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LAS VEGAS

Nevada | USA

300C FEATURE DESTINATION: Las Vegas, Nevada

Shimmering from the desert haze of Nevada like a latter-day El Dorado, Las Vegas is the most dynamic, spectacular city on earth. At the start of the twentieth century, it didn’t even exist; at the start of the twenty-first, it’s home to well over one million people, with enough newcomers arriving to need a new school every month.

Las Vegas is not like other cities. No city in history has so explicitly valued the needs of visitors above those of its own population. All its growth has been fueled by tourism, but the tourists haven’t spoiled the “real” city; there is no real city. Las Vegas doesn’t have fascinating little-known neighborhoods, and it’s not a place where visitors can go off the beaten track to have more authentic experiences. Instead, the whole thing is completely self-referential; the reason Las Vegas boasts the vast majority of the world’s largest hotels is that around thirty-seven million tourists each year come to see the hotels themselves.
————————————————————————————————————————The telephone area code for all phone numbers in the text, unless otherwise indicated, is 702. ————————————————————————————————————————
Each of these monsters is much more than a mere hotel, and more too than the casino that invariably lies at its core. They’re extraordinary places, self-contained fantasylands of high camp and genuine excitement that can stretch as much as a mile from end to end. Each holds its own flamboyant permutation of showrooms and swimming pools, luxurious guest quarters and restaurants, high-tech rides and attractions.

The casinos want you to gamble, and they’ll do almost anything to lure you in; thus the huge moving walkways that pluck you from the Strip sidewalk, almost against your will, and sweep you into places like Caesars Palace . Once you’re inside, on the other hand, the last thing they want is for you to leave. Whatever you came in for, you won’t be able to do it without crisscrossing the casino floor innumerable times; as for finding your way out, that can be virtually impossible. The action keeps going day and night, and in this windowless – and clock-free – environment you rapidly lose track of which is which.

“Little emphasis is placed on the gambling clubs No cheap and easily parodied slogans have been adopted to publicize Las Vegas, no attempt has been made to introduce pseudo-romantic architectural themes or to give artificial glamour or gaiety.” – WPA Guidebook to Nevada, 1940

Las Vegas never dares to rest on its laurels, so the basic concept of the Strip casino has been endlessly refined since the Western-themed resorts and ranches of the 1940s. In the 1950s and 1960s, when most visitors arrived by car , the casinos presented themselves as lush tropical oases at the end of the long desert drive. Once air travel took over, Las Vegas opted for Disneyesque fantasy, a process that started in the late 1960s with Caesars Palace and culminated with Excalibur and Luxor in the early 1990s.

These days, after six decades of capitalism run riot, the Strip is locked into a hyperactive craving for thrills and glamour. First-time visitors tend to expect Las Vegas to be a repository of kitsch , but the casino owners are far too canny to be sentimental about the old days. Yes, there are a few Elvis impersonators around, but what characterizes the city far more is its endless quest for novelty . Long before they lose their sparkle, yesterday’s showpieces are blasted into rubble, to make way for ever more extravagant replacements. The Disney model has now been discarded in favor of more adult themes, and Las Vegas demands nothing less than entire cities . Replicas of New York, Paris, Monte Carlo and Venice now jostle for space on the Strip.

The customer is king in Las Vegas. What the visitor wants, the city provides. If you come in search of the cheapest destination in America, you’ll enjoy paying rock-bottom rates for accommodation and hunting out the best buffet bargains. If it’s style and opulence you’re after, by contrast, you can dine in the finest restaurants, shop in the most chic stores, and watch world-class entertainment; it’ll cost you, but not as much as it would anywhere else. The same guidelines apply to gambling . The Strip giants cater to those who want sophisticated high-roller heavens, where tuxedoed James Bond lookalikes toss insouciant bankrolls onto the roulette tables. Others prefer their casinos to be sinful and seedy, inhabited by hard-bitten heavy-smoking low-lifes; there is no shortage of that type of joint either, especially downtown.

On the face of it, the city is supremely democratic. However you may be dressed, however affluent or otherwise you may appear, you’ll be welcomed in its stores, restaurants, and above all its casinos. The one thing you almost certainly won’t get, however, is the last laugh ; all that seductive deference comes at a price. It would be nice to imagine that perhaps half of your fellow visitors are skilful gamblers, raking in the profits at the tables, while the other half are losing, but the bottom line is that almost nobody’s winning. In the words of Steve Wynn, who built Bellagio and the Mirage , “The only way to make money in a casino is to own one”; according to the latest figures, 85 percent of visitors gamble, and they lose an average of $665 each. On top of that, most swiftly come to see that virtually any other activity works out cheaper than gambling, so end up spending their money on all sorts of other things as well. What’s so clever about Las Vegas is that it makes absolutely certain that you have such a good time that you don’t mind losing a bit of money along the way; that’s why they don’t even call it “gambling” anymore, but “gaming.”

Finally, while Las Vegas has certainly cleaned up its act since the early days of Mob domination, there’s little truth in the notion that it’s become a family destination. In fact, for kids, it’s doesn’t begin to compare to somewhere like Orlando. Several casinos have added theme parks or fun rides to fill those odd nongambling moments, but only ten percent of visitors bring children, and the crowds that cluster around the exploding volcanoes and pirate battles along the Strip remain almost exclusively adult.

Neighbourhoos and Orientation

It doesn’t take long to come to grips with the physical layout of Las Vegas. Downtown , slightly southeast of the intersection of I-15 and US-95, may stand at the center of an urban sprawl that stretches fifteen miles in all directions, but it’s the legendary Strip , starting two miles south of downtown, where the main action takes place. In fact, by no coincidence at all, the Strip begins at the point where Las Vegas Boulevard leaves the city limits, and casino owners are therefore not liable to city taxes.

The Strip itself consists of the four miles of Las Vegas Boulevard between the Sahara and Mandalay Bay , and thus now reaches as far south as McCarran Airport. Almost every building along the way is a casino, each frantically clamoring for the attention of the tourists who throng the road day and night. For the sake of convenience, it’s often loosely divided into the South Strip , from Mandalay Bay up to the MGM Grand and New York-New York ; the Central Strip , which includes Bellagio, Caesars Palace and the Venetian ; and the North Strip , from the Stardust to the Sahara .

Whatever you might expect, downtown Las Vegas is not a bustling area where locals go about their business far from the mayhem of the Strip. Instead, it too is utterly dominated by casinos. Its centerpiece, the Fremont Street Experience , is an extraordinary architectural conceit, in which four blocks of its main thoroughfare have been roofed over to give it the feel of a theme park rather than a real city. An unfortunate side effect has been to make the rest of downtown seem even more derelict and menacing than before; it is not an area any visitor should attempt to explore.

In between the Strip and downtown lie two somewhat seedy miles of gas stations, fast-food drive-ins, and wedding chapels, parts of which have been optimistically but pointlessly promoted as the Gateway District .

Being closely paralleled by both the I-15 interstate and the (currently inactive) railroad line, the Strip also serves as the dividing line between east and west Las Vegas. The closest attempt to match the success of the Strip has been along Paradise Road , immediately to the east and home to the Las Vegas Hilton , the Convention Center, the Hard Rock , and several popular restaurants. A large campus to the east of Paradise Road, between Flamingo and Tropicana avenues, houses UNLV – the University of Nevada Las Vegas – whose students tend to hang out on Maryland Parkway , another block east.

Although the area to the west of the Strip is less susceptible to generalization, the Rio and the Palms have encouraged tourists to stray across to the far side of the interstate, and Decatur Boulevard , especially around Sahara Avenue, is a thriving shopping district.

City residents, of course, can distinguish between the demographic profiles of any number of Las Vegas neighborhoods , but tourists spend so little of their time anywhere other than the Strip or downtown that they can remain oblivious. Broadly speaking, the northeast and northwest quadrants of the city are its less affluent areas, while its most fashionable district is Henderson to the southwest – ranked in its own right as one of America’s fastest-growing cities – with the new Summerlin development to the east tipped as a future rival.

CLIMATE AND BEST TIMES TO GO

Las Vegas is at the heart of the hottest, harshest desert in North America, and so receives less than four inches of rain (10cm) per year. Temperatures, however, vary enormously, with daytime maximums averaging over 100°F (38°C) in July and August, and night-time minimums dropping below freezing in December and January. The midsummer heat on the Strip is unbearable, making it impossible to walk any distance during the day, so the ideal months to visit are April, May, September and October. Hotel swimming pools tend to be closed between October and March inclusive.

The city is at its quietest , and room rates are therefore lowest, during the first few weeks of December and the last few weeks of January, and also during June and July, while Christmas and New Year are the busiest periods of all.

Average Daily Temperatures

AVG DAILY AVG DAILY MAX MIN MAX MIN
Jan 60 29 16 -2
Feb 67 34 20 1
Mar 72 39 22 4
Apr 81 45 27 8
May 89 52 32 12
Jun 99 61 37 17
Jul 103 68 40 20
Aug 102 66 39 19
Sep 95 57 35 14
Oct 84 47 29 9
Nov 71 36 22 2
Dec 61 30 14 -1

ARRIVAL

*By Air

The runways of Las Vegas’s busy McCarran International Airport (tel 261-5211, ) start barely a mile east of the southern end of the Strip, though the main terminal is a three-mile drive via Tropicana Avenue and Paradise Road.

Car rental is readily available at the airport; we’ve listed local rental agencies. There’s no public bus service, but both Bell Trans (tel 380-7990, ) and Las Vegas Limousine (tel 736-1419) run around-the-clock minibuses to the Strip ($4) and downtown ($5.25), leaving from immediately outside the terminal. In addition, certain hotels run free shuttle buses for their guests.

A line of taxis is always waiting outside the arrivals area. In theory, the ride should cost between $8.50 and $12 for hotels at the southern end of the Strip; from $10 to $15 for the Central Strip area; up to $18 for the North Strip; and between $15 and $20 for destinations both downtown and out on Boulder Highway. However, traffic delays can easily force those fares up by another $5 or so.

If you want to arrive in style, Bell Trans can also provide limousine service from around $35.

By Car

Much the busiest driving route into Las Vegas is the I-15 freeway from southern California. Traffic congestion, especially close to the state line, can mean that the 269-mile drive from LA takes as long as eight hours. Las Vegas Boulevard South, which becomes the Strip, begins to parallel I-15 well before it reaches the city, but the quickest way to reach your final destination will almost certainly be to stay on the interstate as long as possible. I-15 also connects Las Vegas with Salt Lake City, 421 miles northeast.

From the major cities of Arizona, direct access is provided by US-93 , which leaves I-40 at Kingman, a hundred miles southeast. It joins US-95 , running north from Needles, California, outside Boulder City; together, the two become I-515 , which crosses I-15 immediately northwest of downtown Las Vegas.

Four hundred miles northwest of Las Vegas, US-95 meets I-80 thirty miles east of Reno. Using that interstate is the fastest way to get between Las Vegas and San Francisco, but threading cross-country via Yosemite and Death Valley national parks is a much more scenic option.

By Bus

Greyhound’s long-distance buses to and from Los Angeles, Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Denver, Reno, San Diego, Bakersfield and other cities use a terminal alongside the Plaza hotel at 200 S Main St downtown. For schedules and fares, call 1-800/231-2222, or access .

In addition, Missing Link run thrice-weekly shuttle buses between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, with free hotel and hostel pick-ups (tel 1-800/209-8586, ; departs LA Mon, Thurs & Sat, Las Vegas Sun, Wed & Fri; $39 one-way, $75 return).

By Rail

Amtrak stopped running passenger trains to Las Vegas in 1997, and its downtown terminal was demolished. At the time of writing, however, it seemed likely that a new high-speed Amtrak service between Los Angeles and Las Vegas would come into operation at some point during the next few years, with a projected journey time of 5hr 30min. Some level of subsidy from the casinos is anticipated; individual carriages may belong to specific casinos, and be equipped with slot machines to be switched on as soon the train crosses the Nevada state line. For Amtrak information, call 1-800/USA-RAIL, or access

CITY TRANSPORT

By Driving & Rental Cars

If you’re happy to see no more of Las Vegas than the Strip and perhaps downtown – and on a short visit, there’s no great reason to venture any further – then it’s perfectly possible to survive without a car . Bear in mind, though, that even the Strip is too long to explore comfortably on foot; walking more than a couple of blocks in summer is exhausting, so you can expect to make heavy use of taxis, shuttle buses, and the monorail links. Ranging further afield, the metropolitan area is very large, so driving is the only practical way to explore it in any detail, while all the excursions to the vicinity of Las Vegas require the use of your own vehicle.

Las Vegas as a whole is plagued by severe traffic problems, and nowhere more so than the Strip. That said, so long as you’re not in a hurry to get anywhere, driving along the Strip is an exhilarating sensory blast, and worth experiencing both by day and by night. For trips on which speed is your main priority, it’s usually worth using I-15 where possible, even for short hops. The fastest east-west route across town tends to be Desert Inn Road , which passes under the Strip and over I-15, with connections to neither.

All the Strip casinos except Bellagio offer free parking to guests and non-guests alike, usually in huge garages around the back of the entire complex. The snag is that the walk from your car to wherever you actually want to go – your hotel room, for example – can be as much as a mile in places like Caesars Palace or the MGM Grand . If you’re spending a day touring the Strip, you may prefer to go through the rigmarole of parking once only, somewhere central like Harrah’s . Valet parking , usually available at the main casino entrance, can save a lot of stress; it’s nominally free, although a tip of around $2 is all but obligatory.

Typical car rental rates in Las Vegas, including taxes, are $30 per day, $150 per week. All the major chains have outlets at the airport, and nearly every sizeable hotel is affiliated with at least one car rental outfit. Among the most ubiquitous are Dollar (tel 1-800/826-9911, ) and Avis (tel 1-800/822-3131, ); Allstate (tel 1-800/634-6186, ) is an inexpensive local alternative. To search for the best car rental rates online, visit or .

Taxis

Every casino has a line of taxis waiting at its front entrance. Standard fares are $2.20 for the first mile and $1.50 for each additional mile, but the meter continues to run when you’re caught in traffic. A $1.20 surcharge is added for trips to the airport; we’ve listed sample fares for the airport run. Tip the driver between fifteen and twenty percent.

If you need to call a cab, try ABC (tel 736-8444); Ace (tel 736-8383); or Checker and Star (both tel 873-2227)

By Buses

CAT buses (tel 228-7433, ) serve the entire city from their hub at the Downtown Transportation Center (daily 6am-10pm), a couple of blocks north of Fremont Street at Stewart Avenue and Casino Center Boulevard.

Two routes, #301 and the express #302 , run the length of the Strip and continue to downtown, with services every ten minutes between 5.30am and 12.30am, and every fifteen minutes from 12.30am until 5.30am. The flat fare is $2. Services in the rest of town operate between 5.30am and 1.30am only, for a flat fare of $1.25. A monthly pass for all CAT buses, sold at the Downtown Transportation Center, costs $30.

By Trolleys

The oak-veneered streetcars of the Las Vegas Strip Trolley (tel 382-1404) ply the Strip daily between 9.30am and 2am, with a flat fare of $1.50 and departures every fifteen minutes. Their route extends from Mandalay Bay as far north as the Stratosphere , with stops at the front doors of the major casinos, plus the Fashion Show Mall and Wet’n’Wild, and a brief detour to the Las Vegas Hilton .

The similar Downtown Trolley (tel 229-6024) circles between downtown and the Stratosphere at thirty-minute intervals between 7am and 11pm daily, for a flat fare of 50¢.

By Monorails

Several Strip properties are connected by means of free monorail services. Such systems link Excalibur with Mandalay Bay via Luxor ; the MGM Grand with Bally’s; Bellagio with the Monte Carlo ; and the Mirage with Treasure Island .

There has long been talk of constructing a single light-rail system that would not only run the length of the Strip but also extend as far as downtown. All such plans were traditionally stymied by the refusal of the Desert Inn ’s management to allow it to pass over their property, but now the project has finally got the go-ahead. It’s not, however, due for completion until 2006, at which time it’s envisaged there will be two separate lines, one from the MGM Grand to the Sahara , and another from the Sahara to downtown.

For the moment, however, the four existing segments do not meet up. Neither do they make much of a model of public transit. Designed to serve the needs of the casinos rather than the visitors, most can only be reached by walking through the whole of the relevant casinos.

By Casino Shuttle Services

Several casino operators run free shuttle services either to connect different properties in the same chain, or between outlying casinos and the Strip. These include services between the various members of the Stations chain; between the Barbary Coast on the Strip and Orleans and the Gold Coast (next to the Rio ) to the west; and between Sam’s Town and both the Stardust on the Strip and the California and Fremont hotels downtown.

In addition, a $10 round-trip bus service connects the MGM Grand and New York-New York with the town of Primm , forty miles southwest on the California border, which is home to a couple of large casinos and the Fashion Outlet Las Vegas mall; call 874-1400 for details.

By Cycling

Cycling in Las Vegas proper is not a good idea. Cops do it to beat the traffic on the Strip, but for visitors there’s too much danger for too little reward. Red Rock Canyon is very popular with recreational cyclists, however. If you want to join them, either on an organized tour or simply by renting a bike, go to Escape The City Streets , 8221 W Charleston Blvd (tel 596-2953, ).

SIGHTSEEING TOURS

Las Vegas is not a city that lends itself to organized sightseeing tours . On foot, you’d have to walk too far; on a bus, you couldn’t visit the Strip casinos that are the main focus of interest. What bus tours there are head out from the city instead, mainly to the destinations in the vicinity – Hoover Dam, Lake Mead, Red Rock Canyon, and so on. Several companies also offer free trips to the state-line casinos at Primm and Laughlin, of appeal to die-hard gamblers only. Most of the operators listed below also run flights or tours from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon.

Gray Line tel 384-1234, . “Las Vegas City and Shopping,” including Liberace Museum and the Forum ($39); Red Rock Canyon and Mount Charleston ($39); Hoover Dam ($39); Death Valley ($139); Bryce Canyon ($139).

Maverick Helicopter Tours tel 261-0007 or 1-888/261-4414, . Las Vegas by night ($69).

The Missing Link Tours tel 1-800/209-8586, . Bus tours to Bryce and Zion national parks (two days/one night: $159) as well as the Grand Canyon, and shuttle services to LA.

Scenic Airlines tel 638-3200, . Fixed-wing air tours throughout the Southwest, including Zion, Bryce, and Monument Valley as well as the Grand Canyon.

Teddy Bear Express tel 737-6062. Laughlin (free); Primm (free).

Grand Canyon Tours

Whatever impression you may have, the Grand Canyon is not close to Las Vegas. The South Rim , the most famous tourist area, is 290 miles away by road, and the quieter North Rim only a little less. A Colorado River viewpoint on the Hualapai Indian Reservation, 130 miles from Las Vegas, calls itself the West Rim , but the views are not on the same scale.

Trying to see the South Rim on a day-trip by bus involves at least a ten-hour round-trip ride, and is not recommended. Competition on air tours , however – including an overflight of Hoover Dam – means that you may be able to find prices as low as $100 per person, which isn’t bad for a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Look for advertisements in free local magazines as they often feature two-for-one deals and other enticing offers. Rates usually include a shuttle service to and from your hotel; on a flight that doesn’t land, the whole trip can take under three hours.

Air Vegas Airlines tel 736-3599 or 1-800/255-7474, . Helicopter tours of the West Rim ($250-359).

Gray Line tel 384-1234, . South Rim by bus, a fourteen-hour round trip ($159).

Maverick Helicopter Tours tel 261-0007 or 1-888/261-4414, . Helicopter tours of the West Rim ($250-359).

The Missing Link Tours tel 1-800/209-8586, . Fixed-wing tours to the South Rim for $209 with a bus tour or $179 without, or with a steam-train ride on the Grand Canyon Railway for $329, or to the less dramatic West Rim for $199.

Scenic Airlines tel 638-3200, . Fixed-wing air tours throughout the Southwest, including South Rim without a landing for $109, or with a ground tour by bus for $219, and also shorter tours to the West Rim ($199, or $259 with a helicopter flight down through the canyon).

MEDIA

The two principal daily newspapers in Las Vegas are the Las Vegas Review-Journal , which is published each morning and features a useful listings supplement, “Neon”, on Fridays, and the Las Vegas Sun , which appears every afternoon. They combine for a joint edition on Sundays. City Life , a free “alternative” weekly, is the best source of up-to-date listings, but can be hard to find on the Strip – try the Virgin Megastore in Caesars Palace .

In addition, any number of freesheets and magazines – usually bursting with discount vouchers, plus details of accommodation, buffets, and the latest shows – provide local information. The fortnightly magazine What’s On carries the most extensive reviews, while the weekly Today in Las Vegas offers the most accurate entertainment schedules and prices.

Stores in all the casinos sell local newspapers plus USA Today and the major Californian dailies, but for most out-of-town papers you’ll need to head to one of the bookstores we’ve listed.

EATING

As recently as the early 1990s, the restaurant scene in Las Vegas was governed by the notion that visitors were not prepared to pay for gourmet food. All the casinos laid on both pile-’em-high buffets at knock-down prices, and 24-hour coffeeshops offering bargain steak-and-egg deals, but virtually the only quality restaurants in town were upscale Italian places well away from the Strip. The theory was that the longer tourists spent lingering over their meals, the less time they had left to play the tables.

Now, however, the situation has reversed, as the major casinos compete to attract culinary superstars from all over the country to open Vegas outlets. The first such venture was Wolfgang Puck’s Spago in Caesars Palace , back in 1992; these days, as each new casino opens, it’s taken for granted that it will have as many as ten world-class restaurants. Asked what had persuaded him to relocate to Las Vegas, one leading chef replied “three million dollars.” Many tourists now visit the city specifically to eat at several of the best restaurants in the United States, without having to reserve a table months in advance or pay sky-high prices. Which is not to say that fine dining comes cheap in Las Vegas, just that most of the big-name restaurants are less expensive, and less snooty, than they are in their home cities.

Another break with tradition is that these days the accountants require each sector of a casino-resort to be financially solvent. Where once it was considered worth running the restaurants and showrooms at a loss because they lured in gamblers, they now have to be self-supporting. Thus prices are not what they were, with buffets more like $8 rather than $3, and breakfast specials at $4.50 not $1.99. Even so, for budget eating Las Vegas still beats anywhere else in the country.
————————————————————————————————————————At most times, it’s generally possible to get a same-day reservation for any Las Vegas restaurant; to secure a table for Friday or Saturday night, however, call as far in advance as you can. Guests in the same hotel as a particular restaurant seldom get any special priority. ————————————————————————————————————————
The restaurants reviewed in this section form only a tiny proportion of the total. If you’re staying on the Strip in particular, the choice is overwhelming, and you’ll almost certainly find a good restaurant to suit your tastes and budget in your own hotel. For that reason, the places reviewed in this section tend towards the higher end of the spectrum – it takes an exceptional restaurant to be worth making a special effort to reach.

In terms of price or quality, let alone convenience, there are few reasons to venture off into the rest of the city; good places do exist away from the Strip and downtown, but the best are right where the tourists are. The one exception to that rule is that certain cuisines have as yet been unable to get a foothold on the Strip; if you want Indian, Thai, or healthy Greek food, for example, you’ll have to drive out and find it.

LAS VEGAS FAVOURITES

Asian Noodles
Breakfast Il Fornaio
Buffet Bellagio
Burger Fatburger
Coffee Shop Mr Lucky’s 24/7
Creole Commander’s Palace
Decor rumjungle
Desserts Commander’s Palace
Family Lombardi’s
Fusion 8-0-8
Indian Shalimar
Italian Zefferino’s
Mexican Border Grill
Middle Eastern Mediterranean Cafe & Market
Seafood Aqua
Soul food Simply Southern Café
Southwest Coyote Café
Steak Delmonico’s
Sushi Nobu
Views Top of the World

And finally, for a perfect day on the Strip, how about:

Breakfast Il Fornaio
Lunch Mon Ami Gabi
Dinner Commander’s Palace

Buffets

Almost every casino in Las Vegas has an all-you-can-eat buffet , open to guests and non-guests alike for every meal of the week. Even at the worst you’re bound to find something you can keep down, and the cost is low enough that in any case you won’t feel ripped off. At its best, the traditional buffet experience is in terms of both decor and flavor like being granted unrestricted access to the food court in an upmarket mall; you’ll get top-quality fast food, but not a gourmet feast.

It’s no coincidence that in strictly monetary terms the better buffets tend to be in casinos that are neither on the Strip nor downtown , and depend on locals as well as tourists. At places like the Rio and casinos in the Stations chain, the buffet still serves the fundamental purpose of enticing in customers from elsewhere. Thus they’ve been at the forefront of innovations like having separate named areas serving different cuisines, or offering “action cooking,” where your stir-fry, omelette, fajita or whatever is cooked to your specific order. By contrast, the buffets at the very largest casinos only have to be good enough to ensure that the crowds already in the building don’t leave, while also coping with a daily deluge of customers. Hence the poor quality of the buffets at Excalibur and the MGM Grand , for example.

A new development, however, has been for high-end casinos to raise buffet prices to a level that makes it possible to provide true gourmet feasts. The opening of The Buffet at Bellagio in 1998 represented a quantum leap in standards, in serving food that would be considered excellent in any conventional restaurant. With dinner priced at $25, however – and $32 on weekends – it also dispensed with the idea that buffets are supposed to be cheap. Le Village at Paris swiftly unveiled a less varied but equally delectable and expensive spread, but the title of best buffet has to belong to Bellagio . The best old-style bargains are the Feast Around The World buffets at Sunset Station and Texas Station .

As a rule, buffet prices include unlimited refills on juices and sodas, but you have to pay extra for any alcoholic drinks. You’ll also have to pay tax, plus a conventional $1 tip per person. If possible, try to avoid eating between 6pm and 9pm, when the lines at the larger casinos can be endless. Arriving early for breakfast (before 8am) and late for lunch (around 2pm or so) can also save time otherwise spent in line.

NIGHTLIFE AND ENTERTAINMENT

Bars and Clubs

As the perfect fuel to turn a dithering gawker into a diehard gambler, alcohol is very easy indeed to come by in Las Vegas. If you want a drink in a casino, there’s no need to look for a bar; instead, a tray-toting waitress will come and find you. Beers and cocktails are delivered free of charge to anyone hovering near, let alone seated at, the tables and slot machines, and assuming you keep on tipping the waitress, the supply will keep on going around the clock.

All the casinos have at least one actual bar as well, located in the heart of the gaming area and invariably packed with cacophonous slot machines; even the ones at Bellagio have video poker screens inlaid into their solid marble counters. Customers who are actively gambling can usually get their drinks free. If you’re staying at a major casino on the Strip or downtown, you’ll have no difficulty finding a place to drink in your hotel. Neither area, however, holds any significant bars other than those attached to casinos. Elsewhere, neighborhood bars do exist where you can drink and eat away from the frenzy of the casinos – the most popular local pub chain, PT’s , has around twenty locations – but very few tourists bother to seek them out. Brewpubs too have appeared both in, and away from, the casinos; if you’re a beer drinker, you might prefer to seek them out, but don’t expect anything special in terms of food, let alone that you’re going to get away from blaring slot machines.
————————————————————————————————————————To buy or consume alcohol in Nevada, you must be aged 21 or over, and have photo ID to prove it. ————————————————————————————————————————
In terms of enjoying a proper night out, however, ordinary run-of-the-mill bars are just a small part of the picture. In the last few years, Las Vegas has witnessed an explosion of nightlife opportunities. The old-fashioned Las Vegas lounge has returned in force, both knowingly retro-styled for twenty-something rockers and lovingly re-created for older visitors looking to recapture the quieter but still somehow deliciously decadent flavour of the Rat Pack era. The casinos are once more competing to hold exotic and characterful lounges; the Venetian , for example, currently holds three highly individual alternatives.

What’s even more striking is that Las Vegas has finally come of age as an international clubbing capital. The opening of the stand-alone Club Utopia on the Strip in 1994 paved the way for a steady trickle of copycat ventures, but only since the start of the millennium has the scene really taken off. No longer are clubbers considered a breed apart from tourists; instead, the success of nightclubs at hipper casinos like the Hard Rock and Mandalay Bay has prompted all their major rivals to follow suit, often with spectacular results. As the word gets about, Las Vegas is becoming known as a specific clubbing destination, although it’s still somewhat skewed towards older punters – Hugh Hefner is even said to be talking about bringing in the first new Playboy club for twenty years.

So many entrepreneurs have so much money to throw around in Las Vegas, aiming to please all of the people all of the time, that it’s getting all but impossible to pinpoint the differences between bars, lounges, restaurants, and nightclubs. Our listings are divided on the basis that you go to a bar to drink, whereas you go to a club to dance. And a lounge ? well, you go to a lounge because you’re in Las Vegas.

Entertainment

There was a time when performing in Las Vegas represented the absolute pinnacle of any show-business career. In the early 1960s, when Frank Sinatra’s Rat Pack were shooting the original Ocean’s 11 during the day then singing the night away at the Sands , the city could claim to be the capital of the international entertainment industry. It was even hip.

The money is still there in Las Vegas, as was shown by the MGM Grand paying Barbra Streisand a reported $20 million to perform on Millennium Eve, but the world has moved on. As the great names of the past fade from view, few of the individual performers popular with traditional Vegas visitors are now considered capable of carrying an extended-run show. Today’s stars, on the other hand – Celine Dion excepted – don’t want to spend their lives playing Vegas. Top-selling musicians make quite enough money from recordings and occasional tours not to need to spend months at a time in the desert.

Nonetheless, live entertainment remains a crucial component of the Las Vegas package, and the days of the big-budget “spectacular” are far from over. The tendency nowadays is to rely on lavish stunts and special effects rather than global megastars, with the illusionist-magicians Siegfried and Roy now into their second decade at the Mirage . A fair number of old-style Vegas revues are still soldiering on, but there are more stimulating contemporary productions than you might imagine. In particular, the arty Canadian-based circus/theater troupe, Cirque du Soleil , has revolutionized attitudes toward what Las Vegas audiences might be able to handle. Its two stunning shows, Mystère at Treasure Island and the magnificent O at Bellagio , remain the biggest tickets of all, though the Luxor ’s Blue Man Group has stolen a little of their avante-garde thunder. To make sure of seeing one of these big-name shows, especially on a weekend, it’s essential to make reservations as far in advance as possible; if you’re happy just to see whatever’s available, however, most of the lesser shows are still selling tickets right up until showtime.

It also looks as though Las Vegas might finally be getting more into tune with the musical tastes of the baby-boom generation. You can still see Tom Jones, Englebert Humperdinck, and Wayne Newton if you’re in town at the right time, and lots of unfashionable names from the Seventies and Eighties linger on, but the Hard Rock, Mandalay Bay , and Aladdin are all now showcasing the biggest names in contemporary rock, reggae, blues, and soul.

We’ve reviewed a representative cross-section of Las Vegas shows. All take place on the Strip ; several of the downtown and off-Strip casinos have showrooms, but with the Rio repeatedly misfiring, none currently features anything of interest. Note that the entertainment scene was especially hard hit by the post-September 11 economic downturn. Several shows closed, while others reduced their frequency and/or ticket prices. All the listings here are therefore even more subject to change than usual.

As for what the future may hold, the Cirque du Soleil will certainly remain at the forefront. They’re said to be developing a show for Steve Wynn’s Le Reve , set in a Himalayan village where all the children aged under eleven can fly, and another for New York-New York , with a fire theme to match O’s water motif. The biggest single project of all, however, is the Colosseum at Caesars Palace , intended to draw four thousand people per night to watch Celine Dion.

BEST OF LAS VEGAS

The Strip
With its erupting volcanoes, pirate battles, Eiffel Tower and Egyptian pyramid, the legendary Strip will blow your mind as well as your wallet.

Bellagio
Las Vegas’ most opulent hotel must be seen to be believed, and its sumptuous buffet is the best in town.

Fremont Street
Fremont Street is the lesser-known of the Vegas strips, but it boasts a street-long laser light-and-music show – less hokey than it sounds – plus atmospheric hotel-casinos like Binion’s Horseshoe.

Luxor
Don’t go to Egypt for Tutankhamen’s tomb or the pyramids; there are excellent replicas at the Luxor, a giant black pyramid-shaped hotel with an Egyptian theme. It’s cheesy but unmissable.

Honeymoon in Las Vegas
Prove to your significant other that you’re serious; plan a surprise wedding at the Graceland Wedding Chapel with your celebrity best man, Elvis himself.

Liberace Museum
A kitsch lover’s dream, the Liberace Museum is filled with gaudy artifacts from the great man’s career, including his rhinestone-covered capes, gold pianos and over-the-top cars.

Boxing
Catch a prizefight – and perhaps an ear – at the MGM Grand.

Treasure Island Buccaneer Bay Show
Several times a day, crowds gather ‘round the galleys at Treasure Island to watch their peglegged, eyepatched crews do battle in the lake outside the hotel. Ahoy, matey!

INFORMATION, WEBSITES AND MAPS

There are two official visitor centers in Las Vegas. One, run by the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, stands half a mile east of the Strip on the west side of Paradise Road, at the entrance to the vast Convention Center at 3150 Paradise Rd (daily 8am-5pm; tel 892-7575 or 1-800/332-5333, ). The other, the headquarters of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, is at 711 E Desert Inn Rd (Mon-Fri 8am-5pm; tel 735-1616, ).

Although both will mail information in response to requests, once you’re actually in Las Vegas there’s very little point in visiting either, and neither is easily accessible on foot. You can find much the same array of glossy brochures and leaflets displayed in the lobby of your hotel. All Las Vegas’s major attractions are run for profit, and you’ll be bombarded with all the information you need without having to go out in search of more.

Similarly, it should be easy to pick up a decent map of the city at the desk of your hotel or car rental agency. The streetscape changes so fast, especially along the Strip, that it’s essential for that map to be as recent as possible. Surprisingly enough, free handouts tend to be more reliable than commercial publications that may have been on the shelves for years.

Las Vegas on the Internet

The following is a selective list of useful websites to help you plan before and during your trip. Websites run by individual casinos, and by hotel reservation services, are listed in the Accommodation section. The Internet Café of Las Vegas is located two blocks west of Las Vegas Boulevard, between downtown and the Stratosphere , at 320 E Charleston Blvd (tel 897-0142).

The best source for information on the city’s gay scene.

Extensive listings and reviews from What’s On magazine, plus an on-line reservation service.

The official site of the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority is packed with information on lodging, activities, transportation, and tours, and also carries loads of facts and figures about the city itself.

Entertaining “inside scoop” from Las Vegas’s taxi drivers, with an emphasis on nightlife. The huge “Hack Attack” forum holds a mass of personal opinions on hotels, shows, and just about everything else.

Information, reservations, and reviews for Las Vegas entertainment, including all the big shows.

Las Vegas Review-Journal , with the latest details from the paper’s “Neon” supplement and a useful searchable archive of every article for years.

Not Vegas-specific, though it does have links to the casinos, but a primer of rules, strategy, and the like for all types of casino games.

GAMBLING

Gambling remains the bedrock of the Las Vegas experience. At most recent count, 28 other US states had joined Nevada in offering commercial casinos, and all except two had legalized some form of gambling, but thanks to its colossal volume of business, Las Vegas still does it better than the rest. Ninety percent of visitors to the city gamble, with an average budget of $500, and in the end everything else is just frippery; it’s the gambling that makes every flourish possible. The shows and restaurants, tigers and volcanoes – no matter how profitable any might be – are all just designed to make you stick around longer and spend more money on the slots and tables.

While the casinos these days prefer to talk about “gaming” rather than gambling, no one plays for fun alone. It’s the gut-wrenching excitement of staking your own hard cash in pursuit of a fortune that keeps the tension at fever pitch. Most visitors have their own preferred form of gambling, with the three main choices being table games such as blackjack or craps, played in the public gaze and surrounded by glamorous trimmings; slot machines , a more private pleasure in which the potential winnings are enormous, and you’re spared the fear of not seeming au fait with the rules; and sports betting , with its hyped-up atmosphere and scope for proving that you know more than the bookies.

The fact that the gambling industry is still booming is a credit to the casinos’ ability to change with the times. During the first few decades of Las Vegas’s supremacy, the typical gambler was male and likely to be familiar with a wide range of card games thanks to years spent in military service. Slots and other machines, however, overtook the tables from 1983 onwards, and they now generate around 65 percent of Nevada’s gaming revenue. In the face of the large proportion of modern visitors who see casino games as complicated and intimidating, the casinos are desperate to make gambling as easy, user-friendly and innocuous as possible. All offer free lessons, instructional videos on their in-room TVs, and the like. On the surface, those well-dressed and welcoming dealers make things seem democratic and casual, but all that deference serves in fact to make anyone who sits down at the tables feel like part of an exclusive and sophisticated elite.

Despite Las Vegas’s reputation as a stronghold of crime , there’s no suggestion that gamblers themselves are being cheated. The casinos don’t need to cheat; they know they’re certain to make money. Yes, the occasional high-roller can seriously damage the corporate balance sheet – thus Australian TV magnate Kerry Packer once won twenty consecutive hands of baccarat in twenty minutes at the Mirage , at $250,000 per hand. Overall, however, the odds are stacked in the casinos’ favor. In the case of table games, each has some combination of a quantifiable “house edge” incorporated into its rules, or a set way of skimming the top off players’ winnings. With slots, it’s even more straightforward – they’re simply programmed to pay out less than they take in, though only the casinos themselves know just how much less.
————————————————————————————————————————The average slot machine on the Strip generates $125 profit per day; each table game makes an average of almost $2000. ————————————————————————————————————————
Gambling is of course supremely addictive , and Las Vegas not surprisingly has a higher percentage of problem gamblers than any other city in the world. The generally accepted advice for visitors who want to experience the thrill while minimizing the risk is never to gamble more than you’re prepared to lose. In addition, if you want to play for any length of time, don’t bet more than around one-fiftieth of your total budget at any one moment. Thus if you’ve set aside $250 with which to gamble, it makes sense to play $5 slot machines, or bet with $5 roulette chips; if you’ve got $50, play with $1 stakes. Remember that even if the house edge on your chosen game is as low as two percent, that doesn’t mean you’ll lose two percent of your money and walk away with the remaining 98 percent. It means that if you play long enough, you’ll almost certainly lose it all.

As for where to gamble , that really depends on how you see gambling. If you think it’s all about fun and glamour, then the Strip is the place to be, though the high minimum stakes at the largest casinos can mean you’ll lose your money uncomfortably fast. If you feel that an authentic gambling hall should be gritty, grimy, and peopled by hard-bitten “characters,” you may be happier downtown . If you see betting as a business, and want as much bang for your buck as possible, head instead for a locals casino , and especially the members of the Stations chain, which tend to offer more generous odds at video poker and the like.

For the moment, all gambling has to take place in public. Even though the top casinos try to give the impression of setting exclusive areas aside for high rollers, anyone is entitled to stroll in and watch. Insiders predict an imminent change in the law, however, to allow private gambling rooms or separate “clubs” within public casinos; the London Club in the Aladdin appears poised to lead the way.

Table Games

Casino “games” are not really games in the same sense as the games you might enjoy at home, where each player has the same chance of winning. They’re carefully structured business propositions, in which the casinos know that over time they are certain to end up ahead.

Most casino games have a built-in ” house edge .” Imagine taking turns tossing a coin with a friend. If you call it correctly, he gives you $1, while if he calls it correctly you give him $1. Now imagine that he suggests a change in the rules; you still have to give him $1 when he’s right, but from now on he’ll only pay you 95¢. It’s still possible that if you play for a few minutes, you may have a run of luck and win lots of 95¢ pay-outs. If you play all day, however, you’re going to lose; if he can persuade millions of others to join in and play all day, every day, he’s going to get very rich, very quickly. Thus, for example, the roulette table in most Las Vegas casinos holds 38 squares, numbered 1 to 36 plus “0” and “00.” If you bet $1 on the correct number, the casino should in theory recognize that you had a 1-in-38 chance of being right, and pay you $38 (including your original $1 stake). Instead, they pay $36, or 94.74 percent; the $2 they hold back works out at 5.26 percent of the total, and that’s the “house edge.”
————————————————————————————————————————All Las Vegas casinos continue to ply gamblers, at both the slot machines and the gaming tables, with free drinks – just be sure to tip the waitress. ————————————————————————————————————————
In addition to the edge, the casino also knows that most people don’t bet at the best odds. It’s too boring only to bet on one number for each spin of the roulette wheel, so you may well place a $1 chip on each of three numbers. Only one can possibly be correct, however, so even if you do win the casino grabs back another $2 in the process. According to casino insiders, the rate at which gamblers actually lose their money playing roulette amounts to thirty percent per spin of the wheel.

In any case, different people gamble for different reasons. Devotees of blackjack argue that the house edge is much lower than on other games, and that with enough cool calculation it’s even possible to come out ahead. Others are far more drawn to the possibility of a quick big win playing craps and roulette, and say that it’s about luck, not arithmetic.

Slot Machines

Well over a century since the first “one-armed bandits” appeared in the saloons of San Francisco, slot machines are more popular than ever. Thanks to glitzy new technology and highly competitive odds – not to mention some truly huge jackpots – the casinos have largely dispelled the old image of slot arcades as joyless places where tight-lipped seniors pump bucketfuls of small change into unresponsive machines. These days, even casinos like the Mirage make twice as much money on slots as they do on the tables, and slot-players are no longer second-class citizens.

Traditionally, the house advantage on slot machines used to be around twenty percent, which is to say that for every dollar you gambled, you might win back eighty cents, while the operator kept the other twenty. Those would now be regarded as “tight” odds, as casinos vie to offer “looser” machines – promoted with slogans such as “99% SLOTS GUARANTEED!” – where the house advantage is as little as five or even one percent. The main reason they can do that is that gamblers these days are prepared to invest much higher stakes, staking $1 or $5 a time rather than the old standard of 25¢. So long as each time you spin the reels, the casino can expect to win 5¢, they’re equally happy to achieve that with quarter slots that pay 80 percent, dollar slots that pay 95 percent, or $5 slots set at 99 percent.

Modern, computerized slot machines are far more sophisticated than their mechanical forebears. Most still contain giant wheels decorated with different symbols – customers have proved suspicious of machines that just show pictures of those symbols on video screens – but, contrary to appearances, the reels don’t simply spin until they stop. Instead, a micro-chip inside each machine generates an unending stream of random numbers. Whenever you set the reels spinning, the current number determines where they will stop. Just because you hit a combination that looks close to a jackpot doesn’t mean that you nearly hit the jackpot, and no sequence of combinations, or lack of winners, can ever indicate that a machine is “ready” to hit.

All kinds of new machines are constantly appearing, targeted at different consumers. There are machines that play Elvis or Sinatra tunes, or mimic board games like Scrabble or Monopoly , or pay homage to favorite TV shows and movies. Thus the I Love Lucy machines, which release a delicious chocolate smell when players hit a bonus round, tend to be positioned to catch the eye of senior gamblers, while the raucous Austin Powers models are found in the hipper, youth-oriented joints.
————————————————————————————————————————To play the slots, you must be over 21 and have the ID to prove it; underage winners are not paid off. US citizens must pay tax on wins of $1200 or more. ————————————————————————————————————————
Beneath all the surface glitter, there are basically two different types of slot machine. ” Non-progressive ” machines have fixed paybacks for every winning combination, and in principle pay lower prizes, more frequently. ” Progressive ” ones, such as Megabucks or Quartermania , are linked into networks of several similar machines, potentially covering the entire state of Nevada. The longer it takes before someone, somewhere hits the jackpot, the higher that jackpot will be – digital displays show mounting totals that can run into millions of dollars.

All the major casinos operate slot clubs , which keep track of how much you gamble and reward you with points redeemable for discounts and upgrades, show tickets, or even cash. The value is never that high – at the MGM Grand , for example, inserting $2000 into the slots entitles you to $12.50 cash back – but it costs nothing to join, so if you plan to gamble for any length of time you might as well.

As for where to play , the slots are “loosest” (which is good) downtown, and anywhere locals play regularly, and notoriously “tight” at places such as the airport or supermarkets, where most customers are just passing through. Strip options range from the Riviera , “where the nickel is king” and you can play for days on end, to the $500 machines in the marble-walled High Limits room at Bellagio .

Sports Betting

Although Nevada is the only state in the country where it’s legal to place bets on the outcome of sporting events, large-scale sports betting is a relatively recent addition to the Las Vegas scene. The first casino to open what’s called a ” Sports Book ” was the Plaza in 1975, and they’ve only become widespread since changes in federal taxation in the mid-1980s. Now, almost every casino has one, and in most instances it’s a “Race and Sports Book,” where you can bet on horse-racing as well.

You might imagine that where you do your sports betting would depend on which casino offered the best odds. In fact, although odds do change minute by minute, almost all are set centrally, and there’s little variation between individual casinos. On top of that, mobile phones and recording devices are banned by Nevada law from all Sports Books, so the only way to compare odds is to trudge from one casino to the next.

The choice instead centers on what sort of atmosphere you prefer. There, the range is enormous. Some Sports Books are high-tech extravaganzas, their walls taken up by vast electronic scoreboards interspersed with massive TV screens; during major sporting occasions, they’re basically sports bars, filled by shrieking crowds. Prime examples include those at Caesars Palace , the Stardust (which you can enter via a doorway direct from the Strip), Mandalay Bay (which boasts the biggest screen in town), the Rio , and the Las Vegas Hilton .

Others opt instead for a hushed, reverential ambience, giving each gambler a personal TV monitor to watch their event of choice, and hand-writing the odds with marker pens on white boards. The Race Book at the Imperial Palace is an especially irresistible example, rising in tiers above the Strip entrance. There are also those that resemble elegant gentlemen’s clubs, like the one at Bellagio with its massive padded leatherette armchairs.

Still others, especially at the locals casinos in outlying neighborhoods, seem like throwbacks to the Victorian era, modeled perhaps on schoolrooms or offices. Rows of gamblers sit at long workbenches, studying poorly printed tip sheets and form books as they await the news from far-off racetracks with names like Gulfstream, Laurel, and Aqueduct.

As for what you can bet on, the options are nearly limitless; not only can you wager on who will win pretty much any conceivable game, fight, or race, you can make more specialized bets, like predicting the combined points total in a game (referred to as the “over-under”).

One thing all the Sports Books have in common is the provision of free alcohol to gamblers; there’s usually a snack bar close to hand as well.

SHOPPING

The last ten years have seen a dramatic turnaround in the profile of shopping in Las Vegas. Before the unveiling of the mind-boggling Forum at Caesars Palace in 1992, none of the casinos had its own shopping mall, and the city’s stores catered almost exclusively to locals. Since then, malls and arcades have been opening everywhere, and the shopping craze has reached the point where an amazing two-thirds of visitors to Las Vegas in one survey cited the shops as the main reason to come.
————————————————————————————————————————Sales tax in Nevada is set at 7.25 percent. ————————————————————————————————————————
Not that Las Vegas is a great destination for bargain hunters ; apart from the odd souvenir store, it’s not tacky, and it’s not cheap. Instead, tourists can expect to encounter jazzed-up outlets of all the usual chains to be found in any US suburban mall, plus a leavening of high-end international names. What’s really generating all the excitement is that the big casinos have started to bring Las Vegas’s traditional flair for display and presentation to these shopping malls, turning them into must-see attractions. As for what makes the malls the most profitable in the nation, it would be nice to imagine that the city is full of successful gamblers who can’t wait to flaunt their new-found wealth. However, the truth is more likely that visitors find themselves losing so much on the tables and slots, with nothing to show for it, that getting something in return for their money – however expensive – suddenly seems a miraculous alternative.

Along the Strip in particular, the shopping boom shows no signs of faltering. The arrival of the exquisite but very small Via Bellagio at Bellagio in 1998 did little to rock the Forum’s throne, but things hotted up in 1999, when the Venetian unveiled its gloriously over-the-top Grand Canal Shoppes . Since then, the Desert Passage at the revamped Aladdin has appeared, on much the same extravagant scale, while Mandalay Resort Group has been pressing ahead with the construction of a huge new mall between Luxor and Mandalay Bay ; negotiations for Harrod’s of London to be its anchor have fallen through, but something spectacular is certainly in the offing. Not to be outdone, the Strip’s veteran Fashion Show Mall is in the throes of a massive expansion.

Not every casino has succumbed to the mall-building craze, however. Both the MGM Grand and the Mirage devote a tiny proportion of their space to shopping, while others among their neighbors stick to the traditional formula of offering only souvenir-type stores, such as Luxor ’s enjoyable selection of Egyptian-themed outlets.

Neither is there all that much variety between one major Strip mall and the next, in terms of actual stores. Thus Ann Taylor and bebe have four outlets each within half a mile, at the Forum, the Grand Canal Shoppes, the Desert Passage, and the Fashion Show Mall, while several others are represented three times over. Bellagio may have won a much-publicized tussle to secure the Armani store that the Venetian wanted, but there was already one at the Mirage , and an Armani Exchange in the Forum.

As a city of over a million inhabitants, Las Vegas has of course its fair share of busy shopping districts – most notably along South Decatur Boulevard and South Maryland Parkway , a couple of miles west and east of the Strip respectively – as well as the kind of malls you’d find anywhere in the United States. Once again, however, few visitors bother to stray far from the Strip.

Malls on the Strip

Desert Passage The Aladdin , 3663 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 1-888/800-8284, . Sun-Thurs 10am-11pm, Fri & Sat 10am-midnight.
Although the Desert Passage mall has yet to attract the same volume of customers as either the Forum or the Grand Canal, it matches its rivals in every other respect. Its Arabian Nights theming is enjoyable, with an artificial sky that unleashes rainstorms in the Merchants Harbor district, and lively street entertainers in the Lost City’s Oasis Square, and there are tricycle rickshaws to ferry footsore shoppers along its mile-long passageways. Readily accessible from both the Strip and the Aladdin ’s parking garage, it’s geared a little less exclusively towards tourists, with the large Z Gallerie for example ranking among the best home-furnishings stores in the city. Nonetheless, it holds dozens of appealing fashion and specialty outlets, including Betsey Johnson, French Connection, Napoleon, Victoria’s Secret, and The Sharper Image, as well as a roster of excellent restaurants, headed by the best in the city, Commander’s Palace .

Fashion Show Mall 3200 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 369-0704, . Mon-Fri 10am-9pm, Sat 10am-7pm, Sun noon-6pm.
The Fashion Show Mall caused a sensation when it opened in 1981, as the first significant shopping mall to appear on the Strip. Back then, its range of department stores, high-end designer emporia, and even its run-of-the-mill mall outlets were a welcome novelty for Las Vegas. Now that the stakes on the Strip are much higher, however, the Fashion Show Mall has been visibly lagging behind its competitors, and is something of a seen-it-all-before snooze. It’s therefore undergoing a massive expansion and revitalization, due at the time of writing to be completed in fall 2003. Behind a new glittering frontage it’s expected to add Las Vegas’s first Nordstrom’s and Bloomingdale’s Home Stores to an array of department stores that already includes as Neiman Marcus, Sak’s Fifth Avenue, Macy’s, Dillard’s, and Robinsons-May.

Forum Shops Caesars Palace , 3500 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 893-4800. Sun-Thurs 10am-11pm, Fri & Sat 10am-midnight.
The mall that kick-started Las Vegas’s shopping boom in 1992 continues to be the most successful in the United States, generating $1275 annually per square foot, compared to the national average of $375. Having doubled in size in 1997, it added as much space again in 2002, and shows no sign of slowing up. That’s largely because it’s a great tourist destination in its own right. The basic concept is irresistible, with faux-Roman columns and fountains everywhere, “statues” that come alive, and an artificial sky that wheels each hour between dawn and dusk. Many of the larger stores join in the fun, so Mickey Mouse rides a chariot in the Disney Store, Elmer Fudd sports a toga at Warner Brothers, and Barbie strikes classical poses at FAO Schwarz. Others take themselves more seriously, so the mix is eclectic. At more than a hundred there are far too many to list here, but clothing outlets range from Gap and Banana Republic, through Diesel and DKNY, to Emporio Armani; there are eight jewelers and eight shoe stores, including the karaoke-happy Just for Feet and a showpiece Nike Town; specialty stores include the excellent Virgin Megastore. The Forum doesn’t have a food court as such – there’s one not far away in the casino proper – but it does hold some fine restaurants, such as Chinois , The Palm , and Spago’s .
————————————————————————————————————————While exploring the Forum, don’t neglect the other mall at Caesars Palace – the Appian Way Shops, home to a replica of Michelangelo’s David and a small but intriguing assortment of expensive stores. ————————————————————————————————————————
Grand Canal Shoppes The Venetian , 3355 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 414-4500. Sun-Thurs 10am-11pm, Fri & Sat 10am-midnight.
Naturally enough, the shopping mall at the Venetian claims to draw its inspiration from Venice itself, but its true model is rather closer to hand. From its false Italian sky (here set permanently to early evening) down to many of the actual stores, the Grand Canal Shoppes slavishly imitates the most effective elements of the Forum across the street. In some respects it surpasses it; the Grand Canal itself is breathtaking, not least for the sheer chutzpah of locating a full-blown canal, complete with working gondolas, on the second story of the building, while with its “open-air” restaurants St Mark’s Square really does feel like a vibrant city square. Purely in terms of shopping, however, it’s not quite large or varied enough to outdo Caesars , though it is at least easier to reach, either via double escalators immediately inside the main casino entrance, or a moving walkway from the campanile on the Strip. Both lead to an impressive anteroom decorated with dramatic frescoes, beyond which you’ll find a number of conventional mall outlets, like Banana Republic and New Balance. Further in, the general emphasis is more consistently upscale than at the Forum, with designer clothing stores like Gandini and Pal Zileri, and jewelry specialists such as Ca’D’Oro (gold), Erwin Pearl (pearls), and Simayof (diamonds). Less familiar “shoppes” include some making their first appearance outside Venice, like Il Prato, selling carnival masks and paper goods, and Ripa de Monti, specializing in exquisite glassware. There’s also a food court, featuring a Krispy Kreme donut shop and a juice bar.

Via Bellagio Bellagio , 3600 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 693-7111. Daily 10am-midnight.
While Via Bellagio isn’t anything like the size of the Forum, Grand Canal Shoppes, or Desert Passage, its single-minded focus on the very top end of the spectrum has made it the chicest place to shop in Las Vegas. Even so, its stores epitomize the city’s democratic approach to shopping: when even the scruffiest of dressers may turn out to be a big spender, anyone is welcome to browse. Just ten stores are ranged on either side of the plushly carpeted Via Bellagio, the walkway connecting the north end of Bellagio (facing Caesars ) with the Strip. As well as Gucci, Giorgio Armani, Chanel, Tiffany and the self-styled “enfant terrible,” Moschino, the catch-all Bellagio Collections stocks clothing & Co, and footwear by more than a dozen other internationally known designers.

Malls Elsewhere

The Boulevard 3528 S Maryland Parkway at Desert Inn Blvd tel 732-8949, . Mon-Fri 10am-9pm, Sat 10am-8pm, Sun 11am-6pm.
Nevada’s largest shopping mall has stood a couple of miles east of the Strip for over thirty years, but thanks to a recent overhaul it looks as good as new. Consisting of a single story centered on a bright glass-covered atrium, and anchored by department stores like Sears, JC Penney, Dillard’s, and Macy’s, it’s the locals’ favorite for day-to-day shopping. As well as over 150 outlets, including such mall regulars as Gap, Victoria’s Secret, Body Shop, Radio Shack, and the entire gamut of Footlockers, it has a good-quality food court.
————————————————————————————————————————CAT bus #203 connects The Boulevard mall with the Strip, running along Twain Avenue from the Fashion Show Mall. ————————————————————————————————————————
Galleria at Sunset 1300 W Sunset Rd, Henderson tel 434-0202, . Mon-Sat 10am-9pm, Sun 11am-6pm.
Las Vegas’s latest megamall is eight miles southeast of the Strip, opposite Sunset Station in suburban Henderson, a location convenient only if you’re heading to or from the Hoover Dam or Arizona. In terms of stores, it’s much the same as the Boulevard, with a Macy’s and a JC Penney, plus another 130 conventional mall outlets, but it also stands at the heart of a busy shopping district, with large neighbors including a Border’s and a Barnes & Noble.

Factory Outlets

Belz Factory World 7400 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 896-5599. Mon-Sat 10am-9pm, Sun 10am-6pm.
Roughly two miles south of Mandalay Bay , on the east side of Las Vegas Blvd (which by this point is no longer called the Strip), Belz Factory World is an ever-expanding, aesthetically challenged mall that offers the city’s best bargain shopping. Among over 150 manufacturer’s outlets, boasting discounts of up to 75 percent, you’ll find clothing and footwear retailers such as Levi’s, Dress Barn, Calvin Klein, Oshkosh B’gosh, Nike, and Reebok, plus the odd specialist store like Wolf Camera.

Fashion Outlet Las Vegas 32100 Las Vegas Blvd S, Primm tel 862-0710, . Mon-Sat 10am-9pm, Sun 10am-8pm.
Despite the street address and the deliberately misleading name, the Fashion Outlet is not in Las Vegas at all, but forty miles southwest, just short of the California state line in Primm. It carefully defines itself as a factory outlet center on the basis that more than half its stores offer discounts of between twenty and seventy percent on usual retail prices. The reason you may find it worthwhile to venture out this far is that it features much bigger names than Belz, including Donna Karan, Polo Ralph Lauren, Gap, Banana Republic, BCBG, Timberland, Tommy Hilfiger, Benetton, Just For Feet, Last Call by Neiman Marcus, and Versace, with outlets loosely divided between a glitzy “New York” area and a less formal “South Beach” area.
————————————————————————————————————————For details of shuttle buses from the Strip to Fashion Outlet Las Vegas, priced at $10 for the round trip, call 874-1400. ———————————————————————————————————————-

Fashion and Accessories

French Connection Desert Passage, The Aladdin , 3663 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 733-6420. Sun-Thurs 10am-11pm, Fri & Sat 10am-midnight.
Sleek UK chain, introducing Las Vegans to its capsule range of affordable, sexy urban basics for men and women.

Gandini Grand Canal Shoppes, The Venetian , 3355 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 732-1645. Sun-Thurs 10am-11pm, Fri & Sat 10am-midnight.
Very fancy men’s and women’s clothiers facing the Grand Canal, packed with extravagant fur-trimmed delights.

Honolua Surf Company Desert Passage, The Aladdin , 3663 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 699-7873. Sun-Thurs 10am-11pm, Fri & Sat 10am-midnight.
Hawaiian surfer (not-so-)chic in the Merchant’s Harbor section; a fine array of colorful shirts, shorts, and swimwear.

Moschino Via Bellagio, Bellagio , 3600 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 693-7926. Daily 10am-midnight.
Ideally suited to its postmodern setting, Moschino revels in displaying its playful, ultrapricey women’s wear and accessories on mock-reverential plinths and pedestals.

Napoleon Desert Passage, The Aladdin , 3663 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 699-7873. Sun-Thurs 10am-11pm, Fri & Sat 10am-midnight.
Upscale men’s retailer just off the Strip, selling beautifully tailored, very expensive, suits, shirts and shoes; the serious-minded staff will be happy to show you the latest interesting things that are happening in pants.

Ross Dress For Less 2420 E Desert Inn Rd tel 733-9001. Mon-Sat 9am-9pm, Sun 11am-7pm.
The men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing and shoes on offer at this east-of-the-Strip outlet are considerably more attractive than the name might suggest, with the women’s wear department in particular boasting a high local reputation.

Structure Forum Shops, Caesars Palace , 3500 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 892-0421. Sun-Thurs 10am-11pm, Fri & Sat 10am-midnight.
Fashionable but affordable men’s clothing. Also in the Galleria at Sunset, the Fashion Show Mall, and the Boulevard Mall.

Vintage Clothing

The Attic 1018 S Main St tel 388-4088. Mon-Sat 10am-7pm, Sun 11am-5pm.
Located in an insalubrious area south of downtown (just a little too far to walk), this shrine to vintage Americana both chic and kitsch charges customers a dollar simply to cross its portals. Once inside, there’s some amazing stuff, though it’s all a bit too cannily priced to expect to leave with your arms full. Clothes and costumes of all kinds range from old Levi’s and bell-bottoms to flamboyant 1960s creations, and there’s a great assortment of shoes, hats, and accessories. The furniture too is a delight, with turquoise vinyl armchairs and the like, and there’s also a little in-house coffee bar.

Buffalo Exchange 4110 S Maryland Parkway tel 791-3960. Mon-Sat 11am-7pm, Sun noon-6pm.
Buffalo Exchange, a chain of vintage-clothing stores familiar to Western bargain-hunters, is a bit less characterful than the Attic, but the atmosphere is just as cool, and it’s a more dependable source of inexpensive retro items, including shoes.

Shoes

Jimmy Choo Grand Canal Shoppes, The Venetian , 3355 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 733-1802. Sun-Thurs 10am-11pm, Fri & Sat 10am-midnight.
The last word in elegant female footwear, brought to you by the aptly named Malaysian designer who was a personal favorite of Princess Diana.

Just For Feet Forum Shops, Caesars Palace , 3500 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 791-3482. Sun-Thurs 10am-11pm, Fri & Sat 10am-midnight.
What’s said to be the world’s largest athletic shoe store, with four thousand big-name styles, faces the living statues just inside the Forum as you come in off the Strip. The prices generally aren’t bad, but during one of their regular karaoke sessions you can get a reduction of twenty percent or more merely for singing one song and gyrating like a loon on top of the counter.

Nike Town Forum Shops, Caesars Palace , 3500 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 650-8888. Sun-Thurs 10am-11pm, Fri & Sat 10am-midnight.
This gleaming, high-tech, two-story superstore, behind Atlantis at the far end of the Forum, is as much museum as shoe store, but if there’s even a hint of foot fetishism in your make up you won’t be able to resist its adoration of the sports shoe. Each section is devoted to a specific sport.

Health and Beauty

Sephora The Venetian , 3355 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 735-3896, . Daily 10am-midnight.
Extremely glamorous perfume and cosmetics store, located right on the Strip beneath Madame Tussaud’s and stocking a phenomenal assortment of scents and daubs, with expert staff to help you try it all out. They have another outlet, slightly smaller but equally prominent, in the Desert Passage.

Gifts and Souvenirs

Ancient Creations Grand Canal Shoppes, The Venetian , 3355 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 414-3701. Sun-Thurs 10am-11pm, Fri & Sat 10am-midnight.
An antiques store with a fascinating difference; these are real antiques, dating back in some cases thousands of years. The exact stock varies of course, but can include Roman water jars priced at $18,500, Greek statuettes for $2400, or a 1611 edition of the King James Bible at $99,000. Individual coins from the Classical world can cost as little as $25. Ancient Creations has other branches in the Desert Passage and the Appian Way Shops at Caesars .

Bonanza Gift Shop 2460 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 385-7359. Daily 8am-midnight.
Located at a busy intersection, across from the Sahara and a few blocks south of the Stratosphere , the self-proclaimed “World’s Largest Gift Store” is not all that big really, but it’s the best single outlet for all those tacky souvenirs you’d hope to find in Las Vegas. Beyond the predictable array of used playing cards from all the casinos (costing $1), gaming boards, fuzzy dice, whoopee cushions, fart candy, postcards, and male and female nudie ballpoint pens, you’ll find a more surreal world of Las Vegas snowstorms, Elvis clocks, and inflatable aliens, plus every permutation thereof, if not exactly alien Elvises trapped in snowstorms.

Gamblers General Store 800 S Main St tel 382-9903 or 1-800/322-2447, Daily 9am-5pm.
For a truly authentic Las Vegas souvenir, you can’t do better than the Gamblers General Store a few blocks south of downtown. As well as selling old slot machines for $999 – be sure to check the list of states where it’s illegal to possess one even in your own home – and full-sized craps table for $4000, they have felt mats with roulette, blackjack, and craps layouts for $40, and packs of cards from all the casinos for 99¢. There’s also a large library of books on gambling, detailing techniques for blackjack, craps, horses, and even slots, though paying $20 for a photocopied pamphlet explaining why you’ll never win has to be a waste of money even by Las Vegas standards.
————————————————————————————————————————Las Vegas’s best stock of Elvis memorabilia can be found at Elvis-A-Rama; and don’t forget the gift store at the Liberace Museum either. ————————————————————————————————————————
Books

Albion Book Company 2466 E Desert Inn Rd tel 792-9554. Daily 10am-6pm.
The valley’s best stock of secondhand books, with 150,000 titles including large sections on Las Vegas and the West, plus a big collection of used audio books at bargain prices – handy if you’re setting off on a road trip.

Barnes & Noble 2191 N Rainbow Blvd tel 631-2216. Daily 9am-11pm.
This chain outlet is several miles west of downtown, just beyond the point where US-95 veers north, but has a copious selection of new books on every subject, plus a roomy café that’s ideal for a light lunch. Also at 3860 S Maryland Parkway, and 567 Stephanie St in Henderson.

Borders 2323 S Decatur Blvd tel 258-0999. Mon-Sat 9am-11pm, Sun 9am-9pm.
An excellent range of new books and magazines, a couple of miles west of the Strip along Sahara Ave. Other branches at 2190 N Rainbow Blvd (across from Barnes & Noble) and 1445 W Sunset Rd in Henderson (near Sunset Station ).

Music

Big B’s 4761 S Maryland Parkway tel 732-4433, . Mon-Sat 11am-9pm, Sun noon-6pm.
University District music store, with well-informed staff and a large stock of CDs and vinyl, both new and used.

Tower Records at WOW 4580 W Sahara Ave tel 364-2500. Daily 10am-midnight.
Two miles west of the Strip and a couple of blocks east of Borders, Tower boasts a good collection of new CDs – with a better chance of finding a bargain than at Virgin – and forms part of a larger complex that also sells videos and musical equipment.

Virgin Megastore Forum Shops, Caesars Palace , 3500 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 696-7100. Sun-Thurs 10am-11pm, Fri & Sat 10am-midnight.
One of the Forum’s few multistory stores, the only music store on the Strip stocks the broadest selection of new CDs in town, and also has a small but very hip book section.

Electronic Equipment and Cameras

The Good Guys 4580 W Sahara Ave at Decatur tel 364-2500, . Daily 9am-midnight.
The best source in Las Vegas for electronic goods of all kinds, from computers to TVs and audio equipment. Also at Boulevard Mall.

Sharper Image Desert Passage, The Aladdin , 3663 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 732-2505. Sun-Thurs 10am-11pm, Fri & Sat 10am-midnight.
A very entertaining selection of electronic gadgets and devices, some useful – such as wireless stereo speakers you can carry into the garden – and some downright daft.

Wolf Camera and Video Belz Factory World, 7400 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 896-4271, . Mon-Sat 10am-9pm, Sun 10am-6pm.
All films, cameras, and accessories here are likely to be better value than anything you’ll find on the Strip, but British visitors in particular will be pleased to note that they sell PAL-system camcorders.

SPORTS AND ACTIVITIES

Las Vegas is not exactly renowned for its healthy lifestyle, but if you start to feel the need for exercise, opportunities do exist. For visitors, the highest profile activity these days is golf . The city currently boasts around forty golf courses, and is adding more at a ferocious rate. Most casinos do at least have a swimming pool , with the larger ones on the Strip offering full-service spas and tennis facilities as well. “Locals” casinos, on the other hand, usually out in more residential neighborhoods, specialize in offering popular year-round indoor pursuits such as bowling and ice-skating .

As for spectator sports , despite the best efforts of Mayor Goodman – who’s on record as saying that “until you have major league sports, you’ll always be thought of as a minor-league town” – Las Vegas lacks high-profile professional teams. Although tourists flock from all over the nation to watch events like the Super Bowl on large-screen TVs – and of course, bet on them – the only sport to regularly draw sizable crowds for live action is championship boxing .

Spas

Most of the major Strip casinos offer their own luxurious spa facilities, open as a rule to guests and non-guests alike, but occasionally restricted to guests only on weekends. Typical rates start at around $25 per day, with a vast range of more expensive treatments available. The best is widely recognized to be the Canyon Ranch Spa at the Venetian (daily 5.30am-10pm; tel 414-3600). Among its closest rivals are:

Aladdin ; daily 8am-7pm; tel 785-5772.

Bellagio ; daily 6am-8pm; tel 693-8080.

Caesars Palace ; daily 6am-8pm; tel 731-7110.

Mandalay Bay ; daily 5am-10pm; tel 632-7777.

Grand ; daily 6am-8pm; tel 891-3077.

The Monte Carlo ; daily 6am-9pm; tel 730-7590.

Paris ; daily 6am-7pm; tel 946-4366.

Indoor Sports and Activities

BOWLING

Castaways 2800 Fremont St tel 385-9153. Daily 24hr.
At 106 lanes, the Castaways boasts the largest bowling alley in the US, and plays host to the Showboat Invitational Bowling Tournament, the oldest pro event in the country, each Jan.

Gold Coast 4000 W Flamingo Rd tel 367-4700. Daily 24hr.
During the week, the usual low rates at the superbly equipped 72-lane Brunswick bowling center drop even lower between midnight and 8am. On Sat nights, however, it’s taken over by a giant “bowling disco party.”

Orleans 4500 W Tropicana Ave tel 365-7111. Daily 24hr.
Adult rates at the Orleans ’ 70-lane upstairs bowling arcade are $2.50 per game.

Sam’s Town 5111 Boulder Hwy tel 454-8022. Daily 24hr.
This bright 56-lane downstairs bowling center plays host on Fri and Sat nights (from midnight until 4am) to “extreme bowling”; basically, it becomes a nightclub, with music, lights, dry ice, and, of course, bowling. For the rest of the week, rates drop between midnight and 8am.

Santa Fe Hotel & Casino 4949 N Rancho Drive tel 658-4995. Daily 24hr.
The Santa Fe ’s sixty-lane bowling alley, back-to-back with the ice arena, features Bowlervision, an electronic device that tracks the path of your ball.

GYMS AND HEALTH CLUBS

Las Vegas Athletic Club 2655 S Maryland Parkway tel 734-5822, . Daily 24hr.
The city’s largest health-club chain, with four different valley locations (not all 24hr) that feature indoor and outdoor pools, exercise equipment and classes, saunas and spas, and other sports facilities. Membership $10 per day, $25 per week.

Las Vegas Sporting House 3025 Industrial Rd tel 733-8999. Daily 24 hrs.
In addition to a full gymnasium and fitness center with all the latest equipment, the Sporting House offers tennis, squash, and handball courts plus an outdoor pool. Membership costs around $15 per day or $50 per week, but check to see if your hotel has special privileges.

ICE-SKATING

Santa Fe Ice Arena Santa Fe Hotel & Casino , 4949 N Rancho Drive tel 658-4993. Hours vary.
Las Vegas’s only casino ice rink charges $5 admission, with skate rental for $1.50, and offers a varied schedule of pick-up hockey games, figure skating, and so on.

Outdoor Sports and Activites

BUNGEE JUMPING

A.J. Hackett Bungy Circus Circus , 810 Circus Circus Drive tel 385-4321. Hours vary.
Should you feel the urge to plummet approximately 200 feet toward but not into a swimming pool, attached to a rubberized rope, look no further. It’s $49 for your first jump, $25 each for the second and third, and nothing at all for the fourth.

GOLF

Angel Park Golf Club 3145 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 733-4290, .
Beautifully set in Summerlin, at the western edge of the valley, the public facility features two Arnold Palmer-designed full-size courses, plus a twelve-hole par 3 course and an eighteen-hole putting course, both of which are floodlit at night. Green fees start at $65.
————————————————————————————————————————For reservations at most of Las Vegas’s forty or so golf courses, call Golf Reservations of Nevada Inc tel 732-3119 or 1-800/627-4465, . ————————————————————————————————————————
Bali Hai Golf Club 100 S Rampart Blvd tel 1-888/446-5358, .
Extraordinarily lavish water-themed course, not far southwest of Mandalay Bay , seen as an expanse of vivid green from planes coming in to land; the golf carts even have satellite global positioning systems, while Wolfgang Puck’s Cili is the clubhouse restaurant. Standard green fee is $260.

Las Vegas Golf Club 4300 W Washington Ave tel 646-3003.
Busy city-owned course that offers exceptionally cheap rates for locals. Non-residents can play eighteen holes for $80 Mon-Thurs, $90 Fri-Sun.

Las Vegas National Golf Club 1911 E Desert Inn Rd tel 796-0016.
Originally the Sahara Country Club, and home to the Las Vegas Invitational Tournament, this appealing course, a couple of miles east of the Strip, charges the general public $85 Mon-Thurs, $110 Fri-Sun.

HORSE RIDING

Cowboy Trail Rides tel 838-3001, .Hours Vary.
Ninety-minute riding expeditions in the Spring Mountains, in either the Red Rock Canyon area or higher up on Mount Charleston, for $69.

RAFTING

Black Canyon Raft Tours 1297 Nevada Hwy, Boulder City tel 293-3776 or 1-800/696-7238. By reservation, Feb-Nov only.
One-day rafting trips downriver from Hoover Dam as far as Willow Beach, for $95 per person including hotel pickup.

SKIING AND SNOWBOARDING

Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort Hwy-156, Mount Charleston tel 385-2754, . Late Nov to early April only. Lifts operate Mon-Fri & Sun 9am-4pm, Sat 9am-4pm & 4.30-10pm.
Las Vegas’s only ski slopes are almost fifty miles from the Strip. Three chair lifts lead to ten different slopes, graded from novice to advanced; lift passes cost $28 per day, and equipment rental is available.

SKYDIVING

Skydive Las Vegas 1401 Airport Rd, Boulder City tel 759-3483 or 1-800/USKYDIV, . By reservation.
Leap from an airplane 12,500 feet over the Nevada desert, strapped to an instructor, then free-fall and parachute for a total of well over five minutes, for $175.

WATER SPORTS

Las Vegas Bay Marina Lake Shore Rd, Henderson tel 565-9111. Hours vary.
Among water craft available for rental at Las Vegas Bay Marina, at 25 miles out the closest point on Lake Mead to the city, are jetskis at $50 per hour or $150 for four hours, and speedboats at $50 per hour or $300 per day. Similar facilities are offered by Lake Mead Marina near Boulder City (tel 293-3484), and Callville Bay (tel 565-8958) and Echo Bay (tel 394-4000), on the north shore of the lake.

Spectator Sports

BASEBALL

The Las Vegas 51s , a class AAA team affiliated to the San Diego Padres, have in recent years repeatedly triumphed in the Pacific Coast League. They recently changed their name from the Las Vegas Stars, in honor of Nevada’s legendary Area 51, and play around seventy home games between April and Labor Day each year at Cashman Field, 850 Las Vegas Blvd N (tel 386-7200, ). Admission prices start at $4.

BOXING

In the last 25 years, Las Vegas has taken over from New York as the world capital of boxing . A heavyweight title fight brings so many high-rollers into town that the major casinos will pay almost any purse to the boxers concerned (upwards of $20 million per in some cases), and they’re still doing so despite fiascos like the infamous ear-biting bout between Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield.

The three principal players have long been Caesars Palace , which for big fights erects an arena in its back lot capable of holding up to 30,000 people; the MGM Grand , with its 15,000-seat Garden; and the Mirage. Mandalay Bay has ventured into hosting championship boxing as well, and some fights also take place at the University’s Thomas & Mack Center, 4505 S Maryland Parkway (tel 895-3761). Ticket prices depend completely on demand; the cheapest seats for a welterweight fight can be as little as $50, but for Mike Tyson they’re more likely to range between $500 and $2500.
————————————————————————————————————————It was just after a Mike Tyson fight at the MGM Grand that rap star Tupac Shakur was shot, on September 7, 1996. He died four days later. ————————————————————————————————————————
In addition, the Orleans , 4500 W Tropicana Ave (tel 365-7570), stages Friday-night boxing roughly once a month in its Mardi Gras ballroom, featuring three men’s bouts and one women’s, with tickets priced at $15 to $40.

COLLEGE SPORTS

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas, plays its home basketball games at the Thomas & Mack Center, 4505 S Maryland Parkway (tel 895-3295), from November to May, and home football games at Sam Boyd Silver Bowl Stadium, Boulder Hwy (tel 895-3900), between September and December.

GETTING MARRIED

Well over a hundred thousand marriages are performed in Las Vegas each year. Having a Vegas wedding has become a byword for tongue-in-cheek chic, and there are indeed drive-thru chapels where bride and groom do no more than roll down their car windows before being serenaded on their way by Elvis himself.

What’s more surprising, however, is that most marriages in the city seem to be deeply formal affairs . Both the casinos and a horde of independent wedding chapels compete to offer elaborate and expensive ceremonies with all the traditional trimmings, from white gowns and black limousines, to garters and boutonniers. The happy couples are more likely to have saved and planned long in advance than to have succumbed to a spur-of-the-moment impulse.

You don’t have to be a local resident or take a blood test to get wed in Las Vegas. Assuming you’re both at least eighteen years old and carrying picture ID, and neither of you is already married – US citizens are expected to know their Social Security Numbers – simply turn up at the Clark County Marriage License Bureau , downtown at 200 S Third St (Mon-Thurs 8am-midnight, and continuously from 8am on Fri to midnight on Sun; tel 455-4415, ), and buy a marriage license for $50 cash.
————————————————————————————————————————To get a divorce in Las Vegas, you have to have been a Nevada resident for at least six weeks. ————————————————————————————————————————
With no waiting period required, the cheapest option is then to walk one block to the office of the Commissioner of Civil Marriages, 309 S Third St (same hours; same phone number), and pay another $50 cash to have a civil wedding performed.

Wedding chapels claim to charge as little as $50 for their most basic ceremonies, but at that sort of rate even the minister is regarded as an “extra” costing an additional $40. Reckon on paying at least $100 for the bare minimum, which is liable to be as romantic a process as checking in at a hotel, and to take about as long. The full deluxe service ranges up to around $600. Photography in particular can be expensive; many chapels won’t let you bring a still camera, let alone make a video. When you pay for the services of their own photographers, you’re not usually buying the right to keep the negatives, and may have to pay exorbitant rates for each individual print.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau provide full listings of wedding chapels on their website ( ), as well as details of operators such as Las Vegas Weddings and Rooms (tel 1-800/488-6283) that offer all-inclusive wedding packages. The busiest days in the calendar are New Year’s Eve, which gives American couples the right to file a joint tax return for the entire preceding year, and Valentine’s Day.

Wedding Chapels

Candlelight Wedding Chapel 2855 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 735-4179 or 1-800/962-1818, . Daily 8am-midnight.
Busy little chapel across from Circus Circus , where you get a carnation bouquet with the $179 wedding package, or a garter with the $499 option.

Graceland Wedding Chapel 619 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 382-0091 or 1-800/824-5732, . Sun-Thurs 9am-9pm, Fri & Sat 9am-midnight.
This comparatively tasteful white-painted church, complete with stained-glass windows, offers conventional ceremonies for $55-395, while an extra $145 buys the services of the King himself. Elvis prefers not to conduct actual weddings – although he will renew vows – but he makes a great best man, and sings six songs.
————————————————————————————————————————Elvis married Priscilla at the (old) Aladdin on May 1, 1967, nine months to the day before the birth of Lisa Marie, and eight years before Michael Jackson met Lisa Marie at a Jackson Five gig in Vegas. Those two, however, wed years later in the Dominican Republic. ————————————————————————————————————————
Little Chapel of the Flowers 1717 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 735-4331 or 1-800/843-2410, . Mon-Thurs 9am-9pm, Fri & Sat 9am-10pm, Sun 11am-6pm.
Rather traditional, not to say twee, establishment with two antique-furnished chapels off the same lobby, that’s notorious as the site where Dennis Rodman and Carmen Electra got hitched. Weddings range between $185 and $985; the latter includes a helicopter ride, with, if you prefer, the ceremony on board.

Little Church of the West 4617 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 739-7971 or 1-800/821-2452. Daily 8am-midnight.
Having originally formed part of the Last Frontier casino, the Little Church of the West is on the National Register of Historic Places, and has moved progressively down the Strip to its current site south of Mandalay Bay . It’s among the more peaceful and quiet places to exchange your Vegas vows – if that’s really what you want.

A Little White Chapel 1301 Las Vegas Blvd S tel 382-5943 or 1-800/545-8111. . Daily 24 hrs.
Las Vegas’s best-known location for celebrity weddings, where Bruce Willis and Demi Moore married each other, as did Jack and Vera Duckworth of British soap Coronation Street , while Michael Jordan and Joan Collins married other people. The chapel that pioneered the “24-hr Drive-Up Wedding Window” has since refined the concept by roofing over the driveway as the “Tunnel of Love,” and painting naked cherubs on its blue-sky ceiling. Staffed by fifteen ministers, it can provide tasteful black baseball caps embroidered for “Bride” and “Groom,” and is even planning to add an on-site massage parlor.

Novelty Weddings

When it comes to getting hitched in style, the sky is literally the limit in Las Vegas. Most wedding chapels can persuade Elvis to arrive in a pink Cadillac and sing Love Me Tender , but there are plenty of options guaranteed to make you the star of the show. Unorthodox options include plighting your troth amid the pirates aboard HMS Britannia outside Treasure Island (tel 894-7700); on the deck of the USS Enterprise at the Hilton (tel 697-8750); floating on a gondola in the Venetian ’s Grand Canal (tel 414-4253); with a fire-breathing dragon for witness on the EFX stage at the MGM Grand (tel 891-7984); or cavorting in medieval costume at Excalibur (tel 597-7278).

At Circus Circus , A.J. Hackett Bungy (tel 385-4321) can take your vows perched on a tiny platform immediately before plummeting on an eighteen-story bungee jump. A Little White Chapel in the Sky (tel 382-5943) arranges marriages in a hot-air balloon from $650, while Las Vegas Helicopters (tel 736-0013) can provide a minister to perform your ceremony either hovering over the Strip or on the rim of the Grand Canyon.

Casino Chapels

Almost all of the major casinos have their own wedding chapels, which tend to eschew the kitschier elements of the independent chapels and offer ceremonies starting at around $400. Among the most popular are:

Bellagio tel 693-7700

Caesars Palace tel 731-7422

Excalibur tel 597-7278

The Flamingo tel 733-3492

Mandalay Bay tel 632-7490

New York-New York tel 740-6625

Paris tel 967-7000

Treasure Island tel 894-7700

The Tropicana tel 798-3778

DIRECTORY

Airlines Major airlines using McCarran International Airport include Air Canada tel 1-800/776-3000, ; Aloha Airlines tel 1-800/367-5250, ; America West tel 1-800/235-9292, ; American Airlines tel 1-800/433-7300, ; Continental tel 1-800/525-0280, ; Delta tel 1-800/221-1212, ; Hawaiian Airlines tel 1-800/367-5320, ; National Airlines tel 1-888-757-5387, ; Northwest tel 1-800/225-2525, ; Southwest tel 1-800/435-9792, ; United tel 1-800/241-6522, ; Virgin Atlantic tel 1-800/862-8621, .

Area code The telephone area code for all Las Vegas numbers is 702.

Banks and exchange There’s not a single bank on the Strip, but there can be no easier city in which to get cash or change money: the casinos gladly convert almost any currency, day and night, and their walls are festooned with every conceivable ATM machine, though most impose a service charge of around $2.

Conventions During large conventions, which can attract up to 200,000 visitors, room rates in Las Vegas can rise enormously – partly due to the demand, but also because conventioneers tend not to gamble as much as tourists. The biggest annual events are the Consumer Electronic Show, in the second week of Jan; the Men’s Apparel Guild (or MAGIC) in early March; and Comdex computer show in mid-Nov.

Disabled travelers While all the major casinos offer designated rooms for the physically challenged – plus, of course, accessible gaming facilities – the buildings themselves are on such a vast scale that visiting Las Vegas can be an exhausting experience. The Convention and Visitors Authority runs an advice line at 892-7525, and carries detailed information on the website; to arrange for a free disabled parking permit, call 229-6431.

Emergencies For police or medical assistance, call 911.

Festivals Las Vegas has far fewer annual festivals than most American cities. Apart from New Year’s Eve and the World Series of Poker (held at the Horseshoe in April and May), almost all the highlights of the calendar are sports-related, ranging from rodeo events like Helldorado in mid-June and the National Finals in Dec, to the Las Vegas Invitational golf tournament in Oct. Note also that the year beginning May 15, 2004, will be celebrated as Las Vegas’s 100th birthday, with a plethora of special events.

Film processing You’re likely to find film processing charges fairly outrageous at the specialty shops in town; most casinos do have places to develop film as well, but check on those prices first, too.

Hospitals 24-hour emergency rooms operate at the University Medical Center, 1800 W Charleston Blvd (tel 383-2000), and Sunrise Hospital, 3186 Maryland Parkway (tel 731-8000).

Internet access The Internet Café of Las Vegas is located two blocks west of Las Vegas Blvd, between downtown and the Stratosphere , at 320 E Charleston Blvd (tel 897-0142).

Kids We’ve listed Top Ten attractions on the Strip for kids. Several casinos will look after your children while you gamble or simply explore; these include the MGM Grand , whose Youth Center costs $8 per hour for guests, or $10 for outsiders, and the various members of the Stations chain. Typically, you can leave your kids for a maximum of 3hr 30min in any 24-hour period. For a babysitter, call Around The Clock Child Care (tel 365-1040 or 1-800/798-6768).

Laundromats Laundry facilities are available in all hotels.

Library 1401 E Flamingo Rd (Mon-Thurs 9am-9pm, Fri & Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm; tel 733-7810).

Medical help The independent, 24-hour Nevada Resort Medical Center is located on the eighth floor of the Imperial Palace , 3535 Las Vegas Blvd S (tel 893-6767).

Pharmacies The closest to the Strip are Sav-On, 1360 E Flamingo Rd (24hr; tel 731-5373), and White Cross, north of the Stratosphere at 1700 Las Vegas Blvd S (daily 7am-1am; tel 382-1733), which has a delivery service.

Photography The only casinos in Las Vegas that allow visitors to take photographs of the action on their slot machines and gaming tables are Excalibur on the Strip, and the Four Queens downtown.

Police Las Vegas police can be contacted on 795-3111.

Post office While you should be able to mail postcards, letters, and packages from your hotel, the nearest post office to the Strip is behind the Stardust at 3100 Industrial Rd (Mon-Fri 8.30am-5pm, Sat 10am-2pm).

Tax Nevada’s sales tax is 7.25 percent. Roo