Viva Las Vegas with Teens

When I told people that we would be hitting up Las Vegas on the first leg of our summer vacation, I received a lot of strange looks from people. "Why are you taking the kids to Vegas? That's no place for young girls!" I get it. Vegas has a sex, drugs, and rock n' roll reputation, so I can see where the concern was coming from. But, in reality, we hardly came across anything seedy during our 3 days in the city. We went into our trip making no plans ahead of time. We were just going to go with the flow and scope out the attractions when we got there, basically doing everything on the fly. What we found was Las Vegas is a fantastic place for teens to explore. There's so much for them to do, there was never a dull moment!

You can't go to Las Vegas without taking in a show, and we found half price tickets on Groupon for The Popovich Comedy Pet Theater, so our first stop was at the V Theater. Here you can see domesticated animals, such as dogs, cats, birds, and even geese do a few circus tricks. The girls loved it, but here's my tip. Do not pay for upgraded floor seats. The seats on the floor are not staggered and if you have people in front of you, it is hard to see the entire stage. Stick with the cheap seats for a better view.

We also went to a showing of Cirque du Soleil's KA.  The girls thought this show was pretty good, but we thought it was going to have a lot of dragons and fire due to the pyrotechnics on stage before the show and the big dragon sculpture outside of the theater, but it did not. It was mostly martial arts, which were fantastically performed, but I think if you have girls, Cirque's O might be a better choice.

Walking through the major hotels like the Bellagio, Venetian, and Mandalay Bay offered free entertainment. Each hotel has unique sculptures, gardens, and artwork, we spent half a day walking through each one to admire the art.

My kids are thrill seekers, so we knew we weren't getting out of Circus Circus without a stop in the Adventuredome. Here you'll find an entire amusement park indoors, roller coaster included. But, be prepared to take a hit to the pocketbook because the rides are not cheap. One trip on the roller coaster was $15! They do have wristbands for unlimited riding that will save you cash if you plan to be there all day, but we were only taking a quick stroll through, so the girls just hopped on the coaster, then we left.

They were also very eager to get to the Stratosphere where you can ride the top thrill rides in Las Vegas. One of the rides was down, so they were only able to do the X-Scream, a ride that catapults you head first off the building and dangles you over 109 stories in the air, and also the Insanity, a giant mechanical arm that spins you out off the building and over the city. Again, these are not cheap, coming in at about $25 per ride, but after seeing t.v. shows on these rides over the years, my kids did not want to miss the opportunity to hop on them.

I'll be honest here and say that my girls have grown up going to Cedar Point frequently, which has some of the scariest rides in the country, so they were quite disappointed with both at the Stratosphere. My 13 year old commented, "That wasn't even scary!" when they got off the rides. There was a girl behind them crying because one ride scared her so much, she asked the girls, "What the hell is wrong with you two? That was terrifying!" So, if you are used to these kinds of thrill rides, you probably aren't going to get the rush most people are looking for when deciding to purchase the tickets. If not, hop aboard and be prepared to feel your heart pound.

If you hit up Fremont Street, you can zip line under the glitter of the Vegas lights, all the way down the shopping plaza.

If your kids aren't thrill seekers and need entertainments that's a little more tame, head over to The Venetian for a gondola ride. The gondolas go through the indoor shopping plaza, so you can ride them rain or shine.

Also, while you're at The Venetian, be sure to pop into Madam Tussaud's. The girls had a blast posing with their favorite celebrities!

There's quite a lively scene on Fremont Street after sundown. We went with the intentions of people watching and ended up stumbling upon a free Good Charlotte concert. We learned that you can catch free concerts of famous bands most weekends, but I imagine you have to get there early to get a good viewing spot. Since we stumbled upon it, we were way in the back, but we could still see the band members even though they were tiny on stage. But hey, free is free, right!? They do project the live recording on the lights of the ceiling, so even if you don't get a good view, you can see what's going on just by looking up towards the sky.

Of course, there's a lot of shopping to do in Las Vegas, but my kids were mostly drawn to the candy stores. They were in heaven browsing through It's Sugar, Hershey's, and M&M's World.

Additionally, there are no shortages of character photo opps on the Las Vegas Strip. You'll find all the popular characters to pose with (for a small donation, of course) like Mickey Mouse, Frozen, and even wicked cool Transformers.

As you can see, there were no shortages of clean, wholesome activities for my teens to participate in during our stay in Las Vegas. It may be called Sin City, but my girls had a blast with all of the less sinful things that Vegas has to offer.

Shows, rides, or just taking in the scenery, what would you do in Las Vegas first?