Today is our last full day in Vegas. It’s been a quick trip, but packed with activity. Today the plan is to catch the hotel shuttle at 11:30 to the monorail, which we will take all the way down to MGM. I’m so glad my husband clued me into using public transit while traveling. I think it’s been a thousand times easier to use the monorail than to deal with getting a ride.
We won’t be back in the hotel until after the NKOTB concert, so this post may not get finished until tomorrow, but I wanted to go ahead and get it started. “See” ya later!
As I thought, we got back super late and went to bed as soon as we got to the hotel. I’m now sitting at the airport, waiting for my flight. I’ve been here for 3.5 hours already. I’ll write about that in my next post. For now, it’s all about Saturday.
We started our day with breakfast and the hot tub, just like Friday. We were so sore from all the walking the day before and hoped the heat would soothe our muscles a bit. It was somewhat helpful, but the blister on my pinky toe was still extremely painful. As much as I know that popping a blister isn’t a great plan, walking on it was excruciating, so while it was softened from the water I released the pressure, then used a bandaid to provide some protection from the friction of my shoe and sock. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a whole lot better than walking around on that blister.
We took the shuttle to the monorail again and rode it all the way to MGM Grand. We felt like pros after using it Friday, so we were pretty relaxed. We had decided to go to the Friends Experience, which we’d passed before and knew where to go. We were able to get our tickets and walk in right away. It was fun to get pics on replicas of the various sets from the TV show.
When we finished, we walked through the MGM to see if we could figure out a way to walk to closer to the Dolby without being out in the rain (forecast showed rain most of the day). Once we were confident of where to go, we stopped at Wolfgang Puck’s to have some lunch.
As we walked through the casinos and past various venues, we saw several things I thought I might have enjoyed, but nothing we felt a need to explore. So we hopped back on the monorail to go to the Venetian and find where we needed to be for our 5:00 Wizard of Oz show at The Sphere. We were able to stay indoors for 98% of the walk to get there. The only time we were outdoors was to get from the monorail station to the Venetian.
After locating the entrance to The Sphere, we headed back to the Venetian to use the restroom and get water from the Starbucks. We started to purchase a bottle to share, but the guy that worked there suggested that we go with tap water instead and he would only need to charge us for the cup. $0.50 for two waters was way more appealing than an $8 bottle of water! We then sat at a table chatting while we waited for it to be time to go back to The Sphere.
My sister wanted to make sure to check in for her flight as soon as she was able because it would determine her boarding group. Everything was going along fine until the time to check in came. She clicked the button and her phone just spun, trying to find a connection and she began to panic. I tried to calm her, but may have made it worse because I wasn’t concerned. She began to worry that she wouldn’t be able to access the tickets to Wizard of Oz either and didn’t understand when I told her that it probably had something to do with the fact that the internet was probably bogged down, particularly in the middle of the busy Venetian, and it might be better if we headed to the balcony right by The Sphere. She argued that she was on the internet because she was on 5G. No amount of explaining would calm her down and she was convinced that something was wrong with her phone and we wouldn’t be able to get into anything the rest of the trip. Catastrophizing at it’s finest.
The whole time she’s panicking, we were swimming upstream as the pervious Oz showtime was released. We stopped by the balcony and lo and behold she was able to connect to check in for her flight and pull up the Oz tickets. Once she was calm I was able to explain more about why she might have been having trouble connecting. Not sure if it will make a difference in the future, but I tried. I also suggested that she put the tickets in her wallet app to make it easier to access if internet was spotty.
Unfortunately, the person checking us in for Oz was unfamiliar with how to scan the wallet (rfid) ticket and wanted a barcode, which we didn’t know how to access without going back to the Ticketmaster app. Thankfully it pulled up and we were able to get in, but it caused a small moment of frustration for my sister.
Once inside, we were able to relax as we wandered around to see the memorabilia and merchandise. We didn’t see anything we really needed, so we went looking for our seats, which were WAAAAAY at the top.
It was a little intimidating to get to our seats because it was so steep. Especially when there were people already at their seats that you had to squeeze past. More than once I leant a hand to people as they made their way past us.
The view once the show started was incredible. I’ll admit that the bits they cut for the venue was a tad distracting to me, as well as spotting the slight “off” look of some of the AI expanded views. But overall, it was magical. The 4D effects of the tornado, snow, and flying monkeys added to the magic.
When the show was over, we made a beeline for the bathroom before it was overrun with people. Then it was down the multiple escalators to the bottom floor and heard of cattle to exit. There was an “after show” in the lobby that we saw from the excalator.
We retraced our steps through the Venetian to get to the Monorail and back to the MGM to get to NKOTB. We had been concerned about getting there on time and didn’t stop to eat anything, but we had at least an hour in our seats before they took the stage.
I’d wondered if we would regret seeing them a second time, but we definitely did not. I was able to pay attention to new parts of the stage and found my eyes searching for Jonathan throughout the show. Knowing that he has anxiety and that he continues to do the shows for the others added an element of connection to his plight. I loved seeing that the others made a point of checking in on him without it looking like that was what they were doing. There were even times that he looked like he was enjoying himself a little. I had noticed the day before that he did not go out into the audience or really interact with the fans beyond a smile or wave, but this time I saw that every now and then he would touch a hand or interact in some way.
Then came the part where they rode the pods up to the balcony, which is what we were waiting for. By chance, the seats we got were directly in front of Danny and even though he’s probably the one I feel the least connection to, it was amazing and felt like a glimpse of the genuine Danny, not just a performer. We were also much closer to my favorite, Joey. It was so completely worth going again.
When the last song started we left to hit up the restroom before the crowd released. At this point we were starving, so we got back to MGM and looked for a place to eat. Sit down restaurants were all closed, but thankfully there was a food court where we were able to get dinner before heading back to the hotel and crashing into bed.
The amazing thing about the whole day was that we never got drenched, despite the fact that it rained almost the entire day. It was sprinkling the few times we walked outside, but nothing too bad. We are definitely fans of public transport now!
Time to head to my gate to board my flight. I’ll try to type up my travel day, but it probably won’t get posted until tomorrow.
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