It’s Party Time!!

View while descending into Vegas
see all photos »

Yet another unwelcome early start with us making our way back to Vegas via a transfer at Dallas. The evidence of the previous nights revelling at our hotel was evident in the corridor outside our room, with the remnants of feather boas and empty bottles only surpassed by the drunken girl curled up on the corner, apparently locked out of her room.

With only short lines at the security screening, we had nearly an hour-forty-five to wait until our departure to Dallas. This was only a short flight but I managed to catch some much needed shut-eye. Once again, with no time so spare, we arrived at our Vegas departure gate to walk straight on during final boarding. The flight back to Vegas was nice and smooth and had us arriving at 12 noon – gaining 3 additional hours. Here, we met up with one of the other party goers, Andrew, who arrived just 30mins before us on a flight from LAX, after a long flight from Brisbane.

14 people from Brisbane an Vegas means one mean party!

Inside Paris Hotel
see all photos »

After a relatively quick shuttle drive from the airport, we checked-in at the hotel, opting to upgrade to  a “suite”, which was offered at an extra $70 a night rather than $550, with us opting for a strip view room which was $135 extra a night. Our room has a view out across the front of the hotel – straight on to the Eiffel Tower and across to the Bellagio fountains. Andrew also upgraded to a non-strip view suite as a surprise gift for his sister Paula (the birthday girl). Not long after, the remaining nine of our group of 12 arrived from San Francisco.

Eiffel outside Paris hotel and casino
see all photos »

We all headed out at 4pm and hit the strip. We didn’t get very far – stopping at Margaritaville at the Flamingo. Here the girls downed a number of cocktails and the guys stuck to beers. A mojito, a pina-colada and Bama Breeze later and I was, how you say, I little merry. The group downed two humungous plates of nachos which helped with us mixing cocktails. We then moved on, and Joe and Wendy decided to buy a plastic bass guitar each full of cocktail, Joe deciding on the pina-colada. We figured out that there was over 2.3litres of grog in this thing. Joe also found someone selling flashing light glasses and bought a pair for both of us!

Joe and his cocktail filled bass guitar
see all photos »

We then stopped at the Rockhouse at the Imperial Palace, where a number of the group started playing Beer Pong. This involved setting up 15 plastic cups with about two shots full of beer in each cup ten-pin bowling style at either end of a table. With two ping-pong balls for thegame, the players at each end of the table took turns to try and get their balls into the cups at the either end. If they fell in the cup, then the players at the other end had to drink the contents of the cup. You could however try to blow the balls out as they fell in. With the people playing drinking other beers and cocktails at the same time, you can imagine the game got harder the longer they played.

Andrea and Birthday girl Paula
see all photos »

It was about this time, only 8pm, that we had our first drop-out of the night. Wendy, the other guitar player, could not handle her cocktail. She was having a hard time keeping her nachos down and standing upright – so three of us girls walked her home, which was an adventure, given that one of the down escalators was not working and we had to get her down 30 steps in her inebriated state. Stopping on the way home for a technicolour yawn in a nearby garden, some young guy decided it was a great photo opportunity, and Wendy’s husband got into a fist-a-cuffs with him. I told him not to be stupid and tried to stop him, telling him you don’t know what he has in his pockets. Not long after we had Wendy in her bed with a bucket next to her.

Some of the birthday bash boys
see all photos »

We headed back to the others who had wandered further down the strip. There was a display of a guy who was going into a plastic chamber with 100 snakes for a week, on view to the world. This was gaining crowd attention but not very exciting. After a stop at a curb-side pizza joint, we moved on, Joe sucking on his guitar and me now on straight water. Some people called it a night, but a handful of us wandered over to Caesers. Here some small dollars were lost on the slots, before a wander round the shops. By now I had been awake for 20hrs and was pining for a soft bed. I tried to get the group to move in the direction of home, but only managed to get one of the other sober gals to join me. We got back to our rooms at midnight – early for Vegas, but after 21hrs, I was ready for bed. I wasn’t sure where Joe was, but he was with a couple of others so hoped he would get home ok. Not 30mins later he stumbled through the door, a little worse for wear, and in need of a lot of water!! Our first night back in Vegas was a riot!