The Mini Rough Guide to LAS VEGAS (Rough Guide Pocket) - Softcover

Ward, Greg; Rough Guides

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1858284635 ISBN 13: 9781858284637

Verlag: Rough Guides, 2000

Inhaltsangabe

With most visitors staying for between two and four days, this mini guide to Las Vegas should be their ideal companion. There are critical reviews, background and description of all the major and minor themed hotel-casions on and off the Strip, and the latest on the new lavish constructions.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Greg Ward is an established travel writer and expert on the islands of Hawaii. He has worked for Rough Guides since 1985. He is the author of The Rough Guide to Barcelona (with Steve Tallantyre), The Rough Guide to Brittany and Normandy, and The Rough Guide to Southwest USA. Visit him online at gregward.info.

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Introduction

Shimmering from the desert haze of Nevada like a latter-day El Dorado, Las Vegas is the most dynamic, spectacular city on earth. At the start of the twentieth century, it didn't even exist; at the start of the twenty-first, it's home to well over one million people, with enough newcomers arriving all the time to need a new school every month.

Las Vegas is not like other cities. No city in history has so explicitly valued the needs of visitors above those of its own population. All its growth has been fueled by tourism, but the tourists haven't spoiled the "real" city; there is no real city. Las Vegas doesn't have fascinating little-known neighborhoods, and it's not a place where visitors can go off the beaten track to have more authentic experiences. Instead, the whole thing is completely self-referential; the reason Las Vegas boasts nineteen of the world's twenty largest hotels is that more than thirty million tourists each year come to see the hotels themselves.

Each of these monsters is much more than a mere hotel, and more too than the casino that invariably lies at its core. They're extraordinary places, self-contained fantasylands of high camp and genuine excitement that can stretch as much as a mile from end to end. Each holds its own flamboyant permutation of showrooms and swimming pools, luxurious guest quarters and restaurants, high-tech rides and attractions.

The casinos want you to gamble, and they'll do almost anything to lure you in; thus the huge moving walkways that pluck you from the Strip sidewalk, almost against your will, and sweep you into places like Caesars Palace. Once you're inside, on the other hand, the last thing they want is for you to leave. Whatever you came in for, you won't be able to do it without criss-crossing the casino floor innumerable times; as for finding your way out, that can be virtually impossible. The action keeps going day and night, and in this windowless - and clock-free - environment you rapidly lose track of which is which.

"Little emphasis is placed on the gambling clubs . . . No cheap and easily parodied slogans have been adopted to publicize Las Vegas, no attempt has been made to introduce pseudo-romantic architectural themes or to give artificial glamour or gaiety." WPA Guidebook to Nevada, 1940

Las Vegas never dares to rest on its laurels, so the basic concept of the Strip casino has been endlessly refined since the Western-themed resorts and ranches of the 1940s. In the 1950s and 1960s, when most visitors arrived by car, the casinos presented themselves as lush tropical oases at the end of the long desert drive. Once air travel took over, Las Vegas opted for Disney-esque fantasy, a process that started in the late 1960s with Caesars Palace and culminated with Excalibur and Luxor in the early 1990s.

After six decades of capitalism run riot, the Strip is locked into a hyperactive craving for thrills and glamour, forever discarding its latest toy in its frenzy for the next jackpot. First-time visitors tend to expect Las Vegas to be a repository of kitsch, but the casino owners are far too canny to be sentimental about the old days. Yes, there are a few Elvis impersonators around, but what characterizes the city far more is its endless quest for novelty. Long before they lose their sparkle, yesterday's showpieces are blasted into rubble, to make way for ever more extravagant replacements. The Disney model has been discarded in favor of more adult themes, and Las Vegas demands nothing less than entire cities. Replicas of New York, Paris, Monte Carlo and Venice now jostle for space on the Strip.

The customer is king in Las Vegas. What the visitor wants, the city provides. If you come in search of the cheapest destination in America, you'll enjoy paying rock-bottom rates for accommodation and hunting out the best buffet bargains. If it's style and opulence you're after, by contrast, you can dine in the finest restaurants, shop in the most chic stores, and watch world-class entertainment; it'll cost you, but not as much as it would anywhere else. The same guidelines apply to gambling. The Strip giants cater to those who want sophisticated high-roller heavens, where tuxedoed James Bond lookalikes toss insouciant bankrolls onto the roulette tables. Others prefer their casinos to be sinful and seedy, inhabited by hard-bitten heavy-smoking low-lifes; there is no shortage of that type of joint either, especially downtown.

On the face of it, the city is supremely democratic. However you may be dressed, however affluent or otherwise you may appear, you'll be welcomed in its stores, restaurants, and above all its casinos. The one thing you almost certainly won't get, however, is the last laugh; all that seductive deference comes at a price. It would be nice to imagine that perhaps half of your fellow visitors are skillful gamblers, raking in the profits at the tables, while the other half are losing, but the bottom line is that almost nobody's winning. In the words of Steve Wynn - as the owner of Bellagio and the Mirage, currently Las Vegas's prime mover - "The only way to make money in a casino is to own one." What's so clever about Las Vegas is that it makes absolutely certain that you have such a good time that you don't mind losing a bit of money along the way; that's why they don't even call it "gambling" anymore, but "gaming." Finally, while Las Vegas has certainly cleaned up its act since the early days of Mob domination, there's little truth in the notion that it's become a family destination. In fact, for kids, it's doesn't begin to compare to somewhere like Orlando. Several casinos have added theme parks or fun rides to fill those odd non-gambling moments, but only five percent of visitors bring children, and the crowds that cluster around the exploding volcanoes and pirate battles along the Strip remain almost exclusively adult.

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Rough Guides
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2000
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1858284635
• ISBN 13: 9781858284637
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Auflage: 1
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar