My last Friday 5 was for downtown Palm Springs and it was so fun. Every place we went was perfect and we took a ton of photos, which was the point (you can catch up on that post here if you missed it!). I figured the next place I should do is Las Vegas because I was going to visit my little sister. I wanted to show 5 Places to be Basic in Las Vegas without doing Vegas. We picked our 5 places, picked out outfits, then planned our schedule. Let’s just say that this trip didn’t go quite as well as Palm Springs. This edition kind of turned into places to NOT GO to be basic in Las Vegas.

Before we started our adventure, we took a side adventure to the Seven Magic Mountains. Are you really on Instagram if you didn’t take a photo with this colorful art installment? We thought not. I was going to add this to the 5 but it won’t be around forever. Last I read it was supposed to end in May I think, but I just checked and the website says at a minimum it will be up through the end of 2018, so if you haven’t gone there is still time!

Anyways, back to today’s program, 5 Places to maybe be basic in Las Vegas, plus a bonus location:

1- The Downtown Container Park, in downtown Fremont, is exactly what it sounds like, a shopping area made out of containers! The place is bordered with freight containers that were made into little shops, boutiques, and food places. The middle had basically a park. It was so unique! Some containers were vertical with three levels of little shops, and some were laid horizontal for larger shops. We took a lap, got gelato, and took pictures obviously. It is a cool place to take photos because it’s not your typical shopping center, not to mention the giant praying mantis statue out front that apparently blows fire at night?! A bonus to this place is that it is walking distance to one, Fremont Street, but also to a few street murals, and an old bus with meerkats. Yes I know that sounds weird, see the photos below to understand. This place was a definite good place.

2- Corduroy, a bar on Fremont street looked so cool on Instagram! There were a bunch of people with pictures in this little room with vertical lights (see below), and that is mainly why we went. We walked in literally 5 minutes after it opened, slightly overdressed, and it was a complete sausage fest. The bar was full of dudes and as soon as we walked in they all just turned and looked at us. Have you seen the movie Eurotrip? If you have, remember the nude beach scene when it was all guys? That was the basic feel. We couldn’t just back up back out the door, we had to act like the confident women we are(n’t) and act like we had purpose, which we did, find the light room. We made a B line for the back to where no one was. On our walk back we looked down both sides for the light room and didn’t see it anywhere! We straight up investigated this place and nothing. Once we got to the very back it was like our sanctuary, an empty room, full of neon painted walls with a black light and early 2000’s tunes playing. We had dance party for two for a quick minute then again made an escape. There were a couple cute places for photos we saw on our walk back up, what we are assuming was a VIP lounge area so we quickly took a picture before someone told us to get out, but the lighting really sucked. We finally made a break for it and literally rushed back out the front door past all the dudes, never to look back. This place was a definite NO! And get this! Later we saw a photo on Instagram of a girl in the light room and her location said it was where we were?! Was it hiding? Who knows, not us because we were too embarrassed to ask.

3- Park on Fremont is probably one of the cutest little restaurants we have eaten at. We found this place by accident on our walk of failure back from Fremont Street (after Corduroy we walked through Fremont which really is not pretty or cool during the day with its fake Moana’s and Transformer street actors, so we got about half way and decided we were done and turned around). We passed the patio of Park and it was so cute we went inside, WHICH WAS ALSO CUTE! It was sort of garden tea party themed with a dark side of Alice in Wonderland. We decided to get a snack and got a little pail of THE BEST SWEET POTATO TOTS I’VE EVER HAD. Photos on the patio came out great, it also looks like a place that would be super cute at night, they have all of the twinkle lights. When we were finished eating we went to use the restroom (also cute) and peeked out the back door onto the back patio and OH MY GOODNESS we wished we would have eaten back there! So tea party-ish and SO MANY good photo opportunities. Even the bike at the front door was Instagram worthy. This place literally saved our day, the best accident ever. A good place, GO THERE.

4- Mermaids at the Silverton Casino… Mermaids are all the rage, we all know this. So when we read you can see a “real” mermaid at the aquarium at the Silverton Casino heck yes we jumped on that! It was also listed as one of the best free attractions in Vegas (according to what Tabitha researched). The Silverton is not on the strip which is a plus, but it was still a tad out of the way, but who cares?! We were going to see a mermaid! We get there and walk in and immediately see a big fish tank. We are looking around for a sign that says “aquarium” and don’t see one. Next to this tank was the Mermaid Lounge, we figured this must be the whole aquarium… It’s cool, we took a front seat in the mermaid lounge and waited for the mermaid to make an appearance. There were a ton of kids sitting at the base of the tank waiting. Same we thought, if we could we would be at the base of the tank too. Finally at the top of the tank, we saw a fin! She was coming! She was… she was… wearing goggles? And a full body suit? And didn’t even have long mermaid hair? What kind of mermaid attraction was this? We just looked at each other and laughed that we came all the way over here for this. This one got a NO!

5- Flamingos at the Flamingo! We love pink and we love flamingos, so off to the Flamingo Hotel and Casino we went! This one is on the strip obviously, but it was the middle of the day, we thought it would be alright. We didn’t really know where to park and passed our first option that was by the Flamingo. It was cool we said we would turn at the next public parking. When we FINALLY found it and parked, we looked on maps for how long it would take to walk to where we were going, umm we were 1.1 miles away! Oops… So we walked, and just because it was the middle of the day did not mean the strip would be any less crowded. We walked like two girls on a mission and made it to the Flamingo! Through the casino we went to wear the real flamingos were and found them… In one tiny section, but hey, still got a photo of a real flamingo. We’d say this place was a good one, some of you may not agree but it was cute.

Bonus- Shakes at Cafe Hollywood in Planet Hollywood. This stop required an outfit change which we did in the restroom at the Flamingo. Again we mapped it and Planet Hollywood was about 0.4 miles away so again we took off. I was so pumped and ready for this shake because they looked SO GOOD on Instagram. Tabitha was being navigator and according to maps, took us through the doors right to the left of the PH entrance, into the mall area. WE CIRCLED THE ENTIRE THING AND DIDN’T FIND A MILKSHAKE. Finally when we got to the end of the shopping at the casino entrance we asked someone. They said go into the casino and it was on the right, like right there. We found it! It wasn’t crowded at all so we got seated right away. We told the waiter we just wanted milkshakes and couldn’t find the fun ones on the menu. He advised they weren’t on there and gave us the rundown. I don’t even remember the flavors they offered because I was deafened when he said they were $17! FOR A MILKSHAKE?! We went with one regular strawberry milkshake that was $7 (still expensive but better). We always say do it for the gram but we draw the line at a $17 milkshake. Our single strawberry milkshake came out quickly and I can’t event describe my feelings of hysteria when I saw it. Just reference the photo below, IT WAS SO SMALL. Like it looked so tiny in the waiter’s hand. I could barely respond when he asked if we needed anything else because I was about to explode into tears of laughter. Tab and I silently looked at each other in utter amazement and then broke out into the loudest muffled laughs ever. You know when you laugh so hard and you try to talk it kind of sounds like you’re literally sobbing? That was the two of us with our tiny $7 milkshake. Once we contained ourselves and took pitiful pictures, we drank it quickly (as in drank at a regular pace and it was gone quickly because it was so small) and got the hell out of there. The restaurant was next to the exit doors and as soon as we walked out WE SAW THE MALL DOORS WE HAD ENTERED THROUGH IN THE FIRST PLACE. 20 more feet and we would have saved ourselves from the entire scenic route through the mall. Again, we looked at each other and about died from laughter. Then we took off on our now 1.5 mile commute back to the car. What would you do for a photo with flamingos and a tiny AF milkshake? We walked a total of 3 miles for them. Sometimes #doitforthegram bites you in the butt, but you got to try! As you can probably get, this was a definite no.

Since this trip Tabitha has discovered some new Instagram worthy places so we will be planning a redo, and I am pretty excited for them. Until then take our advice (or don’t) and don’t hit the no spots. Look for the next Friday 5 post next month and happy Friday!