Las Vegas
Las Vegas is without doubt North Americas top 24 hour entertainment destination. It's not just the gaming tables that people visit for either. Away from the casinos and gaming machines there is a new breed of resort hotels, fantastic art collections, elegant shops and restaurants and roller coasters.
In Las Vegas you will find themed hotels based on New York, Venice, Luxor, Paris, Rome, New Orleans and Monte Carlo. Las Vegas even has the largest indoor theme park in the United States at the Circus Circus casino hotel as well as large performing circus arena. The Circus Circus hotel also has 3,800 guest rooms.
At first sight, the Las Vegas Strip looks quite small and compact but is deceptively packed with casino resort hotels, amusement centres, shopping malls and music bars.
Almost everything is centered on the hotels - from gambling, dining and shopping, to theme park rides, sports bars, shows, health spas, pools and man made beaches. Not forgetting the enormous range of wedding chapels.
Hotels at the southern end of the Strip include Mandaly Bay, Luxor, Excabilur, New York-New York, Monte Carlo and Bellagio, followed by MGM-Grand, Aladdin and Paris.
To the north are Caesars Palace, the Mirage, Treasure Island, The Venetian, the Stardust and Circus Circus. Further down is Fremont Street, the original Las Vegas Strip of the 1940s - with smaller casinos such as the Golden Nugget, Four Queens, Lady Luck and the Pioneer. The further north you go, the smaller and less sophisticated they become - but these gaming houses are noisy and fun.
The Las Vegas buffet is inexpensive and lavish, and served up by vrtually every hotel - for breakfast, lunch and dinner. These feasts draw huge crowds, so if you up for it eat earlier rather than later.
Table service restaurants and cafes get packed, especially at lunch times. However, some hotels offer "line jumper" passes to resident guests. The lunch and dinner buffet can feature some 45 different selections and ranges in price from $12 to $20.
A good routine for the day is to pick up some fresh fruit, muffins and coffee at one of the takeaway breakfast stalls in the hotel lobbies, and for lunch, opt either for a pizza, sandwich or salad at one of the quality fast food outlets. This means you can save yourself for a gourmet dinner as Las Vegas has some of the best restaurants in the World. Booking for dinner is essential everywhere.
In Las Vegas, thousands of casino dealers and computerised gambling machines work around the clock to satisfy the appetite of Lady Luck.
Nevada law permits a wide variety of gaming, from traditional card and dice games, race and sports book betting, slot machines, high-tech electronic gambling and international games of chance imported from Europe and Asia. One of the casino hotels even has a swim up gaming area beside its pool.
If you are a novice and want to learn more about some of the games, the big casino hotels offer orientation sessions, mostly in the mornings.
Most of the hotels feature nightly shows with star performers, music clubs and live entertainment at a variety of bar revenues. A visit to one of the comedy clubs, which often includes dinner, is also worth exploring.
Most stage productions need to be booked with the hotel.
From the southern end of Las Vegas Boulevard there is a monorail from the Mandalay Bay hotel that stops at the Luxor en route to the Excalibur. From there you can cross the Strips main intersection with Flamingo Road by footbridge to New York - New York and by another to MGM Grand.
There is also a monorail system that links Bally's hotel to the MGM Grand, the Bellagio to the Monte Carlo and another between the Mirage and Treasure Island. So you can use all these free modes of transport, as well as the road bridges, to get into the different casino resorts and attractions.
The temperature in July and August can reach 110F at midday, but the desert heat is dry, unlike the humid heat in Florida. Also with all the attractions mostly inside air-conditioned hotels, shopping malls and casinos the weather is not such as issue.
It is possible also to sunbathe or swim if you want to all year round. At the other extreme, the temperature at night in December and January can drop below freezing, so don't forget to take a jumper.
Although Las Vegas is now a year-round destination, it is relatively quiet during the first few weeks of December, the last week in January and through June and July.
The prices of hotel rooms and shows are also less expensive and are more readily available.
Hotels also offer attractive mid week rates. Another good time to visit is just before Easter and after the April holiday period when airfares drop sharply.
Click here to see a video guide to Las Vegas
Click here to see Discover Las Vegas video guide
Click here for Wedding chapels in Las Vegas guide
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