When your maid of honor/sister/best friend/administrative assistant/life coach/college student calls out of the blue and says, “I want to fulfill your lifelong dream of seeing Britney Spears in Las Vegas. We are going next week,” you drop everything you were doing, you pack all your sequins and you go.
There is no other appropriate response.
Las Vegas has changed so much since my last visit more than five years ago. Shiny new hotels like the affordable LINQ and the boutique Cromwell have replaced some of the smoky old casinos, the High Roller wheel towers over the center of the Strip and there are monorail and tram options to make transportation more convenient than it’s ever been. And of course, Britney is at Planet Hollywood dancing her heart out to all the hits.
Here’s how we filled our 3-night impromptu bachelorette adventure in Las Vegas!
GET AS HIGH AS YOU CAN.
Not that kind of high, ya stoners! At 550-ft. tall, the year-old Las Vegas High Roller is the world’s tallest observation wheel and it’s a nifty way to get a bird’s eye view of the Strip. There were only two of us so we didn’t splash out for the luxe package, but you can have the ultimate bachelorette experience by renting out a whole car and filling it with up to 40 friends. In hindsight, we really should’ve booked on the Happy Half Hour, a bar car with unlimited drinks for the duration of the experience. We did the regular 30-minute rotation and while the views at sunset were great, it did feel a little bit slow without a martini in hand.
EAT CELEBRITY FOOD.
Emmy-Award winning celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis has recently opened her first restaurant inside The Cromwell, aptly named GIADA. We tagged along with Alex in Wanderland & her pal Zoe and had the most magnificent table overlooking the Bellagio & Caesar’s Palace across Las Vegas Blvd. We ordered a little of everything — bacon-wrapped dates, wood roasted mushrooms and chicken marsala meatballs to start; surf & turf for me and a 28-oz. bone-in Tuscan ribeye for RaeRae. That kid got the hang of Vegas decadence in no time!
None of us had room for dessert so our attentive server suggested a to-go box of cookies – best idea ever! The lemon ricotta cookies were my comfort food when I got an emergency phone call from my sweetie at 4 a.m. (Don’t worry, he’s fine now!)
After our big night out, we ended up at Guy Fieri’s Vegas Kitchen inside the LINQ for brisket nachos and a very satisfying burger. You can’t swing a cat in Vegas without hitting a celeb restaurant!
DANCE UNTIL THE WORLD ENDS.
There is nothing quite so satisfying as crossing off something that’s been on the old bucket list forever, and this was one of those special moments. Britney Spears has been a part of my life since the Mickey Mouse Club days and her first hits were the soundtrack to my high school years, so this meeting of the blondes was long overdue.
There were about 100 other bachelorette parties in the Axis theater that night which made for a lot of congratulating and fun camaraderie. Definitely THE place in Vegas to kick off a bachelorette weekend.
The Pros
The show is overall a very fun, visual experience. Britney performs all her big hits and you can’t help but sing and dance the whole time. Her costumes are gorgeous, the dancing is just what you want it to be and I loved some of the new arrangements to her songs.
The Cons
There were parts of the show I didn’t like – Britney walking a fan around on a leash was one out-of-place element – and it feels very odd that there’s not a camera on her face at any point during the show. I’m sure that was a conscious decision, but it would be nice to really see her up close from any seat in the theater. It makes it a little less intimate of an experience than it could be. Still, I loved it and I’d go right back and see her again!
And Britney just announced last week that she’ll be in residence in Vegas for two more years!
MAKE FRIENDS WITH MEN WITH CONTROVERSIAL DANCE MOVES.
Not strippers, y’all — I’m talking about ELVIS. We booked the Private Pink Cadillac Tour with Viator and literally had our own Elvis impersonator for three hours.
The King, clad in a bedazzled white jumpsuit, drove us around Las Vegas in a 1956 pink Cadillac, gave us a private concert at the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign and autographed his headshot for us. The only thing missing was blue suede shoes.
FIND SOMEWHERE TO DISAPPEAR.
Rae and I met up with Alex & Zoe again, this time to check out the brand new Drai’s nightclub on top of The Cromwell. Though I’m not really much of a club person, we had an absolute blast dancing at the rooftop venue and in the after hours spot under the hotel, though I confess we weren’t thrilled about the tagline for the after-hours club, “The Place to Disappear.” I get a weird feeling when I think about going to a dark nightclub and disappearing… and since none of us really wanted to end up missing at the end of the night, we stuck close together.
If you’ve never been out dancing with me, you may not know that every song is MY JAM. Every single song. (Alex knows this already because she planned my surprise bachelorette party in Bonaire a few weeks back!)
Even though I’m comfortably settled into my 30s and absolutely ok with the fact that I can’t stay up as late as I used to, I was ready to dance my heart out all night long. (Britney will do that to you!)
Little sis is not quite so wild about staying out all night…
When we walked out of Drai’s After Hours at 6 a.m., she could not believe the sun was up. (That night was a Snapchat story for the ages so if you’re not following along yet, please do so — username is AngieAway, of course. You don’t want to miss such shenanigans the next time they happen!)
GAMBLE & PREPARE TO LOSE.
Rae invented a new game called 22. It used to be called 21, but somehow she managed to get 22 every flipping time. See ya later, money! It was great fun earning you and promptly turning you over to the LINQ casino.
ENJOY THE FREE SHOW, 24 HOURS A DAY.
In Vegas, you really don’t have to pay a dime to be entertained, so resist the urge to schedule every single minute of your trip and just walk outside your hotel. Once you get over the heat blast akin to stepping into a pizza oven, you’ll find more free entertainment than all the Cirque du Soleil shows on the Strip can offer. We saw a 70-year-old woman shoplifting, a twenty-something gal screaming bloody murder and two barely clothed escorts with an older man dressed as Prince Philip. Where else can you find such variety?!
And check this out! Vegas.com created this wonderful infographic to help plan a wild or mild bachelorette party and included me! I hope my post and this infographic help you plan the best Vegas bachelorette party yet.
Tell me your best Vegas story in the comments!
Thanks to the LINQ, the High Roller, Giada and Viator for making bachelorette in Las Vegas extra special. And EXTRA enormous thanks to my maid of honor. The best sister in the world!
