		Home Contact Advertise About

Where to stay in Las Vegas?

Posted by Jackie Hewett on Wed 9th May 2007 at 06:30 PM, Filed in USA Towns and Cities

Del.icio.us Digg Button

Digg this

Because I have a penchant for ‘things Egyptian’ we stayed in the Luxor. It was a reasonable choice, but as / when I return to Vegas I think I would choose somewhere different for a couple of reasons:

1. The Luxor is nearly at one end of the strip which made it quite a distance to get to the other end (there are moving ‘travellators’ between many of the hotels but it is still quite a distance from one end of the strip to the other).
2. Apart from our bedroom, there seemed to be few quiet places in the hotel to get away from the noise of the slots

First, a bit about the Luxor. We stayed in one of the pyramid’s deluxe bedrooms in the Luxor, which was spacious enough and nicely furnished with wooden inlays in the wardrobe and other furniture – all shaped and in keeping with the pyramid theme. The structure of the hotel is interesting in itself because I believe it has the world’s only diagonal lift – quite a feat of engineering. When you exit the lift the corridors to the bedrooms are inside a huge atrium that looks down onto the Luxor’s second floor IMAX and entertainment areas – which, at the time, seemed to have a huge amount of wasted space. The Egyptian style statues and décor are, in true Vegas style, well done and probably great if you haven’t been to Egypt (I have!). The Luxor also projects a huge beam of light skyward that is allegedly visible up to 250 miles away, however, you don’t really get the impact of the beam when you are up close to it.

Inside the pyramid atrium at the Luxor

Walking / ‘sightseeing’ around the hotels is one of the great things to do in Vegas, especially if you are not an avid gambler. Most of the big hotels on the strip have freebie entertainment to lure people in. Having spent some time in the public areas of most of the hotels on the strip (but not having seen the bedrooms) I would pick out the following 2 hotels:

The Mirage Hotel (my no 1 choice) – for the following reasons:
• The lovely quite relaxing area in the middle of the hotel in a tropical rainforest setting, which is an oasis of calm & a great place to read a book in the madness that is Vegas!
• The beautiful 20,000 gallon saltwater fish-tank behind the entire length of the reception desk. The tank is 53 feet long, 8 feet high and 6 feet deep. I could sit and gaze for hours!
• The 2 gorgeous white tigers that you can see on the way in (although I struggle with such creatures being in captivity)
• The dolphin habitat & secret garden (which we didn’t get to see) but I would like to
• Central location on the strip

The Bellagio Hotel (my no 2 choice) – for the following reasons:
• The spectacular fountain ‘show’ that runs every half hour throughout the afternoon from 3.00pm
• The luxurious marble shopping mall – if only for window shopping!
• The beautiful Dale Chihuly glass instalment in the lobby ceiling (I am a huge Chihuly fan!)
• The cirque du Soleil ‘O’ show
• The outside Mediterranean pool area that seems very relaxing
• Central location on the strip

Of course the majority of the things I have listed above you can enjoy without being a resident of the hotels, but to my mind it’s so much nicer to have a relaxing environment on ‘your doorstep’.

Here are some of my observations of other hotels on the strip:
The Excalibur – seemed rather ‘tired’ and the theme felt to all of us to be quite ‘childish’. The hotel feels like it’s been super-ceded by better, newer hotels
The Venetian – I can understand why people stay here. It’s huge and beautiful with the painted ceilings, canals, St Marks Square, the inside sky that darkens in the evening, the gondalla’s! Definitely worth a look, but for me there are more interesting places to stay.
MGM Grand – there seemed to be quite a lot of interesting freebie stuff going on in the public areas, but like the Luxor, it seemed noisy and is at the far end of the strip
The Paris Hotel – lovely cobbled area within the hotel where you can get great French style snacks – crepes and croquet monsieur’s. The casino is unmistakably French in style & possibly the best waitress outfits!
New York New York – the exterior is great & the hotel is hosting the Cirque du Soleil Zumanity show, but can’t remember anything memorable about the interior!
Treasure Island – great pirate show outside the hotel where 2 galleons engage in a cannon-ball battle. Have to confess we didn’t venture inside.
Circus Circus – very very difficult to find your way out! The layout inside is confusing and it’s almost impossible to find the exit, which got extremely annoying. Worth going in to see some of the entertainment (trapeze artists etc) but leave a line of petals or string to find your way back out. I would definitely not stay here.
Mandalay Bay – we didn’t go in this hotel at all. It is at the furthest end of the strip & we simply ran out of time!

My final tip re Vegas hotels – if you are planning to visit Vegas as part of a longer trip - time your stay in Vegas for mid-week (as we did) when rooms are about half the week-end rate.

This entry has been viewed 797 times.

READER COMMENTS:

Could not agree more with this article.

When I last travelled to Vegas it was clear to me that the hotels never wanted you to leave and taking clocks off the walls and removing exit signs was part and parcel of the whole process of keeping you gambling as long as possible.

I have often wondered what would happen in a fire