Viva Las Vegas, Post 2: Neon Boneyard + The Strip

On Friday, our first order of business was to do the Neon Boneyard tour. I had found out about it on Tripadvisor and booked us in for the 10am tour. All we had to do was find our way there by public transport. With the help of about 5 people - check-in clerk, bellman, ticket seller, bus driver, and a fellow bus passenger - we made it with time to spare.



The Neon Museum is a not-for-profit organisation that rescues, restores, and aims to resurrect retired old Vegas signs and installations. One such example is the Aladdin's lamp in the photo at the end of my last post; it's displayed on Fremont St along with some other famous old relics restored by the Neon Museum.

The battered, bruised and weatherbeaten old signs that have not yet been restored are kept in a couple of junkyards across from the Neon Museum office. It is these junkyards that are referred to as the Neon Boneyard, and this is what we were going to tour to give us an appreciation of Vegas history before we set off to the Strip to see what it looks like today.



The tour cost $15 per person and lasted about an hour. Due to the extreme temperature (over 40 degrees, although thankfully no humidity) there is only one tour a day in summer, and it is important to pre-book. This is not one of the more well-known Vegas activities - in fact none of the people who helped us with directions had ever heard of the Neon Boneyard - but it was money well spent. As a history lesson, it was interesting. As a photo opportunity, it was incredible!

The building in the third last photo is the old La Concha Motel, which is currently undergoing restoration to become the museum's visitor centre. The Boneyard is also used as a filming location. We weren't allowed to touch any of the signs, but our tour guide pointed out one sign that Brad Pitt had been allowed to touch for a photo shoot - this information was imparted along with a warning that we should not be tempted into touching it just because he had!

After the tour, we went back to our hotel and relaxed in our air-conditioned room for the hottest few hours of the day, and then set off to the Strip. We rode the double-decker "Deuce" (the name of the bus service between downtown and the Strip) to the Excalibur, where we picked up the cheap tickets for the Tournament of Kings Dinner Show we'd bought at the last-minute ticket booth in our hotel earlier that day.

After collecting our tickets, and with time to spare before the show started at 5pm, we were accosted in the Excalibur foyer by a friendly young man called Vinnie, who won us over with his knowledge of Tim Tams and then escorted us to a desk where a young woman called Natasha (whom we later found out was his girlfriend) would see if she could find us some cheap deals "especially for couples". ("Are you married?" they both asked us. "Yes", we replied. Then they enquired: "to each other?" Well... it is Vegas after all!!)

We had been interested in finding some cheap Cirque du Soleil tickets after hearing how much Megan and Justin enjoyed the one they saw in Vegas, so it didn't take much for Natasha to convince us to buy tickets to KA for the following night. The only catch was that on Saturday morning we would need to spend "about 2 hours" being shown around a "nice new hotel" that the Excalibur's parent company had just built and was wanting to promote. This sounded reasonable, especially since they were going to feed us breakfast while we were there. Remember this... it ends up becoming a very memorable part of our holiday that deserves its own individual post!!

The Tournament of Kings is a long-standing dinner show held in an indoor arena inside the Excalibur. It's a medieval tourmanent with each competitor being the king of a particular "country" - i.e. a section of the audience. We were in France. The show included jousting (on real horses), hand-to-hand-combat, various acrobatic and gymnastic stunts, and lots more. We were served a simple, medieval-style three course meal. It was an enjoyable evening and another Vegas experience we'd recommend!

Click here for a video of the king of France copping a beating (the high-pitched shrieking lady was sitting right next to me...)
Click here for a video of an awesome gymnast
Click here for a video of another awesome gymnast

It was still light when we left the Excalibur. This is what the outside of it looks like...



We spent the next few hours exploring that end of the Strip. We saw New York New York (the screams of people on its rollercoaster were audible from quite a distance)...

And the MGM Grand, inside which there was an awesome Rainforest Cafe, complete with foliage, fake animals, and rainforest sounds (not to mention that the MGM also has a real lion enclosure inside it, visible from its casino floor)...

Here's a view of the south end of the Strip from a pedestrian overpass...



We also found the M&M Shop, which is a multistorey affair with every kind of M&M-branded object imaginable (including a car, guitar, and neckties)...



Even the McDonald's in Vegas has neon golden arches.



Eventually we tore ourselves away from the bedazzling Strip and rode the Deuce back to Fremont St where our nice cool bed awaited. We needed to rest up for the breakfast date the nice folks at the Excalibur had organised for us the following morning...

Photo album links:
Album overview page
Slideshow starting from Friday