What could go wrong, went wrong.

Even down to the timeshare where we staying not having wireless Internet access — or a business center that allows the use of thumb drives. (I mean, really?)

Our Vegas adventure started innocently enough.

A group of us decided to take a weekend jaunt to Sin City to use a timeshare one of my girlfriends owns. We found an available weekend — a tiny miracle among five professional women — and booked our flights.

Then it went downhill from there.

First, the Continental Airlines flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles was at capacity, so overhead bin space was at a premium. One of my girlfriends had to rearrange her roller board to pass inspection at the gate.

Then I had to change seats twice to accommodate passengers who wanted to sit together but didn’t book early enough. (Another girlfriend had to move, too, once she was on the plane.)

All that was manageable enough.

It was the plane turning around mid-flight to Los Angeles — then flying in circles for hours to burn fuel before landing — that really sent our vacation spiraling downhill.

Due to some mechanical problem involving the word, “auxiliary,” our plane had to return to Honolulu and its passengers — us — had to re-board another.

We left Honolulu at 8 p.m., returned just after midnight, and boarded a second plane after 1 a.m. It had been five hours since we took off the first time — and we were still in Hawaii!

It just didn’t end. The flight crew on Continental was anything but friendly and sympathetic. (We didn’t get free food much less a smile from these flight attendants.) Then, once we landed in LAX, we were told we were rebooked on separate flights, including one leaving the next day. And my laptop bag broke.

In the meantime, our other girlfriend, who booked a different flight altogether, was waiting in Vegas for us.

It just didn’t end!

But by some stroke of luck — hey, we were heading to Vegas, after all — we all managed to get on the 4:10 p.m. flight — three of us actually sitting together — and made it to our final destination, albeit 20 hours later.

We lost an entire day, much-needed sleep and faith that this trip wasn’t going to continue to be a disaster.

So we avoided slot machines and went straight to the things in Vegas we knew weren’t going to fail us: food and shopping.

Here’s what our first night in Vegas looked like:

Talking tree

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When we heard this tree talking to us, we thought we were going crazy. After all, we hadn't slept in 35 hours. we were loopy -- and we hadn't had alcohol.