The latest 30 Plus Teams Tour of Las Vegas happened from 29 May until 3 June.
I actually left LGA on Sunday, May 28th and was supposed to get to Las Vegas at 12:59am on 29 May.
I did arrive on 29th May but not until 4:30am.
I stayed in the airport until 5:30am .
After getting my bag from the Frontier airlines baggage claim, it was time to take first the shuttle bus from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1, and then the CX bus which took me to Downtown Las Vegas.
Now even though I couldn’t check in to my hotel, that didn’t stop the Sports Diva from taking pictures of the place that would be “home” from 29th May until 3 June, Las Vegas.
If a city has a sports team or a casino, the Sports Diva WILL find it and will make a 30 Plus Teams Tour of that city.
Thanksgiving holiday was no exception.
This particular place has been on my radar since I found out it was opened.
It’s the Encore Hotel and Casino Boston Harbor.
It’s located in the Boston suburb of Everett, Massachusetts.
It looks just like its bigger sister property, the Wynn Encore in Las Vegas, on the Las Vegas Strip and in my opinion, it’s fancier looking than the one in Vegas, which is just as fancy.
Unlike the one in Las Vegas, there’s a free shuttle bus that goes from either Chinatown, Wellington or Malden Orange line stations or like I did, take it from the Market Basket Supermarket parking lot in Chelsea, where you can get the Silver Line bus number 5, which goes to South Station in Boston.
Chelsea is the city next to Everett.
I wasn’t going to play any slot machines when I got to the casino, but after finding out that my players card from the Wynn Encore in Las Vegas also works at the Encore Boston Harbor, yeah let’s play a little.
I did play a little, $25 total on three penny machines, which is a little money for me, just saying.
Unlike the Encore in Las Vegas, the Boston Harbor has a Harbor Walk, where you can walk along a pathway on the Mystic River, where the Commonwealth of Massachusetts actually began.
While the Encore in Las Vegas has a merry go round made of flowers right in the middle of the hotel lobby, this one has a Ferris Wheel made of flowers.
When I do another 30 Plus Teams Tour of Boston, I definitely will spend a little more time and money on the slot machines.
As for staying in one of the rooms at the Encore Boston Harbor Hotel , if they lower their prices and maybe offer the Sports Diva a complimentary room for playing the slots like crazy, I might stay there while I’m in Boston.
It was our last night in Las Vegas and since both of us had early morning flights, we wanted to make the most of it.
Actually I had to be at the airport by 7am for a 9am flight back to Newark Liberty and my friend had to be at the airport by 9am for an 11am flight back to Pittsburgh.
We had gone to Harrah’s Hotel and Casino the night before to see Donnie Osmond for my friend’s 60th birthday.
Don’t laugh, even though it wasn’t my cup of tea, he did put on a pretty good show.
On that Thursday, after watching the NBA Finals between the Boston Celtics and Golden State Warriors, (now THAT is the Sports Diva’s cup of tea!), we decided to go on the High Roller Observation Wheel, which is at the Linq Hotel Promenade, right across from where we were staying at the Flamingo Hotel.
My friend had never been on the High Roller before and as I kept raving about it, she decided why not?
We not only went on it at night, we were in the pod that had a bar in it.
HELLO HAPPY HOUR!
Yes, the High Roller Observation Wheel has four pods that have a bar in them.
This is Las Vegas, folks, even the attractions are entertainers.
Here’s how the High Roller Observation Wheel Happy Hour basically works.
The ride is 30 minutes long, so that means in 30 minutes, you drink as many drinks as you can and the drinks are FREE!
Just remember to tip your bartender, people.
I had three vodka and cranberry juice plus two drinks that our bartender, Cheryl from Rhode Island, no less, made for all of us.
Just like the other pods, the happy Hour pod also does the New Year’s Eve type countdown.
The only difference is, there’s a drink in your hand as you’re counting down.
The Happy Hour ride needless to say, is more expensive than the regular High Roller ride, but like my friend did, Groupon is your best friend for discounts.
I don’t know if it was the five drinks that I had, but I sure enjoyed myself on my second time on the High Roller
It’s the Sports Diva and her love of food whenever I do a 30 Plus Teams Tour of somewhere.
This time my 30 Plus Teams Tour of Las Vegas took me to a place where I had never eaten before and in all the times that I went to Las Vegas, I had no desire to go to.
It’s called Hash A Go Go and while it has a few locations in Las Vegas, the location my friend and I went to was at one of the original hotels in Downtown Las Vegas, the Plaza.
Because the Plaza has a big bingo hall and my friend LOVES playing bingo, why not kill two birds with one stone?
The location in Downtown Las Vegas is located on the first floor of the hotel just as you walk in
In case you’re interested, the Plaza is the last hotel on the Fremont Street Experience, so you won’t hear a lot of noise coming from the two stages.
The food portions are HUGE!
While my friend had the scrambled egg platter, I thought I was being safe by ordering two eggs over easy with biscuits and sausage gravy.
Did I mention that the portions are HUMONGOUS?
OMG. The two eggs were overpowered by all the biscuits and sausage gravy that was on the plate.
Thank God I didn’t order the Chicken and Waffles that I was thinking of ordering.
Hash A Go Go is inexpensive and if I said it once, I’ll say it again so that the people in the back can hear it.
The portions are HUGE.
If you happen to take a 30 Plus Teams Tour of Las Vegas and you want an expensive place to eat, a place where you’ll get your money’s worth, try any one of the Hash A Go Go locations.
As I said in my last post, for my last full day in Las Vegas before I went back to the cold of New York City, the plan was to visit as many casino hotels as possible and take in everything else happening in Las Vegas for that weekend.
Not only were hockey players invading the home of the Vegas Golden Knights, T Mobile Arena, but over at Allegiant Stadium, home of the Las Vegas Raiders football team, the NFL All Star game, the Pro Bowl, had football players invading Las Vegas also.
It was the first time in sports history that two sports leagues were having their all star games in the same city, and not only was Las Vegas more than ready for it, the Sports Diva was in her element.
This is what I came for, to see all the hockey goings on in town.
I didn’t go to the Fan Fest on Friday because I was trying to rush back to my hotel in Downtown Las Vegas and pack for a 6am flight the next day.
Plus I wanted to see my favorite part of any sports all star game.
Not the all Star game itself, but the festivities before like the Home Run Derby in Baseball, The Slam Dunk and 3 Point Contest in Basketball and in hockey, Fastest Skater, Hardest Shot, Most Accurate Shooter, Mascots Dance Off and the Breakaway Competition in which players from the different teams come up with creative ways to score on the goaltender .
As for the football all star skills competition, nope, sorry not a fan of that.
Anyway, as I said, I had plans for Friday.
My Vegas Golden Knights friends had other plans for me.
My friend LB: “Jo Ann where are you now?”
“I’m just walking into Resorts World now.”
My friend LB: “Lisa and I are staying at Park MGM.”
Park MGM Hotel and Casino are across the street from T Mobile Arena, but I figured we were going to watch the Skills Competition from the girls room.
“Okay, I was going back downtown to my hotel and watch the Skills Competition.”
My friend LB:”Lisa has an extra ticket to the Skills Competition, you wanna go?”
I didn’t know if half of Las Vegas Boulevard could hear me screaming, but the Sports Diva screamed as though one of her teams had just won the championship or something.
Oh hell yeah, I wanted to go.
Packing could wait, the Sports Diva had a hockey All Star Skills Competition to go to.
Need I mention that LB and Lisa are Vegas Golden Knights seasons tickets holders so we sat in their seats watching the mascots act the fool with fans, dancing with the Vegas Bellas, who are the showgirls who preform at Golden Knights games.
The mascot dance off was won by the Pacific Division mascots from Vancouver, Los Angeles,Anaheim, San Jose and of course, Chance from Las Vegas, who did a routine with the showgirls to a song by The Weekend, “Blinded By The Lights.” Very appropriate for Vegas if you ask me.
The Metropolitan Conference mascots, led by Gritty from Philadelphia, Sparky The Dragon from The New York Islanders, Iceburgh, the Pittsburgh Penguins mascot, and The Eagle from the Washington Capitals, came in second dancing to The Harlem Shuffle.
Outside of the Fastest Skater and Hardest Shot Competition, which was won by Jordan Kyrou of the St. Louis Blues (and really is one of the fastest skaters I have ever seen and I’ve seen some pretty fast hockey skaters in my time)and Victor Hedman of the Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning, everyone was waiting for the Breakaway Competition.
The event was won by Alex Pietrangelo of the home town VGK, but even the Vegas fans were booing this decision.
Like me, they thought it should have gone to Trevor Zegras of the Anaheim Ducks, who shot into the net blindfolded while the mascots threw dodgeballs at him.
It could have even gone to Alex Debrincat from the Chicago Blackhawks, who dressed like Alan from the movie The Hangover.
You can’t get any more Las Vegas than that.
Debrincat brought the house down when he came out with Derek Carr, the quarterback of the Las Vegas Raiders who threw a football , which Debrincat caught and then shot it into the net.
It got really crazy when the All Stars were announced and the loudest boos weren’t for players from the Los Angeles Kings or San Jose Sharks, the rivals of the VGK, no it was reserved for Tom Wilson of the Washington Capitals, who believe it or not is the second most hated man in hockey.
After the competition was over, it was time for me to go get something to eat and finally pack because the shuttle van was coming to take me to the airport at 3:30am.
I always love my 30 Plus Teams Tours of Las Vegas, but this one was really good and what a surprise.
Youpi and SpartaCat, the Ottawa Senators mascot, meeting the crowdBlades the bear, the Boston Bruins mascot
This was one, no the main reason why the Sports Diva did a 30 Plus Teams Tour of Las Vegas.
Usually my trips to Las Vegas are twice a year, February and June.
This year there was a real reason to go to Vegas at this time and it had NOTHING to do with gambling.
If you know the Sports Diva, you know that my mottos are, “Staying home is NOT an option”, and my favorite one, “Have a hockey team, will travel.”
Las Vegas does have a hockey team, the Vegas Golden Knights and from February 4-5, they and the city of Las Vegas hosted the NHL All Star game and Fan Fest, which was at the Las Vegas Convention Center and ran from Thursday February 3 until Sunday February 6.
The All Star game was on Saturday February 5, but by the time it came on at 4pm, Eastern time, the Sports Diva was back in New York City.
The Skills Competition has always been my favorite but more about it in another post.
I was ready for two days at convention center for Fan Fest.
It didn’t happen, I only ended up seeing one day of Fan Fest, but that was okay by me.
It was fun seeing all things hockey, including the antics of the mascots from many of the teams including the host mascot, Chance, who is a lizard or as they call them in Nevada, Gila Monsters.
What I didn’t expect, though, was a history lesson on hockey.
The first exhibit as you walked into the west hall of the convention center past the banners of all 32 NHL teams was the exhibit showing the contribution to hockey by not just blacks but women and Native Americans (or First Nations, as they’re refered to in Canada as well.)
I saw names of players that I remembered watching over the years and players that I didn’t even know were black or Indigenous.
I wish this exhibit had been bigger or had as long a line as the line to see the Stanley Cup did.
Covid what Covid? Vegas is back and while it’s optional to wear masks in some places, others say if you’ve been fully vaccinated, you don’t need to wear one.
If you haven’t been fully vaccinated, you need that mask.
Now how do they know who’s been vaccinated and who hasn’t, that’s another story.
With mask in hand, my cousin and I decided to cross something off my bucket list.
Riding on that big wheel that’s known as the High Roller.
Now let’s not get it twisted.
The High Roller is NOT a ferris wheel.
It’s an OBSERVATION WHEEL, and it’s the tallest in the United States, if not the world coming in at 650 feet tall.
The difference between a ferris wheel and the High Roller is that a ferris wheel stops to let passengers get on.
The High Roller doesn’t.
It goes slow enough to let people on WHILE it’s moving.
Scary right?
Now if you have a thing about heights like I do, you’re going to be really surprised as your pod, (and that’s what the individual cars are called,pods.)slowly rises to the top.
How do you know when you’re at the top?
This is Vegas people. There’s a narrator counting down like it’s New Year’s Eve and says ,”Congratulations we’re at the top!”
Now it seems that it didn’t take long to get to the top because the ride is so smooth.
I paid $33 for a ride in the daytime.
I understand that it’s more spectacular at night, but seeing the Bellagio Fountains , Caesars Palace and other places, I was pretty impressed with the High Roller in the daytime too.
A lot of buffets in Las Vegas still haven’t opened and many of the restaurants are expensive and stop serving breakfast at 11am.
Now a lot of us don’t come to Vegas to eat at McDonald’s for breakfast, but we will go into Denny’s, no lie.
For the five days that I was there, I ate at a place that was recommended by YouTubers who go to Vegas a lot and Las Vegas Facebook groups.
It’s called La Salsa Cantina and it’s located in the Miracle Mile Shops at Planet Hollywood Hotel and Casino.
Like most places in Las Vegas lately, you have to wait in line to get a table.
The wait seems to take forever but once you get in, believe me the food is worth the wait.
The breakfast special, which includes 2 eggs anyway you want them, a choice of ham, bacon and sausage with potatoes, and either Texas Toast, flour or corn tortilla, is under $5.
They even have 99 cents Bloody Marys and for $4.95 you can get what they call breakfast cocktails, Mimosas, Baileys and Coffee or Bellinis to name a few.
The first two times I went, I had Bloody Marys. Strong but not too strong.
My last day there, Mimosas.
As much as I love the Vegas buffets, I think I’ve found a new breakfast spot in town, La Salsa Cantina
30 Plus Teams 30 Plus Dreams 
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