A Weekend Trip to Vegas with My Teen Daughter
Four years ago, I took Ella on our first one-on-one trip to New York City.
We had the best time and now, four years later, it was time for our next one-on-one trip (I have a whole post about these one-on-one trips, if you’re curious!).
Originally, Ella had been thinking she wanted to do Disney World but as we looked into it more, she realized it wasn’t all that different from Disneyland and would cost us quite a bit in plane tickets (the cheapest tickets we could find were around $500 each).
As we discussed further, she realized the things she most wanted to do on our trip together was go to some great restaurants (she especially wanted to do a tasting menu), get a facial, and see a show.
It quickly became clear that Las Vegas could provide all those things and had the perks of being drivable (which not only saved us a lot of money but also gave her a lot of driving hours toward her license this summer) and we could stay at a very nice hotel for much less than many other cities.
So Vegas it was!
She spent weeks researching restaurants and a week or so before our trip we made all our reservations. We also had a short list of other possibilities for things that we’d like to do that we could slot in as we felt like it during the weekend.
Here’s what our trip to Vegas looked like:
Day #1:
Ella went to school and I worked as usual and when she got home, we packed up and got on the road just after 4 p.m. She drove until we got to Cedar City where we made a quick stop for dinner at Seven Brothers (I ordered it through DoorDash so it was ready when we arrived and we used the bathrooms and were back on the road within 8 minutes). I drove while Ella ate – she also didn’t want to drive through the Gorge – and after we got through the Gorge, we pulled over and got gas and switched back to her driving so she could get some of the required night hours.
We arrived at our hotel (the Fontainebleau) and checked in and we got her a smoothie and then settled into our two queen beds in our pajamas to watch To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before before going to bed.
Day #2:
The next morning, I woke up around 7 a.m. and worked in the bathroom while Ella slept for a while more and then we both got on our swimsuits and coverups and headed down to grab some breakfast.
Our plan was to just grab something quickly from one of the little cafes at the hotel, but then we stopped to look at the menu at La Fontaine and we decided to eat there instead. Ella had the soufflé pancakes (amazing!) and I had a very excellent smoked salmon eggs Benedict.
After breakfast, we dropped our leftovers in our room fridge and then headed down to the pool. The weather was just barely warm (around 70 degrees) and the regular pool felt too chilly but the gigantic hot tub was perfect and totally empty. We chatted and made up some synchronized swim moves and finally went back to our pool chairs to read for a bit.
We had booked facials for the afternoon in Chinatown (it was much more affordable than at the hotel spa, plus the hotel spa didn’t allow kids under 18), so we headed back up to our room, changed out of our swimsuits and drove over to Chinatown. We had a little time to burn so we stopped at our favorite boba place in Chinatown where we’ve been multiple times when we’ve come to visit my parents in Las Vegas.
Boba finished, we headed to the spa and checked in. We each had a terrific facial (they did them in the same room, which was nice) and Ella said she could tell I’d fallen asleep during mine because I was softly snoring!
Afterward, we went over to 85°C Bakery and got a couple of treats to share before going over to 99 Ranch Market to get some treats to take home to the girls, plus some treats and snacks for us.
Then back to the hotel. We showered and dressed up for dinner and then headed out to the main attraction of this trip – the tasting menu!
Ella had looked at a bunch of options and chose Partage because not only did it have great reviews but they change their menu every single month, so it would be a total surprise what we’d have in each course (she felt like at many of the other restaurants she knew exactly what we’d be eating and that was less exciting for her).
The restaurant was beautiful and we had the option to choose a 5, 7 or 9 course option. We went with the 7 course and started with two mocktails before the courses started coming.
It was TERRIFIC. There wasn’t a single dud of a course and the octopus and the sea bass dishes were our favorites. The wait staff was top notch and overall, we couldn’t have asked for a better meal.
After dinner, we decided to go check out the Meow Wolf art installation which we’d seen recommended on every list of things for teens to do in Vegas. I knew zero about Meow Wolf (I’d never heard of it until we were researching for this trip) but it was a four minute drive from the restaurant and we grabbed tickets and went in.
It is the trippiest interactive experience with a million things to look at and explore and play with and we spent over an hour enjoying it until we were both getting pretty tired.
We’d planned to watch the second To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before movie, but by the time we got back to our hotel around 10 p.m., we were both beat. We quickly changed into pjs, hopped into bed, and were both asleep within moments.
Day #3:
I woke up around 7 and worked until Ella woke up around 9 a.m.
Ella had booked us for brunch at Palate but it didn’t open until 11, so we had a little time to burn.
I’d looked up independent bookstores and there was one pretty close to our brunch spot, so we got ready and drove over to The Writer’s Block, which I’d never been to (or even heard of before this trip).
It was SO cute and fun – maybe one of the coolest bookstores I’ve ever been to – and we had the best time looking around.
Ella loves to bake so she made a beeline to the cookbook section and after she flipped through Dessert Person, we ended up buying it as a souvenir of this trip.
Now it was about time for brunch, so we drove over to Palate and sat down. It was a really fun vibe (and not busy at all, which surprised me!).
The menu looked insane and we finally settled on the biscuits, the overnight pancakes with strawberry compote and passion fruit cream and the pork belly fried rice with kimchi and fried eggs.
Every single dish was amazing. The pancakes were maybe the best pancakes of my life and the biscuits were to die-for and the pork belly dish was a perfect complement to the sweeter dishes.
We definitely couldn’t finish them all, so we got them boxed up and went back to our hotel to drop them off.
The day before we’d booked an escape room at my parents’ favorite place (I’d been once and Ella had been multiple times during Grancie Camp over the years).
We had several hours until our appointment, so we drove down to M&M World, which was high on Ella’s list of places to visit. We parked at the nearby parking garage and then headed in – I thought I’d been before as a kid but it didn’t look familiar at all to me, so maybe I’d never been!
We had a great time sampling different flavors (the lemon meringue M&Ms were the winner and the peanut butter and jelly were the loser. Peanut butter cinnamon roll were pretty good and cherry chocolate cupcake were not great) and wandering around the four floors of the store checking out the merchandise.
Afterward, we stopped in at the Coca Cola Store then crossed the street to pop into Hershey’s Chocolate World (not nearly as fun as the M&M store for us), Nectar and Eatley.
We walked back to the car and drove over to Town Square where we wandered around for a bit before checking in for our escape room.
I was a little nervous that we’d be able to finish it in an hour since there were only two of us, but when we checked in, we realized the room we were doing – Antidote – was a standard room, not the moderate level we’d been expecting, which gave me way more hope.
And indeed, we finished with almost ten minutes to spare (and the help of some on-screen hints!).
Afterward, we walked over to Tamba for our dinner reservation.
It was our last real meal of the trip and it didn’t disappoint – we had four excellent dishes plus a delicious passion fruit lassi and we were out in plenty of time for our show (this was the only thing I’d been worried about on this trip but it wasn’t even close).
We drove back to the Strip and headed into the Palazzo to see Shin Lim. We bought tickets at the box office and the show was phenomenal. Perfect length, lots of laughs, and amazing magic.
During dinner, we’d looked up dessert places in the Palazzo and spotted the chocolate sphere dessert that they melt table-side with hot caramel and then it opens up into a banana cream pie dessert.
Banana cream pie is one of Ella’s all-time favorite desserts, so this was a no-brainer and we’d made a reservation during dinner for immediately after the show.
We walked over, got seated, and ordered our dessert which was just as impressive as promised. I thought it was good, but Ella – who loves banana cream pie – absolutely loved it.
After dessert, we headed back to our hotel room, got ready for bed and watched the second To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before movie and then went to sleep.
Day #4:
We got up and got ready for the day, packed up, and ate our brunch leftovers from the day before, then checked out and got on the road.
I drove until St. George where we filled up with gas and grabbed some bagels from Einstein Bagels for lunch and then Ella drove the rest of the way home.
On the drive, we spent quite a bit of time talking about what makes a trip like this work really well. I think it’s easier to go to a city where there are lots of things to do – it was fun to do the Texas treehouse with Ani a couple of years ago, but it was way more effort on my part because I was the main entertainment in a tiny town with not that much to do. Also, I think it helps to lean into what each parent loves to do – I’m a go-go-goer so a big city with lots of things to do is right up my alley, whereas Bart loves outdoors and adventure, so Ella suggested that their next trip together they might do surf lessons and deep sea fishing, both things she and Bart would love to do.
It was such a great trip and I truly don’t think it could have been better – I loved every second of it!
If you have any questions about this trip or our one-on-one trips in general, let me know and I’m happy to answer!
Sounds like such a great weekend!
Would you consider making a list of places the girls go with Bart? Even just a short sentence or 2: They went to San Diego and took surfing lessons, which both loved! (or hated or whatever). I just think it’s fun to see what idea they have 🙂