When it became clear he wasn’t surfacing, several passers by dove in to rescue him. Minutes later the police arrived and helped drag him to safety, though it was clear from his screams that he was in some pain.

Bizarrely, I just happened to be there at the scene when it all took place. These pics and vids are from my trusty camera, which annoyingly ran out of memory towards the end. The whole thing was very surreal, particularly when the fountains suddenly burst into life. It was a beautiful night, gloriously warm, and the fountain display was particularly dramatic, but it was a discordant backdrop to the drama unfolding directly beneath me, especially when the man started screaming. Oddly, the crowd around me cheered as the fountains came to their stunning climax, with the rescue effort still in full swing.

As the man was stretchered off into a waiting ambulance, an old man in a wheelchair on the side of the street suddenly launched into a full-on religious sermon, telling us all to repent our sins or else.

He never quite said “or else the fountains of Hell will strike you down, too”, but he might as well have!

It’s my first day in Vegas, and if this is a sign of things to come, it’s going to be a pretty eventful week! Hats off to the guys who jumped in and rescued in him, though. They undoubtedly saved his life, as he was knocked out cold by the fall, and was laying there unconscious on the bottom of the lake.

You can see the videos of the rescue after the jump.

Looking at the video of the fire, it had the potential of being a catastrophe, as it really seemed to take hold of the roof. This must have been a nightmare for the Monte Carlo’s owners, MGM Mirage, not only in terms of bad publicity, but also because it was their MGM Grand hotel that caught fire back in 1980. That time, the fire killed 80 people and injured over 700 - this time, however, nobody was even injured.

The automatic sprinklers did their job, confining the fire to the outside of the building and preventing it from taking hold. This, combined with the smooth evacuation of the building (which is no mean feat, given it has over 3,000 rooms, most of which were occupied), helped ensure there were no injuries, and MGM Mirage deserve recognition for their fire policies, which clearly work.

Even more confusingly, Las Vegas Sands spokesman Ron Reese said the company was planning a “soft opening” of the Palazzo “sometime at the end of December,” but that “…we are focused on a grand opening celebration on January 18.”

Er, right. So presumably the Palazzo will be open for business fully from January 18th, but the foyer will be open on December 20th so the company can claim it met its 2007 opening deadline.

Whatever, the fact that they managed to get the Palazzo open in such a short time is impressive enough, as is the building itself. There will be a grand opening celebration on the nights of January 17th and 18th 2008 as well, which should be spectacular.

[Source: LVBusinessPress]

Fortunately TI aren’t giving up on the idea of nightclubs altogether. Instead, they’ll be replacing Tangerine with another nightclub that will open on New Year’s Eve. Apparently the reason behind Tangerine’s imminent demise is too much competition from the likes of Tao, Pure, Moon and Jet.

There’s a simple answer to that - get a better DJ! Meh!

[Source: LATimes]

But the Crown Las Vegas really does intend to be the most outlandish of all, as it’s set to rise some 1,888 feet tall - that’s 700 feet higher than the Stratosphere!

The people behind the Crown Las Vegas, PBL, have just filed papers recently with the Clark County planning commission outlining their plans for the super-huge hotel. These plans include a 142 floor monstrosity that would dwarf everything all around it.

More details after the jump.

Featuring 5,000 rooms and tonnes of retail, restaurants, gaming, spa and convention center space, the Crown Las Vegas would be the tallest building not just in Las Vegas, but in the whole of the US, rising some 400 feet above the Sears Tower in Chicago (the current tallest).

Unfortunately for PBL, their plans could be scuppered by the FAA, who are worried that the building would be a flight hazard to planes landing at McCarran airport. Really? You mean pilots taking off and landing wouldn’t see a 1,888 feet tall building?! Should we be worried about this?!

Aside from this, there’s also the thought that the hotel itself might not be that profitable. Hugely tall buildings need to transport visitors from their rooms to ground level (and, of course, casino level) quickly. If you don’t do this efficiently, you get disgruntled guests, not to mention guests who can’t actually get to your casino.

Even a hotel as (relatively) small as Circus Circus can take up to 20 minutes to get out of the building. Actually, it can take longer than that. During my stay last year, three of the lifts had broken down, leaving just one lift for the entire tower. After waiting 10 minutes, I gave up and used the stairs, which took me another 15 minutes! Imagine doing that in a tower that’s 1,888 feet tall?!

Whether PBL get permission to build their monstrosity to the height they want to remains to be seen, but it seems they’re serious about building it, so one way or another, the Stratosphere could soon have a seriously tall neighbour!

[Source: LasVegasLogue]

The Palazzo, one of the new Las Vegas hotels currently reaching skywards, has confirmed its set to open on December 20th 2007. Some people are surprised by this given its current state of construction (see pic above, taken on 7th July 2007 and courtesy of Mark Adams), but the Las Vegas Sands Corp., owners of the Palazzo, are confident they can make this date.

When it’s complete, the Palazzo, when combined with its sister hotel the Venetian, will be “the largest integrated destination resort in the world” with 7,128 hotel rooms and 2.3 million square feet of meeting space on the Las Vegas Strip.

It should also be a good little earner, given that the Venetian has just posted revenue of $235.5 million for the quarter for the Venetian.

[Source: Forbes, LasVegasTodayAndTomorrow]

The photos were taken in 2006 and 2007, and show Caesar’s Palace from the outside and the inside, with quite a few pics taken from the Forum Shops. They complement the review of Caesar’s Palace I’ve just posted as well.

You can find the new Caesar’s Palace photo gallery here.

Just listing the things Caesar’s offers doesn’t do it justice, though - sure it has 120 shops, 3,300 hotel rooms, a 4,100 seat stadium modelled on the Colosseum and live entertainers from Celine Dion to Elton John - but it’s the way Caesar’s is presented in such a lavish, detailed, and, dare one say it, mad style that truly makes it one of the top places to visit in Vegas.

Read on to see the complete Caesar’s Palace review.

When I first went to Vegas, I couldn’t wait to check out Caesar’s. I had no idea what it was like, of course, I’d just heard so much about it before I went that I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. If any casino epitomized Vegas, for me it was Caesar’s.

Well, I was stunned with what I found. I was expecting a reasonably big down and dirty casino with a lot of cheese and maybe a bit of Elvis thrown in. Maybe in the 70s, perhaps, but not now!

Sprawling over 85 acres of prime Las Vegas real estate in the centre of the Strip, Caesar’s Palace is simply huge, and can be completely disorienting when you first enter. Not only is the interior huge, but it’s so sprawling, it can be difficult to know exactly where you are, and certainly which way out is!

None of this matters, though, for you’ll be so gobsmacked by what you see, you won’t care where you are!

The Forum Shops

Let’s start with the Forum Shops. As you walk up the strip from the North, the first thing you come across at Caesar’s is a gigantic heavily-detailed facade with marble columns, arches and a huge sign proudly proclaiming The Forum Shops (see pic, above).

Interestingly, though, this isn’t the entrance - it’s just a shop window! The actual entrance is round the corner, and it’s even bigger and more impressive (see pic, left).

It’s not until you go in, though, that you realise why the entrance is so huge - it opens onto what must be the most lavish, glorious shopping mall entrance you’ll ever see.

In Caesar’s own words, it’s “a grand pedestrian plaza [that] creates a signature entrance for The Forum Shops at Caesars.” Signature is certainly the word for it!

In the centre is a huge winding escalator (below) that winds its way up the various levels of the mall, flanked by gigantic statues of Roman Gods. Beneath is a beautiful water feature, while high above is a stunning domed ceiling.

The glorious opulence, lavish detail and sheer over the top nature of the place will take your breath away - and this is just the entrance!

Surrounding the central escalator are a series of shops, but it’s not until you go inside the main mall that the rest of the 120 shops are on display.

Be warned, though - the shops cover some 634,000 square feet, and with the ever-present fake sky painted onto the ceiling (a feature in virtually all Vegas hotels), and the lighting set low, you can start to feel a little disoriented, particularly if jet lag’s just kicking in!

As you delve deeper into the mall, you’ll come across one or two little features that all add to the bonkers magic. Like the giant wooden horse of Troy that suddenly appears, which is actually just part of a toy shop inside! Or the stunning statues in the middle that at least help you to get your bearings when you’re completely lost.

Best of all though is the Talking Statues at the far end of the mall (below). This is a recreation of the legend of Atlantis (well, Caesar’s version of it anyway!), with two huge statues that vividly come to life every half an hour in an animatronics extravaganza.

Complete with fire and water, the whole show is a must-see, as is the Cheesecake Factory behind the statues, which sells every variant of cheesecake known to man (well, 33 variants anyway)!

From Harry Winston to Jimmy Choo, Burberry to Boss and even Diesel, Victoria’s Secret and Ted Baker thrown in for good measure, there’s a huge range of shops on offer - there’s even the Exotic Cars area, where you can drool over Ferarris, Aston Martins and Porsches.

Trust me, if you’re bored in Vegas (really?!), lose yourself in the Forum Shops…literally!

Oh, and if you get hungry, which you will do, as your body clock will be all over the place and you’ll get so lost it’ll feel like days since you last saw daylight, there are also over 13 restaurants and speciality food stores spread around the mall as well.

Caesar’s Palace Casino

I have no idea whether the casino is good or not, as I don’t gamble, but it, too, is huge and rambling, and is another great way to get lost in Caesar’s! It’s nothing like the image I had of Caesar’s casino though - it’s modern, clean and huge, and you can wander off and see all manner of other great sights, including bars, restaurants and clubs, all fantastically decked out in Roman or Ancient Greek themes (not sure why Caesar’s chose both Roman and Greek - perhaps Roman wasn’t enough on its own?!)

Caesar’s Palace - the building

One of the great things about Las Vegas is that the hotels in which you stay have become the main attractions in their own right. Unlike other resorts, where it’s the beautiful beaches or stunning scenery around which the hotels are built, in Vegas it’s the hotels themselves that every hotel tries to provide a view of. This makes Las Vegas the most narcissistic tourist resort in the world!

So what about Caesar’s Palace, then? How does the Caesar’s Palace building compare with its fabulous neighbours?

Well, not all that well. Oh don’t get me wrong, it’s huge and majestic in a suitably Roman kind of way, and the Forum Shops and Colosseum are extremely impressive. Equally, the two hotel towers are also extremely impressive, and dominate skyline in an imperious way (they’ll also be joined by a third tower in 2009 as well), while the famous Caesar’s Palace fountains do add a bit of colour to the place.

It’s just that, compared to the Bellagio, with its huge pool, the glorious Paris Hotel opposite, or even the Mirage just up the road, Caesar’s Palace is a bit too…well, bland! The detailing is impressive, and the sheer size of the place takes your breath away. There’s just too much concrete everywhere and not enough colour, making the whole place seem like an enormous project that was never quite finished.

There’s also a mess of electricity pylons on the front, which adds to the feeling that most of the work was done to the inside, and the outside aesthetics were kind of forgotten about.

This is a shame as it’s such a huge hotel, and such great fun inside, you feel it doesn’t do itself justice from the outside. Fortunately, you can sit on its terraces, grab a beer and look at the other hotels, such as Paris and the Bellagio, safely immersed in the concrete jungle of Caesar’s, which is much better than sitting outside at Paris, say, and having to look across the way at Caesar’s!

Maybe the name Caesar’s Palace is such a huge draw in its own right that they don’t need to spend as much attention on getting the outside right as somewhere like Paris. Whatever, don’t let its concrete nature put you off - go inside and prepare to be seriously impressed (and lost!)

Caesar’s Palace Reviews across the Web

I’ve not stayed at Caesar’s, so I’ve no idea what the rooms are like, so the best thing is to check out the following reviews from across the Web.

Frommers has a great review of Caesar’s Palace, noting that “from the Roman temples, heroic arches, golden charioteers, and 50-foot Italian cypresses at its entrance, to the impressive interiors, it’s the spectacle a good Vegas hotel should be.” Couldn’t agree more! They also note, though, that “…the hotel is also getting a bit too big for its own britches. The haphazard layout has become ever more confusing and hard to negotiate, and it takes forever to get anywhere — especially out to the Strip. Sometimes you feel like just surrendering and staying in, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.”

Vegas4Visitors has a good review of Caesar’s, noting the nightclubs, the great rooms (some of which feature whirlpool baths in the middle of the room!) and also the glorious 4.5 acre pool area, called the Garden of the Gods, which they rate as “…among the most beautiful in town. Lush gardens surround the four pools, one of which has a covered colonnade in the center for cooling off. Adjacent to this is a spa, which among the usual suspects like massages and workout equipment, has a full-service salon, Zen meditation garden, and a rock-climbing wall.”

They also note that it’s easy to get lost in the place, though! Of course, this is deliberate, as if you can’t find your way out the casino, you might as well stay there and keep on gambling!

Sidestep give a pretty matter of fact review of Caesar’s Palace, listing its features without really saying what it’s like. They note that “the hotels 4.5 acre Garden of the Gods continues the Roman style with cypresses, palm trees, marble columns and classical statues. The garden includes four pools and two spa tubs. The 10,000 square foot Palace Pool features a gilded statue of Caesar. The on site Qua Baths & Spa features Roman baths and an Arctic Ice room. The spa provides massage and skin treatments.”

They also give a good detailed summary of the facilities on offer at Caesar’s.

Summary

So there you have it - Caesar’s Palace in all its glory. If you go to Las Vegas, you have to visit Caesar’s Palace for the true Vegas feel. The rest of Vegas may be going upmarket, but Caesar’s will never lose its camp, over the top feel, and is exactly the antidote that’s needed to all the new hotels that are sprouting up that seem to be taking themselves far too seriously!

Caesar’s Palace is like no other hotel on the planet (and that’s saying something given its immediate neighbours!), and you have to visit it simply to see what true decadence on a massively camp scale is really like. Fun, kitsch, fascinating and gloriously grand in equal measure, Las Vegas’s Caesar’s Palace will put a huge smile on your face. Just make sure you take a map and a compass with you!

If you want to see more of the place, check out our new Caesar’s Palace photo gallery.

I’m writing this from the comfort of the traditional British summer, with temperatures struggling to reach 20 degrees C, the worst flooding we’ve had in over 150 years, and the Sun last being seen back in April. Which, as coincidence would have it, was the last time I went to Vegas - and yes, it rained in Vegas while we had glorious sunshine in the UK!

Now that I’m back, though, the Vegas weather is reverting to type. No problems with water over there, but a real problem with sand. Just check out these pics taken by Roy Vegas of the sandstorm that hit on Friday July 27th 2007. Apparently it lasted for only half an hour, but it certainly was dramatic.

More pics after the jump.

[Source: RoyVegas]

Fast Company have speculated that the combination of low-skilled jobs combined with the potential for what it calls for an “ecological disaster” (no water in the desert, apparently!), all add up to “an environmental pileup in the making”

Not exactly pulling his punches, Fast Company’s executive editor Keith Hammonds said “We worry about the environmental train wreck that could be approaching, with the sheer toll of population growth and building. But the more important question for us is about talent. If you have rapid population growth and business growth without a corresponding expansion of talent and the capacity to attract more talent, you’re headed for a future with low income and low quality of life.”

Naturally, Las Vegas officials have hit back. Water shouldn’t be a problem, apparently, as the Southern Nevada Water Authority has plans to pump over 31 billion gallons of extra water from Lincoln County and White Pine County.

Also defending their quarter are the casinos, with gaming executives noting that the mega-resorts, despite their huge size and apparent insatiable appetite for water (hundreds of thousands of guests, pools, the Bellagio’s fountains, etc.), only consume 6.7% of Southern Nevada’s water

As for talent, Cara Roberts, a spokewoman for the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, hit back by saying that “We’re a city founded by problem-solvers who have, in a very creative, enterprising and innovative way, built an international city in very short amount of time. Las Vegas attracts people whose hard work and ingenuity will continue to drive our economy.”

Las Vegas has always had its critics and doom merchants, and yet look at it now. Seeing Vegas today, you can’t quite believe it’s real, and Vegas tomorrow will be even more unbelievable. Yet it’s all true, and it’s consistently defied its critics.

Personally, if I was in the casino or hotel trade, I’d be worried about there being too much construction underway, with too many hotel rooms and condos on offer, not to mention the millions of square feet of extra convention space and retail space being built. There are only so many visitors that can physically squeeze onto the strip, and you have to be a bit concerned about oversupply.

But then, I’m not a casino or hotel owner, and they have billions and I don’t, so what do I know?!

[Source: Las Vegas Review Journal]