropriate heart palpitations. The Luxor’s show of Titanic memorabilia is very moving and wonderfully displayed ($32: indefinite run) while the Monet exhibit at Bellagio ($15: to January 6th) provided a pleasant change of pace – and no one wearing enormous green hats!
And, of course, there was the free entertainment provided by the endless flux, flow and flood of humanity that just strolls the strip. People-watching at it best. Part of the Vegas tradition is to walk along, oversized drink in hand from one of the many bar carts along the Strip. Innovations since my last visit included drinks in plastic glasses shaped like life-sized blenders as well as plastic guitars complete with neckstrap and long straw, filled with 80 oz. of beer. As one cockney 20-something observed to his travelling companion, “Diff’ren, innit?” You betcha!
Six happy friends now have great memories of their getaway. The birthday girl’s reaction? “Celine has no idea what she missed.” Viva Las Vegas!
