A Different Side of Vegas

by Tynan on

What I love about Las Vegas is that it has the capacity to be whatever you want it to be. Alcohol soaked bachelor party? Check. Romantic honeymoon? Check. Terrifying ride to wealth? Well, maybe if you’re lucky.

I just got back from a long weekend in Vegas with my girlfriend and saw a side of the city that I hadn’t seen. A more relaxed, comfortable, and satisfying side. Here are the highlights:

The Signature at MGM

I’ve stayed at and enjoyed the MGM before, but this was a totally new experience.

There are no regular rooms in the Signature. Every room is a suite. What I particularly appreciated was how thoroughly the suite was appointed.

The kitchen has a large Sub Zero fridge, Miele appliances, and most important: every kitchen utensil you can imagine. Calphalon pots and pans, high quality flatware and silverware, measuring cups, baking sheets, and even a blender.

We originally planned on eating out for most of our meals, but it was so pleasant to cook in the kitchen that we ended up going to Whole Foods and cooking almost every meal ourselves. Best of all, the maid will do your dishes in the morning.

The bedroom has a large king sized bed with the high quality linens that you would expect from such a hotel. Huge windows let the sunshine in to wake you up in the morning, or you can draw the room darkening curtains if you want to sleep in. The desk facing the bed has a huge retractable plasma screen which the housekeeping staff sets to an amusing aquarium scene at night.

Our suite had two full bathrooms, which would have been convenient if we were ever in a rush to get showered and ready. The huge master bathroom has a perfectly sized Jacuzzi in it. Big enough for two people to easily sit in, and deep enough for the water to go up to your neck. The lights of the bathroom are on a dimmer, which is essential for a relaxing soak.

The living room has a comfortable couch, a second plasma screen with DVD player, a nice sized balcony, and a round dining table that also serves well as a card table.

The Signature is not “just another hotel”. It does a great job of combining the comfort and convenience of home with the luxury and service of Las Vegas. It’s now my first choice for Las Vegas accommodations.

Book through your favorite travel site, or directly at The Signature

KA

I’m a huge Cirque du Soleil fan, so it’s probably impossible for me to give an unbiased review of any of its shows. Then again, anyone who sees just one show will join the ranks of Cirque fans.

KA, which shows at the MGM, was different from other Cirque du Soleil shows that I had seen. It had more plotline, more special effects, but less acrobatics. It was nice to see a Cirque show that tried new things but still maintained the magic of the troupe.

The centerpiece of KA, if there is one, is the amazing stage that they’ve built. It’s difficult to properly describe because it’s difficult to understand how it works. The entire stage is suspended with giant hydraulic arms which have the ability to rotate or angle the stage in any direction imaginable. At one moment actors will be dancing on it, and in the next it has rotated 90 degrees vertically and they’re climbing up arrows “shot” into it. In the photo above the actors are suspended on harnesses and are walking straight up the stage.

The show, as should be expected from Cirque du Soleil, is completely mesmerizing. I have only seen a handful of Cirque du Soleil shows, but KA broke the mold and incorporated a lot of elements that I hadn’t seen before. In particular, the set was unbelievably complex and beautiful.

If you’ve never seen a Cirque du Soleil show, there’s no way to truly understand the experience without actually going. The best description I can give is to say that it’s a combination of acrobatics, design, dance, music, and immersion in a world that has the same texture as dreams.

Videos and tickets are available at KA Cirque du Soleil.

Bodies

No, that’s the not the name of a tawdry “topless revue” in Vegas. It’s actually an exhibit at the Luxor which showcases dissected and preserved human bodies.

Sound gross? It is at first, but after fifteen minutes of getting used to seeing sliced up dead people, it’s becomes the science class you always wished you had.

The exhibit does a great job of showing you how the body actually works, not as individual organs, but as one big connected system. My favorite parts were the complete circulatory system, seeing the whole digestive path together, and the counter at the end where they let you hold real human organs.

I promise it’s not as gross as I made it sound. Get tickets to the Luxor exhibit here, or check the Bodies site to see if there’s an exhibit in your area.

Bombs away! Air Force F-16 drops a dummy bomb on the Las Vegas strip

by Scott Carmichael on

Poor Las Vegas… Already struggling from declining visitor numbers, now sin city is in the news again when an Air force F-16 dropped a dummy bomb on the strip, hitting a truck.

The F-16 was stationed at Nellis AFB when the 25 pound bomb became unattached from the launching mechanism, falling 1700 feet. Police started getting reports that something was falling from the sky when the bomb dropped.

Thankfully the bomb first hit the tarmac at the base itself, then bounced over a fence and penetrated the front of the truck. Imagine the damage if the bomb had hit a strip hotel or pedestrians! The driver of the truck managed to escape with nothing more than a pretty bad fright.

A Spokesperson for the Air Force did not know how the bomb became unattached, nor did they know whether pilot error was involved.

10 tips for smarter flying


Airlines Complain about Vegas Airport’s Plan

by Josh Lew on

Despite seeing a decrease in the number of arrivals, construction of a new terminal will go ahead as planned at McCarran Airport Las Vegas. Though the 2 billion dollar project will not be completed until 2012, some airlines are questioning the timing of the project. It’s not secret that airlines are struggling. Arrivals are down almost 5% at McCarran since last year. A drop of as high as 15% is forecast for next year.

Southwest Airlines has been the biggest critic of the expansion. Over 30% of Las Vegas arrivals fly Southwest. But the airline has been trimming back its service to Sin City. The airport expansion will mostly be funded by an increase in the fees that airlines pay to use the airport and its gates. No one wants to hear talk of higher prices right now, especially at a bread-and-butter location like Las Vegas. After the rapid growth that the city has been experiencing, no one seems to want to look at the facts. But things are slowing down. I guess McCarran is gambling that things won’t be so slow in a couple of years.

How to get cheap deals for that Las Vegas trip

by Jamie Rhein on

Depending on which part of the U.S. you live, Las Vegas can be a very cheap vacation. As a person who would not put Las Vegas on my top 10 list, I’ve been here five times, partly because it has been an inexpensive get-a-away with careful planning.

These days, with careful planning, Las Vegas can still be an affordable, doable trip, but the planning takes a bit more work because of the number of flights being cut from airlines’ schedules. In an article in the Dallas Morning News, Tom Parsons compares travel packages from Southwest Airlines, US Airways, and American Airlines and showed the price difference between them, as well as what the trips would cost if the plane tickets and hotel had been booked separately. The price difference was substantial, although in a few cases, booking separately snagged him a better deal.

The cheapest deal was on US Airways, but Parsons said to register for e-mail programs from the hotels where you would like to stay in order to receive e-mails about an upcoming deal. (He said the timing is usually two months in advance.)

Be persistent is the motto of Parson’s missive. He was able to get a cheaper room deal at the Mirage by calling the hotel directly after he found out that the room rates had dropped from the time he originally booked a reservation. He actually did this twice. The result was a $344 savings.

Here are other tips:

  • Plan your stay for days between Sunday and Thursday
  • Avoid the second week of January when conventions are plentiful and prices go up
  • He also says to be aware of cancellation policies so you don’t get stuck having to pay a higher price if the price drops later.

My advice to cut costs is to stay at a cheaper hotel, eat at cheaper places most of the time based on which casinos are giving out meal deals, and then use the extra money to take in a show, but only consider the ones that are offering discounts. Make snagging the best deals part of the fun.

As Grant’s recent post on his first hand experience in Las Vegas indicates, the number of folks in Las Vegas has gone way down so hotels will be looking for you. Their need could be your gain financially. Keep an eye out.

The economy hits Las Vegas hard

by Grant Martin on

When the economy starts to slow down and consumers cut back on spending, one of the first things to suffer is the entertainment budget. This can happen locally, from eating out or watching films out to a broader radius — involving travel.

Traditional travel destinations like Orlando and Las Vegas feel the heat worst. So much of their local economy is based on tourists visiting, spending and investing in their economy that the effects of a market downturn are pronounced.

Subtly, I saw these effects first hand as a recent visitor to Las Vegas: high end clubs that were empty late into the night, low wager tables in the nicest casinos on the strip and long taxi lines waiting to pick up stray passers by.

On my way out of town I hailed a cab at the front of the Palms under the hot, late summer heat. Driving down Tropicana on the way to McCarran airport I asked the driver how business was.

“Slow,” he told me. Over the course of the year, more hotel rooms had progressively gone unbooked, tables been deserted and taxis roamed the streets empty, searching for fares. This was the last year driving for this cabbie. He told me at the end of the next season he was leaving the city where he had spent the last twenty years to head for greener pastures in Portland.

As we pulled into the terminal, he pointed over at “the pit,” the loading zone through which cabs filter into the airport. The line stretched back through the gates, around the corner and out of sight. Like that queue, the Las Vegas economy has a long hard road ahead.