So if you've read yesterday's entry you'll know we were rather late to bed..... I would have loved to sleep til noon but we are moving to a the D at Fremont Street so when I woke up at 8.30am I bounced out of bed ( ok I didn't actually bounce but considering the night we'd had I was amazingly spritely, probably due in no small part to the pizza I'd bought and the water our fab barman kept giving me to soak up the wine! ). 

 Once we were all organised - bags packed, showered and dressed - it was around 10 so we headed to Reception to check out and leave our bags at the desk so we could get some food. I had managed to make a cup of black tea, with the in room coffee maker, which we had to drink in some plastic cups Rodd had in his bag but I needed tea! Funny story about that tea.... They had a coffee maker in the room but no little tray with coffee, sugar and milk sachets, what they did have was a mini bar tray that had a packaged coffee cup containing the coffee makings.... I picked this up just to look at it and $4 was added to our room total! I've heard of the fridges being weight sensitive and had warned Rodd the night before not to pick anything up out of the fridge but had no idea they did it with the coffee and chips etc on the bench!! I did have the $4 removed from our bill when we checked out - she didn't even question it when I told her "I only looked at it" so I reckon they get a lot of that, just imagine though how many people just check out without realising.... Nice little side line!

Breakfast was at Raffles Cafe in Mandalay Bay.... It was ok, food was nice in an average kind of way and it was pretty expensive, about $60 including tip. Next we went to the M life desk and got 2 passes to Shark Reef loaded on to the card, courtesy once again of myVegas. From the casino to Shark Reef was quite a hike, as is everything on the strip in Vegas, both in and out of the casinos! We really enjoyed Shark Reef, it was really well done and maintained. I don't know that I would have paid $20 each for us to go but hey.... Gotta love a freebie!

Time to collect our bags and head to Downtown Las Vegas. We've been there on all our trips for a night out ( remember that night with Heather and Tim? Epic!! ) but we have never stayed there so thought it would be a nice change. Mandalay to The D was $35 inc tip - a little steep I thought but we're here. Check in was fast - $15 per night upgrade got us a room on the 32nd floor ( the higher above Fremont the quieter, or that's the theory! ) with a fridge and a panoramic view.

Time for a nanny nap, we're definitely still adjusting to the different time zone wanting to sleep all day and be awake all night!

We had arranged to meet our wonderful friends Jeanne and Roger at the D Grill at 6 pm so went downstairs around 5 for a quick predinner drink. Jeanne text me just after 6 to say they were parking so we made our way back to meet them. We were very pleasantly surprised to see Kaylan ( their adorable daughter ) had come with them. We had a really lovely time catching up, chatting constantly. Dinner was lovely and only $125 inc tip, not bad for 5 people. It's always so nice to see these guys and we would never come to the States without a trip to Vegas to see them..... "We have to go to Vegas to see friends? Oh ALRIGHT!!" Hahaha

Once dinner was over we said goodbye with a plan to meet up the next day and Rodd and I hit Fremont Street!! We went to several different casinos, it's so great down here you can literally just cross the road to another casino instead of walking 15 mins between each like on the Strip, but played mostly at Binions on the chocolate wheel and ended up at El Cortez until about 2.30am!! On the way home we stopped at Walgreens for a few things and also bought a couple slices of pizza... I'm surprised I remember that bit!