Side note: Is it a side note if it's at the beginning? This is a bit of a long post, I didn't have a ton of pictures or things to report (I thought) so squished three days into one post!
Sunday July 13, 2025
Today was the same old, same old.
We went to the pool this morning again. Disappointingly, our favourite umbrella girl was not working and this young man wasn’t giving us a deal, so we had to pay $60 for the double lounger and umbrella. It seems crazy… but I’m too old to sit out in the sun for long, and I really enjoy hanging out at the pool and reading… so we paid it.
However our favourite waitress was working and we got 2 for 1 on our lunch, so it kind of all worked out in the end. 😀
Steve registered in his final deepstack tournament. He didn’t cash today, but already has some excellent plans for next year. We’re hoping there is an event in August in Slovakia like there is this year… that way we could visit somewhere new and Steve could get his poker fix!
We decided to go out for a nice dinner tonight. We wandered over to Aria but the places we were interested in were full. So we headed back to Planet Hollywood and went to the Strip House (strip having a double meaning here). They had excellent striploin and photos all around of burlesque dancers from the past (think 1920’s). The ambience was lovely and the food was delicious. A nice way to end our last night in Vegas.
Side note: When we were walking from the Cosmo to the Aria we stopped to look at some photos of old Vegas. One of the ones we came across was about a lady who was the longest running burlesque dancer in Las Vegas (and I'm guessing the world!) Her name was Tempest Storm, and she was a burlesque dancer for six decades. She didn't stop doing burlesque until she fell on-stage and broker her hip. For real! Let that fact roll around in your brain for awhile!
Monday July 14, 2025
Today we paid for a late check-out because our flight wasn’t until 10:00 PM. This allowed us to spend one last morning by the pool and then organize ourselves and pack our bags, for our flight tonight to London.
We took an Uber to the airport which was very easy and most importantly cheaper than a taxi. The thing I like about it is that there are no surprises at the price and you don’t have to be constantly alert checking if they are taking you on an extra long ride to make more money. Also, the cars are much nicer, and the drivers tend to be a little more sane than taking a regular taxi. Now that we’ve figured out how to use our cell phone without crazy roaming costs in other countries Uber is much more accessible. My one tiny complaint (and you know I always like things to be just a little bit better!) Is that they could turn up the air conditioning when it is 44 degrees celsius outside!
We arrived at the airport and Steve recognized a poker celebrity in line behind us. He was very excited and of course struck up a conversation with this guy!
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| Waiting in Las Vegas for our flight. |
Our flight was pretty close to on time, and went smoothly. We tried to sleep… mostly unsuccessfully and enjoyed some of their shows. I still prefer when they provide their own shows as opposed to other airlines where you bring your own device and access your own streaming services by wifi. I was able to start watching a series called “Apples Never Fall” which I was quite enjoying and now need to figure out where to watch the last three episodes!
Tuesday July 15, 2025 - yes we left on the 14th and arrived on the 15th!!
Our arrival was quite smooth and we quickly went through passport control. Our bags were almost the VERY last bags to come out… I was actually starting to think they didn’t make it! But at last, there they were and we headed out and caught an Uber, which was pretty easy.
Side note: When you are looking for where to get the Uber here go to the short term lot near terminal 5 (where we landed) and look for “ride hail”. Ride hail is the part that threw me off… I wasn’t sure if that meant taxi or Uber, but turns out that is what we would call rideshare.
The Uber was less than I expected (about 58 pounds). We could have taken the underground, but at this point after a ten hour red eye were looking for the easiest way, not the cheapest way. We were surprised that the ride from Heathrow was 1.5 hours. It didn’t look that far on the map, but I guess you have to account for traffic? Our driver was lovely and we chatted with him, napped a little and enjoyed looking at all the stuff on the ride in. You know I love to see all the stuff!
Exciting side note! As we were driving a motorcade was going in the opposite direction. Well guess who we saw sitting in the back seat of a black sedan. Did you guess King Charles III? If you did you are right! I like to think he was just welcoming us to London 😀 I wasn’t sure if my eyes were deceiving me, but our driver confirmed that this was in fact the King!
When we arrived at our hotel (Zed Hotel Covent Garden) we had a quick check in, put our bags in our room and headed out to find some dinner. It was about 8:00 PM now, and we wanted to eat and try to go to bed at a regular time, to try to start staving off that nasty thing called jet lag.
Our hotel is in an awesome spot (that was planned of course) and we were easily able to walk around and find several places we could eat. We ended up in some pub that had a Canadian theme. The Canadian things we saw in there were hockey jerseys, lacrosse sticks, flags and an assortment of “Canadian” music playing (mostly Newfoundland folk music and the Tragically Hip…I was hoping for a little Bryan Adams thrown in, but no such luck). We had some poutine and some very strange nachos. (Side note: Not recommended... unless you like weird nachos, I guess!)
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| Lisa planning the show tickets she wants to buy when this shop opens in the morning! |
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| This entrance to a church and park is in the courtyard outside our hotel. |
Finally, we headed back to our hotel to go to sleep at a reasonable time (was it 11PM? I’m not sure). We quickly fell asleep… and spoiler alert both woke up in the middle of the night unable to sleep… one point for jet lag!
Looking forward to our first full day exploring London again!
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