So long since I've traveled, and it's killing me. Perhaps I should start just writing about Dream Adventures I want to take.... like to Ireland, more of Canada, New Zealand, and Australia....

A châteaux and winery tour of France and Italy. The south of Spain.... Scandinavia... and western Scotland.

Yes, I need to think about writing about that.

UK Emergency Trip 2007

First, this was not a planned experience.

Burbank, CA; 5:30am Saturday July 7th, 2007. I am a Le Tour de France whore. It’s my crack TV for the month of July. I get up every day to watch the stages LIVE. If someone waxes somewhere on the road or goes over the edge of a mountain, I want to see it live. Today is the prologue and it’s starting in London! Tommy decides to get up with me and support this crack habit of mine… so sweet. It’s a GORGEOUS day in the UK, and everything looks so CLEAN. I mention that I haven’t been to the UK in the summer for 30 years. Tommy says, “OMG, I haven’t been in the summer for almost 20 years.” (We both usually go in the winter because the fares are cheap, and no one is there.)

5:00AM Sunday, July 8th, 2007. Phone rings. Tommy, is a bit katzenjammer from last night’s LA Galaxy game, but since I’m the Designated Driver and getting up anyway to watch Le Tour, I am coherent enough to know this is not a good phone call at this hour.

It’s Dyan, a friend of Tommy’s father Harry, who, like Harry, is from Wath-Upon-Dearne Yorkshire, (just north of Sheffield.) Harry has taken a fall and hit his head on a small old rock wall outside his flat. He is currently on life support at Rotherham, with brain bleeding and things don’t look so good, but they’ll ring us back in a few hours when the doctors have made their assessment, as they might be moving him to Sheffield where the neurosurgeons are. Four hours later we’re trying to get to the UK as fast as possible – in the SUMMER. Be careful what you even unconsciously wish for.

Trying to get on an international flight, day of departure, is not an easy task these days. You can do nothing online with any airline. Originally, we think it might be faster to fly into Manchester, but we quickly abandon that idea when we discover there are no direct flights from LAX, and we figure (correctly) it might actually be faster to just take the train north from London.

I manage to get in touch with our dear friend who lives just outside of Nottingham, and she tells us the weather has been horrendous, and that it’s been raining non-stop for what seems like months. I say, “But it looked gorgeous in London yesterday for The Tour.” She replies “It’s the only day that it hasn’t been pissing it down. Bring sweaters and stuff to layer and don’t forget your raincoats.” Oh goodie. That’s why it looked so clean.

I also try to call British Rail to get some rail passes since the USD is worthless at the moment (£1 = $2.33) and anything we can do to save money would help. Unfortunately, it’s Sunday, and their customer service is closed.

Since we both love Virgin Atlantic, and they end up the kindest on the phone, we make our “reservation” and head to LAX around 4pm for our flight on VS024 at 20:55.

NOTE: They will not take your CC# over the phone, nor confirm your seat on a flight, day of departure, until you show up in person, at the airport with credit card in hand. And while we’re flying Economy, every Virgin employee we run into along the way, from the ticket agent (who checks us in, bless her, over an hour early, ahead of the long queue of over 100 people waiting for the rest of the desk to open up to check in for our flight), to the gate gal, tries to upgrade us due to our circumstances but it's a full flight. Our aircraft is an Airbus A340-600. Goddess ticket girl manages to get us two seats, A/B alone on the left of the aircraft. How those seats are still available day of departure, I’ll never know.

At LAX, the Tom Bradley International Terminal has been undergoing a “refit” for what now seems to be the last decade; so many international carriers share the other 6 terminals. Virgin, Air Canada, Air China, Avianca, KLM, and Air New Zealand all share Terminal 2 with Northwest and Hawaiian Airlines. These are long-haul carriers, which mean really BIG aircraft, with LOTS of people on them.

We turn the corner to go up the stairs and thru security, and there is just a lone TSA guy checking tickets and passports leaning on his podium thing, staring into space. It’s 5:00 in the afternoon on a Sunday, not 5:00 in the morning. Where are all the passengers?? We walk up to him with our tickets, asking if we’re in the right place, then carry on immediately thru the screeners in record time and on to the BAR. Thankfully, Northwest’s lounge must be nearby because we pull out the laptops to kill time after our bar pizza and we pick up their free wifi. Thanks Northwest! And since we have access to the web, I make sure we both have Virgin frequent flyer numbers. I thought I’d done this on our last trip to the UK, but apparently not. (Good thing I do this, as it turns out to be a HUGE benefit on the way home.)

About 7:30pm I can’t sit anymore so I go for a walk around the terminal and notice our flight is now delayed until 10:30pm. Ugh!

After what seems like an eternity, our flight is finally called for boarding around 11:15pm. We head to the gate, and as we’re standing, trying to merge into the never-ending queue for the door, the girl at the gate desk, after she overhears me say something regarding “making it in time”, or “your dad will be fine..”, asks to see our boarding cards. After what seems an eternity of her trying to find anything to upgrade us to, gives us both a hug and wishes us all the best in our emergency. We never asked to be upgraded. What must have happened is the agent I originally spoke with on the phone that morning must have put something in the record; it's all I can figure out.

Out the door, down the stairs, onto a bus, and we’re transported miles to our aircraft. It’s so far I start to think perhaps the plane is actually parked on Dockwheiler Beach.

We are so tired by the time we board, I don’t remember much about the flight, other than the entertainment system has been upgraded since we last flew Virgin in 2003.

They now have a billion on-demand channels with everything from movies and TV shows to audio books. You can even play games with other passengers on your flight. And of course, since this isn’t a nickel-and-dime-you-to-death domestic US carrier, there is no charge for anything. Free booze, free headphones…. So civilized.

I do read in the in-flight magazine that beginning July 1st, 2007, all of the UK will be NONSMOKING inside ANYWHERE. I have to ask one of the flight attendants if this is a joke. (We don’t smoke, but it’s so hard for me to believe that something like this is true, yet it is!)

Food is decent for airline food, and they feed you what seems like a million times. Must have been three. Dinner, tea, and breakfast.

We descend into Heathrow and it’s mostly cloudy and sprinkling. We manage to get thru immigration, and collect our bags, then we head to the Heathrow Express train station. As we get our tickets, we inquire about any sort of rail passes, but those are only available for purchase by international tourists (like us) before we leave home, and not available inside the UK.

In 30 minutes we’re in Paddington Station, grab a cab for St Pancreas Station so we can head north.


St Pancras is HUGE, and gorgeous. It's a protected, grade 1 historical Victorian gothic building that once held not only the train station, but The Midland Grand Hotel, which in it's day was one of the most luxurious hotels in London. The hotel has been abandoned since the 1980s when it was condemned due to dereliction. Thankfully, Marriott along with Manhattan Loft Corporation are pouring money into it's renovation coinciding with a huge remodel of the station itself, and will have not only flats for purchase, but will also house The Renaissance St. Pancras Hotel London which will bring the hotel back to it's original historic splendor (with modern comforts.)

It’s the station you catch the Eurorstar to Paris.

At the St Pancreas ticket office we run into the brilliant Robert, who gives us an open Doncaster return ticket, good for a month, on any train, anytime except rush hour, between London and Doncaster. WOOHOO. He also tells us the fastest train is across the street at Kings Cross Station, at 7pm, not the 6:30pm from St Pancreas because it’s an express train. Robert ROCKS.

We cross the street in the rain to Kings Cross, and before long we arrive in Doncaster, what we think is the closest station to Wath. However, when we tell the Cabbie we want the Sandygate hotel, he’s a little unsure. Thankfully, Wath is so small, it’s not hard to find.

A little about Harry: He worked as a geophysicist for Mobil Oil in Dallas before retiring. He spends half the year at his home in Dallas, and half at his flat in Yorkshire when he’s not traveling the globe lecturing or hiking the Moors and Highlands. He was also James Bond. For real.

Finally, after 21 hours of travel, we make it to the Sandygate House Hotel around 21:00 local time.

Just across from the Sandygate, (the only hotel in Wath which Harry’s friend Dyan runs with Harry’s local pub inside), is Harry’s flat. It’s in an old gorgeous Victorian stone home called Strathmore House, that some – person – instead of restoring it, was allowed to make into seven flats. (Oh what I could do if only I could win the lotto!)

All of Harry’s friends, along with Tommy’s aunt Rosemary, Harry’s sister who lives in Spain, are waiting for us in the pub. They tell us that Harry has been moved to Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield for brain surgery.

Not long after our arrival we get a call from the hospital stating that we need to come “right away.” Thinking the worst, Dyan, Paul (another mate of Harry’s), Rosemary, myself, and Tommy jump in a cab and head down to Sheffield, about a 30 min drive.

We arrive only to find that Harry is in stable condition on a respirator in ICU, and all they need is our contact info. (Thanks for scaring us even more.)

We decide the best place to stay is Harry’s flat which Dyan has the keys for thankfully. (She’s the one that found Harry after he hit his head.) It’s a very charming small one bedroom, complete with kitchen, DSL, and 5 channels on the TV!

We go to the hospital again the next day - this time Paul drives us in Harry’s car and we have a chat with one of the neurosurgeons. He explains that they drilled holes on either side of Harry's skull to drain the blood, and they've taken him off sedation to see if there'll be a response - since your body wants to breathe on its own, being on a respirator is unnatural and you would want to rip all the tubes out, but so far, no response from Harry. It's not looking good, but they want to give him another day.

Driving back to Wath in daylight, we discover that Sheffield looks as though it has been Katrina’d.

Paul explains the entire country has been underwater for the last month or two, Sheffield has parts where the water reached as high as 7’.



How did we not hear of this on the news??? Oh yeah. I forgot, the US press rarely bothers with anything outside of it’s own borders especially when Tahoe is on fire and it doesn’t have anything to do with Paris or Brittany.

Wednesday we head back to hospital, fully prepared to say goodbye to Harry, however, when we arrive we speak to the chief neurosurgeon Dr. Patel. He says that from the scans they've discovered an old bleed in Harry's brain, which meant he'd likely taken a fall about a month earlier, and with his recent injury - which broke both orbital bones, there was nowhere for the blood to go, which created major pressure in Harry's brain. The new scan that morning showed that the left side of his brain had bounced back after the blood had been drained, and now Dr. Patel wants to remove part of Harry's skull and drain the new bleed on the right side of his brain, then give him another 48 hours.

Sidebar: Harry has a 16 page medical DNR directive, but in the UK with the NHS, it is not up to the family - it's up to the doctors. (Our friend warned us that it becomes about the SAVE, not the quality of life…)

We told Dr Patel that saving Harry is fantastic, however we also told him about this directive, and said we could produce it. We told him that Harry with a cane is fine, since he can still look after himself, and hike the Moors, but Harry with anything more than a cane is not okay with HARRY. I said, "WE’RE NOT THE TERRY SCHIVO PEOPLE." He says he’ll ring with any change, and to feel free to call him and check in.

So – we arrive thinking we were unplugging Harry, and we leave thinking there may be some hope. Talk about a rollercoaster!

We ring Thursday to find that Harry is doing well after surgery, and even though he hasn’t regained consciousness, there is movement in his left arm and leg, and that the sedation from the surgery will take longer to wear off than before because it’s stronger.

Every night we come back and hang out with Rosemary and Harry’s mates at the Sandygate, and we all tell Harry stories, with Pudsey the pub dog mostly on my lap.

(He thinks he’s much smaller than he is.)

While waiting from word from the hospital, since we have no transportation (we’re not about to drive Harry’s car on the left side of the road, especially not having a clue about where we’re going), Tommy and I explore the little village of Wath, and try to catch up on sleep.

The cool thing is, since it’s July, and we’re so far north, it doesn’t get fully dark until Midnight. We find a really cool modern restaurant called Farenheit and discover there are more hair salons per capita in Wath than perhaps anywhere on the planet.

It’s a very cool little village.

We also try to do laundry in Harry's flat since he's got a mini washer/dryer combo thing. We open it only to have it spill rancid water all over the kitchen floor, soaking the pieces of rug that are down. Apparently the flooding in Wath was so bad, it backed up into the washer. We clean up the mess, but the kitchen floor is old wood, and even though we toss the rugs, the rancid water soaks the boards. It smells HORRID. We end up one night at the Sandygate while airing out Harry's flat.

One day Aunt Rosemary drives us to Tommy’s favorite castle, Conisbrough, where he spent most every summer as a child.



This is where Ivanhoe is based. (We had it pretty much to ourselves.)



The view from the top of the tower is amazing.

There is also a small tea/gift shop on the grounds and we stop and have tea with buttered raisin scones. Heaven! I don’t know what it is about the food in the UK, other than they don’t pump their livestock full of antibiotics nor drown their produce in pesticides, and their water isn’t full of additives, but it’s DELICIOUS!

The doctors are not around over the weekend, but we ring and still Harry is only involuntarily moving his left side. He hasn’t regained consciousness even though he’s now not on any sedation and is still on a respirator. The staff are not very hopeful.

Monday arrives and we wait for word from the surgeons. We have little hope again. However, Dr. Patel says that he was told Harry has been responding to voice commands – like, move your arm, stick out your tongue.... OMG!

Even though he is facing a very lengthy recovery, and we have no idea what shape Harry will be in physically and mentally on the other end of this, it’s looking as though he’s going to make it. We immediately get on the phone and change our return flight from Tuesday to Friday since now there is a lot to do in securing Harry’s flat. And since it costs us another small fortune to change the return date, we decide to throw some AmEx points at it and upgrade ourselves to Upper Class. Oh yeah.

[tangent] We are Galaxy season ticket holders, and Tommy is one of the founders of the supporters group The LA Riot Squad (LARS). One week into our trip, BabyJesus™, oh sorry, I mean David Beckham, has his big introduction day at the Home Depot Center in Carson, CA, in his amazing Armani. Alongside him is Short Hair Barbie™ in her PINK Barbie™ dress with matching stilettos on the pitch at the HDC. We miss this, but all of our friends make HELLO magazine and Tommy’s interviews he’d done back in January when Becks had first signed, are finally seeing the light of day. The reason this is important? July 21, the day after our return to SoCal, is DB’s first game with the Galaxy playing Chelsey. More on this later…[/tangent]


Tuesday, with Paul as our driver, we drop Rosemary at the Doncaster airport so she can get home to Spain. She will come back and take care of Harry when he leaves hospital. Then the three of us head back down to Sheffield again to see Harry. On the way it begins POURING rain, and suddenly, the wiper blade on the driver’s side goes completely mental. It’s literally thrashing about so hard we’re scared it’s going to break the windshield. Paul can see nothing as the rain is so hard. He pulls over and gets out and seems to fix it, only to have it go insane again about 100 yards on. Now, both Tommy and Paul get out to see if they can repair it, while getting absolutely soaked to the bone, and I scream at them to give me their watches. Suddenly, we realize we’ve stopped just outside of a repair garage. This is so weird, considering there are no other buildings of any kind a mile in every direction. We’re on two lane country roads. Talk about luck!

Once at hospital, Tommy gets in some good time, even though Harry isn’t conscious. In fact, the nurses said that they had not witnessed what Dr. Patel reported - about him responding to voice commands.

We give Harry’s flat keys to Paul, gather all his bills for the estate trust to deal with, secure his car, etc... for the long term, so all his bills can be paid, and make sure his flat is ok.

Wednesday we jump on the train at Swinton (the actual closest train station) to head to our friend’s house in Wysall, just outside of Nottingham for a brief visit before we head back to London for our flight home.

She lives in a 16th century house and Wysall is even smaller than Wath.

We arrive on one of the few sunny afternoons, and after sitting
In her lovely back garden sipping wine, she takes us to a nice curry dinner in Nottingham.


Poor Tommy, with all of the last minute things we have thrown at us regarding Harry, we never have a chance to just pop into a Fish & Chip shop and get a nice lunch. So Thursday before we head for our train to London, we walk down to the pub (the only commercial enterprise in Wath, (and one of the few pubs in Britain that is still privately owned), for lunch. It’s a gorgeous day so we sit out on the patio and Tommy orders his Fish and Chips. Three bites in, his cell phone rings. It’s the hospital. Harry’s taken a turn for the worse, they found more infarctions in his brain, and his liver is failing. The doctors have decided the best thing is to make him as comfortable as possible and take him off life support.

We’re too far away to head back in time. Tommy never finishes his fish and chips.

We make another round of international phone calls, and then it's off to the station. The train ride is bittersweet as Tommy finds Harry's favorite ale, John Smith, on the train, so we share some.

We stay the night at the Royal Lancaster Hotel right on Hyde Park, which is great. Turbo AC, nice bathtub and shower, big bed.

We go for a short walk around Hyde Park, then have dinner at one of the hotel's restaurants, Island, which is very yummy, then crawl up to bed afterwards.


Next morning we grab a cab and head to Paddington which isn’t far, then back on the Heathrow Express around 7:30am, for our return flight at 11:30am, as we want to spend as much time as possible in the Virgin Upper Class lounge known as The Clubhouse. We arrive at Upper Class check in, but there’s a problem with our reservations. Even though we upgraded five days prior, they haven’t put it through on our credit card. Tommy must go over to the economy check in to have this sorted out because somehow the Upper check-in don’t have the talent. Meanwhile, I wait with the bags by the Upper desk. The ceiling is draped with plastic since the entire check-in area is under construction. This is not a great start, but we’ve got the best part ahead of us, if we can just get past this with some time left for The Clubhouse.

Twenty minutes later we have our Upper Purple Passes, are steered thru the fast-track security, (no shoe review for us), enter The Clubhouse and suddenly find ourselves on the set of The Jetsons!


It's HUGE!!


The two weeks we’ve been in the UK have been mostly sunny – apparently the only two weeks thus far of 2007 when the entire country wasn’t getting Katrina’d – but today it’s pissing down two months worth in a single day.

NO MATTER! We’re on the set of The Jetsons, having Mumm’s Cordon Rouge champagne and Eggs Florentine while the world floods to Hell outside, but I’m having a wonderful pedicure in the Cowshed Spa and more champagne!


This is the Cowshed SPA inside the Clubhouse!

They call our flight on time so we sadly leave The Clubhouse and head over to the gate. We board our aircraft, another Airbus A340-600. We turn LEFT at the door and pass

THE BAR.



Oh. Yeah.


Our seats are A7 and D7, across the aisle from each other.

A flight attendant explains how everything in my Upper “suite” works, from my leather barcalounger with lumbar support (where I can be reclined for take-off, thank you very much), to my 10” flat screen TV, my ottoman, and my giant table that comes out of the wall. She also gives me my amenity kit and a black ninja sleep suit and tells me to let her know when I want her to change it all into a BED. “Why yes, thank you, I WILL have more champagne.”

CLAUDIUS: Gertrude do not drink.
GERTRUDE: I WILL my lord, I pray you pardon me.

Tommy is wearing his LA RIOT SQUAD t-shirt. The same shirt that was seen in HELLO Magazine and countless other publications throughout the week.

Most of the flight crew not only have tickets to tomorrow’s Galaxy/Chelsea game, but see Tommy’s t-shirt, and recognize his name from the manifest from all the interviews in every UK publication known to man. Suddenly we’re their best friends, and are giving them all information on tomorrow’s tailgate party.

The In-Flight Beauty Therapist comes by and asks if I’d like to book a treatment. “Of course! Head and shoulder massage please, and feel free to wake me if I’m sleeping when my turn comes.”

I should confess at this point, I am not a very good flyer. However, since I’m in Upper Class, the plane will magically not crash. We’re held at the gate for 90 minutes while I have yet more champagne and the rain gets harder. Many passengers in Upper are in their sleep suits (even though this is a day flight) hanging out, cocktailing, getting to know their cabin-mates. It seems almost like a big college Frat PJ party. Such FUN! What the hell else are we going to do? it’s pouring outside!

Suddenly, the captain comes on and tells everyone, to take their seats, as he simultaneously backs away from the gate, effectively seating everyone. Outside there are small patches of blue sky, and the rain has let up momentarily. We taxi to the runway at what seems like light speed, and before you know it, we’re taking off. Tommy, usually sitting right next to me, always finds a way to distract me during take off and landing so I’m not too nervous. Today he’s across the aisle in Guam and I’m left on my own.

Before we clear the clouds, there is a bright light, and a very loud BOOM just outside my window. Tommy leans forward from his suite to see how I’m doing. I give him a thumbs up and say, “How cool was that?!” Thankfully, I’ve been drinking champagne for the last three hours. Had I been left to sober up in economy while we were held at the gate I’d most likely be certifiable. Captain comes on and tells us, “Yes, that was lightening, and thankfully the aircraft is designed for lightening strikes.”

The menu is “anytime” and Tommy and I are starving so we go for the food right away. I have carrot soup, followed by roast lamb and an okay French Pinot, followed by a cheese plate, and everything is superb.



The salt and pepper shakers are tiny airplanes with feet!

When our plates are cleared, our salt & pepper mini Air Force are magically left behind on our table….. nice.

We both grab our glasses so our beds can be made and head to the bar for a top off. We chat awhile with the crew regarding tomorrow’s game logistics, and Tommy promises to get them all in the LARS (LA RIOT SQUAD) section. I’m fading so I finally head back to my lovely bed and fall into a coma. This is the best sleep I have the entire trip. (I never sleep on flights.) I’m so out of it, neither the In-Flight Beauty Therapist nor Tommy can wake me for my appointment.

4, 5, 6 weeks, hours or so - who knows - later, I finally wake up and the In-Flight Beauty Therapist comes back to see if I still want my treatment. Yes please! It’s heaven.

Tommy is awake after my massage and we share some afternoon tea and snacks. I am a happy kitten! He tells me of my coma. I feel so refreshed at the moment it’s unreal. I rarely sleep that deeply at home!

After tea, it’s back to the bar to hang for a while. I know I watched some of the V-Port entertainment things, but not an entire movie. I was far too busy doing everything else.

We land around 4pm. Lovely to be let off first, and enter a completely deserted immigration. We sail thru, grab our bags which are also first off, and are in a car heading up the 405 within 30 min of landing! The only problem: it’s a Friday, and traffic is from Hell.

Next day: we meet the Virgin flight crew at our tailgate party at the HDC, and Tommy is successful at getting most of them into the LARS section during the game. Of course, the day is oversold, and BabyJesus™ is still broken (and would remain so for most of the season), however, he does play. There is a paparazzi circus of about 70 photographers who follow him out of the locker room, and stand behind him in a huddle behind the team bench. It’s insane. (WWDBDTMT? What would David Beckham do to my team?)

Epilogue: Harry wanted his body donated to education, however Royal Hallamshire Hospital (Sheffield University’s teaching hospital) would not take Harry’s body, so we had it cremated and there was a funeral in Wath about a month later that we could not attend. The plans are to go back this fall and not only scatter Harry’s remains over his beloved Moors and Highlands, but we’re taking a bottle of Laphroaig 15 and toasting him in a few of his favorite places. Thankfully we have enough miles to have confirmed upgrades in Upper Class both ways!

I never want to turn right at the door again when flying internationally!!!

UK Trip update.....

The Harry's Ashes & Whisky Tour of the UK is now locked in. We leave Oct 23rd, and return Nov 7th.

We've managed to upgrade to Virgin Upper Class both ways, (yipeeee!) and have even treated ourselves to 1st class rail passes since we will be spending so much time on trains. As Tommy says, 'It's what Harry would have wanted."

Right now, we are thinking of spending the first night in London to get our bearings, and attempt to adjust to the time change. Then we'll be off to Yorkshire and the Rotherham area for two nights, then on to Edinburgh for three, then Inverness for three, then back down to our friends just outside of Nottingham, then two last nights in London before our flight home. *whew*

We're going to FREEZE OUR ASSES OFF!!!

On another note - my dream trip to Greece for my GODDESS birthday next year has been postponed due to lack of upgradable miles for the trip. We'll try to accomplish that one in 2010 for Tommy's BIG 40. Instead we've booked a condo in Cabo for a week, to be joined by 5 of our closest friends. Should be a great week.

Vegas Baby!

Just got back from my postponed annual b-day trip to Clark Co NV. TheBait™ and I usually fly, but due to recent purchase of Prius it was much more cost effective to drive, and about the same amount of time (3.5 hours) to get there. We normally fly out of BUR, which is 5min from home, but get there at least 90 before flight, then flight is 1 hr, claiming bags another 20 min, then waiting for a taxi another 30-45 if we don't pay for a town car... then another 10-20 min, depending on time of day to get to hotel... so roughly the same and only $60 rt in gas.

Stayed at Bellagio for the first time. At first I wasn't WOW'ed. I wanted to be über-wow'ed, but I just wasn't. The rooms are nice, we requested to be as far as possible from the CityCenter construction and we got a lovely room overlooking the pool. Very quiet, on the 24th floor. Bathtub was the greatest ever. Very deep, arm rests.... spent hours there. Nice, comfy king bed. The housekeeping staff never bangs on your door, they send a quiet message to your phone if you sleep in and ask you to ring them when you're heading out. However, the AC was set to 60F and never once felt as though it went below 70 - should have been colder for such a small room. (Should have called facilities, but never got around to it. That was our fault.) The hotel is undergoing some remodeling, and our room was not one they had gotten to yet. There was a lamp shade that needed badly replacing, and several tears in the wallpaper, but all in all, it was lovely.

I will say the service at Bellagio is the best we've experienced in Vegas. There is turn down service at night as if you're on a ship... with chocolates on the pillow, bath robes. And every employee from the maids in the hall way to the bartenders, to the maintenance guys all greet you, and ask how you're stay is going. They all go out of their way to help you. The pool is wonderful too. Plenty of sun or shade, whichever is your preference, and is open until 8pm (July - dusk.) By the end of our stay I was impressed, and if a get another great rate, I'll be back.

Arrived Saturday at 11am, and immediately got into our room. Unpacked then walked across the street to my very favourite restaurant, Mon Ami Gabi at Paris for some lunch. After lunch we played a little, and then back to our room since the 2nd bottle of Grand Ardeche Chardonnay in addition to getting up at the crack of dawn and driving across the desert had me a little sleepy. Tommy went to the Crown & Anchor pub on Flamingo to watch the Galaxy/NY game. After his return we hooked up with our in town friend and had originally planned to go to his new restaurant Simon at Palms Place, but ended up going for something quieter at Trader Vics at Planet Hollywood.

Next morning it was lattes and parfaits for breakfast, then we played a little as it was kind of a cloudy - it may rain any second - kind of a day, lunched at Olives, then got ready for our big night out to see Bette at Casears.

Bette - This was my 7th time (or something like that) seeing her. I do not own any of her music, but as a live performer in concert, there is no one better. That said, The Showgirl Must Go On is more Bette-lite than real Bette. Considering she has a 90 min time limit, the show is amazing, and I would probably have LOVED it, had I not seen her touring shows. Because she has to try to fit as much of her signature stuff in as possible, it doesn't flow like her road shows, and so much time is wasted as her chorus line of Caesar Salad Girls along with her Harlettes do dance numbers while she is off changing costumes. Her big Rose (Joplin) character, beat the stage, overwhelming emotional lava-flow numbers that made her famous, such as Stay With Me and Fire Down Below are painfully missing, however Soph is present in all her bawdy glory and tasteless hilarity. Warning: do not take a camera, even accidentally - mine was in my purse, and it was taken and checked at the door, so we left during her encore of Wind Beneath My Wings so we wouldn't have to wait in an hour-long line at the box office afterwards to claim it.

After Bette, we went to a late supper at Rao's. Tommy had a wonderful Vognole Linguine, and I had a gnocchi bolognese which was just average.

Then back to Bellagio and sleep.

Monday was a gorgeous day so after hitting 4 deuces on a Deuces Wild machine, we made the pilgrimage to Quark's at the Star Trek Experience to see our friend Lydia (GM) and say good bye as the whole STE is closing Sept 1st.

After that we spent a few hours at the pool, then just couldn't get the steam up to go across the street back to Mon Ami for dinner, so we ordered room service and watched TV - it was heaven.

So all in all, we liked Bellagio, and would stay there again. I love the Venetian and used to stay there all the time when they opened, and were giving me a good rate. Before that it was pretty consistent Mirage and Hard Rock (both have great pools!) Then did a stint at Caesars (also great pool) until Celine came in and they stopped the great rates. Then moved to Paris and Ballys which we've been at until this trip when Bellagio's rates were even better than Mirage. Paris/Ballys were sold out.

I'm hoping once Encore (Wynn) & CityCenter opens, and there's a bit of a glut of rooms on the strip, there will be decent rates again. However, I've noticed that the slots have gotten super tight, and you can't put a $20 in and get any play whatsoever on most machines unless you're playing video poker. Most machines just suck your money. That's not fun. At least give me 10 minutes of entertainment for my $20 - I mean, you can have it, but let me have some fun, don't just TAKE it. That's one of the reasons we didn't play much this trip. The Great Sucking Sound was very LOUD.

Tommy loves sitting at a bar, playing video poker, and drinking for free..... I don't mind it, and loved hitting 4 deuces, (too bad it was only a 25¢ machine), but I love the silly video slots that give the bonus games with all the bells & whistles. Last Oct when I was in town performing in Twelfth Night, I put in $2 into an annoying Money Storm machine at Paris after a nice lunch with the cast at Mon Ami, and the damn thing payed for TEN MINUTES. At the end of it I had $400, so I took everyone up to the Eiffel Tower Restaurant for champagne & dessert.

My only advice: GO ASAP - as soon as CityCenter opens mid strip - the Strip will be even more chaotic than it is now...

Now time to plan for our Harry's Ashes & Whisky Tour of the UK.

UK trip delayed.....

Due to impending THR, UK trip Harry's Ashes, has been postponed.

Target date: late summer/early fall.

This makes me sad, but I can't fathom running around LHR, the moors, and highlands right now, even if I am Hot Babe With Cane.

Old stuff first....

Let's begin with links to my cruise reviews I've posted on Cruise Critic. Yes, I'm a bit of a Cruise Whore™.... I love them (cruises, not whores... don't be silly.) To me, it's an ideal way to travel, and I love the sea....

These are sorted by oldest first:

This is the second half of my first Star Princess review. (The first half has disappeared into the ether.)

.....this was still when I was with hubby #3... ugh.

This is the first half of my Inaugural Tahitian Princess review. (again.... part II is *poof* gone.)

...yes, still hubby #3.

Apparently I failed to review my first cruise with Tommy.... much too busy having WCMS (like you do early in a relationship) to write anything down. It was a great cruise. It was when he first said "I love you." Very romantic! Star Princess, Mexican Riviera, Oct, 2003. We had an aft suite... very private. Spent most of our time in the cabin. nice......

GalzCruz on Diamond Princess, Mexican Riviera, Oct, 2004.

Spoiled Princess Cruiser returns from the Carnival Pride. 

...another GalzCruz™.

The Galz St. Pat's Adventure in Vegas.

.......ok, not a cruise, but here it is anyway.

Spoiled PrincessCruzGal™ reporting live from the Oosterdam.

.....yet another Galz™ cruz.

Coming soon.....

no really. I swear.