Las Vegas
Las Vegas Travel Guide
Sure, you’ve heard that what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas—and you’ll surely help put the “sin” in Sin City. But when you’re ready to jump off the bar and curb your gambling habit, plenty of fun awaits you: luxurious spas, quirky museums, lavish pools, and gut-busting buffets.
Las Vegas Sights
Will it be strange, cavorting Blue Men, or a sophisticated Cirque du Soleil acrobatic extravaganza? An afternoon comedy show, or Broadway light (90-minute cut-downs of East Coast favorites)? A classic feather revue, or nouveau burlesque? Maybe you’re just in the mood for a plain-old lounge show. Vegas has all the over-the-top razzle-dazzle you could ever hope for.
If you’re an adrenaline fiend, you can’t miss the incredibly scary (and fun) rides perched atop the 112-floor Stratosphere Tower. The Big Shot fires you 160 feet up the Stratosphere needle, and both the X Scream and Insanity dangle you over the edge of the Stratosphere tower. These aren’t for the faint of heart.
The Corner of Flamingo Road and the Strip. Casino-hopping is the best all-around way to explore this colorful, fanciful city, and the junction of Flamingo and Las Vegas Boulevard puts you right in the center of the action. Within a short walk are the Bellagio, with its dramatic fountains, gardens, and art museum; Paris, with its half-scale replica of the Eiffel Tower; and the Roman-theme Caesars Palace. It’s just a fairly easy walk north to reach some of the Strip’s other must-sees, including the Venetian and Wynn Las Vegas.
Skyhigh bars. Burlesque. Wild dance clubs. Sophisticated lounges. Strip clubs. Beefy man shows. You can’t go to Vegas and not at least check out the spectacle. So pick your scene, grab a martini, and join the 24-hour party.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA, 702/892-0711, www.visitlasvegas.com) operates a visitor center at 3150 Paradise Road. It’s a good place to pick up brochures and ask for advice on what to see and do in town.
The LVCVA also operates a reservation and information call center (877/847-4858), with operators on hand to book rooms and dispense advice daily 6 AM-9 PM PST.
Las Vegas Restaurant Reviews
Las Vegas has—however improbably—become America’s hottest restaurant market. Each new megaresort brings its own multiple dining options, with celebrity chefs adding clones of famous signature restaurants and newborn establishments to the mix. And while bargain buffets and coffee shops still abound, the arrival of the superchefs has left its mark on the steak houses and buffets—many of the latter of which have gone upscale. Away from the Strip, the unprecedented population growth in the city’s suburbs has brought with it a separate and continuous wave of new restaurants, both familiar chains and independent spots opened by local and nationally based entrepreneurs.
Joining a few gourmet pioneers such as Hugo’s Cellar and Andre’s, and spurred on by Wolfgang Puck, who tested the desert waters with Spago in 1992, a flood of newer restaurants and ever-more-prominent chefs have radically changed the experience of eating in Las Vegas. Status-conscious hotel-casinos now compete for star chefs and create lavish, built-to-order dining rooms for well-known tenants. These new establishments rival the upscale restaurants of the country’s dining capitals in quality and service.
The restaurant explosion has been partially geared to satisfying high rollers, who are fed for free as a reward for their often-astronomical bets at the blackjack and baccarat tables, but the city’s new reputation as a culinary capital is also drawing attention from those who simply enjoy outstanding food. Las Vegas’s tendency to do everything to an extreme creates the possibility that too many spectacular restaurants will starve each other, but there’s no sign of that yet. Although Sin City’s reputation as being recession-proof may be a bit overstated, the city knows how to continually reinvent itself to ensure the 40 million or so visitors—many of them with fat expense accounts—keep on coming.
Even low rollers with thin wallets have plenty of dining options in Las Vegas. Despite the influx of upscale restaurants, you can still find a complete steak dinner for only $4.95 (Ellis Island), a 99¢ shrimp cocktail (Golden Gate), and $2.79 breakfast specials (Arizona Charlie’s). And of course, the ever-popular buffet is found in nearly every casino in town.
Crowds at the hotels, long lines at the buffets, and the jangling noise of slot machines prompt some to seek refuge away from the casinos. Venture into the residential areas for a steadily increasing variety of restaurants that satisfy most pocketbooks. Rosemary’s, Andre’s, Lotus Thai, and other off-Strip dining rooms satisfy the craving for a civilized meal. Mid-price family eateries (such as Memphis Championship Barbecue, India Oven, Doña Maria, and Billy Bob’s Steak House) offer reliable quality at reasonable prices.
Las Vegas Hotel Reviews
In general, rates for Las Vegas accommodations are far lower than those in most other American resort and vacation cities, but the situation is a wacky one indeed, and as fancier new properties have opened in the past few years, rates have risen dramatically. There are about a hundred variables, depending on who’s selling the rooms (reservations, marketing, casino, conventions, wholesalers, packagers), what rooms you’re talking about (standard, deluxe, minisuites, standard suites, deluxe suites, high-roller suites, penthouses, bungalows), demand (weekday, weekend, holiday, conventions or sporting events in town), and management whim (bean-counter profit models, revenue-projection realities, etc.)
When business is slow, many hotels reduce rates on rooms in their least desirable sections, sometimes with a buffet breakfast or even a show included. Most “sales” occur from early December to mid-February and in July and August, the coldest and hottest times of the year, and you can often find rooms for 50% to 75% less midweek than on weekends. Members of casino slot clubs often get offers of discounted or even free rooms, and they can almost always reserve a room even when the rest of the hotel is “sold out.”
Las Vegas Nightlife
Las Vegas’s nightlife has never been hotter, spicier, or, for that matter, more competitive. Fueled by the “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” advertisements (read: “All your sins here expunged completely once you pay your credit card bill”), nightlife impresarios on the Strip are dipping into their vast pockets in order to create over-the-top experiences where party-mad Visigoths—plus, well, you and me-can live out some wild fantasies. The number of high-profile nightclubs, trendy lounges, and sizzling strip bars continue to grow, each attempting to trump the other in order to attract not just high rollers, but A-list celebrities and the publicity that surrounds them. Gambling? Why bother when you can lounge beside the pool by day and bellow at the moon by night while dancing half-clad at a cool club until noon the following day (when it’s back into the pool you go)?
In the late 1990s, once the Vegas mandarins decided that the “family experience” just wasn’t happening, Sin City nightlife got truly sinful again, drawing raves from “clubbers” worldwide. A wave of large dance clubs, such as the Luxor’s Ra, opened their doors, followed by a trendy batch of cozier ultralounges—lounges with dance floors—like the MGM Grand’s Tabú.
The game of one-upmanship has continued—recent additions that have kept the city hopping include the sensational Tryst at the Wynn, the equally sensational Tao at the Venetian, and the ever-rocking Rainbow Bar and Grill. What’s more, bawdy ’50s-era burlesque lounges have made a comeback with a gaggle of clubs, including Ivan Kane’s bump-and-grind Forty Deuce at Mandalay Bay and the ultrapopular Pussycat Dolls Lounge at Caesars, now dedicated to the art of striptease.
Few cities on earth match Vegas in its dedication to upping the nightlife ante. So with all these choices, no one—not even the Visigoths—have an excuse for not having fun, whether it’s at a chic lounge, a dance club, or even a strip joint.
Las Vegas Shopping
World-class shopping in Vegas? Yes, among the scads of kitsch and Elvis memorabilia (looking for a piece of the King’s pillowcase?), there’s also the ne plus ultra from Cartier and Yves St. Laurent. The square footage in the Forum Shops at Caesars alone is the most valuable retail real estate in the country; bankrolls are dropped there as readily as on the gaming tables. It’s the variety of options that has pushed Las Vegas near the ranks of New York, London, or Rome: You could tote home a vintage slot machine or Lenôtre chocolates from the only place in the United States where you can buy them (at Paris Las Vegas, in case you’re salivating). You might start to think those darn casinos only get in the way of your shopping safaris.
Strip shopping malls take their themes to extremes: you can stroll along a Venice canal at the Venetian or traverse North African trade routes at the Aladdin. Most Strip hotels offer expensive dresses, swimsuits, jewelry, and menswear; almost all have shops offering logo merchandise for the hotel or its latest show. Inside the casinos the gifts are elegant and expensive. Outside, all the Elvis clocks and gambling-chip toilet seats you never wanted to see are available in the tacky gift shops. Beyond the Strip, Vegas shopping encompasses such extremes as a couture ball gown in a vintage store and, in a Western store, a fine pair of Tony Lamas left over from the town’s cowboy days. Shoppers looking for more practical items can head for neighborhood malls, supermarkets, shopping centers, and specialty stores. And to avoid the stratospheric prices on the Strip, shoppers not averse to driving a bit can find the same high-ticket items at lower prices at the town’s factory outlet malls.
