Once the idea had been voiced, it didn't take either of us long to be persuaded that we wanted to stay in Vegas another night and see another Cirque du Soleil show. Having checked the night before that it wasn't going to cost us an arm and a leg to have the room for another night, it was decided that if we could get tickets for 'O' at the Bellagio for that evening, we would do it. (Luckily we had timed it right being in town from a Monday to a Thursday as the prices for rooms tripled at the weekends!) I phoned the Bellagio early that morning to see if any tickets were still available, and satisfied that a 'limited view' ticket was better than no ticket at all, Mr Visa was put to use...

Another day frying by the pool was no hardship, and in the evening we headed to the MGM Grand for dinner and to see the lions. You don't get this in the St David's Hotel and Spa, do you? Having oohed and aahed at the cubs for a little while, we decided to eat at the Rainforest Cafe, a chain which I'm fairly sure has made it to London, but as far as I know is yet to open a Welsh branch. We were really excited about seeing another show, but I made room for a spicy Pastalaya (a variation on the Jambalaya I had enjoyed so much in sunny Lee Vining.) The cafe is decked out like a rainforest (it'd be a bit rubbish if it wasn't, I suppose, after naming itself the Rainforest Cafe!) and was good fun (with periodic rain storms and noisy anamatronic gorillas and parrots) if a little bit pricy - but frankly, any act we'd been putting on about being hippy backpackers was foiled during the Vegas leg of the trip, so it was just fine!

We went to the Venetian to kill some time before going over to the Bellagio for the show, and I think it was there that I found my favourite Vegas hotel. Amazing! Canals, gondolas, singing gondoliers! The mind boggles how they manage to do all this and prevent it from being tacky, but it isn't...it's big, brash and unashamedly over the top, but it's not tacky. I loved it.

The queue for the show backed up my impression that 'O' is Cirque du Soleil's top rated show. The title is a play on words with the French word 'eau', and as might be expected, it is a water based show. The performers (for want of a better word) perform on the surface of, in and above millions of gallons of water, which are there one minute and magically replaced by a solid floor the next. Visually it was breathtaking. They must have all been olympic standard divers and synchronised swimmers, and the whole show didn't disappoint. Our seats were so high up they were virtually on the roof, but it didn't lessen our enjoyment in the slightest, so we were really pleased to have stayed a 4th night in Vegas.

With hindsight, Las Vegas is without a doubt my favourite destination in the States. Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that we upgraded and stayed in a posh hotel, but I'm so glad we did as our experience if we had been staying in some dodgy hostel off the strip wouldn't have been anything like as memorable. Any chance you get to visit, grab it with both hands! x