FANTASY AT THE LUXOR WHILE AT ORLEANS

I almost forgot that the best night I could see the Fantasy show was my first night at the Orleans, and that I needed to get back from Laughlin early enough to check in and take a bus to the Luxor.

One of the annoying parts of the new pay to park rules in Vegas is that short trips, just to pick up tickets, now have added expense. I had to pick up the tickets before 4 PM. That meant paying $5 if the transaction took more than an hour to pick up the tickets and another charge were I to park while watching the show. So much for the "free" tickets.

The first hour of parking is free. I parked in the Luxor lot and in no time I was at the box office and signing papers and listening to the spiel of when to get there and lectures on not losing tickets. I did move very quickly, and I was lucky not to have to negotiate much of the casino, but 20 minutes in and out still seemed like something to be proud of.
I told the woman issuing the ticket that I was parked and would love to get done in the free hour. That may have helped.

At the same time I was able to redeem my ticket to Love for a few days later. This was good because by the time of that show I would be taking buses from downtown, having returned the car.

In spite of my many issues with directions, I  just managed to hit the right section of the parking lot, and made the run to the ticket booth and back in well under the free hour of parking. So, I got lucky.

Again, some of this was due to the month of December being short of people, so lines were short.

I took the 201 from the Orleans to the strip and walked up to the Luxor for the show.

It was a fun show.

Going to Vegas in December does not yield very many open shows. Many are dark.

MyVegas gave me a chance to see Fantasy and Love near the end of my trip.

I thought Fantasy would be the most challenging because the show started at 10:30 and by then, even in Vegas, I am usually asleep.

However, I had a bit of a nap from five until seven and that seemed to do the trick.

I came down from Orleans on the bus for $1 and avoided all parking issues. I could not pass over the strip from Tropicana to Excalibur as there was construction on that entire walkway and everything was closed.

I walked down to Reno and crossed at the light. Luxor was closer than I had imagined and it was a fine walk in the cool evening.

I was very early. I wanted to ask security about my lost glasses, thinking perhaps I had left them on the box office counter, but no luck.

I was thirsty and had not brought an of my excess supply of bottle water. Water in one place was $4.50 so I decided to play a few penny slots.

I got ahead of the coctail waitress and asked for a water as I sat down. These come in very small bottles. I got another later. In the slot I lost $4 and tipped $2 for the water, so I could have bought it for less, but I would not have had the entertainment to let the time go by let alone the comfort of the chair.

It was a long wait in the theater, standing. People watching was interesting. I especially liked a Japanese couple and their daughter, who did not look old enough for this show. They were delightfully dressed and she was very cute.

There was one fellow who had lost a leg and walked with a blind man's cane as did his partner. The security helped him in, then helped him take what was a long walk to the bathroom and back.

I like the way Vegas takes care of us.

I also realized that my little back spasms were nothing compared to the obstacles others faced to see the show.

I wondered how much he could actually see this dance show. Even without my glasses, I imagined I saw more of it than he did.

I expected that Fantasy would disappoint me. It seemed not to be too popular among MyVegas players.

I was delightfully surprised, however.

My seats were perfect, centered and only a few aisles back.

Although it may seem odd to say about a sexy, body focused, topless show, I am much happier when I can see the faces. By this time I had lost my glasses as well, so seeing might be a bit of a challenge.

Also, I thought the whole thing might seem a bit corny.

However, it was quite good, and I would go again another year. The dancing, the speed of the acts, all of it was just very sexy and great.

My favorite was one woman who did an acrobatic act using those long pieces of fabric. I have seen others, but I don't remember being so fully entertained. To fit her acrobatic skill into the sexy theme, she  took many unique and interesting positions using just these two lengths of colorful fabric for support. In a couple, with just her ankles wrapped in fabric, she let go and dropped upside down. It startled me so.
It does not compare to the acrobatics in LOVE, but I had not seen those yet.
In an age when circuses are going to be events of the past, these live acrobatic acts may be a rare event.

The music was pretty loud for my taste, but it fit into this genre, especially since there were plenty of talkers in the audience. It was not all modern, but included, "Why Don't You Do Right" and, "Try a Little Tenderness" and other older songs.

The lead MC woman who sang was not as polished as I would like. Her voice was not bad, but it was that sort of voice that depends on a loud voice rather than jazzy or even pop interpretation. That is a common sort of vocal style by many famous artists, so I was not surprised or displeased entirely. It just is not in my top rated category.

One the the constant talkers sat right in front of me. He was a young man who had come it with a paper hat three feet high just to see how that would go. He sat down and I said to him,

"You are going to take that off, right?"

He got a good kick out of that, took the hat off, and said he had done it just to see how long he could get away with it.

For the rest of the show he talked constantly to the fellow next to him. I wanted to lean down and say, "Now that you've managed to put away your hat, perhaps you might try having a thought that did not make your lips move."
However, I restrained myself.

The show played over him, and it was in part the kind of show where men might talk or shout as they would in a strip club.

The speed of the acts was fascinating. They really packed in a variety of dance numbers with all sorts of themes. While dancers changed clothes, the MC talked to the audience or sang.

There was also a Black comic whose name escapes me, and he was just grand. He joked about sex without being in the least bit raw. He avoided the F bomb as he said. Some of his jokes about aging and our bodies hit very close to home and made me laugh about what is happening to me.

It certainly happened here. 

This is not the sort of show a man wants to attend only to have his back stiffen.

And as much as I loved and admired and lusted, I also was very, very jealous that the hip movement these women could make would send my troublesome muscles into terminal spasm.

I did have back issues. I knew I would after a day of walking and hiking. 
But I managed.

I was slow walking with some cramping and I missed the first tram.

That gave me time to shoot these photos

When I got to Tropicana, I was on the bridge when my bus passed below me.

Fortunately it was one of those times when the bus waited to get on schedule and I managed to board it. In both directions, without looking at a schedule, I had caught the bus within a minute or two of arrival. Very nice.

It had been a long day, but I decided to play a bit of my video poker, and it was a good thing. I hit a progressive nickle royal which must have been around $250 and followed it with 4 queens on the next hand. It cut my trip losses in half.