Leaving Las Vegas – 16th September

Jamie came over to the Excalibur hotel at 10am on Wednesday 16th September to say bye and bring an extra hand luggage bag/case for Louisa. I’d left her packing but it was looking like she might struggle to get all her shopping in. At the last minute she managed it and didn’t need the bags from Jamie. I’d packed my bags and done a bit of work, my customer was all set for her cruise to leave this afternoon while I was flying to Los Angeles. Jamie came up to the room and we gave her a small bag of things that Louisa and Briony had left plus the leftover spiced rum. Thành was kindly taking us to the airport later and I had agreed that Louisa and I would be outside in the taxi drop off area at 3pm. Before she left, Jamie helped us out by going to the reception to ask about the charges on Louisa’s credit card and what they were for. Once that was all sorted, it was time for us to say bye, check-out and get ready to go back home. Our flight wasn’t until 5.37pm tonight and we were due to land in Heathrow airport tomorrow at 3pm.
It was sad saying bye to Jamie, especially as there were no set plans as to when I might see her and the family again. I hoped we would meet one day back in Vietnam or even in Turkey.

Louisa decided rather than take our luggage to the bar with us, we should leave them with the concierge. Obviously we had to give a tip just to drop the bags off and I assumed they would want one on collection too – I was not a fan of this overzealous tipping. We sat in the bar for a bit and I did some work on a 2 week cruise and stay holiday to Japan and Korea in March 2027 for just over £3,000 per person. It was a bargain.
I also totted up my spending for this Las Vegas trip and it was close to £900 in total. If Briony hadn’t given me $100 and Louisa not bought me a meal and some drinks it would have been over £1000 for a week. My budget including the hotel and fees had been £615 so I was way over and I had less than £50 left on my credit card to last me until the middle of October when I next got paid.

We had not eaten today yet so with less than 2 hours to go until we needed to head back to get picked up by Thành, Louisa suggested we go for food, to finish off our holiday. We walked over towards Mandalay Bay and where there was a Johnny Rockets – it’s like a more expensive and slightly slower Macdonald’s. Louisa had a chicken burger with Tater Tots (like mini hash browns). I ordered the Bacon Cheeseburger and fries which was listed on the menu at $23.95 but with the obligatory taxes and tip I paid £30 in total and that didn’t include a drink. On the plus side, I took my lactase tablets and it did stay in, which I was surprised about. It was my first time trying a Johnny Rockets burger and I wouldn’t recommend them, not just because they are more expensive than a MacDonald’s, but the patty was pretty thin and the bun was very sweet – the chips were good.
On our way back to the Excalibur, Louisa was milling over whether to buy a new suitcase after all, she was worried her very tightly stuffed belongings might cause the case to burst open if it got knocked about a bit. At the last minute she saw a decent hand luggage case in a souvenir shop and bought it, rushed back to pick up the original bags and do a quick repack before legging it to an already waiting Thành.
At the airport I said thank you and goodbye to Thành and hoped to see him if he could come to Turkey.

Our return internal flight from Las Vegas to Los Angeles was delayed and not due to land until 7.26pm, our connecting international flight was at 8.35pm. Again, we had a very tight timeframe to get across the airport and it was all a bit of a blur.
Once on the next plane and settled in to seat 65C, it was time to watch films, catch up on some blogging and try to have a little snooze – we would be on this flight for just over 11 hours.

Gratitude List
1. Getting to say bye to Jamie & Thành before we left Las Vegas
2. A lift to the airport with Thành
3. Our International flight to Heathrow being on time.