Archive | May, 2007

From The Stardust to Echelon Place – pictures of the changing face of Vegas

The Stardust Hotel was a legendary hotel in Las Vegas, with an iconic sign, distinctive building, and playing host to scores of famous acts down the ages. Until, that is, it was demolished in March 2007. Now, it’s just a heap of smouldering rubble, waiting for the new $4 billion Echelon Place to be constructed [...]

New Photos of the Wynn Hotel Las Vegas now online

The Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas is a luxurious upmarket hotel directly opposite the Fashion Show shopping mall. Built by legendary Vegas resort owner Steve Wynn, The Wynn is a $2.7 billion hotel and casino with 2,716 hotel rooms, 111,000 square foot casino, 22 restaurants and food outlets, and the only golf course in Las [...]

Wynn Golf Course to become another mega-resort

Among the many attractions of The Wynn Hotel is its 18 hole golf course, the only one of its kind in Las Vegas, and which was redeveloped when The Wynn was being constructed. Playing golf amongst beautiful greenery in the middle of the desert is no odder than anything else in Las Vegas, although the [...]

MGM Mirage to build second Project CityCenter near Circus Circus

The North end of the Vegas strip has being going mad recently, with four new multi-billion dollar casino and hotel resorts currently under construction, and another one about to begin now that El Ad has bought the ageing Frontier and has plans to knock it down and build, yup, another multi-billion dollar casino and hotel! [...]

Las Vegas Fontainebleau splits the Strip in two

Just when you thought you’d seen all the new mega-hotels that are under construction in Vegas, up pops another one! The Fontainebleau will be a $2.8 billion condo hotel and casino that will add yet more rooms, convention space and shopping (of course!) to what is an already seemingly overcrowded city. The Fontainbleau is being [...]

Photos of Orleans Hotel now online

I go to Las Vegas on business, presenting at various conferences. This year (2007), the conference was held at the Orleans Hotel, which, given that it’s not actually on the Strip, is not a hotel I’d ever visited before. Indeed, such is its location that you’d never even know it existed unless you actually looked [...]

New Frontier sold, Montreux now canned

The New Frontier hotel and casino has been sold by Phil Ruffin to Elad Properties who intend to implode the Frontier and replace it with a $5 billion hotel based on New York’s Plaza Hotel. Ruffin had plans to implode the Frontier later this year and develop a $2.6 billion Swiss-themed resort called the Montreux, [...]

The New Frontier soon to be the new Montreux Hotel

This is the New Frontier Hotel on the north side of the Vegas Strip. The photo was taken in 2005 on my first visit to Vegas, and was one of the first hotels I saw. I was staying in Circus Circus (as ever), and was walking up the strip, and had no idea what to [...]

Photo Gallery of Las Vegas’s Paris Hotel now online

Paris in the springtime is no match for Paris in Las Vegas, but rather than telling you all about this amazing looking hotel, I thought it best to post some photos I took of it on my last visit. You can see Vegas’s Paris Hotel from a variety of vantage points, from up close, to [...]

In Vegas, even a construction site looks glorious

Vegas hotels used to be a thing of, well, gaudy cheesiness! Circus Circus, Excalibur, and even, to some degree, the huge black pyramid that is the Luxor, all scream novelty at you, and don’t exactly make the place look upmarket. All that’s changing now, though, and fast. The more recent hotels, from the Bellagio onwards, [...]