USA Trip (12th Sep - 8th Oct) - Day 22 - Pupletts - Vegas Strip

We started our third day in Vegas with a little bit of a slower start, sleeping in and then heading out for a walk along the strip.  We parked in a free parking garage attached to the Treasure Island casino to start our walk.

Before I get into the exploring, a quick aside here regarding casino chips. Once of my goals had been to collect a chip from each of the casinos. I'd read plenty online that just said you needed to go up to the main cashiers window if they weren't busy and you could ask for a single $1 chip. I'd tried that at the Silverton and the Excalibur and in both cases I was given a disapproving look and the answer that they weren't allowed to sell the chips for souvenirs and I needed to go and buy the chips from a table. I'd almost given up, but decided to try to Luxor next. The cashier there was super friendly and even hunted out some of their cleaner chips to give me. So it seemed it really depended on the casino. I had more luck getting $5s of $1 chips than a single one, but some cashiers were really nice about it and others were well, not nasty, but dismissive might be the better word.  It makes sense when the person before me was cashing over $5000 worth of winnings and I wanted a single chip. For example it's estimated that the Wynn Casino group makes over  $20.3million daily (with the Wynn Casino in Vegas making $3.6 million daily on the casino floors) and the MGM grand spends over $287,280 on just lighting the casino, a tourist asking for a $1 chip doesn't even classify as a small fry.

Cameron was super keen on getting some MGM Grand chip, but couldn't buy one himself as he was under 21. The cashier refused, so I was told to try to tables. Cam wanted $10 of $1 chips, a $5 and a $10. Most of the tables had a $5 minimum bet so didn't give out $1s and those that did have $1 chips said they didn't have enough to give me 10 of them if I wasn't playing. I was directed to the roulette table, but they have their own separate chip sets (coloured per player) that need to be left on the table. In the end I managed to get a $5 chip from one of the tables and then saw that the cashiers had changed over, so I went back to the cashier cage and the guy there happily sold me the $1 chips.  I hadn't put that much effort into the other casinos, if the cashier said no, I thanked them and moved on.

Here's the set that I managed to get:

Treasure Island was built in 1993 with a pirate theme, 2885 rooms and a 4,452m² casino. When it opened, the casino ran pirate battles daily and had a significant pirate them. This was scaled back in 2003 to attract an older audience. The casino was now branded as TI and while it maintained the pirate ships out the front, the theming was reduced.

One thing we hadn't expected, was a carved wooly mammoth tusk. The TI had a carved tusk as one of their displays:

Our next stop was the Palazzo, this one is part of the the Venetian. It opened in 2007 and has 9,800m² of casino space.

We followed this around to the Venetian, which was built in 1999 mostly for convention goers, and is themed after Venice including canals and gondola rides. It houses an 11,000m² casino as well as a Grand Canal and replicas of the Doge's Palace, St Marks Square and the Rialto Bridge:

Inside the building was the casino and also an indoor canal system with a mock up of St Mark's Square:

Outside the Venetian was the framework for the Hard Rock Hotel, which is going to be the most expensive building in Vegas when it is completed by the end of 2027. It is predicted to cost US $5billion and will be a 660foot tall, 42-story hotel with 3,700 rooms, a huge casino and live music venues:

Our next stop was Caesars Palace. Opened 1966, it showcases Hollywood style Roman design.

It has a hotel with 3,960 rooms and casino tailored to high rollers, with a 420m² 24hr poker room.  It also houses the Colosseum performance venue (with a 2,086m² stage and 4,296 seats).

The name of the casino is Caesars, not Caesar's - the lack of the apostrophe in the name is intended to make it plural, not possessive, as the plan is that everyone staying there would feel like a Caesar. It also has the Forum Shopping area attached, a 59,100m² indoor mall, which is the highest grossing in USA, with more sales per ft² than Rodeo Drive.

Looking down past the Forum Shops and Caesars Palace

Inside the Forum Shops

Forum Shops Entrance

Ceiling of the Forum Shops

One of the massive screen billboards

Looking down on Kris and Alana from the top of the Forum Shops

AI store - Gentle Monster in the Forum Shops

Entrance to the casino

Replica of the Trevi Fountain

The Colosseum Arena

Inside the casino was a 60th anniversary display:

In one of the passages we came across a replica of the statue of David:

There was also a Dominique Ansell bakery inside the Casino where we tried a cronut.

These video billboards were massive!

Our next stop was one of the most well known casinos, the Bellagio. Owned by Blackstone Inc, the Bellagio was formerly the Dunes hotel-casino. Blackstone purchased it in 1994 and updated it, reopening 1998 at a cost of $1.6billion. It has a 14,500m2 casino, and a hotel with 3933 rooms.

The most famous part is the Fountains of Bellagio, which are dancing water fountain set to music the go off roughly every half hour in an 8.5acre man-made lake. The casino also hosts a conservatory and botanic gardens. In the foyer is the world's largest glass sculpture, Fiori di Como (Flowers of Como) by Dale Chihuly.

Fiori di Como

The Conservatory:

We caught the water show, which was impressive. The big bursts of water made a loud burst almost like fireworks:

The show started with steam rising from the water

Our next stop was the Paris Vegas Casino. This casino is owned by Caesars Entertainment and is a 8,850m² casino with a 3672 room hotel and a 1400 seat theatre. It has a half scale Eiffel Tower (165m tall), an Arc De Triomphe, Louvre, Paris Opera House and Musee d'Orsday. It was opened in 1999.

We stopped at a small shopping mall behind the casino to get lunch.  The boys had previously tried Dave's Hot Chicken when they had gone out to watch the MLB game and told us how good it was, so we wanted to give it a try (verdict it was well worth it! The only complaint was that the meals didn't include a drink):

Having eaten and found some drinks, we were ready to keep moving. The day was another high 30 degree day, so it was HOT, but at least the humidity was reasonable and the casinos were well air conditioned. Little did we know that only two weeks later, when we were safely back in Australia, Post-Tropical storm Rachel would cause widespread flooding through Vegas:

But for now, we braved the heat and headed on to our next Casino, the New York, New York.

The casino is designed to replicate New York in 1940s with a 1/3rd size Empire State Building, Statue of Liberty and Big Apple Coaster. The casino is 4,809m² and was built in 1995-97. The Empire State Replica is 161m and was tallest building in Nevada until the Wynn was built. The Skyline of buildings shows the Empire State, Chyrsler Building, Manhattan Municipal, New Yorker Hotel and the Century.

The door handles with Liberty torches

Brooklyn Bridge replica

Skyline

Empire State Building

While Kris and Alana took a quick rest in the air conditioning inside the casino (which was 21+), the boys and I walked behind to find the T-Mobile Arena. The Arena was opened in 2016 and is home to the Las Vegas Golden Knights Ice Hockey team and the PWHL Las Vegas Women's Ice Hockey team. It also hosts basketball, UFC/boxing and concerts, with a capacity of 12,000-20,000.

Our next stop was the MGM Grand. Opened 1993. It was the largest hotel in world at opening (5000 rooms) and the largest casino at 15,930m². It was originally Wizard of Oz themed but this was removed in 1996. Tupac was visiting the MGM to watch Tyson vs Seldon fight and got in fight with gang member that started the chain of events leading to his shooting. The lion statue outside weighs 50 tons and is 14m tall. 

After we finished up at the MGM we decided to ride the Monorail back to Treasure Island so we could get back to the car.

On the monorail we got to see the High Roller - a giant Ferris Wheel which 2014 which was the largest when it was built (now second largest). It is 167.6m tall, 158.5m in diameter and has 28 four person cabins, some with bar facilities. The ride takes 30 minutes.

We also got to see the Sphere. An arena that seats 17,600 people it has a 16k resolution wrap-around LED Screen. The exterior has 54,000m² of LED displays (making it currently the largest in the world). It is 112m high, 157m wide and cost $2.3 billion. The roof is made of 3000 tons of steel in 32 trusses. The sphere opened in 2023 with U2 playing. It was currently hosting Metallica.

When we got off of the monorail, we headed to Fashion Show, a mall in order to check out the Lego store:

There were also a few casinos that we had seen along the way but hadn't entered:

The Aria - Opened in 2009, consists of two curvilinear towers, 50 stories, 4004 rooms. 14,000m² casino. Not themed.

Resorts World - Opened 2021, cost $4.3 billion. 10,900m² casino and 59 story tower:

The Cosmopolitan - Opened 2010, 9,300m² casino. No theme.

The Strat - Formerly named The Stratsosphere, it is a 350m tall observation tower, the tallest in the USA and 2nd tallest in western hemisphere (after CN Tower in Toronto). It was opened in 1996.

The Lucky 38 Casino in Fallout Las Vegas was based on the Strat:

The Wynn and the Encore - The Wynn was opened in 2005 at a cost of $2.7billion. it has a 10,300m² casino. It has no theme or specific attractions for pedestrians, an artificial mountain was built to obscure the streetside, however it does have a waterfall on the side of the mountain.

The Encore is the sister to the Wynn, built in 2005 at a cost of $2.3 billion. It has a 6,700m² casino and is targeted at the higher end clientele.

A few more random sights in Vegas:

This hashtag was easy to misread...

Zoox automated taxi

Tipsy Robot, an automated bar

We weren't quite finished yet, as Cameron wanted to check out the UFC Headquarters:

We then headed back to our Airbnb. After packing we had a swim in the pool. This ended badly when Kristine tried to pick up her towel and a beetle crawled onto her hand. She tried to swipe it away and accidentally crushed it.  Turns out it was a Blister Beetle (family: Meloidae) which excrete a fluid from their joints that causes chemical burns and blistering. She ended up with it on her thumb and rated the pain a 10/10 unless she had it submerged in cold water or an ice-pack.  After a few hours with the ice-pack and water she was able to wrap it. It was itchy for the next four days, but luckily the pain subsided.

Blister Beetle

After making sure Kristine was ok, Tom, Cam and I played a game of poker on the poker table in the house. Tomas wiped the floor with us both.