You say you're not a Las Vegas person? Take a gamble. The city can make the humblest visitor feel like a star. Just ask two new converts.
By LOGAN D. MABE and CHARLOTTE SUTTON
Published May 4, 2003
[Photo: AP]
A throng of Las Vegas visitors, including families with children, walks along the Strip. The Treasure Island pirate battle, which is performed throughout the day, is a big draw for tourists.
LAS VEGAS - We're not Vegas people. We knew it, and all our friends confirmed it when we told them we were going to celebrate our honeymoon in Sin City.
First came the puzzled expressions. Then the wry smiles. Then: "Never thought of you as Vegas people."
At various times in our lives we've been Paris people, Venice people, Vancouver people, New York people, London people, Berlin people, Prague people. Here in Florida we've been Daytona Beach people, Anna Maria Island people, Cedar Key people, even Jacksonville people.
None of those journeys prepared us to be Vegas people. Nothing, it turns out, could.
"We're in the business of catering to people with what they can't have at home."
- Hal Rothman, chairman of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, history department and noted expert on Vegas excess.
Here's what we can't have at home:
A ride in the back of a silver stretch limo as it barrels up Interstate 15, with the majestic image of mountains reflecting off the tinted windows on one side, and the reflected glory of mammoth resort after mammoth resort bouncing off the other. There's Mandalay Bay, where they crown heavyweight boxing champs. There's the Luxor in all its pyramidal glory. And what have we here? A scaled-down Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe, ah yes: Paris.
Off in the distance, punctuating the neon landscape, is a Space Needle sort of contraption called the Stratosphere.
And there, rising up out of the desert sand where nothing will grow that's not fertilized with cash, is the Bellagio. Home, James.
We never ride in limos. We're not dripping in gold jewelry. We're not carrying a small, moplike dog.
Yet we feel utterly in our element. What is it about Vegas that convinces working stiffs like us that we deserve to be strolling the lobby of the Bellagio, consumed with visions of Cosmopolitans and baccarat, while contemplating a dinner that will cost more than our weekly grocery budget?
"It's a really long and contemplated process," said Rothman, whose books on the subject include his latest, Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the Twenty-First Century.
"Florida has beautiful, wonderful, natural attributes. Beaches, the Everglades, you don't have to do much with your clay to make it appealing. We do. We're in the desert.
"For a very, very long time, Nevada has been providing people first with experiences they couldn't have at home without being sanctioned for them," he said, ticking off the pleasures of boxing, prostitution, quickie divorces, gambling. "The idea is that somehow, you are more free here."
Our first evening on "the Strip," we decided we wanted to be more free while gazing down at the street from atop the Stratosphere. At 1,149 feet tall, the Stratosphere provides an unparalleled view of the city and the desert beyond. And it seemed to be just a few blocks down the strip from our hotel.
Caution: Objects viewed through the prism of Las Vegas' vastness may appear closer than they are. We walked and walked (Vegas is a very good walking town), and with each passing block, the Stratosphere seemed to retreat into the distance. It's an optical illusion. Everything here - the buildings, the lights, the sky, the personalities - is so huge, it only seems that you can reach out and touch it.
What we thought would be a 15-minute jaunt up the Strip turned into a 3.5-mile march.
But at last, there we were in the Top of the World bar, just as twilight settled into night. While sipping a mean martini as the sun sets and watching the Crayola 64-pack of colored lights twinkle to life doesn't instantly make you a Vegas person, it's a fine start.
When you think Vegas people, you think of single-named phenoms: Frank, Elvis, Liberace, Siegfried, Roy, and most recently, Celine (okay: Dion, with her A New Day packing them in at Caesar's Palace).
Vegas is all about stars. What really makes it work, however, is the city's ability to make the humblest visitor feel like a star.
"Las Vegas creates a script that puts you at the center of the story," Rothman explained to us after we came home from our adventures and called him seeking wisdom on why we were so taken with the place. "No matter how lame or boring you are, you walk through the casino and the story is about you."
Thanks, Hal.
Despite being the chairman of the history department at UNLV, Rothman is no egghead. He's a fun guy who takes celebs and common folk around town; he even punctuated our telephone interview with an offer to take us to lunch next time we're out his way. He says most everyone instantly gets his point about the star stuff.
But he admits there was one woman, kind of a stuffy type, who failed to yield to his rap. Until Rothman got her and her husband into the Hard Rock Hotel and its amazing collection of rock 'n' roll memorabilia (which is, by the way, one of Vegas' best free attractions).
She saw the Beatles exhibit, full of tchotchkes she remembered from her girlhood. She turned to Rothman: "I get it now," she said.
She had graduated to Vegas person.
To fully appreciate this city's almost hallucinogenic charms, one must be willing to suspend disbelief. Enjoying Vegas requires a certain sense of humor.
Perhaps no one understood that better than one of its most famed mononamed stars: Liberace.
"A Vegas Must See!" says the flier for the Liberace Museum found around town. Believe the hype.
Who cares if you're too young to remember Lee (that, by the way, is what his friends called him, we learned) in his heyday? How can you not love a guy who so wanted to impress his audience he'd twirl around the stage wearing 250 pounds (that's a real number) of sequins, feathers and fur?
A guy who'd ride out on stage in a Rolls-Royce covered in mirrored tiles, which matched the grand piano covered in mirrored tiles, which matched the costume covered in mirrored tiles?
A guy who when asked how he played piano so brilliantly while sporting rings with gems the size of Brussels sprouts, replied: "Very well, thank you."
The Liberace Museum, which raises money for the piano scholarships he established, is situated in an unlovely strip center a few miles off the Strip, on E Tropicana Avenue (if you have trouble finding a cab, as we did, take the city bus. They're cheap, clean and run on time.).
It is worth finding out when the museum tours take place. For our $12 (tax-deductible) admission, we were treated to more than an hour of loving - but never sycophantic - lore from a smart guide.
The tidbits are fascinating: Why did Liberace, who was not short, wear high heels? To pitch him forward and thus help balance the weight of those amazing costumes.
The place is full of his cars, his pianos (some are priceless antiques), his costumes, his jewelry (including the world's largest rhinestone) and even the china service that Queen Elizabeth allowed him to have made. It's the only duplicate of this royal crockery pattern, we were told.
See, in a way Her Majesty is a Vegas person, too.
Some of the best free fun in town is simply roaming through the giant hotels, especially the ones built in the past decade or so. In the space of a morning, you can tour Paris, Venice, New York, ancient Egypt (Luxor), medieval England (Excalibur) and old Arabia (the Aladdin), all without changing out of your sneakers and jeans.
Reality check: If you're walking through the casino of the New York-New York resort and a nice woman asks you where you're from and where you're staying, and then offers to get you free tickets to the Rita Rudner show, do not assume that you are being courted because of your stunning good looks. She is selling time shares, of which there seem to be many in Vegas.
While Vegas is famous for its cheap buffets and shrimp cocktails (both of which are falling prey to inflation), there's no free lunch to be found here.
A lot of money changes hands in a Vegas casino - generally toward the hands that move it into the house vaults. According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the average gambling budget for visitors in 2001 was a little more than $600.
We skewed the average downward, dropping a $10 roll of quarters in the slots and about $30 at the roulette tables, just for the experience. But we really had more fun watching other people part with their cash.
One night we sat next to a pleasant woman from Omaha, Neb., as she plundered a roulette table at the Barbary Coast. The night before, she said, she'd lost big betting on 26 (her age and her hotel room number, coincidentally).
On this night, that magical number came up a mathematically improbable half-dozen times during an hourlong spree. Soon, she couldn't see over the mountain of chips that represented her winnings.
Another night, though, we stood behind what looked to be a lonely young Asian woman as she tested her skills at the $500 minimum bet blackjack table at the Bellagio. There were no other players at the table, just the woman and her dwindling stack of $500 chips.
She played two hands at a time, betting $1,500 on each hand. We could not watch for even 15 minutes. That's how long it took for her to lose the equivalent of our most recently purchased used Subaru. And the night was still very, very young.
Rothman said that in the 1970s, 70 percent of Vegas revenues came from gaming. These days, that is down to about 45 percent. The other 55 percent comes from expensive shows, shopping and other nongaming fun. But by no means are the casinos suffering; it's just that all the other attractions are doing so well.
Sure, people still gather to be the first in line at the most popular hotel buffets. But the big food news in Vegas is the rise of the celebrity chef. Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck and the Brennan family all have fabulous eateries here, and there are outposts of New York legends such as Nobu.
The prices are just as fabulous.
A generous relative gave us as a wedding gift of dinner at Emeril's Delmonico Steakhouse. On the appointed day, we called to confirm the reservation. A panicked-sounding woman asked us if we knew that the gift had a $300 limit, and, uh, if our dinner cost more than that, would we mind paying the difference. We managed to feed ourselves handsomely on chateaubriand and fine wine for an apparently economical $200, including tax and tip. But scanning the menu and wine list, we saw the reason for the woman's concern.
Shopping in Vegas is just as dazzling. The "resort shops" are actually full-scale malls, some with the usual run of chain stores, others with European boutiques we dared not enter.
Another free treat: looking in the windows of Fred Leighton in the Bellagio shops. He's the guy who supplies many of the baubles you see on the women at the Academy Awards.
On the other end of the scale, we probably saw more people carrying shopping bags from the M&Ms store. This is actually a four-story shrine to the candy-coated treat, complete with "spokescandies," a 3-D movie, M&Ms in colors you've never imagined and more related merchandise than you care to imagine.
Here you find what we called the "day people," regular-looking folks whose friends probably don't think they're Vegas people, either. Families pushing baby strollers, couples in black leather jackets buying shirts at the Harley-Davidson cafe shop, kids clamoring for the IMAX simulator rides in the Luxor or the roller coaster at New York-New York.
"Whatever your demographic, your income, your desire, we have something for you here," Rothman told us. He disclosed his favorite people-watching spot: Mon Ami Gabi, a bistro at the Paris resort perched right on the Strip.
"Sit there and see who goes by. Everybody goes by: old, young, black, white, rich, poor. . . . (Vegas) is the first spectacle of the postmodern world: You've got to see it."
We didn't just see it. We were it. We were the it that Rothman insists must be seen. It was our last day in paradise, a few short hours before our bookend stretch limo ride back to the airport. Time enough for one last grand gesture of indulgence.
The patio deck of Olives restaurant overlooks the Bellagio's great fountain pool (it had a starring role in George Clooney's Ocean's Eleven). At the hostess desk, covetous and reservationless diners are turned away.
Ah, but we are in the know. We have reservations. So a few minutes later, we're seated under a sun-drenched umbrella ordering light and exotic fare and watching, for the last time, the water dance of the famous fountains.
Let's Face the Music and Dance fills the air as towering columns of water shoot into the cloudless sky. We raise our glasses in a congratulatory toast. It took some doing, but we'd become Vegas people.
If you go
The Internet is awash with Web sites promising to find you the best deals on rooms, dining and shows. So shop several before you pick. In addition to general travel sites such as Travelocity and Orbitz, easily navigable Vegas sites include www.vegas.com vegasfreedom.com and www.goingtovegas.com
Lasvegas24hours.com, the official site of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, caters to meeting planners and travel agents as well as tourists.
We got good ideas from the local newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, at its site, www.reviewjournal.com Click on "Best of Vegas" to see the paper's reader poll on everything from Best Showgirls to Best Family Attraction.
For armchair travelers, the Travel Channel is constantly running shows on the glories of Las Vegas, particularly its big resorts. These shows are hardly objective, but they can be fun to watch.
For instance, today at 11:30 a.m., the Luxor is the subject of the Great Hotels series; May 11 at 11 a.m., the Venetian gets the treatment, followed by the Palms at 11:30.
These and other Vegas shows are frequently rebroadcast. Go to www.discovery.com for the schedule, and for links to other resources.
We got some of our best ideas from friends. Spread the word that you are considering a trip to Las Vegas, and the recommendations will pour in.
Friends who work out there advise that it is crucial to make reservations for popular shows and restaurants as early as possible.
Your hotel concierge can also help procure hot tickets and reservations. Don't forget a nice gratuity: Vegas is definitely a tipping town.
