Bright Lights of Vegas

Did you hear about the transformer blowing in Vegas last week? Took out power to Mandalay Bay, Luxor, and Excalibur. For those of you not familiar with Vegas (and why I haven't converted you yet, I'm not sure!), Excalibur sits on a major corner of the strip with the Tropicana across the street, MGM kitty-corner, and NYNY across the other street.

As "luck" would have it, someone I know was staying at the Excalibur but happened to be at Mandalay Bay when the power blew. Here's what she had to say:

1. They happened to be walking through the casino when it blew. She grabbed a chair and held on, thinking they didn't know how long it would be out and she might want to sit down as time went by. It was pitch black because there are no windows in casinos (part of their ploy to keep you there longer not knowing what time it is.) She said it was at least one minute before their generators kicked in. (Could this be any more like Oceans 11, 12, and 13??) After the generator kicked on, she said casino people were scrambling to go to each individual machine where people were playing and had to open them up and figure out how much money the player had in the machine and pay them out in cash.

2. My friend and her husband decided to walk back to Excalibur, but walked out and saw a HUGE traffic jam because the light at that corner where those big hotels are was also out. They decided to people-watch, and she said it took an HOUR for a cop to come and start directing traffic at that light.

3. When they went back into their hotel they found that:
A: All the elevators and stairs were shut down. (The stairs automatically lock in case of a power outage.)
B: Their room keys no longer worked because the power going out automatically scrambles all the lock codes for the rooms.
C: There was a lady (youngish) in the lobby dressed only in a towel because she was on the 28th floor, taking a shower, when the power went out, and she freaked out and ran down 28 flights of stairs dressed only in a towel. Why hotel management didn't help her out is beyond me, but I'm sure they were busy!

4. My friend said from the time the power went out until the time it was fully back on and they were able to go back into their room was about 3.5 hours.

When you couple this with the recent fire at the Monte Carlo, you've gotta wonder why anyone would want to go there, but all I can say is I CAN'T WAIT TO GO BACK!!!!