Las Vegas and Surrounding Area (June 2023)

About This Trip

This was a summer trip with our kids, ages 8 and 11. We chose Vegas because the flights were cheap on Southwest Airlines, and our originally planned vacation to South Dakota was suddenly forecasting thunderstorms. We stayed at the Hilton Grand Vacation on the Las Vegas Strip. This is a non-smoking, family friendly hotel that does not have a casino; however, I will add that it is on the extreme north end of the strip and a bit far from most of the activities we did. We usually started each day with a 10-15 minute uber ride. The hotel itself was perfect, comfortable, chock full of family friendly amenities, and quiet at night. They also let you grab two water bottles per/day, per reservation which was amazing. Only knock on this place, they had part of the building by the pool under construction which was noisy and ugly, but I'm sure that will be nice when they are done. The pool was also very crowded most days. Would still recommend the hotel 100% with kids!

Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Garden

Vegas Prices and Bringing Kids to Casinos and "the Strip"

When my husband and I used to go to Vegas before kids, we always found the city astoundingly cheap. Prices for food, hotel, and entertainment were driven down artificially low so that people would spend all their money gambling. Since we don't really gamble, it was always a very low cost vacation for us. That is NOT TRUE anymore. Las Vegas is now pretty close to New York prices for everything.

The average meal was $30 per person (I'm talking kids meal hamburger with no sides or drinks - $25). Average attraction $35-75 per person (and that's not counting the expensive shows). Kid arcades, which every casino has now $50-100/hour;

My younger son painfully slammed his hand in the foosball table game at Excalibur Dungeon arcade; he screamed SO LOUD that the employees (after helping him with ice packs and check ins) comped him a bunch of SWAG (stickers and game credits etc). My older son who was not hurt had the reaction of: "Lucky!" And then he tried to injure himself if he could see some SWAG - any return on the investment. See how much they are already learning in Vegas?

We still had a really good time in Vegas once we got past the sticker shock. As far as the kids being alllowed in the real grown up casinos, they can walk through them but they can't touch any of the machines or loiter. My kids were grossed out by the second hand smoke, so they wanted to walk through them as quickly as possible anyway. I felt comfortable on the strip with them during the day, less so at night - we liked to be done with the strip by 6:00 p.m.

Map of Strip

Itinerary - Day 1

Our flight arrived at 8:10 a.m. local time so we checked our bags in at the Hilton and decided to start the day at the southern end of the strip and work our way back up. We visited the Shark Reef Aquarium near the Mandalay Bay convention center, got the kids lunch at the Mandalay Bay food court, and toured the hotel before moving on. The Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur tram runs daily from 9 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., and trains leave every 3-7 minutes, so commuting among those properties is easy.

At Luxor, we could have done the Bodies, Titanic, or King Tut's tomb exhibits - but my kids weren't interested enough in any of those to make it worth the insane prices. My husband and I had lunch at the Luxor Buffet and were reminded why we never go to buffets - it was crazy expensive and the food was exactly what one would expect for food sitting who knows how long under heat lamps. I'm surprised the buffet model has survived the way it has outside of a baseball park. The Luxor itself though is just cool to see, so we enjoyed looking around and then moved on to Excalibur. The Excalibur Dungeon Arcade entertained my guys for about 2.5 hours (including a slammed finger on the air hockey table that was our fault). We elected not to do the Tournament of Kings show in the theater there, but I am sure my kids would have loved it if we did.

We went to New York, New York after Excalibur to tour the grounds, to grab a slice of pizza at Sirrico's and to ride the roller coaster. After that, we visited the Hershey's and M&Ms stores, did a brief stop at MGM and returned to our hotel. Everyone was very tired (and still on Dallas time) by this point, so we had an early bed time.

Itinerary - Day 2 Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, Seven Magic Mountains

We booked a tour of the Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, and Seven Magic Mountains through Viator. It was a small group tour (13 people) in a nice air conditioned van with a respectably knowledgeable tour guide. The whole experience was about 5 hours. Instead of picking us up at our hotel like we thought, we found that we had to get a ride to another property first. We were the first pick up at 7:30 a.m. and the last drop off at 12:30. This was kind of annoying; the Mandalay Bay people in our group shaved a good hour off other their tour by being first for both pick up and drop off. Those tiny logistics aside, the tour was really impressive. We saw some big horn sheep at one of our stops, took some great photos at Seven Magic Mountains, and learned a ton about the towns and the construction of the dam. Overall I would highly recommend this tour - and you have to make a "best dam tour ever joke" at some point because, of course.

After the tour, we asked our guide to drop us off at El Gordo. This place is intimidating when you first enter just because it is so BUSY, but they handle a crowd well. We walked right in and got our food. It was so good; honestly, one of all of our favorite meals of the whole trip (get the quesadillas for the kids - plain if the are picky like ours). We walked over to Circus Circus after this, played more kid arcade games at the Circus Circus Midway, and watched a free (and very good!) circus trapeze act on the main stage. We walked back to our hotel to re-group and just relaxed for a few hours.

After everone was recharged, we took an uber to the Venetian so that we could get crazy shakes at Black Tap Craft Burgers & Beer. We enjoyed a table in the shade on the patio where we could watch the gondolas and eat our excessively large ice creams. If we had started our day here, we might have toured Madame Tussauds' Wax Museum and taken a gondola ride, but we were all a bit tired and it was really hot for the boat ride, so we decided we will do those things next time. We hung around until 8:00 p.m. so that we could see the Mirage volcano for the last time (the Mirage will be remodeled in 2024 so they are tearing it down at the end of this year).

Itinerary - Day 3

Our plan today was see some art off the strip, swim in the hotel pool, and then have dinner. We started off at breakfast the Omelet House - this place has been in business since 1979 and is apparently very popular. It looked like it was set up for patrons to wait in line for up to an hour in busy times, but they weren't busy when we went. After we ate, we hopped another uber to Meow Wolf Omega Mart.

Meow Wolf Omega Mart is a 50,000 square foot interactive art installation inside Area 15. Our family had been to the Meow Wolfs (Wolves?) in Denver and Santa Fe, so we more or less knew what to expect and we had a great time. There are other things to do in Area 15 too that looked fun, but we spent a good 4 hours at Omega Mart so we were worn out after.

After a couple of hours at the Hilton pool (and a DELICIOUS lunch at the pool bar/restaurant WAVES), we went back to our room to relax. Later, we walked to the Sahara for dinner and ate at Balla Italian Soul restaurant. The food was great here; also, expensive but hey we're used to that by now, right?

Itinerary - Day 4

The boys wanted to do something that involved nature, so we took a trip to Springs Preserve. The Springs Preserve spans over 180 acres and offers various attractions such as botanical gardens, interactive exhibits, hiking trails, museums, and a wildlife habitat (the butterfly exhibit and splash pad were both closed unfortunately), but wear swim suits or call ahead just in case. Additionally, it is also home to the Nevada State Museum, which features an impressive simulated flash flood exhibit. The Springs Preserve also includes a recreation of a 1905 boomtown, offering a glimpse into the early days of Las Vegas and its historical development. I could not drag the children out of the boomtown; they loved it so much.

We spend a solid 5 hours here, including 5 star lunch at the Spring Preserve café (which had a ton of healthy options if you have had too many burger meals like we had).

We went to the Bellagio for dinner and attractions. As soon as you get in the Bellagio, look up to see "Fiori di Como," a large-scale glass sculpture created by the renowned artist Dale Chihuly. The sculpture consists of thousands of individually hand-blown glass flowers in vibrant colors, resembling a dazzling and intricate garden. Next, we toured the (very crowded) Bellagio Conservatory & Botanical Gardens which is a captivating indoor garden featuring stunning floral displays, intricate botanical designs, and seasonal themes. My kids were then underwhelmed by the World’s Largest Chocolate Fountain (they thought they would be able to eat from it I presume). We wanted to visit the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art - In Bloom, but it was closed. We watched a song at the legendary Bellagio fountain, had dinner at P.F. Changs on the Miracle Mile and called it a night.

Itinerary - Day 5

We decided to hit the Strip one last time to see the Flamingo exhibit and tour the Linq Promenade. The promenade is new and nice (unlike the strip at times). It's a great place to buy some souvenirs and eat lunch or grab a drink.

We were supposed to fly home at 5:50 p.m. this day, so we planned to kill a few hours at the pool and then go to the airport around 3:30. Our flight was delayed (and already had us arriving pretty late) so we canceled it and decided to stay one more night and leave on the 5:00 a.m. the next morning (standby). Until next time Vegas!

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