Heather from About Las Vegas has listed her top 5 reasons to be in Las Vegas right now (yep, she’s also contributing to ProBlogger’s top contest). Her list includes:
1). It’s hot…literally (115 degrees F at the moment, or 46 degrees C. Seriously?! That’s super-hot, even for an envious sun-worshipping Brit like me who’s struggling with 16 degrees C at home!)
2). Burgers (yeh, they have great burgers in Vegas!)
3). Er, it’s hump day…think this is an American thing!
4). Deserts, mountains and a lake (yes, real ones!)
5). The hotels and casinos…of course!
No mention of Quark’s Bar at the Vegas Hilton…funny that!
[Source: AboutLasVegas]
Posted on Thursday, May 10th, 2007 at 10:37 pm by Mike Evans
Filed under
News
Las Vegas is already known for its mega-casinos, each of which has its own usually-outlandish theme. From Paris to New York, Venice, to the world’s largest black pyramid, these multi-billion dollar hotels and casinos make Las Vegas the stunning spectacle that it is today.
But no matter how crazy you think Vegas is today, just wait until you see what’s coming! Las Vegas is in the middle of a boom, with even more outlandish mega-casinos being built, and tens of billions of dollars being pumped into construction.
Here’s a list of the top 5 Las Vegas mega-casinos that are currently under construction.
Posted on Monday, May 7th, 2007 at 11:32 pm by Mike Evans
Filed under
News
Our new Las Vegas photo gallery is now up and running. We’ve got loads of photos of all the main Las Vegas hotels and casinos up and down the strip, each much bigger and better than the pics you see in the main blog posts.
More will be added over the coming weeks as we sort through our collection, so keep coming back to check for the new additions.
The Aladdin casino in Vegas has had its fair share of ups and downs. In fact, it’s been more down than up since it was first built back in 1962, and was even blown up back in 1998 to make way for a shiny new $1.4 billion 2,567 room mega-hotel that opened in 2000. However, despite all the cash pumped into it, it still never made money, and went bankrupt back in 2003.
Now, though, things are changing, as last year it was bought by Planet Hollywood for “just” $600 million. The Aladdin name is no more, as the name Planet Hollywood now beams out where once it stood.
Other than that, and a few pieces of scaffolding, there doesn’t seem to be much difference, but apparently, it’s about to get a huge new makeover.
Read more on how Planet Hollywood is transforming the old Vegas Aladdin after the jump.
Posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 9:15 pm by Mike Evans
Filed under
Vegas Life
You go to Vegas, you gamble. Now, you may not go to Vegas specifically to gamble, but you’ll find yourself doing that anyway. The first time I went, I spent a whole dollar at Caesar’s Palace, just to say I’d gambled at Caesar’s Palace (yes, I am that lame!). This year, I spent about $10 – not exactly what you’d call a high roller, but you never know. One year, I will come back with $1 million from the quarter I put into the slots!
Or at least I would if I learned how to gamble properly. I went to the Venetian, and put in my obligatory solitary dollar, and what do you know, I won $21. My gambling philosophy is, if you win more than you put in, cash out quick! So I promptly cashed out, and got my ticket.
In Vegas, the machines no longer pay out actual cash. Cash can be stolen, it’s heavy, and it can be used at other casinos. Tickets that represent how much money you’ve won, on the other hand, are much better. It’s less obvious how much money you’ve won with one, they can’t be transferred between competing casinos, and obviously they aren’t heavy. So all casinos use their own ticket system, with each slot machine paying you in a ticket rather than in 1,000s of quarters.
Now I should have remembered this when playing the slots at The Venetian. But no, I completely forgot, left it at my hotel (Circus Circus), only found it again when checking out, and so ended up with a ticket that could only be cashed at The Venetian (over a mile away)! What else could I do but leave it for the chamber-maid? I am an arse!
One of the surprises of my trip to Vegas this year was Treasure Island (TI). Previously, I’d only ever travelled through it, as the walkway from the Fashion Show Shopping Mall leads you through the TI casino, and then out onto the main strip. I’d never even seen the famous pirates doing their hourly mock battle scene.
But this year was different. One of the days we were too exhausted to go wandering to the bottom of the strip to the MGM and New York New York, and so ended up at Treasure Island (after a fortunately aborted attempt to get into Gilly’s!). We went to the Isla Bar, which was actually pretty chilled, with extremely pleasant waitresses, a nice atmosphere, and good tunes (although they do have to compete with the noise of the slots).
The Las Vegas Hilton is set back a bit from the north end of the strip, around Circus Circus, The Sahara and The Stratosphere, and so in order to attract people to its casino, rather than to the mega-casinos that line the strip further south, it needs some theme to lure them in. So what has it gone with? The Star Trek Experience, featuring Quark’s Bar.
Now, this isn’t as geeky as it sounds – it’s much, much worse! As if a bar decked out to look like Quark’s Bar from Deep Space 9 wasn’t bad enough, they’ve even gone for the whole Star Trek thing with the food and drink. You can buy Romulan Ale, which turns out to be just beer with blue food die, or much, much worse, Belgian Ale, which had an after-taste that ranged from bad chocolate through to burnt wood to just dirt!
Read more on the Las Vegas Hilton Star Trek Experience (and that’s certainly the word for it!) after the jump.
