Family-Friendly Fun in Las Vegas, Part 3

This is my third post about our time trying out the best family-friendly activities in Las Vegas. I suggest reading the first and second posts from the trip before this one. Because I blog about educational travel, I was given free passes for some of the places we visited during our trip. Other places we went are free for everyone and paid full price for the rest. What I paid has no bearing on my reviews. If you see any gaps in my narrative, it is because I didn't love a particular activity enough to recommend it, regardless of how much I paid or didn't pay.

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Celebrating 50 in Las Vegas, Nevada

Steve's birthday celebration continued at the Fontainebleau. 

It is home to the Hall of Excellence, a true hidden treasure. I wish more people knew how incredibly awesome it is!

The Hall of Excellence is filled with rare memorabilia from icons in sports, entertainment, and more. 

Admission includes an outstanding audio tour. Celebrities including Tom Brady, Morgan Freeman, Oprah Winfrey, Snoop Dog, and more narrate the tour. It's great, but there's so much more! Use the device to take a photo of any object on display and you can learn more about that specific item. In many cases, there is video showing that item in use. It's so cool!

  

All the exhibits are beautifully designed and lit.

  

Is there any other place where you can see Oprah's Presidential Medal of Freedom, Muhammed Ali's robe, and Simone Biles' leotard? (Answer: No.) 

  

I loved all the Olympic stuff in particular. It was so interesting hearing the stories behind each artifact and then watching the videos. 

The Trophy Room is spectacular. It's filled with all sorts of trophies and awards recognizing greatness. 

  

I loved seeing the EGOT trophies next to each other. Three different people donated them: Oprah's Emmy, Justin Timberlake's Grammy, Clint Eastwood's Oscar, and Oprah's Tony. 

All of Tom Brady's Super Bowl rings are on display. They are huge and quite a bit more lavish than I expected. This was my favorite. 

This display about athletes who changed the world was another of my favorites at the Hall of Excellence. 

I highly recommend a visit to the Hall of Excellence. Plan to spend several hours, as you're going to want to hear all the stories and learn about the fascinating artifacts on display. 

After the Hall of Excellence, we headed back to our room where we watched the sunset. What a view, both with and without the fountains. 

We changed for dinner, then took the free Aria Express Tram. Very convenient! 

We continued on to the Park MGM, location of the Haus of Gaga. 

There are several dozen displays of dresses, shoes, and accessories worn by Lady Gaga. It's really neat. And completely free to enjoy! Definitely pop in, even if you just spend a few minutes. 

  

One question: How? 

It's hard to believe that anything could make these heels look low, but compared to the previous display they're practically orthopedic.  

It takes a special person to carry off a crystal lobster headdress. 

After an enjoyable visit to the Haus of Gaga, we continued on to the MGM Grand. 

For his birthday dinner, Steve chose Craftsteak.

Steve and I are both fans of Tom Colicchio. We've enjoyed watching him on 22 seasons of Top Chef. For his 49th birthday, I gave Steve Tom's autobiography (affiliate link); it was so cool to follow that up with a visit to Tom's restaurant for his 50th! It's a great book. 

The food was amazing. It was the best steak I've ever had. We paired it with Robuchon potatoes; they were everything we'd hoped for and more. 

It was a meal we're never going to forget. 

  

After dinner, we went back to the Bellagio. The Conservatory wasn't crowded, so I decided to take pictures that captured all the lights. Steve took pictures of me, which I didn't know until we got back home. My hair is getting long again.  

  

What a day! We had so much fun celebrating Steve's birthday together. But the fun wasn't over. Tomorrow I'll tell you what we did on our second full day in Las Vegas. 

Family-Friendly Fun in Las Vegas, Part 2

This is my second post about our time looking for the best family-friendly activities in Las Vegas. I suggest reading the first post from the trip before this one. Because I blog about educational travel, I was given media passes for some of the places we visited during our trip. Other places we went are free for everyone. We paid full price for the rest. This has no bearing on my reviews. If you see any gaps in my narrative, it is because I didn't love that particular attraction enough to recommend it, regardless of how much I paid or didn't pay.

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Celebrating 50 in Las Vegas, Nevada

Our first full day in Vegas, 1/26/26, was a special day: Steve's 50th birthday! Months ago, when I'd asked how he wanted to celebrate his 50th, he said he wanted a celebrity chef to come to our house and cook dinner. I think he was only about 10% serious, which is a good thing. For a number of reasons, it wasn't going to happen. Instead, I planned a Vegas trip as a way for us to enjoy high-end food at four different celebrity chefs' restaurants. Of course, we wouldn't (couldn't? shouldn't?) spend all day eating, so I scheduled lots of fun activities for us to do during the daytime and saved the fancy food for dinner. 

This was my third time in Vegas. The first time I went to Vegas was in my mid-20's, before I met Steve. The second time was with Steve in 2003, when we were newly engaged. Needless to say, a lot has changed in the 23 years since I've visited! Steve has been to Vegas twice for conferences during the time we've been married, but it's been awhile for him too. So there were plenty of things for us to see and do that were completely new for both of us. 

When we'd checked into the Bellagio the previous afternoon, the Conservatory and Botanical Gardens was pretty crowded and only got more packed in the evening. We thought we'd have a better chance of seeing everything and getting decent pictures if we went first thing in the morning. Success! 

  

The 14,000 square foot displays change seasonally, with a special fifth design for Lunar New Year. It's almost time for the Year of the Horse!

  

The floral displays throughout the hotel were also themed for Lunar New Year. So beautiful and elegant. 

We left the hotel and headed south. Besides the lack of crowds, another benefit to getting an early start in Vegas is that the majority of the scam artists aren't out yet. It was actually pleasant to walk along the Strip at 9:00 am. 

We popped into M&M World to look around, since we were early for our first timed activity of the day. It's enormous and worth a visit. 

We didn't buy anything, but I can't say I wasn't tempted. 

Same, Orange. Relaxing makes me anxious. I much prefer productivity. 

  

At 10:00, we were there to board Big Bus Tours. I love Big Bus for their outstanding narratives that cover the history, culture, and important sites of each cities. This was our fourth time with Big Bus - we've previously enjoyed tours in Rome, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Each has been excellent and a great way to get a general overview of a place before hopping off and diving deeper. 

While we were waiting for everyone to board, we got to chatting with a couple sitting near us. When they told us they were celebrating his 50th birthday that day, I had to take a photo of the two new friends, born the same day exactly 50 years ago! In case it's not obvious, they're making "50" with their hands. 

You can hop on and off at any of the 9 stops along the Big Bus route in Vegas, but we opted to do a full loop. The route took us north, from the High Roller at the Linq, then all the way to the Art District. I'd never been there and knew absolutely nothing about it, so that was particularly interesting. 

  

We passed the stop for the Mob Museum and Fremont Street Experience, both of which we'd be visiting later in the trip. Then we headed south along the Strip. 

There's always something new coming in Vegas. The Mirage closed in 2024 and the Hard Rock is scheduled to open in 2027. 

The southernmost stop on the Big Bus Tour is the iconic Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign. 

Even early in the day, there was a huge line of people waiting to take their picture in front of the sign. I was glad to be able to get a good picture from the Big Bus!

A full loop on Big Bus Las Vegas takes between 1 hr 45 minutes and 2.5 hours. There was very little traffic when we started our tour at 10:00, so we got from place to place promptly. Check it out - there are almost no cars in any of our photos from the Big Bus. We thoroughly enjoyed our Big Bus Tour and came away with a much better understanding of the city of Las Vegas, past and present. 

We got off the Big Bus at the same place we'd started, walked past M&M World and popped into the Coca-Cola Store. (Popped. Get it?)

  

We'd really enjoyed tasting interesting sodas at World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, so we went to The Fountain and bought the Around the World Tray. It comes with 14 Coca-Cola beverages from 13 different countries. 

Some thoughts: 

• Taste tests are always fun!
• I don't think of cucumbers having a strong flavor until I taste them in a beverage. Delicious!
• Zimbabwe likes their sodas really sweet. So do I.
• Beverly is the worst soda of all time. (Turns out, it's not meant to be served like this.)
• Fanta Sour Plum tastes like carbonated BBQ sauce. I'm not a fan. 
• 14 cups of soda is WAY too much for just two people to split, particularly since I'm barely a soda drinker. 

We didn't even come close to finishing the sodas; fortunately, my extreme aversion to food waste doesn't really apply to soda, so I was willing to throw out the unfinished samples. I'd definitely recommend trying the Around the World tray, ideally with 4+ people. 

We left the Coca-Cola store and were headed toward our lunch destination when I spotted something that drew me over like a moth to a light. If you like unusually large things as much as I do, don't miss the Giant Typewriter Eraser on a pedestrian bridge by the Aria. It's by the same artists as Big Sweep in Denver, Free Stamp in Cleveland, Cupid's Span in San Francisco, Plantoir in Des Moines, Shuttlecocks in Kansas City, and Spoonbridge and Cherry in Minneapolis: married couple Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. 

We had lunch at Block 16 Urban Food Hall at the Cosmopolitan. There are a lot of fantastic choices there. We ended up choosing Lardo. Their hot sandwiches and parmesan fries are both spectacular. 

After a delicious lunch, we got back on The Deuce and headed north. We got to our destination around 1:00 and spent the next few hours marveling at what a great place it was. I'll be back on Monday to tell you all about it and everything else we did that day.