The Rio and Criss Du Soleil

I am in Vegas for work purposes, I came out here with a new sales guy to walk a trade show to decide whether or not we would sign up for it next year. As much as I would love to sign up for any reason to come to Vegas, there is no way we would sign up for this show. Our offerings of CBT would get lost in the crowd, there is not enough attendance, and there are a total of 60 vendors if they are lucky. This is a very small show and would definitely not be worth the cash outlay to do it.

Even though the trade show is a bust, I am staying at the Rio for the first time. The rooms are nice enough. They are very big with a nice king-size bed, a L-shaped couch, a refrigerator, and an ok bathroom. I find it sort of odd that there is a window in the shower that looks out into the main room. I suppose one could watch TV while in the shower. However, I am too short to really look through the window, and even if I were taller, I still can't see a damn thing without my glasses. So, the window makes no sense to me. As for an all-suite hotel, the Rio is nice enough, but for the hotels that I have stayed at here, nothing compares to the Venetian. I'm hoping to make a trip and stay there for Brenda's birthday, we'll see.

I also decided to go ahead and see the one Cirque show in Vegas that I had not seen yet, Criss Angel "Believe." I didn't know what to expect, especially when the guy I came here with was able to take advantage of an e-mail special and buy a ticket at 40% off 2 hours before the show started. The show started off with a typical Cirque show with some characters going through the audience as people were being seated, then Criss Angel doing some tricks and stuff that really reminded me of his "Mindfreak" tv show. While he was doing that, I started to remember why I stopped watching "Mindfreak." He is about as narcissistic as Barry Manilow, where everything is difficult and deadly, and "I am so great" for being able to do this (whatever it may be). After about 10 minutes or so of that, it took a turn towards a Cirque show with some odd characters dancing and getting into a story. Throughout the show the story continued essentially being Criss trying to find the girl while somebody else was standing in his way of getting the girl. There were some tricks throughout, and some nice show elements. The show ended after 90 minutes with him asking if we wanted to see one more trick, then he did his disappearing trickby just throwing the sheet up, then he was gone. All in all, I would say if you have seen the other Cirque shows here, then yes, go and see that once. If you haven't seen some of the other shows, see "Love," "Ka," "Mystere," or "O" first.

Finally, it seems as though Mama Mia is no longer playing at Mandalay Bay and The Lion King will be moving in.

Huh, I don't understand how I can get onto Southwest's on-line check-in the second that I can and I end up with number 47. Hopefully I can still have a decent seat. Now I'm off to dinner at Mesa Grill and to walk around the strip for a bit.