Viva Vegas!

Las Vegas is a heckuva place. 
If you had asked me back when I first turned 21, I would have told you that I had no interest in going to Las Vegas. Gambling?! Waste of money. Buffets?! Gross. Glitz and themed hotels?! Cheesy. No thank you. Then somewhere on the way I started having a little more fun and you know what? Las Vegas is a heckuva place. It's still ridiculous, but it's a fun ridiculous and I didn't learn my lesson: After a good 6-8 hours in the casino, I was actually up $5. Time to start planning the next trip.

I can't really say that I saw the real Las Vegas. What I visited was more Las Vegas® and Old Vegas, which is the strip and downtown. Outside of these Disneylands, I'm sure that there is a far different side of Vegas, both good and bad. The next time I'm here, I'll have to spend more time off strip, where I suspect that there are some truly great local places, but for anyone headed to Vegas, here's my basic advice:

1. Forget that the monorail exists, and go public transit. The monorail is both not that useful because it drops about a quarter mile from the strip and not the best example of monorail technology. The bus, on the other hand, is a good deal. Be sure to pony up the $2 for the 24 pass for less stress.

2. From the airport, just take a cab. The shuttle buses are slightly less expensive ($6 per person), but a cab for two or more people is going to be less expensive.

3. On a related note, when you're getting ready to leave, don't forget that the airport is less than 10 minutes away. We made the mistake of allocating way too much time to get to the airport and ended up waiting around.

4. Bring cash with you. ATMs in the hotel will run you $5 per withdrawal and less expensive ATMs are hard to find (There's one here for $3, here (4th floor, and broken when I tried), and supposedly one here, just in case).

5. Do have fun. If you decide to play, don't feel shy about asking the waitresses for a drink (but do tip $1 a drink) and make sure you're comfortable losing whatever you put up. Set a limit and stick with it. Shows are good too, but shop around for the best price. Tix4Tonite managed tickets for us to Love! at about a 20% discount (but better deals may have been about). Whatever you like to do, do it.

After the break, more pictures from everywhere, including the Stratosphere and a couple of other restaurants! Keep reading!

This started with $2.50 left over from a video poker machine... Go Price Is Right!

The stratosphere was actually a lot of fun, but there's a trick to it. It's normally $16 bucks just to go up. Alternatively, you can come up to Lounge 107 and buy two drinks (or one martini during happy hour) and you can go up for free. The view is great!

Another great place. Who wouldn't want to hang out here? Peppermill Restaurant is great and surprisingly reasonably priced.

This is also one of the highlights of the trips. The Oriental Hotel has a bar on the 23rd floor, which is also where afternoon tea is served. The views are great from here.

And now for some random food pictures... 

Lamb with mint/cilantro! Yum!

Flight Report: To Sin City and Cheating on United

For the past few years, I've been a bit of a purist: United was my preferred airline, followed by Lufthansa. Continental was a good option because of the ARN-EWR flight, but overall I never really enjoyed them and I never experienced any perks with them except for a couple of lucky domestic upgrades. On Lufthansa, on the other hand, they once bumped me to first class for no apparent reason on a transatlantic flight and United   bumped me to business on my way back from Japan. That's very welcome.

However, now Continental has taken over United and there have been changes. Most notably, to the mileage program and as a direct result, I'm now shopping for a new carrier. Heading down to Las Vegas was a great opportunity to try out Alaska which is an airline I used to fly a lot with as a kid back in the late 80s and early 90s, but haven't used recently.

After the break, photos from takeoff and the flight, plus Mt. St. Helens.

This is one of my favorite photos from the flight. For some reason, a fog rolled in just as we were about to take off and on the other runway, a Delta plane was landing. It's great to see it cutting through the fog like that and it's not that often that there is a plane that lands at the same time our engines are spooling up.

I have been struggling to figure out which side is best to sit on and today I ended up on the wrong side. During the climb, I could see Mount Rainier out of the port side of the plane and it look fantastic. My consolation prize was this extremely difficult shot of Mt. St. Helens. This was the volcano that blew up in 1980 and it's still active today.

Welcome to Vegas! This is the first thing we saw coming off the plane: Slot machines. This is a very different world.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the flight. The drink service was ok, although you still have to ask for the can, and they left on time, which is more than I can say about some of my other recent experiences. I think I will have to give them another shot and doubly so since they agreed to match my status on United. They have a pretty eclectic set of partner airlines, so if this works out, I might switch over to them. Good bye, Star Alliance?

Flight Report: Challenging Copenhagen Connection Complications

Flying back from Sweden gave me a chance to experience something new: A fully missed connection with no later flights to my final destination. In the past, a delay has meant a couple of extra hours and maybe a rebooking to a red eye, but this time around the flight I missed was the last one of the day and the flight that was delayed by three hours was the last one out of Copenhagen to the US. In other words, I’m not getting home today. Here's what happened...

The first plane of the day

The day started out well enough: One of my friends gave me aride to the airport in exchange for a Starbucks mug with “Stockholm” on it, andthe first flight of the day was a quick hop to Copenhagen: A true bread andbutter flight on a trusty 737. It was a wet start from Stockholm and we werequickly on top of a steady blanket of clouds which would be the scenery for theflight. On the approach the cloud cover gave way and revealed a bit of thecountryside of southern Sweden, and the landing itself was in some pretty gustycross winds. Once on the ground and in the airport, this is where the funstarted…

After the break, the full story, lessons learned, and another example of a Kosher meal in flight, this time on SAS.

Leaving Stockholm. The yellow is from the deicing chemicals.

More clouds...

Skåne, The south of Sweden

Over Östersund, about to land in Copenhagen

Denmark!

"I bet that's my next plane..."

Immediately on arrival my next flight, SK943 was delayed,but only by 20 minutes. That’s nothing to worry about, especially since I had agood two hour layover in ORD. I parked myself in the lounge and started towait, but the number slowly crawled higher: 1600, 1630, 1700, 1800, and finally1830.  At 1700, I was already searchingout alternative routing but there was no way to get back to Seattle without anovernight somewhere. It was going to be what it was going to be, and the onlything I could do was to wait for SAS to fix their airbus and get us in the air.

This is one of the perks of being a frequent flyer and the last time I'll be in a lounge for awhile..

"Yup. That's my plane. Still here."

At 1830, the plane pushed back and we were on our way. The flight was pretty packed with Scandinavians and Americans coming home, and since it was dark outside there wasn’t much I could actually take pictures of. The view from the air was actually quite amazing once we got over the ocean: Away from civilization there is still a sky full of stars. I have always hoped for northern lights on flights like this, but never caught them from the plane.

Inside, there wasn’t much to see. The earphones and the adapter provided are remarkably poorly thought out: Most people have headphones with a standard jack that need to somehow fit in the two prong headphone socket, but SAS provides to pronged headphones and an adapter to fit the headphones into a standard socket. It’s all backwards, literally. Dinner was Swedish meatballs and a side salad, except this time I my kosher meal was on board. Basque style chicken and rice, plus apple sauce, saltines, chips, and a cookie. Not bad at all. It looked much more appetizing than the alternative.

Kosher Meal: SK943 out of Copenhagen, "Basque Chicken"

…but the real contrast was between the regular light meal and the kosher light meal. The standard option was bread and cheese, plus a “Smakis” juice box. That’s not bad, but the alternative was a “Norwegian” salmon salad, plus the same sides as before (sans chips). At the very least, going with kosher meals is far more interesting. So far I haven’t had the same dish twice when ordering them!

Light Kosher Meal: SK943 out of Copenhagen, Norwegian Salmon Salad (Tastes better than it looks)

Chicago.

Not how I imagined I would spend my night

We touched down in ORD just in time to see my plane leave. Literally. We arrived at 2030, which would have put the 2015 flight to Seattle on the tarmac and I wouldn’t be surprised if the United flight that taxied past us was that exact flight. After clearing customs, I met up with some of the other passengers that would be stuck overnight as well. There was a voucher waiting for us for a hotel, plus $20 for dinner and $10 for breakfast. My plan was to try something new at the bar with the dinner certificate since we just ate on the plane, but unfortunately, I found out later that the voucher doesn’t cover alcoholic drinks so I skipped that idea. I also found at that breakfast started at 7am, but I needed to be at the airport then so the $10 would go unused as well.

Lessons learned:

• If you're in this type of situation and will be delayed overnight, ask for a hotel voucher and food vouchers.
• Food vouchers can't be used for alcohol. Be sure to ask what is covered before ordering anything.
• Be aware of when restaurants close: Vouchers are worthless if there's no where to spend them. If it looks like you will be delayed and it's getting late, ask for the vouchers well before the restaurants close. In my case, the main restaurant at the hotel was already shutdown for the night, but there was still a bar menu.
• Be sure to set your alarm and that your alarm is set to the right time zone.

In the morning, it was off again and back into an airbus.For a moment, it looked like they might be looking for volunteers, but it wasjust another completely full plane, this time an airbus A320. 

The flight was quick a few interesting views from the wing, but overall I was just happy to be back in Seattle! That's another trip down and gives me a few days to rest before my next to Las Vegas! I'll be there for Christmas this year just for fun.