Las Vegas Trip – The Strip, Themed Hotel and Hotel’s Performance
If you were going to Las Vegas, the Strip surely is a must-visit place because there is the most happening street in Las Vegas, where I would say it as Hotel street because there is numerous number of hotels in this street and many of them have different theme for their hotels. Besides of their special theme, some hotels also have free performance for tourists entertainment. The Strip can be divided into two part, south of Strip is a hotel collection of many attrations around the wold and north of Strip is hotel of modern world. Due to too many hotel in Las Vegas, I am not having chance to visit all of them, therefore I only summarized some hotels that I visited and attracted my interest, I only brief them with my own perspective.
1. Wynn Hotel
Wynn Hotel actually is a hotel name after Steve Wynn, he is quite an influence person in Las Vegas to me because he had successfully to found some success hotels in Las Vegas, which included The Mirage, Treasure Island and of course Wynn after he sold all his holding on other hotel to build his own hotel, which is Wynn. There is another hotel beside Wynn is called Encore, it has the some outlook design as Wynn, they are just look like a twin at the Strip.
2. Caesar Palace
Caesar Palace is a hotel built with theme of Rome and Greek style of structure, therefore when tourists entered into the hotel, they could find a lot of sculpture from Italy or Greek, there I found Michelangelo’s David, which I saw it in Florence, also Venus, Diana and a lot more sculptures that I found when I visited to Italy at four years ago. Of course, you also can find the coloseum from Rome in Caesar Palace.
3. Bellagio
Bellagio is the first five-star hotel in Las Vegas, it was conceived by Steve Wynn and built by his company before Wynn sold all his holding to build his own hotel, Wynn. Bellagio is an elegance hotel at Strip Las Vegas and there is a man made botanical garden in the hotel and the decoration would change from time to time to reflect change of season, which is really an attraction. On the other hand to outside of Bellagio, there is a fountain (Fountain of Bellagio) and it performs magnificent aquatic ballet with music at frequent interval time everyday, especially the performance would accommodate with beautiful lighting effect at night. I went to three free hotel performances during my stay in Las Vegas and Bellagio’s aquatic ballet gets the first rated from me.
4. Monte Carlo
This hotel isn’t too special to me, except it has a beautiful big swimmming pool but I am not able to see it in close distance. Among south of Strip, Monte Carlo is themed more to modern than what I expected. Anyways, I still find enjoyed with some special renovation in this hotel. There is a free tram provided a connection for visitors between the Monte Carlo and Bellagio operating every 10 minutes, I found this is really convenient because no doubt that are a lot of visitors too tired walking along the Strip to cover as many hotels as they can make during their visit.
5. New York New York
As you can know from its name, this hotel is taking New York city as their theme, there you can see architecture of New York from this hotel, the most significant part is the Statue of Liberty just located at the outside of the hotel. Also there is a roller coaster which represented as “Manhattan Express” to provide a thriller ride within inside and outside of New York New York. Even at they door handle, visitors also can hold the torch. For me, this is a warm up on New York atmosphere before my New York trip :P
6. Excalibur Hotel
According to my resource, Excalibur is named after the mythical sword of King Arthur and it uses the Arthurian theme in several ways. Its outlook is a stylized image of a castle. When I was walking at outside the hotel, I was attracted by its fairy-tale style castle, which is a beautiful image for a daydreamer like me. However, the image is totally different when I walked into the hotel, there is a casino and some sexy girls danced on the desk. That’s why I told SL, this is the fall inside of fairy tale. Also, there is a free tram connected Excalibur to the Luxor and Mandalay Bay.
7. MGM Grand Hotel
MGM Grand once was the largest hotel in the world when it opened in 1993, the signature of MGM Grand is its lion as the logo of MGM Mirage, to corporate which own the hotel. There is a golden lion statue just outside of MGM Grand and you can see it from the other side of street at New York New York or Excalibur direction. Of course, it also a habitat for two live lion inside the hotel, they are viewable by visitors in a glass house. Quoted what SL said, they are two lonely lions among the desert
8. Paris
Surely you can tell from its name suggests, this themed hotel is hosted city of Paris in France, the most significant architectures of Paris can be found here, which includes the most famous Eiffel Tower, a sign in the shape of the Montgolfier balloon, a Arc de Triumphe, also inside shopping area of hotel, you could find Europe style of shops. The hotel also offer fee ride up to the top of Eiffel Tower, there visitors can oversee Las Vegas, but I didn’t pay it because I took once at the real Eiffel Tower in Paris five years ago, I think it was enough for me.
9. Planet Hollywood
If back to five years ago, you would see a different view as I see the Planet Hollywood today, SL told me that location previously accommodated two hotels, The Aladdin and Planet Hollywood. But now, I only find it is Planet Hollywood and no sign of Aladdin lamp at its appearance.
10. Mandalay Bay
According to my source, Mandalay Bay is the stage production of “Mamma Mia!” though I couldn’t see any similar scene there :P. In side the Mandalay Bay, you can find a huge Mandalay Beach with three heated pools, a wave pool with connecting pool for small children, a European-style pool and a river, they are presented tropical theme to visitors in this desert area. There is also a Shark Reef Aquarium contains numerous exhibits. At the entrance of Shark Reef, there is a projected poster and it would create wave when people are walking in front of it, this is still a riddle to SL and I to figure out how this works.
11. Luxor
Luxor is a city name in Egypt, so its theme presents us a view of Egypt as you can find a huge pyramid (though it is in black) at hotel appearance. Besides, I also found a lot of ancient Egyptian statues. Walking in a desert like Las Vegas, I could roughly feel the hotness in Egypt.
12. Venetian
When I was traveling to Europe, there are two cities attracted me most, they are Amsterdam and Venice, they both are having a lot of canals and beautiful cute buildings. When I was in Venetian, I really had feeling that I was back to Venice, the building, the plaza, the bridge, the tower, the canal and gondolas, though they are placed in different layout as original Venice, they still so attractive to me, I like it provided me peaceful feeling. However, the different experience to me at this time because SL was with me, while I was traveled alone back to four years ago in Italy. Of course, I am happier this time though they are just a Venice model.
13. Treasure Island
Treasure Island was another direction of Steve Wynn in 1993, it is another successful project by this giant in Las Vegas. This hotel original themed as pirate feature as you can see some ship were parked in front of hotel. Treasure Island also provided free performance to visitor every night and we were there, but I would rate it as the worst performance among three that I had seen in Las Vegas. To me, it’s just some dancing and singing show from some sexy girls, which is totally not suitable to me.
14. The Mirage
There is a free tram linked between Treasure Island to the Mirage and it’s another idea from Steve Wynn, there is some exhibition inside the Mirage like dolphin and white tiger, however we didn’t visit them. In front of the hotel, there is another attraction, the Volcano which erupts every night regularly, I was there to witness its eruption and it was wonderful as Bellagio’s fountain, therefore I would rate it the number two in my list
15. Stratophere, Sahara and Hard Rock
At our last day in Las Vegas, we planned to visit the rest of hotel in our list though that was no much left, Stratophere, Sahara and Hard Rock. We went to Stratophere for its tower because it is kind of signature in Las Vegas as I always saw it wherever we drove.
Of course, there is another location in world – Sahara, this hotel isn’t as tall as the other theme hotel, but with some Middle East style, which reminded me a writer I liked before, Echo, she spent sometime in her life in Sahara Desert, and she wrote many books and one of them is “Sahara Desert”.
Finally, we purposely went to Hard Rock hotel for the giant guitar, there are also a lot of band exhibitions inside the hotel, they all are playing rock music.
Actually, there are a lot more wonderful hotels in Las Vegas, but we have limited time to visit all of them. To me, Venetian is still the top selection as my favorite themed hotel.
1. Wynn Hotel
Wynn Hotel actually is a hotel name after Steve Wynn, he is quite an influence person in Las Vegas to me because he had successfully to found some success hotels in Las Vegas, which included The Mirage, Treasure Island and of course Wynn after he sold all his holding on other hotel to build his own hotel, which is Wynn. There is another hotel beside Wynn is called Encore, it has the some outlook design as Wynn, they are just look like a twin at the Strip.
2. Caesar Palace
Caesar Palace is a hotel built with theme of Rome and Greek style of structure, therefore when tourists entered into the hotel, they could find a lot of sculpture from Italy or Greek, there I found Michelangelo’s David, which I saw it in Florence, also Venus, Diana and a lot more sculptures that I found when I visited to Italy at four years ago. Of course, you also can find the coloseum from Rome in Caesar Palace.
3. Bellagio
Bellagio is the first five-star hotel in Las Vegas, it was conceived by Steve Wynn and built by his company before Wynn sold all his holding to build his own hotel, Wynn. Bellagio is an elegance hotel at Strip Las Vegas and there is a man made botanical garden in the hotel and the decoration would change from time to time to reflect change of season, which is really an attraction. On the other hand to outside of Bellagio, there is a fountain (Fountain of Bellagio) and it performs magnificent aquatic ballet with music at frequent interval time everyday, especially the performance would accommodate with beautiful lighting effect at night. I went to three free hotel performances during my stay in Las Vegas and Bellagio’s aquatic ballet gets the first rated from me.
4. Monte Carlo
This hotel isn’t too special to me, except it has a beautiful big swimmming pool but I am not able to see it in close distance. Among south of Strip, Monte Carlo is themed more to modern than what I expected. Anyways, I still find enjoyed with some special renovation in this hotel. There is a free tram provided a connection for visitors between the Monte Carlo and Bellagio operating every 10 minutes, I found this is really convenient because no doubt that are a lot of visitors too tired walking along the Strip to cover as many hotels as they can make during their visit.
5. New York New York
As you can know from its name, this hotel is taking New York city as their theme, there you can see architecture of New York from this hotel, the most significant part is the Statue of Liberty just located at the outside of the hotel. Also there is a roller coaster which represented as “Manhattan Express” to provide a thriller ride within inside and outside of New York New York. Even at they door handle, visitors also can hold the torch. For me, this is a warm up on New York atmosphere before my New York trip :P
6. Excalibur Hotel
According to my resource, Excalibur is named after the mythical sword of King Arthur and it uses the Arthurian theme in several ways. Its outlook is a stylized image of a castle. When I was walking at outside the hotel, I was attracted by its fairy-tale style castle, which is a beautiful image for a daydreamer like me. However, the image is totally different when I walked into the hotel, there is a casino and some sexy girls danced on the desk. That’s why I told SL, this is the fall inside of fairy tale. Also, there is a free tram connected Excalibur to the Luxor and Mandalay Bay.
7. MGM Grand Hotel
MGM Grand once was the largest hotel in the world when it opened in 1993, the signature of MGM Grand is its lion as the logo of MGM Mirage, to corporate which own the hotel. There is a golden lion statue just outside of MGM Grand and you can see it from the other side of street at New York New York or Excalibur direction. Of course, it also a habitat for two live lion inside the hotel, they are viewable by visitors in a glass house. Quoted what SL said, they are two lonely lions among the desert
8. Paris
Surely you can tell from its name suggests, this themed hotel is hosted city of Paris in France, the most significant architectures of Paris can be found here, which includes the most famous Eiffel Tower, a sign in the shape of the Montgolfier balloon, a Arc de Triumphe, also inside shopping area of hotel, you could find Europe style of shops. The hotel also offer fee ride up to the top of Eiffel Tower, there visitors can oversee Las Vegas, but I didn’t pay it because I took once at the real Eiffel Tower in Paris five years ago, I think it was enough for me.
9. Planet Hollywood
If back to five years ago, you would see a different view as I see the Planet Hollywood today, SL told me that location previously accommodated two hotels, The Aladdin and Planet Hollywood. But now, I only find it is Planet Hollywood and no sign of Aladdin lamp at its appearance.
10. Mandalay Bay
According to my source, Mandalay Bay is the stage production of “Mamma Mia!” though I couldn’t see any similar scene there :P. In side the Mandalay Bay, you can find a huge Mandalay Beach with three heated pools, a wave pool with connecting pool for small children, a European-style pool and a river, they are presented tropical theme to visitors in this desert area. There is also a Shark Reef Aquarium contains numerous exhibits. At the entrance of Shark Reef, there is a projected poster and it would create wave when people are walking in front of it, this is still a riddle to SL and I to figure out how this works.
11. Luxor
Luxor is a city name in Egypt, so its theme presents us a view of Egypt as you can find a huge pyramid (though it is in black) at hotel appearance. Besides, I also found a lot of ancient Egyptian statues. Walking in a desert like Las Vegas, I could roughly feel the hotness in Egypt.
12. Venetian
When I was traveling to Europe, there are two cities attracted me most, they are Amsterdam and Venice, they both are having a lot of canals and beautiful cute buildings. When I was in Venetian, I really had feeling that I was back to Venice, the building, the plaza, the bridge, the tower, the canal and gondolas, though they are placed in different layout as original Venice, they still so attractive to me, I like it provided me peaceful feeling. However, the different experience to me at this time because SL was with me, while I was traveled alone back to four years ago in Italy. Of course, I am happier this time though they are just a Venice model.
13. Treasure Island
Treasure Island was another direction of Steve Wynn in 1993, it is another successful project by this giant in Las Vegas. This hotel original themed as pirate feature as you can see some ship were parked in front of hotel. Treasure Island also provided free performance to visitor every night and we were there, but I would rate it as the worst performance among three that I had seen in Las Vegas. To me, it’s just some dancing and singing show from some sexy girls, which is totally not suitable to me.
14. The Mirage
There is a free tram linked between Treasure Island to the Mirage and it’s another idea from Steve Wynn, there is some exhibition inside the Mirage like dolphin and white tiger, however we didn’t visit them. In front of the hotel, there is another attraction, the Volcano which erupts every night regularly, I was there to witness its eruption and it was wonderful as Bellagio’s fountain, therefore I would rate it the number two in my list
15. Stratophere, Sahara and Hard Rock
At our last day in Las Vegas, we planned to visit the rest of hotel in our list though that was no much left, Stratophere, Sahara and Hard Rock. We went to Stratophere for its tower because it is kind of signature in Las Vegas as I always saw it wherever we drove.
Of course, there is another location in world – Sahara, this hotel isn’t as tall as the other theme hotel, but with some Middle East style, which reminded me a writer I liked before, Echo, she spent sometime in her life in Sahara Desert, and she wrote many books and one of them is “Sahara Desert”.
Finally, we purposely went to Hard Rock hotel for the giant guitar, there are also a lot of band exhibitions inside the hotel, they all are playing rock music.
Actually, there are a lot more wonderful hotels in Las Vegas, but we have limited time to visit all of them. To me, Venetian is still the top selection as my favorite themed hotel.
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