It isn't quite what I imagined, in that the casino resorts are much closer and more crowded than I anticipated. They are all scrunched together. At the same time, the resorts are humongous, each taking up a full city block that in the average city would be four city blocks. The first two days we walked with energy, but on the third and fourth days we really slowed down. The strip itself is over 4 miles long, and when you weave in and out of all there is to see, it's easy to double the mileage. Whew!
I found the strip to be very much like a canyon. The buildings are high on the strip, but the rest of Las Vegas is low and flat. Interesting place.
Each casino resort includes the casino and hotel, but also several restaurants and bars, swimming pools, and frequently a shopping mall. Huge! The themes are pure fantasy, although some of the hotels carry out the fantasies better than others. Below is the Venetian, based on Venice. You might recognize the Rialto Bridge in the center, and the tower of the Piazza San Marco on the right.
Below is the Mirage, where water is the theme, inside and out:
The Flamingo, the oldest casino on the strip (although it has been rebuilt), included a wildlife habitat with a pelican, many species of ducks, koi, and an albino catfish.
My favorite was Paris. I had a delicious dinner crepe there:
New York, New York was pretty cool too. It includes Coney Island's roller coaster:
The buildings and Statue of Liberty were smaller than their real counterparts:
Caesar Palace was the most opulent, in my estimation. The Bellagio, next door, has a seasonal display that included a talking tree for autumn:
Everyone knows about Luxor, the Egyptian Pyramid, right? The inside is all things Egyptian, while balconies look down from above. Very cool:
As you can see, the Las Vegas strip is opulent and well over-the-top. But it has its place, I guess. As a vacation destination, it allows people to live in a different reality for a few days.
I should add that Lee and I aren't big gamblers, so didn't spend much time at the slots. We did walk a LOT, however. Good exercise! We had nice weather while we were here, but in the summer months you would want to stay indoors more.
Everything was more expensive than I expected. I remember the days when casinos subsidized buffet meals and hotel rooms, but they don't anymore. Perhaps this is because there is now so much more than the casinos - there are shows and roller coasters and shopping malls... Overhead costs are much higher than ever before.
Here is another interesting tidbit. MGM owns most of the hotels on the strip, which surprised me. MGM owns, amongst others, MGM Grand, Bellagio, Luxor, Excalibur, Mandalay Bay, New York-New York, Monte Carlo, Circus Circus, Mandarin Oriental, Mirage, and Aria. That is a lot of acreage.
