Hello all my fellow readers!
I apologize for my crazy long absence, but I literally have been so crazy busy ever since we got back from Vegas, that it seems that I've had no time to catch up here. Between working extra hours at my work, and catching up on housework, meal planning, vacation laundry, etcetra, etcetra, I've literally been exhausted, and have had no spare time for blogging.
However, I did promise that I would be getting back to my regular blogging schedule, and that is a promise I definitely intend to keep.
Although, first, before I get back to doing reviews, and hauls, and Top 5 Wednesday posts, I promised you all a recap of our time at the RT BookLovers Convention, and today I'm going to go ahead and start those by posting our recaps of day one of our trip.
I apologize in advance if these are extremely wordy, I personally love reading trip reports, and trip recaps from other people's vacation, so I want to try and do mine in that same type of style.
Without further adieu, here's day one of our trip: :)
Vegas For RT BookLovers Day One:
The week prior to leaving for our trip was unfortunately not great. I ended up coming down with some awful virus, that left me feeling miserable, and missing two days of work. After I finally got over it, I was left with wicked back pain, and ended up having to see my physiotherapist, as there was no way I was flying with pain like that.
The weekend before we left, was the grand re-opening of the restaurant that my hubby and I both work at. and because he's one of the higher ups there, he was pulling numerous twelve hour shifts, to make everything go off without a hitch. Unfortunately for him, he usually has an amazing immune system, but those long shifts, coupled with next to no sleep, ended up with him catching my virus two days before we were supposed to leave!
Thank goodness he didn't get it quite as bad as I did, but he ended up going to our doctor right before we left, to get a prescription to help him through the week, and unfortunately, the first couple of days of the trip were really rough for him. :(
Monday April 11th started off with some last minute packing, and cleaning up around the house.
Our kitty, Katsa, was not impressed, as I think she had caught on to the fact that we were leaving her:
The closest airport to us is about two hours away. So after the vehicle was loaded, and we'd made the couple of last minute stops we had to make, we were on our way!
We ended up stopping at a little city that's about forty five minutes away from the airport, to have lunch at a Subway. We often end up eating here when we're going this way, because the people are always so friendly, and it's honestly the best Subway I've personally eaten at. It's also right next door to this cute little coffee shop that has amazing fruit smoothies. So we each got Subway, and one of the amazing fruit smoothies, and sat down to enjoy our lunch. Unfortunately, neither of us was expecting this to be one of the best meals we ended up eating all week, which is a spoiler as to just how much we disliked the food in Vegas!
From there, we headed to the city we were flying out of, and made a stop at the mall as I was in desperate need of a haircut, and hadn't had time to get it done around being sick before we left. Unfortunately this was a no go, as everyplace was booked up. So we just decided to head to the airport a bit early, and wait for our flight.
Check in, and security were a breeze once we got there, since we had done online check in for the first time ever, and I can honestly say that I will never fly without doing this again. It was so nice to already have prepaid our baggage and whatnot, and after a quick check in at the self kiosks, and dropping off our luggage, Neil headed out to have his last smoke before Vegas, and then it was straight on to security, which was also extremely painless, and we were off to our gate to wait.
This particular airport is teeny tiny without much in the way of restaurants and whatnot, and Neil refuses to let either of us eat any airport food that's not sealed, after a bad bout of food poisoning in a different airport on our last trip, so we each just grabbed a quick snack from the convenience store, and a drink, and settled in for the two hour wait for our flight.
Neil ended up playing on his phone, and I was reading Bingo Summer by Dawn Malone. Soon enough, our flight was called, and although I was extremely nervous about flying with West Jet again, since last time we had had such issues with them that I had stated never again, but we ended up having a relatively smooth, direct flight to Vegas. :)
Our flight was a little late getting in, and we still had to clear customs before we could collect our baggage, and I was a little worried about making our reservation for the shuttle I had prebooked. Of course, the West Jet terminal ended up being on the opposite end of the airport from where we needed to be to catch the shuttle, so I was even more concerned about making our reservation. However, we had nothing to worry about because there was a long line of people waiting by the time we made it there, and they said it had been quite awhile without a bus. This was honestly the worst start to our week in Vegas, and I can't recommend enough to just get a cab, and not bother with this shuttle! We had had it recommended to us because we were both first timers to Vegas, and had been told that cab drivers will often take advantage of you if you don't know where you're going, but honestly I wish we had just done the cab anyways. We ended up waiting almost an hour for this shuttle, and Neil was really not feeling good by this point, and I was beyond belief stressed.
Thankfully, once the shuttle did come, there was room for everyone waiting, and the Rio Hotel, which is where the convention was being held, and thus, where we decided to stay, was the first stop.
However, I was also not prepared for an hour wait in the check in line, or the fact that in Vegas, you have to walk through the casino full of cigarette smoke to get anywhere, which didn't work so well for this asthmatic girl.
Finally it was our turn to check in, and we had a lovely girl at the check in desk who was able to combine our two reservations ( we had one for the first night through Expedia, and then the other six nights through the convention rate), so that we didn't have to check out, and check back in the next day. Unfortunately, we found out on our last day that she hadn't done this properly, and it caused a huge issue with my credit card, but I will get to that later.
By this point, we were both starving, grouchy, and exhausted, and just wanted to get up to our room, drop our luggage, and find something to eat. Unfortunately, we got stopped by some of the pushy what i'm assuming, were time share people, and it was really hard to be polite, when I was ready to snap by this point.
After finally finding our room, and dropping our luggage off, we decided we needed to eat quick, as I had no idea what time the restaurants stayed open, and it was already after 9. Unfortunately, we didn't really have a feel for the lay out of the hotel yet, and so we ended up going with the first place we found, which was Guy Fieri's El Burro Borracho.
I'm a big fan of Guy Fieri. His shows are always my favorite on the food network, but unfortunately we both felt this restaurant was a huge rip off, and tourist trap. And several other people we met during the week had the same opinion. The service was awesome, but the atmosphere and the prices were, in my opinion, ridiculous. And at this point, we had no idea just how overpriced the resorts are in Vegas. I don't know if I've mentioned it on my blog or not before, but Neil and I are big Disney people, and I always thought Disney was kind of the top of the line for food prices, but let me tell you, they had nothing on Vegas!
Two fountain drinks, and two cheese enchiladas, ended up costing us almost fifty dollars with tax, plus the tip, and there is no way the food was worth that at all. The two drinks were five dollars each, and I couldn't believe that. I don't mind spending money on a meal, if it's a good meal, but this just wasn't, and I honestly think Neil was already over this trip by this point.
After dinner, he went out to have a smoke, and ended up meeting a super nice lady that was also here for RT, who he called me over to meet. It was Delene Yochum, of "Book Partners In Crime Promotions." www.BookPartnersInCrimePromotions.com She was super sweet, and told me what to expect, being as this was our first RT. We had a lovely chat, and then Neil and I decided to walk down to the convention area, so that we'd know where we were going the next morning.
I absolutely loved seeing all the advertisements by authors, and publishing houses, and it had me even more excited for the next day.
After this, we decided to grab a quick snack from the gift shop by the Starbucks near the elevator to our room, and once again, I had sticker stock when two Gatorade and a small cup of doughnut holes cost 16 dollars!!!
On the way back, we saw the gorgeous elevator clings
And we decided just to relax in the room, and take an early night, since we wanted to be in line for registration before it opened at nine am the next morning. :)
Thanks everyone for reading. I apologize once again for how wordy this is, I will try and tone the future ones down a bit.
This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are mine. The photos were taken by me with my iPhone, but I have no association with any of the novels featured, nor do I own any rights to them.
I apologize for my crazy long absence, but I literally have been so crazy busy ever since we got back from Vegas, that it seems that I've had no time to catch up here. Between working extra hours at my work, and catching up on housework, meal planning, vacation laundry, etcetra, etcetra, I've literally been exhausted, and have had no spare time for blogging.
However, I did promise that I would be getting back to my regular blogging schedule, and that is a promise I definitely intend to keep.
Although, first, before I get back to doing reviews, and hauls, and Top 5 Wednesday posts, I promised you all a recap of our time at the RT BookLovers Convention, and today I'm going to go ahead and start those by posting our recaps of day one of our trip.
I apologize in advance if these are extremely wordy, I personally love reading trip reports, and trip recaps from other people's vacation, so I want to try and do mine in that same type of style.
Without further adieu, here's day one of our trip: :)
Vegas For RT BookLovers Day One:
The week prior to leaving for our trip was unfortunately not great. I ended up coming down with some awful virus, that left me feeling miserable, and missing two days of work. After I finally got over it, I was left with wicked back pain, and ended up having to see my physiotherapist, as there was no way I was flying with pain like that.
The weekend before we left, was the grand re-opening of the restaurant that my hubby and I both work at. and because he's one of the higher ups there, he was pulling numerous twelve hour shifts, to make everything go off without a hitch. Unfortunately for him, he usually has an amazing immune system, but those long shifts, coupled with next to no sleep, ended up with him catching my virus two days before we were supposed to leave!
Thank goodness he didn't get it quite as bad as I did, but he ended up going to our doctor right before we left, to get a prescription to help him through the week, and unfortunately, the first couple of days of the trip were really rough for him. :(
Monday April 11th started off with some last minute packing, and cleaning up around the house.
Our kitty, Katsa, was not impressed, as I think she had caught on to the fact that we were leaving her:
The closest airport to us is about two hours away. So after the vehicle was loaded, and we'd made the couple of last minute stops we had to make, we were on our way!
We ended up stopping at a little city that's about forty five minutes away from the airport, to have lunch at a Subway. We often end up eating here when we're going this way, because the people are always so friendly, and it's honestly the best Subway I've personally eaten at. It's also right next door to this cute little coffee shop that has amazing fruit smoothies. So we each got Subway, and one of the amazing fruit smoothies, and sat down to enjoy our lunch. Unfortunately, neither of us was expecting this to be one of the best meals we ended up eating all week, which is a spoiler as to just how much we disliked the food in Vegas!
From there, we headed to the city we were flying out of, and made a stop at the mall as I was in desperate need of a haircut, and hadn't had time to get it done around being sick before we left. Unfortunately this was a no go, as everyplace was booked up. So we just decided to head to the airport a bit early, and wait for our flight.
Check in, and security were a breeze once we got there, since we had done online check in for the first time ever, and I can honestly say that I will never fly without doing this again. It was so nice to already have prepaid our baggage and whatnot, and after a quick check in at the self kiosks, and dropping off our luggage, Neil headed out to have his last smoke before Vegas, and then it was straight on to security, which was also extremely painless, and we were off to our gate to wait.
This particular airport is teeny tiny without much in the way of restaurants and whatnot, and Neil refuses to let either of us eat any airport food that's not sealed, after a bad bout of food poisoning in a different airport on our last trip, so we each just grabbed a quick snack from the convenience store, and a drink, and settled in for the two hour wait for our flight.
Neil ended up playing on his phone, and I was reading Bingo Summer by Dawn Malone. Soon enough, our flight was called, and although I was extremely nervous about flying with West Jet again, since last time we had had such issues with them that I had stated never again, but we ended up having a relatively smooth, direct flight to Vegas. :)
Our flight was a little late getting in, and we still had to clear customs before we could collect our baggage, and I was a little worried about making our reservation for the shuttle I had prebooked. Of course, the West Jet terminal ended up being on the opposite end of the airport from where we needed to be to catch the shuttle, so I was even more concerned about making our reservation. However, we had nothing to worry about because there was a long line of people waiting by the time we made it there, and they said it had been quite awhile without a bus. This was honestly the worst start to our week in Vegas, and I can't recommend enough to just get a cab, and not bother with this shuttle! We had had it recommended to us because we were both first timers to Vegas, and had been told that cab drivers will often take advantage of you if you don't know where you're going, but honestly I wish we had just done the cab anyways. We ended up waiting almost an hour for this shuttle, and Neil was really not feeling good by this point, and I was beyond belief stressed.
Thankfully, once the shuttle did come, there was room for everyone waiting, and the Rio Hotel, which is where the convention was being held, and thus, where we decided to stay, was the first stop.
However, I was also not prepared for an hour wait in the check in line, or the fact that in Vegas, you have to walk through the casino full of cigarette smoke to get anywhere, which didn't work so well for this asthmatic girl.
Finally it was our turn to check in, and we had a lovely girl at the check in desk who was able to combine our two reservations ( we had one for the first night through Expedia, and then the other six nights through the convention rate), so that we didn't have to check out, and check back in the next day. Unfortunately, we found out on our last day that she hadn't done this properly, and it caused a huge issue with my credit card, but I will get to that later.
By this point, we were both starving, grouchy, and exhausted, and just wanted to get up to our room, drop our luggage, and find something to eat. Unfortunately, we got stopped by some of the pushy what i'm assuming, were time share people, and it was really hard to be polite, when I was ready to snap by this point.
After finally finding our room, and dropping our luggage off, we decided we needed to eat quick, as I had no idea what time the restaurants stayed open, and it was already after 9. Unfortunately, we didn't really have a feel for the lay out of the hotel yet, and so we ended up going with the first place we found, which was Guy Fieri's El Burro Borracho.
I'm a big fan of Guy Fieri. His shows are always my favorite on the food network, but unfortunately we both felt this restaurant was a huge rip off, and tourist trap. And several other people we met during the week had the same opinion. The service was awesome, but the atmosphere and the prices were, in my opinion, ridiculous. And at this point, we had no idea just how overpriced the resorts are in Vegas. I don't know if I've mentioned it on my blog or not before, but Neil and I are big Disney people, and I always thought Disney was kind of the top of the line for food prices, but let me tell you, they had nothing on Vegas!
Two fountain drinks, and two cheese enchiladas, ended up costing us almost fifty dollars with tax, plus the tip, and there is no way the food was worth that at all. The two drinks were five dollars each, and I couldn't believe that. I don't mind spending money on a meal, if it's a good meal, but this just wasn't, and I honestly think Neil was already over this trip by this point.
After dinner, he went out to have a smoke, and ended up meeting a super nice lady that was also here for RT, who he called me over to meet. It was Delene Yochum, of "Book Partners In Crime Promotions." www.BookPartnersInCrimePromotions.com She was super sweet, and told me what to expect, being as this was our first RT. We had a lovely chat, and then Neil and I decided to walk down to the convention area, so that we'd know where we were going the next morning.
After this, we decided to grab a quick snack from the gift shop by the Starbucks near the elevator to our room, and once again, I had sticker stock when two Gatorade and a small cup of doughnut holes cost 16 dollars!!!
On the way back, we saw the gorgeous elevator clings
Thanks everyone for reading. I apologize once again for how wordy this is, I will try and tone the future ones down a bit.
This is not a sponsored post. All opinions are mine. The photos were taken by me with my iPhone, but I have no association with any of the novels featured, nor do I own any rights to them.
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