'Joolayee it's 6.35am' was the next thing I was aware of! Feck! Feck! We've slept in! We had 25 minutes to get up and ready. I had to have a shower and wash, dry my hair and pack everything away! I left the hotel at 7.05am with hair almost dry. Monique had checked out and hailed a cab. I finished my hair at the Kyoto in the toilets, while in there, a girl came in who looked 'Contiki' I asked her and yes! Not only was she 'Contiki', she was English, Rachael, I was super excited as she was the only other Brit I'd met. The entire bus so far is Aussie, mostly from Perth, except the odd Kiwi. I checked in and took my bag to the bus. Standing behind Rachael, I also met Amanda, Chinese, but living in NZ, we were chatting about how worried we were about getting paired up with a nutter as a roomy.

I sat next to Jenny from dinner the night before, she's a detective from Perth in Oz. We become bus buddies!

Aussie Rachel had bought Monique and I breakfast. So thoughtful! I had a piece of banana loaf.

Ty did a lot of talking and setting the rules. He introduced George the driver for the trip. George got a big cheer and Ty said 'You must've loaded your bag with sexy this morning George' Mep!

Some of Ty's introductions included 'Antiki's not allowed on this tour!' 'We go fast and party hard' 'Things will go wrong; we gotta role with the punches' 'gotta role with the tide into the ocean'

He gave us a list of words which might be different: Chips/fries, thongs/flip-flops, tomato sauce/ketchup, fanny packs/bum bags.

He gave us introductions to Las Vegas and told us that we would 'probably do some stupid stuff in Vegas'!

Strict rules were placed on being late, we were made to set our clocks 'it's 8.02 Contiki time'. If we're late we have to either donate to the charity jar, dance up and down the bus to a song of Ty's choice or stand up in front of the bus and sing headphone karaoke.

We stopped at a rest stop and I purchased water, gin and fruit. Jesus! It was hot! High 30's at least.

In the next leg of the journey we played a dating game. Shany got up and was blind folded. Three guys were picked (Trent, Danielle and Jordan), they were asked questions like blind date and then Shany picked Trent as her date for the night.

We passed through the Mojave Desert and tried to take pictures of the Joshua Trees from a moving bus. I had a wee snooze and sheets were passed round to sign up for the optionals. The sheets letting us know who we were paired up with was also handed round. I had been paired up with Amanda, the chinese girl and Jen had been paired up with Tiana. I was pleased with my pairing, glad i hadn't been placed with an 18 year old party animal. There had been talk that pairings were sometimes made alphabetically!?!

Just about lunchtime, we arrived in Vegas baby! We were at Harrah's right in the middle of the strip. We got off the bus and I'd never felt heat like it! 46 degrees! It was dry heat though, thank god!

Monique, Rachel and I had made a plan. We headed out on the strip to find a taxi to take us to the North outlet. A few other people (Ramana, Jen, Brooke, Ryan and Rachael) came along too). We walked through the Venetian! Amazing!!!

We had lunch in the food court first, I had a Baked Potato with sour cream. American stylee, but trying to be good and avoid the pizza, Chinese and burger joints! We split up after lunch as we were making slow progress. Jen and I went together and saw little until we reached the Guess shop later in the afternoon, where we met everyone else! Shopping was done! I bought a pair of sunglasses. Jen bought a bag!

It was a rush back to the taxi rank after this. When we get there 5 minutes after the 3.30pm meet-up time. We were only the second people there. The others soon arrived except for Ramana! We waited until 3.45pm when we had to leave in order to collect our room keys and bags at the allotted 4pm time. We were worried about Ramana as she had been left on her own at lunchtime. We didn't even know if she'd left. Maybe even abducted! Not a good start! Losing someone in the first couple of hours. She did turn up back at the hotel, apparently she had been held up in a shop.

Back at Harrah's, Tyson handed out the room keys, we exchanged room numbers with Monique et al and headed up. The room was massive, two double beds, not much of a view, but if I'd booked it myself it would have cost as much as what I paid for my entire Contiki trip!

Rachel, Monique and I went to the concierge and booked tickets for Criss Angel as we'd decided to rubber the Contiki variety show tomorrow night. We got ready to go out at night and headed to the bus at 6.15pm. Dinner was at an Italian, Buco di Bepo. Pizza, chicken pasta and salad were put on the table to share. I was sitting next to Rachel and Keith (aka Bruce) with Monique opposite. Chocolate cake was also dished out. A few gins were had and we settled up. When I was walking out with Bruce the server said that our table bill was $8 short, so I paid an additional $10 to settle it, despite Jen and wee Ryan's drinks not being on the bill but them putting money in. When Tyson got back on the bus, the bill for his table was $30 short too and nobody owned up to it, so he had to settle it.

The bus then headed for a tour of the strip. It stopped at the Las Vegas sign but it was difficult to get photos in the dark. Tyson wasn't very well at all and by the time we got to the other end of the strip he had to make George stop so he could get off the bus. He came back on and said that he'd spoken to the manager of the wedding chapel he'd gone into; there was a wedding currently on and we were allowed to go in and take pictures. We were let into the chapel and asked to sit in the pews. There were so many of us there were crowds at the back. The guy up on the podium welcomed us and asked Shany and Trent, from the dating game earlier to come up and get married. We were all shouting and cheering. Then he ran out through the crowd at the back. Nobody was sure what was going on...then...Elvis came in singing!! It was so funny! We were all singing and cheering. A comedy ceremony was performed. This was the 'surprise' optional we signed up to in the sheet earlier.

We got back on the bus and continued the tour. We went to Fremont Street, where the four original casinos are, Golden Nugget, 4 Queens, Binioni's and Fremont. Jen and I nipped into the Fremont for the toilet. We then went to Binioni's as this is where the original poker tournaments were played (big up G-man ;) one for you). We got our pictures taken with a $1 million stack of real cash. We got giant drinks! Then headed into the street to watch the show at 10pm on the TV screen with 15 million bulbs in it, the entire length of the street; 6 football pitches.

Back on the bus, we were then taken to Pure nightclub in Caesar's Palace to meet the club promoter. We were lined up in two lines, girls and boys, then the girls were given wristbands to give them free alcohol until midnight. We were all then told to calm down because we were too drunk to get in. We were then let in VIP. Drinks and dancing on the balcony overlooking the strip then followed. The girls in our group (Rachel, Monique, Jen, Elise, Brooke, Shelley) headed to New York, New York to go on the roller coaster. One of my favourite hotels! It was closed by the time we got there. We played in some of the arcades, went to the Irish Bar where there was live music and we got the bar up dancing. Then headed to Coyote Ugly, Rachel and Elise got on the stage, the girl was trying to get me up, but there was nooooooo way! In all honesty, the Coyote Ugly bar in Magaluf is better. The dancers are better and it's more wooden and wild west!

We left and headed to Micky D's and headed to bed early about 3.30am, as we wanted to be up early for breakfast at 8.30am and a full day in Las Vegas!