Tourist Vegas observations...

I just got back from a three night trip to Vegas, my first trip to Sin City in 2.5 years. I have some observations from the trip and shows how Vegas has changed somewhat in the non-gambling perspective. I was travelling with child for the first time, and generally, I had a rule that I wouldn't take my kid to Vegas, and indeed, had her idol had not been Shania Twain, we wouldn't have come. The city is an adult mecca, not geared to children nor teenagers, despite the smattering of attractions on the strip that might advertise otherwise.

We ended up staying in Caesar's place for the three nights using two rooms. Due to our play earlier in the year at Windsor on a trip to Chicago, the rooms were only $300 total for the three nights, plus some money spent on the wireless coverage. Rooms in the Forum tower were renovated sometime after the Wynn was built (2008) and now includes push button draws on the windows, flat screen Sony TVs, large bathrooms with an overhead shower option, a streamlined room with a long table along the wall for all of your stuff (since there was no need for a TV cabinet. I really liked the rooms, though they were starting to show a little bit of age. Air Conditioning was relatively quiet in that it wasn't overpowering (but not super quiet either). Rooms were adjoining as requested.

Caesar's did not provide hairdryers in their rooms, but they did provide Keurig coffeemakers with the option of buying the inroom coffee at $3/cup. I'd suggest walking over to the Walgreens or the ABC store and just buying your own, or bring your own from home. I don't understand the nickel and diming of giving you a great room but making you buy coffee or not providing hair dryers. As always, when you stay on the strip, walk over to the Walgreens or ABC store to purchase your in-room necessities and snacks. Everytime my wife bought a bottle of bottled water from the casino at $3 to $4, I cringed.

It was a fairly quiet weekend in Vegas despite the Rodeo being in town, but probably typical for December. We noticed only about 1/2 the "pornslappers" as usual, but we also noticed a great increase of street "performers" and homeless people on the bridges between the casinos. And I am not sure whether this is a Christmas thing, but there were a pile of movie characters in costume, taking cash to have them pose with them. The characters covered pretty much every genre from suerheroes, to NickTV characters to Disney.

We caught (and avoided) a three card monte in progress. I am sure pickpocketers were working the crowd while the operators were figuring out how to scam the most amount of money, but I was surprised that LV police were allowing this to go on.

The Bellagio is decked out very nicely for Christmas and the Conservatory with all of the Poinsettias and floral "bears" was very nice. The area around the City Centre seems to have been cleaned up very nicely. The complex itself seems to be a monstrosity and I have no desire to go inside the facility. I think I liked the fact that I could see inside to the Cosmopolitan casino's via its windows.

If you like Shania Twain, you have to see the show at the Colliseum. It will not disappoint you. I'll have a full review later.

I also HIGHLY recommend the Pinball Hall of Fame, especially if you have ANY memories of playing pinball. We took the 201 bus from the Trop to the HoF and we were not disappointed at all. $20 of quarters lasted us almost 2 hours, and I played games from throughout my youth to current days. My daughter really enjoyed this as well. They also have a selection of old video games (Space Invaders, Pong, Battle Zone, Missile Command). If I could have afforded the time, I would have spent most of the day there. A tiny warning that the PHOL has upped the price on some of its game to $.75/play, but you get five balls instead of three, and on most games where you are paying $.75, you can buy the third game for .50.

Anyway, a decent trip, and I came home with a little bit of money.

Couldn't agree more with your comments and thoughts about LV being an adult mecca. I can appreciate that your short trip was geared towards Shania Twain show for your daughter, so I am not speaking of you when I say I just cringe when I see a family with 3 or 4 kids in tow walking the strip, fighting through the porn snappers and drunken folks over-enjoying themselves. What are they thinking? Stop and take a look at the faces of the kids. They are usually miserable.

Not sure if your calling Caesars 'place' instead of palace was intentional or not, but the downgrade seems appropriate. lol

It actually was a pretty big weekend in Vegas with not only the Rodeo, but a big fight on Saturday. Fight night activities are centered around the southern part of strip, so maybe you missed some of that.

I have not noticed a reduction in porn slappers. I wish I would. I also have not noticed an increase in homeless folks. Unfortunately, there have been a high number of homeless since I moved here 3 years ago. I just kind of figured that was normal.

Thank you for your description of the pinball hall of fame. I drive by that location often but have never stopped in. Pinball was kind of before my time. But it sounds worthy of a look.

I spent some time figuring out whether I would take my 15 year old to Vegas or not, and only Shania Twain could tip the balance. Certainly, as a pure tourist attraction, Las Vegas is up there with Times Square in New York, but really, the Strip is geared for adults. So, I minimized time spent in the casino and spent most of the outside time in malls or walking. As such, her favorite resort was the Venetian and St. Mark's Square, and in particular, the canal. The Venetian/Palazzo complex is unique in that the casino is on a different floor than the rest of the complex. I also took her to the Conservatory in Bellagio, the fountain show in front, the volcano attraction, and the now very lame moving statues in Caesar's. As my daughter spent 6-7 hours shopping (looking for the perfect semi-formal dress) on three different sessions (and tired legs), we weren't able to get her on the NYNY roller coaster, the Titanic exhibit in the Luxor, or the Stratosphere show. We were even quite too tired to take in the Mac King magic show in Harrah's. All of those are geared to kids.

We had a discussions about how Las Vegas was built on the casino's revenue, that almost everyone loses but there were a few winners here and there. I told her about Steve Wynn's modernizing of Vegas through Treasure Island and Mirage and a bit of the history of Vegas. Still, she observed how much fun Vegas could be for young people, just for the nightclubs and non-gambling activities alone.

Yep, I'm scared.