It’s always Tiki Time in Las Vegas at Frankie’s Tiki Lounge. This is one of those cool lit­tle bars that you won’t find among all the resorts on the Strip. It’s a bit of time travel and a vaca­tion from your vaca­tion. It looks weird enough to belong in Las Vegas, but I found the folks inside were pretty cool. They just like their tiki idols and all things South Pacific.

Of course, they haven’t lost sight of the fact that they’re firmly entrenched in Las Vegas. Check out some of the tiki idols and you’ll see a stack of chips or a pair of Aces. If that doesn’t make your day, there’s always free rum tomorrow!

One of the things that I’ve done over the past decade is make a tra­di­tion of spend­ing Christ­mas in Las Vegas. Those cou­ple of weeks between the end of the National Finals Rodeo and New Year’s Eve are often pretty good for me. The room prices are low and most of the crowds have gone to hang out with their own fam­ily. If that wasn’t enough, the cock­tail wait­resses at Hard Rock Hotel have killer Santa’s Lit­tle Helper uniforms.

The few times that I’ve tried some­thing else, my vaca­tion never worked out as well. One year I stayed at the Wilder­ness Lodge at Walt Dis­ney World and a cou­ple of years ago I went to South Seas Resort in Cap­tiva, FL. Both of those options were rather expen­sive — about $350/​night for a room that wasn’t as nice as the same room I could’ve got­ten for $50/​night (or free) in Las Vegas.

On the other hand, my mother hates it when I’m out of town for Christ­mas. I stayed home at this time last year to spend time with the fam­ily. It was nice in some ways, but there were so many vis­i­tors that I didn’t know, at times I felt like I wasn’t in the home where I grew up. I love my fam­ily, but some­times I have to do my own thing.

Las Vegas is there and wait­ing for me. The only hes­i­ta­tion I have this year is the detestable cost of the flights. It seems like they’ve dou­bled or tripled since the last time I made this trip. Even so, fly­ing to Vegas and sav­ing money on a nice resort out there is still cheaper than if I stayed at a Dis­ney resort here in my home town.

I love pho­tograph­ing Las Vegas. There’s always some­thing I haven’t cap­tured yet, which makes it easy to go back there. That, and they seem to have great restau­rants all over the place.

Part of me would con­sider going some­where else if I’d done some plan­ning ahead of time, but it’s too late for that. Now I just have to decide if I want to suck it up on the flight costs and go to Las Vegas, or stay home and make my mother happy.

I’ll let you know how it works out.

Tiki Time in Las Vegas