Tonight was an absolutely awesome experience, we have just arrived back at the hotel after seeing Elton John at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Our seats were on the second mezzanine, in the middle, three rows back (row C seats 409/410) but the theatre is built in such a way that everyone has a fantastic view.  Elton was fantastic, although his voice has mellowed with time, everyone is very forgiving because he still sounds great and he gives everything to his performance and everyone just loved being there.

Dressed in a black chinese style jacket that contrasted nicely against the Red Piano that was set on a black and white striped star edged in a red light, Elton opened the show with the perinneal favourite ‘Benny and the Jets’

Elton is excellent in concert and this was no exception. In real life he sounds pretty much exactly like he does on his records.

Elton was backed by his highly talented band members: Davy Johnstone on guitar, Guy Babylon on Keyboards, Bob Birch on bass guitar, Joh Mahon on percussion and the amazing Nigel Olsson on drums.

The stage props were somewhat amusing and we weren’t sure what their purpose was as they didn’t seem to tie in with any of the songs. Perhaps the huge boobs with enormous pink nipples, the banana set between two peaches and the pair of legs in high heels and the lipstick were representative of Las Vegas.

For one of the songs those seated in the front few rows were able to get up on stage and surround the piano as Elton played.

All I can say is we loved the show and the tickets were a steal at $125.00 plus $12.50 booking fee and $5.00 tax – total $137.50.  When Elton was recently in Australia the tickets were a lot more expensive at $300 plus, and we would have had to take a trip to Sydney and stay overnight.

There was a photographer taking photos that were later turned into an album with a photo of the visitors on one side and a signed photo of Elton on the other.  The photographer on our floor didn’t make it to our section which was a shame because it would have been excellent to have had such a great looking souvenir of the night.

If you are in Vegas while Elton is here, then do yourself a favour and go and see the show. Just be warned that if you are a bit sensitive to seeing full frontal female nudity then you might want to stay away.

Tickets range in price from $100-$250 plus tax and booking fee.

The song list for the night was:

Benny and the Jets
Philadelphia Freedom
Believe
Daniel
Rocket Man
Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues
Someone Saved My Life Tonight
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Tiny Dancer
Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me
Candle In The Wind
Pinball Wizard
Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting
I’m Still Standing
Your Song

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to see Elton John in concert at Caesars Palace.Tickets are available for a variety of dates at TicketsNow

On Friday 29 Feb 2008, we have breakfast in the Monterey room at the Gold Coast Hotel, which is great value for money, then check out and load up the car for our trip from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon.

It takes a while to set up the GPS system because the gadget has difficulty recognising “Grand Canyon” and eventually we type in the name of the Holiday Inn hotel where we will be staying in Tusayan for a couple of days.

Getting out of the city wasn’t as much of a hassle as we thought it would be, thanks to having the GPS system for our rental car. We found it to be invaluable although at times it would have been a bit more helpful if the voice instructions were given a little sooner so that we could move to a particular lane ready for turning a bit earlier.

We headed south through Boulder City and on through to Hoover Dam. The scenery was pretty spectacular to start with but after driving for hundreds of miles we were a bit over the scenery. We wanted to get to the Grand Canyon before dark so we only stopped for a short time at Hoover Dam to take a couple of photos.

The road is pretty good and the speed limit varies between 65-75 miles per hour.

As we got closer to the Grand Canyon the scenery changed and we were surprised to see that there was ice all over the ground. For some reason we thought the Grand Canyon area would be hot during the day and cold at night. However, we never expected to see snow.

Paula takes over the driving just outside of the Lake Mead National Park turnoff; this is her first stint at driving in the US although she has driven on the wrong side of the road in Italy. There are lots of rest stops on the way and we finally pull over at Ash Fork to fill up the gas tank.

Of course the pump doesn’t take our Australian credit cards so Paula heads into the store to prepay for the gas. The store owner holds the credit card until the gas has been put into the car. We know from our last driving experience in the States the there is no automatic gas tank lever in the car and the gas tank has to be opened manually, so I am not sitting in the car trying to find the gas tank lever this time.

Once the gas tank is full we go in to pay for the gas and pick up some drinks and nibbles for the rest of the trip. Paula had been talking to a gentleman who resembles ‘Grizzly Adams’ about where we were from and where we were off to. His advice was to go and see the Grand Canyon movie at the IMAX theatre in Tusayan. He reckoned we will look at canyon and say “Yep that’s an impressive hole in the ground and yep that’s an impressive pile of rocks”. However, we are sure that we are going to enjoy our experience here.

We continue on and we finally arrive at our hotel after a trip that has taken approximately 5 hours from Las Vegas. After checking in and dropping off our bags we head off to check out the surrounding area.

Tusayan is a quaint little village of rather impressive looking hotels and stores that are reminiscent of a bygone western era. There is a McDonalds, Wendy’s, a few other restaurants, a mini market and a general store with a Post Office which unfortunately is closed. I have some stuff to post home to Australia and have been waiting to find a post office, looks like I will still be waiting for a while.

The air is quite cool and although we have jackets on, we don’t hang around outside for too long plus it is starting to get dark.

After visiting the Affiliate Marketing expo this morning, where we caught up with James and Arlene Martell, who introduced us to Greg Sheppard who runs an Affiliate Network that we will be utilising for our websites in the near future, we decided to go and do the laundry.

We piled all our clothes into a suitcase and set off. When we asked the bell hop to point us in the right direction to the 24hr laundromat in Arvill St he firstly looked shocked that we wanted to walk and then  mentioned that it was quite a long way off and we would be better off taking a taxi. Thinking that he must know what he was talking about we decided to get into a cab. After getting out of the cab only 5 minutes later we realised that we could have easily walked it and in fact that is exactly what we did on the way back.

The laundromat was an interesting experience. We have been to many laundromats in our travels but have yet to see one with slot machines conveniently located so you can gamble while you wait for your clothes to be washed. Seems like there are slot machines everywhere in Las Vegas.

We decide to watch the tv while we are waiting  and ’Breaking News’ cuts through the program - two different shootings in Las Vegas schools on the one day. This is fortunately something we don’t see in Australia.

Once our clothes are done we walk back to the hotel. It’s a beautiful day, the sun is shining and the walk (about 3 miles) is easy. The laundromat experience has really cut into our day but it had to be done – we were both running out of clothes.

So although we arrived back late to our hotel we decided to take the hotel shuttle to The Strip which for those who don’t know is where most of the biggest, more impressive casinos are situated. The shuttle took us directly to Caesars Palace so we went into the hotel to take a look. This is one really amazing casino/hotel. The theme of the hotel is Roman and there are huge Roman-style statues, a lifesize Trevi Fountain and a lifesize Statue of David. It is filled with fountains and up market shops such as Prada, Giorgio Armani, Versace, Dolce & Gabbana  and is absolutely massive as are most Las Vegas hotels.

We then walked across the road to the Bellagio Hotel which was also impressive but we felt that Caesars Palace really stood out between the two.

We weren’t really intending to spend so much time on The Strip tonight, as it was just a spontaneous move to go in the first place but before we knew it we had walked for miles and getting back would have taken at least another hour. So we decided to have dinner at one of the casinos at the Southern end of The Strip and decided on The Luxor Hotel , which has an Egyptian theme. We headed to their buffet restaurant known as The More. Well this was a great find. For only $19.99 we got to eat from a huge range of foods including prawns, mussels, sushi, salads of all different kinds, hot meats, vegetables, pasta, pizzas, crumbed shrimp and there were also plenty of desserts to choose from. Drinks were free, which we have since found is the norm, and your glass is constantly refilled by the waiter.

After the meal we started to head back to Caesars Palace but realised that it was going to be a really long walk. The hotels are huge and although there are only about 5 hotels from the Luxor to Caesars Palace the distance to walk is literally miles. So we headed across the road to the MGM Hotel to see how much the monorail would cost.

Walking through the MGM to find the monorail was an experience in itself as the hotel is huge so it took about 20 minutes to get to the ticket booth and on the way we stumbled upon a glass cage that contained a couple of lions. We initially thought that they were mechanical but eventually realised that they were actually the real thing.

Finally we made it to the monorail and for $9 we got a two ticket pass and headed up to catch it to Harrah’s Hotel which has a free bus shuttle back to our hotel.

After disembarking from the plane at Las Vegas we find it rather amusing that the first thing we come across in the arrivals lounge is an area with slot machines (poker machines).  They want that tourist dollar from the moment you land.

After taking photos of the entertainment we set off to find our bags.  There is a very, very long walk to the baggage claim carousel but fortunately our bags are among the first ones off the plane.  Then its off to find a shuttle to the hotel.  Once again there is very little signage and we take the wrong exit.  There are only dozens of taxis lined up, so we asked a security guard for directions to the shuttle bus area, which of course was right across the other side of the airport.

A ticket to the city costs $6.00 each and we are sent to stand in a queue. When the shuttle bus finally arrives, after a wait of about 30 minutes, it soon became obvious that we weren’t going to get on as there is limited space, so we went back to waiting in the queue but at least we were second from the front this time.

It is only a short journey to our hotel, the Rio, and we queue up once again to check in. 

The place is enormous and full of gambling tables, slot machines, shops and restaurants.  Our room is on the 15th floor and the room is very large. (reveiw to follow)

After a quick freshen up, we set off to register for the Affiliate Summit, which is the reason we are on this trip. We walk for what seems like a kilometer to get to the convention area – the hotel is huge – and begin to wonder if we are ever going to arrive at the registration desk.

Once we have registered and received the usual bag of goodies, we head of to the meet and greet with the Affiliate Networks.  This is great for us as a number of our merchant networks are here so we get to meet them and chat to them on this night.  A lot of them won’t be at the expo for the next few days although more of our merchant networks will be represented.

When we finshed we headed off for dinner at the American Bar and Grill where we had the customary shakes and burgers. I have to admit to being just a bit over burgers by now, nice as they are. 

On getting back to our room we find that we have a message from another of James Martell’s students, Judah.  She had offered to shout the first round of drinks at the conference, so we arranged to meet and headed off to have a drink and a chat.  It was really lovely to finally meet up with Judah, and she is a delightful lady to chat with. Judah has a golfing website and she has two dogs that her husband had remained home to mind.  Judah recently held a Superbowl party for 87 people in her home.  I take my hat off to her. 

 Judah had arrived the night before so she had already sussed out the entertainment areas and following her advice we caught a great free show in the Masquerade area later in the night.

After our drinks we set off back to the meet and greet area where we met up with James Martell, Phil and Jennine Crooks. This was the crowning glory for us as we are all students of James and are very grateful for the assistance he has given us all in the Affiliate Marketing business.

We all arrange to meet the next day and head of our different ways.  Paula an I headed of to watch the show mentioned before. When you come to Las Vegas, make sure you catch this free show at the Rio.  The show is performed on two levels, there are dancers on the floor level stage and there are dancers on a number of floats that travel around suspended in the air.  In the centre is a dancer dressed like Carmen Miranda, on a suspended platform.  As the floats pass near the patrons the dancers throw strings of beads out.  Paula caught a strand, me, I’m too short so the beads all travelled way over my head. 

Then it was off to the room for an early night. 

 All this travelling is catching up with us and tomorrow we have to find a laundromat to do some washing.