Tag Archives: Venetian Hotel

Travel : The Phantom of the Opera (Las Vegas)

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The $40 million dollar Phantom Theatre located in the Venetian Resort, Hotel and Casino is as grand and spectacular as everyone said it would be. With the help of some good friends, my wife and I were able to snatch some complementary tickets to a weekday showing and sat in the orchestra section which would have set us back approximately $250.00 if we had paid in full.

Having watched the Broadway classic on smaller scales before, I was quite familiar with the script and score, but I’ve never experienced it on such a large scale before. My family had the opportunity to attend the musical on Broadway several years ago, but I was unable to attend with them so I was really looking forward to making up for a missed opportunity.

What caught me immediately by surprise was the shortened length of the musical. It wasn’t until much later that I found out that shortened versions of Broadway musicals were typical in Vegas. With the abridged version running only 95 minutes in length, much of the original dialogue and several of the songs had to be cut in length. Although it was shortened by close to 40 minutes, the enhanced special effects and amazing chandelier in the center of the theatre easily made up for it. As with most other Vegas shows, The Phantom of the Opera would not have been complete without fireworks and pyrotechnics as well as the incredible sound effects, so overall, it ended up being quite a unique experience for me.

As far as performances go, I can’t say I was blown away by any of the main cast. Anthony Crivello, who plays the Phantom had an amazing range vocally, but seemed to lack the Phantom’s fearsome notoriety expected in this classic. Kristi Holden was gorgeous and had an amazing soprano voice, but never could quite grab a hold of me with her character’s passion and intensity.

Overall, if you’ve never seen the Phantom of the Opera in its entirety before, this Vegas musical is a great option. With all the “Vegas” extras included to add to the excitement and drama of the original, this version of the Broadway musical classic is truly is a worthwhile venture.

My favorite song from the musical : The Music of the Night Whats yours?

Travel : Venetian’s Spa and Gym (Las Vegas)

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sindlinger's photostream - GymI’ve been bodybuilding for several years now, and I’ve always trained at gyms which were basic in accommodations. As long as the equipment was in good condition I had little complaint about air conditioning or cleanliness. I’m actually one of those guys who enjoy the pain and sweat from a good workout. Talk about a shocker when I arrived in Vegas. I had a friend who worked at the Venetian Hotel and Casino and she hooked me up with some Gym and Spa passes while I was there (normally $80.00 for 3 days). I must say it was a very unique experience for me.

The Venetian’s Gym was the cleanest and most high tech gym I’ve ever been to. At most other gyms I’ve trained at, the equipment consisted of primarily a few machines, some treadmills, and decent section of free weights. Definitely enough for me to get by, but nothing out of the ordinary. The Venetian’s equipment trumped them all. They boasted a ton of free weights, new Hammer Strength machines from Life Fitness, a huge selection of stability balls, free bottled water, indoor rock climbing, and treadmills with their own lcd and heart rate monitors. I was pretty much in awe. Needless to say, my workouts were decent but not exactly exhausting. The great air conditioning made it much harder to sweat and large variety of equipment made me spend more time looking than actually training. It didn’t help either when a group of girls would walk through the gym wearing nothing but G-strings and tiny tops. I guess thats Vegas for you!

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