VIVA LAS VEGAS! - MARCH 2006
The USA sounded like a great idea for our Christmas holiday when we booked the flights in the Bangkok heat last July, especially with the prospect of snow and lovely cold weather being guaranteed. We had arranged to visit the good friends we had made back in England, who have now returned to live in the States and also to spend New Year in Las Vegas (Andy had always wanted to take us there after enjoying a business trip there some years ago).
As Christmas approached, the idea of a 27 hour journey, three flights, and a 13 hour time difference with a 4 and 12 year old traveling to the frozen town of Madison, Wisconsin began to loose its appeal and of course, by then the cool season had arrived in Bangkok, always a great time of the year here. The day of departure arrived and James, Jessica and I set of for a ridiculously early flight with United Airlines to Tokyo, then another to Chicago and finally on to Madison. We arrived to temperatures 19 below zero (in Fahrenheit !!!) and to the kids’ delight 6 inches of snow. We felt amazingly awake after such a long journey and it was great to see our friends again... My husband had skillfully arranged to fly three days later with his Thai gold card enabling himself to spend some part of the long journey in the civilized lounges and of course, the whole journey in peace and quiet!! Madison is the state capital of Wisconsin and famous as a university town. It has an impressive State Capitol building, with a stunning dome which is the largest outside Washington DC. Although Madison is a fairly quiet town, we all had fun from building, much to Jessica’s delight, an adorable “Raymond Briggs” snow man, sledging, skiing on local slopes not quite the Alps but the boys (large and small) enjoyed it, visiting the shopping malls, dining out, seeing The Chronicles of Narnia before our friends in Bangkok and most of all, having a white Christmas with friends and Father Christmas still managing to find us.
I was originally asked to write an article on the second part of the holiday which was our four night stopover in Las Vegas for a “tacky” type of New Year!! The flights were all on time, the suitcases arrived and the children were still smiling. We even had “chilled out” after the initial resentment of having to have our finger prints taken at immigration.
A bit of background - Las Vegas, Nevada if you have never been is according to the book one of the “1000 places to see before you die”. The state of Nevada was barely touched by Europeans until the 1820’s initially being inhabited by the northern Pauite people as well as ancestral Puebloans in the southeast. Most 19 th century emigrants passed straight through the State to the California gold fields, however, in 1859 the largest silver deposit ever mined, the Comstock Lode was discovered. In 1931, the state government legalised gambling and created agencies to tax it, turning an illegal activity into a revenue source and tourist attraction. In the same year, the construction of the Hoover Dam began which brought many jobs. Las Vegas means the meadows in Spanish and was named after its spring that gave a reliable water source in the middle of the desert. The first true resort opened in 1941, followed by increasingly flamboyant casinos
frequented by the stars such as the original Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis) and of course, Elvis is synonymous with the city. Since the seventies, Las Vegas has been transforming its image from a seedy gambling city to a tourist attraction and what is now considered to be the Entertainment Capital of the World. Nowadays, the main “Strip” is a truly amazing sight, day and night, with immense themed hotels rising out of the surrounding desert. The New York skyline next to the Sphinx (with accompanying pyramid) with the Eiffel Tower and Arc De Triumphe across the road next to a Roman Coliseum to name but a few. The town itself produces no tangible goods of any significance however it generates billions of dollars in profit each year (we made our contribution to this at the Blackjack table!) …….enough of the history lesson!
2. Our pyramid
As we flew in at sunset, Las Vegas seemed to loom up out of nowhere, an oasis of lights in the middle of the Mojave desert like a Spielberg film set. No mistaking we were in Vegas even before leaving the airport, slot machines by the luggage carousel and lavish show girls meeting the VIP’s, this is truly a gambler’s paradise 24/7. After a short taxi ride, we arrived at our hotel, the Luxor, located right on the “Strip”. We had picked the Luxor, which is an enormous 30 storey steel and glass pyramid because we had visited the real Pyramids in Egypt the previous summer and the children thought it would be fun to sleep in one.
On our first night we looked around our pyramid and were definitely hurried past the gambling machines by the staff because of the children and strict gambling laws. We took the Skytrain to the next hotel called Excalibur which was created in the Disney style of a medieval castle where we had a banquet (a la McDonalds!!) and played some of the child friendly arcade type games. Fortunately, the children were tired so we went back to the Luxor left them sleeping safely in the room and hit the casino floor. I tried hard to use all my skill from playing Shanghai and Bunko in Bangkok but to no avail!! Even Andy, apparently was a successful gambler in his student days, lost his dollars that night.
On our second day...
4. New York, New York
New Year’s Eve, we started off to explore some of the other hotels on the 3 ½ mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard known as the “Strip”. James was excited at the prospect of trying out the rollercoaster which loops every which way possible in and out of the hotel New York, New York whose façade recreates the Manhattan skyline. My excuse to decline the thrill was Jessica and that I only just fitted the minimum height requirement!! Andy enjoyed sharing the experience, a great way to digest breakfast! The inside of the hotel was again full of all the gambling tables/machines.
Apparently, many of these mega-hotels are purposely designed inside with limited windows to limit access to daylight so visitors get time-disorientated and continue to happily gamble all day. It seemed to work given the number of people playing the slots or tables each time we went for our healthy (!) breakfast of donuts and coffee. The rest of the day we spent in one of the older hotels, Circus Circus. It is one of the most popular for children having the large Adventuredome with all types of amusements inside for 3 years up. The children loved it. Jessica, our 4 year old, amazed us by jumping, without hesitation or fear, on to any ride that she could qualify for in terms of height and even trying to follow her big brother on to some of the more adult rides. We staggered home to give Jessica a quick power nap before hitting the “Strip” for the New Year celebrations. Many events were taking place: Paris Hilton had been pushing for guests at her big New Year party at the Venetian hotel but we declined (the exorbitant entry fee helped dissuade us!!); a Guinness world record was set as 19,000 people joined in a New Year toast on the “Strip”. But, the talk of the town was would the wind fall below 10mph so the fireworks display would go ahead – the tension built with live wind monitoring on most TV channels during the evening. The final decision was not made until 10 minutes beforehand. As we had already contributed at the tables towards the USD 1.5 million spent on fireworks we were not going to miss them. We chose to celebrate on the “Strip” near the Luxor, a good point to watch the fireworks with thousands of other guests in Vegas to in bring in 2006. After a mass countdown by several hundred thousand people, on the stroke of midnight, the whole “Strip” was set alight with amazing colours bouncing off the enormous hotels with a backdrop of the desert’s dark sky. The finale was a blast of neon-coloured fireworks exploding to the strains of Elvis singing “Viva Las Vegas” (for an instant we thought we were in Radio City!), certainly, a memorable New Year for us all.
6. Apocalypse Now !
Unusually, heads were relatively clear on the first morning of 2006 which was just as well because we were booked on a 4 hour morning helicopter tour to the Grand Canyon,
On our last day we visited more hotels, each one an attraction in itself. The Bellagio was probably my favourite, famous for the setting of the film Ocean’s 11 ….. unfortunately couldn’t find Brad Pitt of George Clooney anywhere. The lake in front of the hotel comes alive with an impressive set of sound and light with 1000 water jets set to music. Caesar’s Palace was one of the first hotel casinos and dates back to the mid sixties but still amazing inside. Then inside the Venetian there are canals complete with singing Gondoliers and a painted sky that changes from dawn to dusk. During our time in Vegas, my son James had been fascinated by seeing so many Hummers in one place. To celebrate our final evening, we hired a 35 foot, 24 seat stretch Hummer complete with two bars, light/sound system and TV’s. Armed with a bag of goodies for the children and wine for the parents we toured the “Strip” in style …. even Paris herself would have been jealous.
There is a lot to do in and around Las Vegas as it is becoming more family friendly. Perhaps the summer months would provide more options for families as there would be more outdoor activities available, as January was too cold for the pools. Andy and I felt that it is the sort of destination to visit as a couple for a few days, ideally combined with a trip to other US west coast cities and amusement parks. It is certainly fun to enjoy the varied night life, a little gamble (or larger!), shopping, take in a great show, indulge in gourmet meals or even renew your wedding vows in the numerous wedding chapels!!. We had seen the amazing Cirque Du Soleil before but, if we ever had another visit we would plan to see “O” their latest show that has 82 artists performing on and above a 1.5 million gallon, 25 foot deep pool, apparently spectacular!!. Many top stars do one off performances so it could be worth planning a visit to coincide with seeing them…Dame Edna (Barry Humphries) was not on the top of our list, however Elton John this March would have been!
The Luxor was a good base for the kids but, frankly was not the most luxurious room we have stayed in, without the kids our choice of hotel would have been either the Bellagio; Venetian or the latest hotel the Wynn with it’s own 18 hole golf course. The high light for all of us (perhaps not Jessica who was happiest on the little rollercoaster at Circus Circus!!) was the fantastic helicopter tour of the Grand Canyon …no hesitation in recommending this. We came home with lots of great memories and the compulsory set of chips ready to use for poker nights with some Bangkok friends..…so watch out!