05_790338_c01.qxd 7/14/06 12:34 PM Page 32 PART ONE ACCOMMODATIONS and CASINOS WHERE to STAY: BASIC CHOICES THE LAS VEGAS STRIP AND DOWNTOWN FROM A VISITOR’S PERSPECTIVE, Las Vegas is more or less a small town that’s fairly easy to get around. Most of the major hotels and casinos are in two areas: downtown and on Las Vegas Boulevard, known as the Strip. The downtown hotels and casinos are often characterized as older and smaller than those on the Strip. While this is true in a general sense, there are both large and elegant hotels downtown. What really differentiates downtown is the incredible concentration of casinos and hotels in a relatively small area. Along Fremont Street, down- town’s main thoroughfare, the casinos present a continuous, dazzling galaxy of neon and twinkling lights for more than four city blocks. Known as Glitter Gulch, these several dozen gambling emporiums are sandwiched together in colorful profusion in an area barely larger than a parking lot at a good-sized shopping mall. Contrast in the size, style, elegance, and presentation of the downtown casinos provides a varied mix, combining extravagant luxury and cosmopolitan sophistication with an Old West boom- town decadence.COPYRIGHTED Though not directly comparable, MATERIAL downtown Las Vegas has the feel of New Orleans’s Bourbon Street: alluring, exotic, wicked, sultry, foreign, and above all, diverse. It is a place where cow- boy, businessperson, showgirl, and retiree mix easily. And like Bourbon Street, it is all accessible on foot. If downtown is the French Quarter of Las Vegas, then the Strip is Plantation Row. Here, huge resort hotel-casinos sprawl like estates along a four-mile section of Las Vegas Boulevard South. Each hotel is a vacation destination unto itself, with casino, hotel, restaurants, 05_790338_c01.qxd 7/14/06 12:34 PM Page 33 WHERE TO STAY: BASIC CHOICES 33 pools, spas, landscaped grounds, and even golf courses. While the downtown casinos are fused into a vibrant, integrated whole, the huge hotels on the Strip demand individual recognition. While the Strip is literally a specific length of Las Vegas Boulevard South, the large surrounding area is usually included when discussing hotels, casinos, restaurants, and attractions. East and parallel to the Strip is Paradise Road, where the Las Vegas Convention Center and sev- eral hotels are located. Also included in the Strip area are hotels and casinos on streets intersecting Las Vegas Boulevard, as well as properties positioned to the immediate west of the Strip (on the far side of I-15). CHOOSING A HOTEL THE VARIABLES THAT FIGURE MOST prominently in choosing a hotel are price, location, your itinerary, and your quality require- ments. There is a wide selection of lodging with myriad combinations of price and value. Given this, your main criteria for selecting a hotel should be its location and your itinerary. The Strip versus Downtown for Leisure Travelers Though there are some excellent hotels on the Boulder Highway and elsewhere around town, the choice for most vacation travelers is whether to stay downtown or on (or near) the Strip. Downtown offers a good choice of hotels, restaurants, and gambling, but only a limited choice of entertainment, and fewer amenities such as swimming pools and spas. There are no golf courses and only four tennis courts downtown. If you have a car, the Strip is an 8- to 15-minute commute from downtown via I-15. If you do not have a car, public transporta- tion from downtown to the Strip is as efficient as Las Vegas traffic allows and quite affordable. If you stay on the Strip, you are more likely to need a car or require some sort of transportation. There are more hotels to choose from on the Strip, but they are spread over a much wider area and are often (but not always) pricier than downtown. On the Strip, one has a sense of space and elbow room, as many of the hotels are constructed on a grand scale. The selection of entertainment is both varied and extensive on the Strip, and Strip recreational facilities rival those of the world’s leading resorts. Downtown is a multicultural, multilingual melting pot with an adventurous, raw, robust feel. Everything in this part of town seems intense and concentrated, an endless blur of action, movement, and light. Diversity and history conspire in lending vitality and excite- ment to this older part of Las Vegas, an essence more tangible and real than the monumental, plastic themes and fantasies of many large Strip establishments. Though downtown caters to every class of clientele, it is less for- mal and, with exceptions, more of a working man’s gambling town. Here the truck driver and welder gamble alongside the secretary and 05_790338_c01.qxd 7/14/06 12:34 PM Page 34 34 PART 1 ACCOMMODATIONS AND CASINOS the rancher. The Strip, likewise, runs the gamut but tends to attract more high rollers, middle-class suburbanites, and business travelers going to conventions. The Fremont Street Experience For years, downtown casinos watched from the sidelines as Strip hotels turned into veritable tourist attractions. There was nothing downtown, for example, to rival the exploding volcano at the Mirage, the theme parks at Circus Circus, the pirate battle at Treasure Island (T. I.), or the view from the Stratosphere Tower. As gambling revenue dwindled and more customers defected to the Strip, downtown casino owners finally got serious about mounting a counterattack. The counterattack, known as the Fremont Street Experience, was launched at the end of 1995. Its basic purpose was to transform downtown into an ongoing event, a continuous party, a happening. Fremont Street through the heart of Glitter Gulch was forever closed to vehicular traffic and turned into a park, with terraces, street musi- cians, and landscaping. By creating an aesthetically pleasing environment, Las Vegas–style, the project united all of the casinos in a sort of diverse gambling mall. Transformative events on the ground aside, however, the main draw of the Fremont Street Experience is up in the air. Four blocks of Fremont Street are covered by a 1,400-foot-long, 90-foot-high “space frame”—an enormous, vaulted, geodesic matrix. This futuristic structure totally canopies Fremont Street. In addition to providing nominal shade from the blistering sun, the space frame serves as the stage for a nighttime attraction that has definitely improved down- town’s fortune. Set into the inner surface of the space frame are 12.5 million LEDs, which come to life in a computer-driven, multisensory show. The LEDs are augmented by 40 speakers on each block, boom- ing symphonic sound in syncopation with the lights. We at the Unofficial Guide enjoy and appreciate downtown Las Ve- gas, and all of us hope that the Fremont Street Experience will continue to have a beneficial effect. We are amazed and appalled, however, by the city’s general lack of commitment to improving its infrastructure, partic- ularly the traffic situation. The market, in terms of aggregate numbers of gamblers, is undeniably located out on the Strip. To create an attraction sufficiently compelling to lure this market downtown is to fight only half the battle. The other half of the battle is to make it easy for all those folks on the Strip to get downtown. There are plans to extend the monorail with a downtown station as the northern terminus. The gestation for this much-needed addition to the public transportation mix is fuzzy. Our guess is that we’ll be lucky to see the monorail downtown by 2015. If You Visit Las Vegas on Business If you are going to Las Vegas for a trade show or convention, you will want to lodge as close as possible to the meeting site (ideally within 05_790338_c01.qxd 7/14/06 12:34 PM Page 35 WHERE TO STAY: BASIC CHOICES 35 easy walking distance), or alternatively, close to a monorail station. Many Strip hotel-casinos— unofficial TIP including the Riviera, Flamingo, Venetian, Wynn Try to find a good deal on Las Vegas, Paris, Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, Aladdin/ a room at a hotel that’s Planet Hollywood, Las Vegas Hilton, MGM not near your meeting Grand, T. I., Tropicana, Sahara, Mirage, Caesars site and commute to Palace, Harrah’s, and Bally’s—host meetings from your meeting in a rental 100 to 4,000 attendees, offer lodging for city-wide car. Often the savings on shows and conventions held at the Las Vegas Con- the room will pay for vention Center and the Sands Expo and Conven- your transportation. tion Center, and have good track records with business travelers. Our maps should provide some assistance in determining which hotels and motels are situated near your meeting site. Because most large meetings and trade shows are headquartered at the convention center or on the Strip, lodging on the Strip is more convenient than staying downtown. City-wide conventions often pro- vide a shuttle service from the major hotels to the Las Vegas Convention Center, and, of course, cabs and the monorail are avail- able too. Las Vegas traffic is a mess, however, particularly in the late afternoon, and there are a finite number of cabs. LARGE HOTEL-CASINOS VERSUS SMALL HOTELS AND MOTELS LODGING PROPERTIES IN LAS VEGAS range from tiny motels with a dozen rooms to colossal hotel-casino resort complexes of 5,000 rooms. As you might expect, there are advantages and drawbacks to staying in either a large or small hotel. Determining which size is bet- ter for you depends on how you plan to spend your time in Las Vegas.