Spent 3 days in Las Vegas this August with family
at this time of the year it is very hot! A dry dessert heat
so need to dress in light casual clothes.
Hotels on the strip are very busy all the time
so if you want a break from all the action and
a quiet swim stay off the strip.
We stayed in the Best Western on Paradise Ave
this is a budget motel which is about 5 minutes drive
off strip. it was fine nice size double rooms over looking
the pool area. Each room had a kitchen area with fridge.
Hotel ran a free shuttle service to Strip on the
hour but it is a small minibus so not always room best to
drive to strip and park - Circus Circus has large free car park.
Or take the new Monorail but it is not cheap
probably why nobody uses it!
The strip is everything you can imagine and more a
fantasyland stuck in the middle of the Nevada dessert.
Best seen at night the last few years has seen the
Strip get bigger and brasher. The first thing you realise
about the Strip is how long it is, we walked the whole
length of it one night and it took us 6 hours from the
Mandalay Bay down to the Saraha!
Eating is no problem it all depends on what you want
as we were a family with 3 hungry teenagers we headed
for the large 'eat as much as you like' buffets which all
the hotels have. All the buffets offer a large selection of food
plus soft drinks, tea & coffee, you go in wait for a table, grab a plate and off you go! Most expensive was Treasure Island at 21 dollars
a head this was excellent value, we then tried Excalibur 16 dollars,
and finally the Sahara at 11 dollars. I thought all 3 were good value
but you tend to get what you pay for. We eat quite early about 6 each
night and even though you had to queue there was plenty of space in all of them. We went to Vegas on a Monday and left Thursday
and I do feel going mid week is best as it was busy enough
and must be mad at weekends.
All the hotels have something differant to see and are amazing
Circus Circus has a indoor theme park and is open each day
from 10.00am until Midnight and a pass for the day was 23 dollars.
This hotel though is full of children! I was thinking of staying here
and am pleased we did not it's like a big nursery and very crowded.
Another place worth visiting is the Car collection at the Imperial Hotel
really huge collection of cars very good.
All night the crowds go up and down the strip in and out of the malls and hotels, past the mexican guys handing out tickets with girls on,
past the neon signs with old favs like Cher and co.
The shopping malls are amazing one minute you are in Paris, then
Venice, then New York with it's roller coaster, then the Luxor with the Pyramids and on it goes.Las Vegas just keeps growing and you do wonder where it will end new buildings are going up everywhere. Currently there is a huge space where the old Frontier hotel used to be at the top ot the strip and no doubt a new wonder of the world is being planned for this spot.
It is a fun place but 3 days there was enough for me I enjoyed it but
by then I had had enough of slot machines, walking round shopping centres, and the heat!
Also a few years back an attempt was made to turn Vegas into a family resort but I feel this has not really happened so you get all these families wandering around with younger children and there does not seem alot for them to do?