......Cirque Du Soleil Ka....If anyone has any mid-priced places you really like, let me know.
All the Cirque shows in Vegas are great. Over the years (I have to go there once a year for a seminar, several times in the past 35 years for conventions, and a couple family functions, weddings, birthday celebration) I have seen -O-, KA, Beatles Love, Mystere, several twice, one three times. I hope to see Elvis Cirque next Feb. Good choice, Krista.
As for restaurants, maybe look into Battista's Hole In the Wall.
http://www.battistaslasvegas.com/ Old time Vegas dining, back when Sinatra and the like were doing the town. It is a great restaurant, good atmosphere.
....People approaching you? I have a day all to myself on one the days we are at the Hard Rock (not our first choice because of location, but it's where his conference is). I am planning to walk up to the Strip and roam around that day, and then roam back to the hotel. I'm sure the maps make it look shorter and easier, but the actual distance looks like only a little over a mile to walk up Harmon or Flamingo streets to the Strip. I can walk a mile, but I would like a first-hand perspective on it. If it's too scary, since I'll be alone I will just take a taxi.
We will take a taxi from the Hard Rock to the MGM on the day we move. It looks like the driver should be able to take Paradise Road to Tropicana and over to the MGM. Friends of ours who go to Vegas many times a year have told us to ask taxi drivers to take Paradise over to a cross street and up to the Strip, and to completely avoid riding in a car/taxi anywhere on Las Vegas Blvd/The Strip.
I'm sorry you didn't enjoy yourselves. Since we "have" to go for work, then I'm planning to make the most of it even if afterward we have no desire to ever go back. I just wish we were in the MGM or another big Strip hotel the whole time.
You will be approached, but not touched, by the ubiquitous porn slappers. They will come close to you, put the fliers in your face, but, not touch you.
The distances, as said, can be very deceiving, due to the monstrous size of the various resorts, signs, etc. You might look at walking from the Grand Floridian to the Contemporary (actually can't walk it, but..) as not too bad a walk, but it is a long way, if you could walk it.
I do not gamble nor party either, I am a financial planner and goes against my grain, LOL, to gamble. Just not fun for me. But the town is great to see, at lease once. It really is spectacular. But for me, the best part of a Vegas trip is the ride to the airport to go home. But the food, shows (most of them), shopping, site seeing, is really good.
.....It still shocks me that people go to Vegas for reasons other then to drink and gamble LOL. But then it also blows me away that people without kids choose to get married at disney or spend that much to go there with no kids??? If you are with no kids find some bargains to Europe or the caribbean or something.
I go to LV for above reasons, never to gamble or drink. I go to Disney, usually twice a year, have had my kids there twice in the past eleven years. My trips are usually solo, but like Krista, meet many folks there whom I have made good friends with over the years, Krista and her mom among them.
). Hash House-a-Go-Go in the Imperial Palace has HUGE servings. Firefly on Paradise (on Paradise Road, obviously, in a small strip plaza a few hundred feet north of East Flamingo, opposite the Wells Fargo office) has really good tapas.
. No time yet to see much, but we have a nice view from the 18th floor. The Hard Rock is a nice resort, but it's probably not going to be my favorite style-wise. Looking forward to seeing others and trying the MGM. 
This was around Circus Circus. We made it back to our rooms alright but we were all a bit shaken and nervous. It did make for a good story though!
We're eating dinner at the Hard Rock on Friday.
