The Write-up
Well we're back home, and as several had requested I'm going to do my best to do a bit of a breakdown of how the trip went against the plan and include any tips/advice I can. Overall the trip was absolutely incredible, really enjoyed ourselves, but there were a few surprises and things along the way; some stuff was exactly like we expected, other things were really quite different. Of course various things went wrong as well (they always do!) and we didn't stick religiously to what we planned (we never really intended to; but it's hard to know whether you've tried to include too much or not).
Day 0/1:
We stayed at a hotel with a "Runway view" at Heathrow which was pretty cool, watching planes coming into land etc. The flight was fine as well; first long-haul for me and found it pretty comfortable if a little long at 10hrs. Missed all the BA strikes luckily!
Getting off the plane in Vegas at about 7:30pm and through the TSA which was also no trouble, then stepping out onto the bridge to the parking garage (where the Uber pickup was) at 9:00pm and into
38 degree heat was a bit of a shocker for that time of night. Got the Uber to the Luxor easily enough, managed to score a free upgrade to one of their "West Tower Rooms" which was quite a bit nicer (but not in the Pyramid itself). As expected we were shattered, but real hungry, so we ventured downstairs and grabbed some fruit and snacks then headed to bed.
Day 2:
Headed to the Pyramid cafe for breakfast, food was good and I appreciated the constant coffee (Mrs.Rufus not so much, she's more of a tea drinker) but the cafe was a bit overwhelming; it's right in the middle of the Casino floor, so bright flashing lights all around you, and very smokey (as all the Casinos are).
But anyway after eating we headed out on foot; we walked along the strip as planned, our route was something like Luxor -> Excalibur -> New York New York -> MGM Grand -> Cosmopolitan -> Bellagio -> Caesar's Palace -> Linq -> Venetian where we eventually stopped for lunch. The heat in the day was pretty extreme; low 40s. Vegas was actually
less scummy than I thought it would be - it was obviously a bit tacky/cheesy and busy, but (especially in hindsight as you'll see later in this write-up) it wasn't too
dirty and although I know it does have some issues with homeless etc. the strip seemed to be fairly isolated from it.
The Casinos were all larger-than-life and just a great spectacle to see, although the quality and strength of the theming varies wildly. We didn't really gamble on this day as we were just too captivated wondering around! After lunch we walked back via a similar(ish) sort of route, to be honest it was probably a bit too much walking in that heat (my fitbit clocked 25k+ steps by the end of the day) and our legs were sore. Once we got back we got picked up by Maverick tours to go on the Helicopter.
Helicopter was fantastic, can't recommend Maverick enough - really professional and well organised. The actual experience was really cool but pretty terrifying as well (you have the distinct feeling that "if this thing crashes we are all just done") but great views of everything and a knowledgeable pilot. Landing in the Canyon itself was really cool too; the main thing that hit us (other than the heat) was how
silent it was, like almost
too silent if that makes sense? No city sound no animal sounds not even really any wind or anything just absolute void-like silence. After some champagne and hanging out for a while we flew back which was also amazing - coming over the final mountains just at sunset and then seeing the strip etc. from above with all the lights; really enjoyed it.
As if this day couldn't be any more action packed we then headed out again to go to the Linq and go on the High Roller - we walked to the MGM Grand and took the monorail though to save on some walking. The High Roller was
okay but in hindsight I think we'd have given it a miss. The view was good (though not as good as from the helicopter!) but the company was not (in our case a group of 8 extremely drunk and irritating Americans who spent almost the whole ride hooting and irritating us - bah humbug I say!). Finished the night checking out the Bellagio fountain which was impressive to see, and then finally got back and to bed (phew! see what I mean about it being a lot to pack in?!)
Day 3:
Knowing that we'd be tired/sore after the mammoth day we had before, we had already stopped on our walk back the previous day to buy snacks, so we took our time instead on this morning; heading down for breakfast just before we were due to be picked up. After some confusion with the pickup point we met the Pink Jeep (more of a minibus tbh) and were on our way. The tour guide was once again really knowledgeable and it was an interesting drive to the Dam. Once we got there we left the bus and walked out onto the top of the Dam with our guide - it was
so hot here, I had coped okay with the heat so far but there were moments here walking about trying to listen to the guide that I legit thought I was about to keel over (but I was fine
)
Loved the Dam, everything about it was really interesting; we went down to the powerplant at the bottom in the lift (after going through extremely strict security TSA style), stood on top of one of the huge pipes carrying the water. Well worth going. Once this was done we were driven back, got changed and grabbed an Uber to the Mob Museum. Another awesome experience, I love a good museum and it was interesting to see all the history of Vegas and the mob; the Museum is pretty big and definitely worth the money. After that we went for dinner at a place nearby - Pizza Rock, which was delicious, and then wandered around Fremont Street. This had a different feel to the strip; smaller in scale but much brighter and louder, combined with an extremely strong wind for some reason it was a bit too crazy for us! Still glad to have seen it, but we didn't linger for long as we had to get back to the MGM Grand for the show.
Annoyingly the show wouldn't let me bring my small rucksack in which meant walking to the bell desk at the Grand to drop it off (which was quite a long walk) but once that was done we were into the show - "Ka". The tickets were expensive but worth it I think; it was really well done and such a spectacle to see. Kind of hard to describe but the specially constructed stage had all these giant moving platforms which they put to really creative uses throughout; all top notch stuff!
With that done and our time in Vegas drawing to a close we spent a last few hours on the strip. We'd been so busy that we'd not really done any gambling; to be honest I guess it was a combination of it not really interesting us that much, and (silly as it sounds) it's kind of intimidating when you're there. Especially the idea of approaching one of the larger Craps/Roulette tables with bigger groups of rowdy people at them (as a complete noob). Still, it was the done thing so we played a few slots, got some chips and played on some of the quieter tables. I dunno though it just wasn't particularly exciting to us, probably just not our thing, but ticked off the list at least
Day 4:
A final breakfast and we hopped into an Uber to the car rental place. We used a self-service kiosk to register to pick up the car, which was nice and easy, then headed into the parking garage to find the car. The didn't have a Nissan Maxima, in fact the
only car they had in the class we were due was a Chrysler 500, which seemed fine - and our cases all fit into the trunk which was a relief! It surprised us a bit how little the rental place (Alamo) tried to help us or provide any sort of instruction whatsoever; I expect if we had been more insistent they might have done but nobody showed us a single thing.
But here is where the first major mess up happened! (Some things are always bound to go wrong!). As we drove out of the rental place we had to pull up to a kiosk/barrier, the guy in the booth (a trainee) took my passport, license, credit card, various papers from trailfinders etc. to process them. He handed them back and we drove off. The driving didn't take long to get used to and the car handled really well, an hour or so later we pulled up in Pahrump at "Mom's Diner" and headed inside for lunch. Then I noticed I didn't have my credit card
we are pretty sure that the guy in the booth forgot to hand it back, and we failed to notice amongst all the other stuff we were passing about. After a quick attempt to call the rental place they didn't seem to think they had it, and since we couldn't find it we called Virgin and had them block the card just in case. Luckily Mrs.Rufus had a 2nd card for the account so not the end of the world.
After lunch and a trip to Walmart we drove the rest of the way to Death Valley. Stopped at Dante's View (which was incredible and well worth the detour) and Zabriske Point (less impressive but still worth seeing,
much hotter due to the lower altitude) and arrived at Furnace Creek. The heat was unreal but the place we were staying had a spring-fed pool which was a welcome way to cool off. Pretty chilled evening, we grabbed some food (extremely expensive though as this place was the only one for miles) and watched the stars for a bit.
Day 5:
Not too much to report this day, 6 and a bit hours of driving. The first part of the drive from Furnace Creek to Big Pine was incredible, over some winding Death Valley mountains and huge desert flats. At one point there were a pair of Jets training above us (can it get more American?) and it was interesting to see the landscape gradually getting greener as the massive mountain range to the south of Yosemite started to come into view.
The middle part of the journey was tough though - not quite what I expected but ~3 hours of driving in almost a dead-straight line starts to get
really tiring. So I was glad once we got to Bishop and stopped for lunch at Erik Schaat's dutch bakery. There was a lovely city park across the street which we sat in for lunch and went for a walk by the duck pond there. Once we were done we headed out towards Yosemite. Much more interesting driving along winding roads through the Tioga Pass. We did stop at Tuolomne Meadows for a short walk, and at Tenaya Lake which was really beautiful. Then a while later we stopped at Tunnel View since we were driving right past it around sunset time - really breathtaking.
We made it to Fish Camp and Tenaya Lodge and settled in for the night. It seemed like a pretty posh place, very expensive food (another case of an isolated place with few alternatives) but quite a nice room (though we quickly found the walls/ceilings to be a bit thin; nothing earplugs couldn't fix).
Day 6:
We were worried about how busy Yosemite might be so we decided to head straight to the Valley in the morning, instead of stopping along the way (plus we had seen Tunnel View the day before). We parked up in a spot just slightly along from the 4-mile trail trailhead and got started. What an incredible hike - it seemed like every 5 minutes you would turn a corner and come upon the most amazing view you'd ever seen, only to have it topped by the next one. It was steep and quite hard going with a lot of switchbacks, and eventually some
massive drops over the edges (I'm okay with heights but even then found it pretty wild). At one point I suddenly spotted a rattlesnake on the trail ahead, it was on the inside edge with a bit of a drop on the other side. We waited to see if it would move but it wouldn't, so eventually had to just carefully side-step past it one by one; it rattled briefly but was otherwise okay.
The hike was really tough, I think it took us about 3 hours and was well worth it. We grabbed some lunch at the top of Glacier Point and admired the view. Looking at the time though we decided that the longer route down which we had planned would likely take too long, and we didn't want to risk it getting dark before we got down. So we headed back down the same way we came up (by this point we already knew we wanted to come back to Yosemite for longer someday, so figured we will do the other route then
)
Suffice to say by the time we had got back down and to the car our legs were knackered, so we headed back to the Lodge, grabbed dinner and hit the hay.
Day 7:
Unsurprisingly we were feeling seriously sore from the previous day, but we grabbed some breakfast and headed out to Mariposa Grove, which is right next to Fish Camp. This was lovely, and thankfully a fairly flat route (we walked around the Grizzly Giant loop). After that we drove the rest of the way to the Valley (it's about an hour away, which would get annoying quickly if you were there for longer I think). We got some lunch and spent the rest of the day wandering around the flatter parts of the valley.
Didn't really do any major hikes but went to the base of Yosemite falls (which itself was just a trickle as expected this time of year) and walked around the meadow area, saw the chapel. All in all it was just a beautiful place to experience, although comparing it to the previous day you certainly notice the presence of crowds a lot more in the more accessible areas. The falls in particular were absolutely rammed with people, but it can't really take away from how spectacular it all is.
So a slightly sad drive back to the lodge knowing we wouldn't be returning to the valley, but I'm sure we will come back; I could happily spend a week or two just in Yosemite, there seem to be AirBNBs that are inside the park in little condos about 15-20mins from the valley which I think is what I'd look to do.
Day 8:
We were up very early for another fairly long drive to San Francisco; pretty easy going, with the last stretch across the bridge from Oakland and around the city to get to our hotel being a bit on the busy side. The Hotel Zephyr was pretty trendy and right on the wharf, but we didn't have much time to see it as we headed straight out to walk towards the bike shop. We stopped at Inn n Out to grab burgers and ate them in the little park at the far end of the wharf. After our days in Yosemite the contrast to Fisherman's Wharf was pretty stark; it's very busy and touristy and with that comes quite a lot of rubbish and mess everywhere (though Vegas was just as touristy but was comparatively clean), and you can't avoid noticing how many homeless people were
everywhere. California in general has a pretty big problem with this but we didn't feel it anywhere stronger than in San Francisco. More on this later.
We turned up at Blazing Saddles and they played us a cringey safety video, then quickly gave us bikes, maps, helmets, locks and ferry tickets for the return journey later and we were on our way! The ride to the bridge was a bit further than I expected but nice and flat apart from the approach to the bridge itself (not surprisingly). But man was it windy! Not just a breeze and not really "gusty" (thankfully) but just a near constant strong wind the whole way (I expected it to be blowy up on the bridge itself, and it was, but the rest of the route to) This made the cycling pretty tough and although she did fine in the end I think Mrs.Rufus was having a hard time simply staying upright on the bike. It was cool to see the bridge up close as we cycled across it; good that they separate pedestrian and bike traffic (one on each side of the road) and then the rest of the cycle to Sausalito was pleasant too (but not off-road as they advertise)
We had some ice cream in Sausalito and explored a little bit, after paying the $3 each to park our bikes. To carry on our recurring theme it was just too late in the day at that point to fit in our planned shuttle to Muir Woods and back (and to be honest my legs were still pretty sore). Now here's another tip - if you go to Sausalito like this with the intention of getting the Ferry back, get in that Ferry queue
as early as possible... Blazing Saddles said nothing about this but the Ferry seems to always be massively oversubscribed and there actually aren't that many (and even then there are only a few that go to the main part of the Wharf). So by not getting in the queue 1+ hour before the Ferry we intended to catch (the last one going to the Wharf) we ended up stuck in the queue for a further hour and a bit (and even then we were
almost too far back in the queue for the next Ferry). The later Ferry dropped us at the Ferry Building at the opposite end of the Wharf to the cycle shop (apparently they have another dropoff point nearby but will charge you $20 per bike to drop it there; what a scam). So we cycled the length of the Wharf and managed to drop the bikes of just in time (of course, if we'd been late they'd have charged us a late drop off fee).
So although we enjoyed it overall I think my advice would be not to bother cycling - the bridge would have been just as enjoyable on foot, you can get a bus from the other end of it to Sausalito, the queue for the Ferry prioritises non-biking passengers. We got some dinner from the big sourdough bakery/bistro on the Wharf and turned in.
Day 9:
Boy oh boy... this is the big one... I'm aware I sound a bit complain-y but it's really just in an effort to give advice to anyone planning, plus the catharsis of venting about things. So here we go. If you are planning to go to Alcatraz,
do not buy your ticket from anyone other than the official Alcatraz Cruises company. In particular steer well clear of "Skyline Sightseeing". In our case this was all bought for us via Trailfinders so we hadn't really done any research and trusted them to go with a reputable seller.
We got up an had breakfast at an IHOP around the corner, then immediately headed to Skyline Sightseeing which was also close by. You could tell as soon as you walked in there that this was not a very professional establishment - it was a bit of a mess and there were already another couple in there seemingly making a complaint. We presented our booking receipt and the loud woman running the desk looked it up on her computer and said "we've got your tickets for tomorrow". No, no, we replied - we booked for today, as we would be leaving town the next day. After trying to insist on it and then going into a back room and loudly arguing with someone else she came back and said "we made a mistake" (note the lack of any sort of apology). We pointed out that having booked almost a year in advance it wasn't acceptable and they said there was nothing they could do.
After further insistence on our part the woman handed us off to this hipster vegan looking guy who "made some calls" and apparently was able to find us a ticket from one of their "partners" whatever that means? They instructed us to follow him to their office a few blocks away and with little to lose we went along (after raging at them a bit more
). We walked a couple of blocks away and came to this tiny hole-in-the-wall style booth with a single guy in it - the hipster guy said "okay these are the guys I was telling you about, alright cool!" and more or less
ran off before we could say anything else. We had a chat to the guy, he said he did have tickets for today and they'd be $150 a piece which is apparently what we had paid via Trailfinders (and is a total ripoff, more on that later). We took a minute to think about it and tried to Google for any kind of reviews/credibility for this guys "company" and couldn't find anything negative. So we paid the $300; he then said we would have to come back to his booth at ~14:00 to get the tickets (Alcatraz was at 15:00 or 15:30 I forget)
Feeling a bit nervous we figured we'll just try to put it behind us and headed off on the open top bus tour that was part of the Alcatraz package. This was enjoyable enough and the history put forth by the tourguide was nice to hear, saw some great architecture and some spots I think we would have liked to visit on foot if we had more time (but we couldn't take much advantage of the hop-on-hop off nature of the tour since we had to be back to get the tickets). There were a few spots on the tour where the rife poverty in the city were a little bit starkly on display - we went down a road around the Tenderloin area and there were just hundreds of homeless people lining the streets in tents etc. and the tourguide just kind of joked about it, which didn't really sit right with me.
But anyway, we got back and headed back to that little booth (half expecting it to no longer exist) and met up with the guy again. He handed us our "tickets" which was actually just a printed out bit of paper confirmation from the
actual Alcatraz Cruise Company website. Curiously it said "Qty: 3" rather than 2 - he had some vague explanation; that the tickets were from a previous person who cancelled, or that he'd also sold a single ticket to someone else and the confirmation came through separately. At this point we were so sick of it all so we just shrugged and headed down to the Pier where the boats set off for the island. We grabbed some lunch and waited for our allotted tour to start boarding.
But it wasn't over! When we got to the front of the queue to board the boat the guy scanned our tickets and "these tickets are for tomorrow"
... honestly couldn't believe it at this point. Sure enough it said right there on the ticket but I guess with the stress of the whole thing we hadn't checked. We were furious, and rushed back to the booth to confront the guy. In fairness he did seem genuinely sorry - he gave us the $300 back and said not to worry about the bus tickets. He couldn't get us anymore tickets that day (offered some for the next day lol) but also suggested if we were really keen to go we could wait around by the touring company's official box office and see if we could score some no-show or cancellation tickets.
The day was already pretty much ruined by this point so we figured we might as well do that, and 2 hours of waiting later we managed to score 2 tickets for the
final tour of the day (a sunset tour) - one ticket was for free (someone who got them as a corporate gift and had too many for her group) and the other one we bought from a couple whose son was sick and couldn't make it; we paid full face value for it; $45 -
$45!!!!! Seriously people
do not use these third part companies, ever!!!
The silver lining to all this was when we did finally get there the tour was
amazing and really worth that ordeal even; we soon forgot about the stress of the day and had such a fascinating time wandering around. You get an audio tour that guides you about, with background noise to give you the feeling of being there when the prison was operating, and interviews with ex-guards, inmates and so on. Being the "sunset" tour it was gradually getting darker and the latter half of the tour was at night which was creepy and awesome. Definitely recommended - in fact I would say don't bother with San Francisco itself at all; just aim to stop there for the day and fit in Alcatraz then head somewhere nicer
Am I right in thinking if I had say $100 then there are going to be some "noob" tables where the buy-in is a silly low amount like $5, so we'd effectively get 20 "goes" for $100 (simplifying a bit obviously)? If so then I feel like that would be more than enough to tick it off the list without wasting too much time (maybe get a cup of quarters for the slot machines as well)