March 3rd Tuesday

We are scheduled for a 2-hour private tour of Hollywood, which ends up being a lot of fun checking out the movie stars homes, visiting the famous Hollywood sign overlooking Hollywood, visiting the Hollywood Walk of Fame and the stars on the sidewalk. These ’stars’ honour not only movie actors, but radio, TV and stage performers, directors, singers, songwriters, and other well-known show-biz personalities.

The Hollywood sign was actually a ‘Hollywood Land’ sign erected to sell Hollywood land many years ago and was only meant to be a temporary sign. The ‘Land’ part of the sign fell apart and the residents wanted to keep a permanent Hollywood sign, so a young celebrity at the time, the now famous Hugh Hefner, held parties at his Playboy Mansion to raise money via charity by selling off each letter of Hollywood for $30,000 each
and as a result the famous sign still stands to this day.

Today we check out of our hotel and depart Hollywood for Las Vegas. We fly American Airlines which provides very poor service, especially after flying Virgin airlines so much, where you become accustomed to friendly service. A good trick though is to book only an economy seat online and then upgrade at the airport to Business class. It costs US$550 extra each to purchase beforehand, yet only US$45 at the airport when checking in, so it’s a good tip for traveller’s wanting to save money, especially on a short flight which takes less than an hour.

We check into the Encore, one of Vegas’ newest hotels which is part of Wynn’s Casino. Exceptional hotel and we score a penthouse suite for 40% of the normal price thanks to meeting the Encore Client Manager at the Playboy Mansion party a few days before. The view from the suite is exceptional. We head out for a show and see ‘Zumanity’ at New York, New York Hotel. It has mixed reviews and I can see why. Some people would love it and some wouldn’t.

Afterwards we head off to ‘Blush’ a new nightclub in Encore for a few drinks. Vegas is very quiet to what it’s usually like and the recession is taking its toll but there are still plenty of people in town. We are in bed by 2.30am, but six consecutive late nights means I’m taking tomorrow morning off.