Las Vegas: Day 1 - Simply Otte

So, day one was supposed to be more like day two, but we ended up getting in almost 10hrs later than we were supposed to. Which is always fun when traveling with small children. If you follow me on Instagram (and if you don’t, you should – here you go) you may have watched the fiasco unfold in my stories.

Short-ish version – it snowed in Seattle and all of the people and businesses forgot how to operate. So it took us 2hrs to get to the airport (it usually takes 30min), then our flight was delayed for 2hrs before they cancelled it entirely, then we had to wait in a ridiculously long line to figure out what to do (we couldn’t do anything over the phone because we had checked luggage for the original flight). We waited in that line for an hour, got rebooked on the next flight, which was delayed 2hrs at the time so we didn’t know if it’d even take off. It was a little more delayed, but ended up taking off. We hit some crazy, but expected, turbulence before landing, which I’ve never really experience before and it was terrifying. Then we finally landed and thought it was over, but come to find out, our luggage was lost. So we waited in yet another line, where they told us they weren’t sure where our luggage was, but that it MIGHT be on the last flight of the night. Luckily, it was and it got delivered to our hotel around midnight. But, we still had to go shopping for pajamas and other essentials, after an already very long day.

Anyway, Vegas with kids is a lot different than when it’s just the adults, but it has been a fun experience so far. I’ll do a little roundup after our trip of kid-friendly sights and things to do here. (See the travel guide here)

Donuts. Burgers. Bellagio.

Our first full day here, we started with donuts at District: Donuts. Sliders. Brews. in the Cosmopolitan (where we’ve eaten most of our meals). I’m noticing it’s rare for me to think restaurant food is like, REALLY good. I definitely prefer homecooked meals, and I’m a picky eater to begin with, so it’s hard for me to really like somewhere new. But the donuts were decent here, and they had a lot of other food options too. In fact, it looked like they had a bigger variety of other foods than donuts.

bellagio conservatory display - vegas with kids

After donuts, we walked over to Bellagio to look at their seasonal display in the Conservatory and Botanical Garden. They go ALL OUT for their displays, and right now the theme is the Lunar New Year, which was February 5. It’s the Year of the Pig, so there was a giant pig centerpiece and a lot of little pigs around it. As well as fruits and other Chinese New Year-appropriate pieces.

We went back to the hotel and played in our room for a while. Something that’s kind of necessary when traveling with two little ones. Then we went downstairs to try the Gordon Ramsay Burger restaurant. It was my first time eating out with both kids, but we didn’t have any meltdowns or issues. I got their latest special, the resolution burger. It was a chicken burger and it was really good. A little pricey, but that’s not unusual in Vegas.

After lunch, we took a long nap… We were all exhausted from the day before. In the afternoon, we went to see the Bellagio Fountains. They don’t go all day, so you have to look up the schedule. I’ll include it in my wrap up post though. K thought the fountains were pretty cool. It’s fun watching her get excited about things. Every time the fountains all went up at the same time or did something cool, she made a surprised face and looked at me to see if I saw.

Pizza in bed.

We finished up the day by picking up a slice of pizza at Pin Up Pizza, also downstairs in our hotel. The slices were huge, so one was more like 2.5 regular slices. It was also pretty good, and the cannolis were decent.

We stayed at Planet Hollywood, which is pretty central to all the main sights to see. I personally like the Cosmopolitan the most. But I may be a little biased because we spent one night of our honeymoon there and have a great experience every time we’ve been back. The nice thing about Vegas is that most everything is within a mile, but usually even closer, depending where you stay. Every hotel has plenty of restaurant options, so you’ll never be without options.

Check out the Las Vegas with Kids Travel Guide (here) I made after our trip for a breakdown of all the kid-friendly activities you can do on the Las Vegas Strip!

What’s your favorite touristy sight to see in Vegas?