Day 15 - Guests Arrive

Sarah doing the blog again tonight as Alan chose to go and gamble.  If he feels like adding some comments, they will be in pink

 

This morning we got up about 9am and then just hung around in the room waiting to hear from my friend Christie who was flying in for the wedding from Salem, Oregon with her husband Steve and their seven year old boy Cameron.

 

The call came through about 11am and we ventured down to their hotel, the Luxor.  We hadn't arranged a place to meet, which was kind of silly, but we found them in the check-in line without too much difficulty. It took us a while as the Luxor has 2 different check in areas.

 

We then went with them up to their room.  Bad mistake on my part.  I thought it was strange that instead of the signage saying "elevator" it said "inclinator".  The guest rooms are situated on the outer walls of the pyramid and are reached by riding in the "inclinators" that travel along the inner surface of the pyramid at a 39-degree angle. You can really feel it moving sideways when it takes off and stops.  But that isn't the worst of it.  The hotel has open hallways leading to the rooms overlooking the hotel atrium, which is the largest in the world at 29 million cubic feet (820,000 m³).  They are staying on the 21st floor and those who know me, know that I don't like heights and this was pretty high and scary. You might be able to gauge it from Alan's photo.  I wasn't going near the edge to even see what he was taking a photo of. The atrium is so huge it can house nine 747 jumbo planes.

 

After dropping off the bags we went and got into our car, not just because it is the people mover but because it was parked closer than their car.  A quick trip to the Hard Rock Cafe was made that little bit longer as Alan's directions were a little off and when we reached the place, he had troubles finding the car park. Well it's hardly my fault that they hide the entrance now is it. A nice lunch was had by all and we then went to Circus Circus hotel.  The first stop was the Adventuredome, the giant indoor amusement park with Alan, of course, eyeing off the Canyon Blaster rollercoaster.  I had my eye on the water flume ride.  It didn't take too much persuading of Christie before the five of us boarded the boat for the flume ride.  Yes, we got a bit wet but that's the fun.  Then the boys decided it was rollercoaster time.  Christie wasn't too sure about Cameron going on the ride but he wanted to go.  We took the required photographic proof of their ride and waited for their return.  As they started to walk towards us I turned to Christie and asked what was the look on Cameron's face.  We couldn't tell whether he was smiling or whether his face was frozen in fear.  It turned out to be the former.

 

We then ventured over to the midway games and caught a couple of the free circus acts at the big top.  Then the five of us hit the camel races that I had been so successful on the other night.  This time though I was defeated by Steve three times, Christie once and then someone else won one ... can't remember who exactly. I won 2 thankyou very much!

 

Before leaving we returned to the Adventuredome where Christie, Alan and Cameron played a round of putt putt golf. Alan cheated and won.  He never lets the kid win anything. I beg your pardon. I did not cheat. I won with pure skill and I also let Cameron beat me in a game of air hockey. We dropped them back to their hotel about 6pm with the idea that we would meet up later.  However, Alan fell asleep when we returned to our hotel room and didn't wake up until 8.45pm.  I called the others, hoping they hadn't been waiting dinner for us, and spoke to Steve.  The other two were sleep so we gave the rest of the night a miss. 

 

Alan and I went down to the foyer and bought a ham and swiss cheese roll to share and returned to the room.  About an hour later we were discussing who was going to write the blog when the fire alarm went off.  We quickly ran around and grabbed all the important things; laptop, travellers cheques, wedding papers and were about to evacuate the room when a voice over the loud speaker told us to hold on while they investigated the fire alarm.  Pity though they didn't turn it off while they investigated it.  I think I'm now deaf.  A few minutes later another message told us it had been a false alarm.  Thankfully it wasn't in the middle of the night. 

 

So this brings us to the end of my last night as a single woman, again.  This time tomorrow I'll be a married woman and, hopefully have managed to get myself loose of the wedding dress. 

 

Keep your eye out tomorrow for the big marshmallow in white.  That will be me.

 

For those wanting to view the webcam, here are the details again.

 

At 5.30pm Las Vegas time, Saturday 15 September ........ 10.30am Sydney time Sunday 16 September go to:

 

http://webcasting.cashmanpro.com/shalimar/

You will see our names on the list but do not press the "buy now".

 

Above that there is a "watch live" button, click on that.

You will see instructions when you come in that this page doesn't automatically refresh.  If nothing happens, press the refresh button under
the viewing window.  If nothing still happens.  Try again in a few minutes. Sometimes weddings start late.

If it freezes up, try refreshing the page again.

I'm not sure whether the number of people trying to view it may cause problems.  However, it is the only chapel we could find in Las Vegas with a free webcam and even those that offered a paid service wouldn't guarantee that it would work.

If you are not successful in viewing the event live we will be endeavour to put it up on youtube and will be posting the link here when it is available for viewing. I'm sure we'll have plenty of photos in tomorrows blog entry as well.