Hearts in Hawai'i
Our Trip To Las Vegas (2005)--Part 1
5/18/2005
About These Pictures
The pics you'll find throughout this review were taken with a Nikon Coolpix 995. Some were taken using a circular polarizing lens. By clicking a thumbnail, you'll access a 1280x960 version of that picture.
Prologue
Sex. Gambling. Addiction. Vices. Visit Las Vegas, and look beneath the surface and you'll see examples of the worst of human excess. Want to enjoy Vegas? Don't look. Get out of the casinos. Sample some of the natural beauty which lies beyond the city boundaries. Las Vegas, as we've discovered, is as much a "staging area" for day trips as it is an actual destination.
We don't like to gamble, which has drawn (more than once) the inevitable question "Well then, what the hell do you go there for?" This trip review will answer that and other questions.
This was our third trip to Las Vegas, following a three-day stay there in 1996 and a nine-day stay in 1998.
Luxor Resort and Casino
In our 1998 visit, we had a pyramid room (Luxor has three main buildings; the "pyramid" building, the East Tower and West Tower), on the seventh floor with an outstanding view of....the back of the large sphinx which is in front of the hotel looking out towards Las Vegas Boulevard (The Strip). Poor view. This time, we wanted a room with a view of the pool. We didn't really care whether or not we had a view of the other hotels on the Strip but we wanted to be in one of the towers and as high up as possible. Our room, on the 16th floor of the West Tower, was outstanding with a superb view of the pool and the Valley. Since it faced west, we had nice views of the sunset over the mountains each night (when we weren't out walking about, which was often).
Amenities were scarce at the Luxor. No refrigerator, but we could secure a min-fridge for $15/day! No thanks. A $5 cooler purchased at Walmart and kept filled with ice more than sufficed. No coffee pot, so it was off to McDonalds in the morning for wifey's coffee. No microwave. At least there was a hair dryer.
Poolside at the Luxor was the place to be on a hot day, which we had plenty of. The temps topped 100 or higher on the final eight days of our stay. Normal highs for this time of year (mid-late May) are around 90, so it was unusually toasty. Being poolside helped as you could cool off every 20-30 minutes or so. Poolside drinks? If four bucks for a 20-ounce Gatorade sounds reasonable to you, go for it. I chose to make trips back up to the room to replenish the ice in our water bottles (I brought an insulated water bottle on the trip, which was a very good idea).
Overall, we liked the Luxor. It's location (it's next to Mandalay Bay, the last major hotel/resort on the Strip) was just close enough to everything to make most Strip destinations walkable. The room size was more than sufficient. Maid service was prompt on most days.
But be advised; everything costs more here than it used to. Whether it's because gaming revenues have dropped or the hotels have just grown more greedy or whatever your "explanation" is, there is no disputing that hotels basically put a premium price on most everything they can. This extends to buffets. Pharoah's Feast buffet now costs $10.99 for breakfast! And it gets more expensive for lunch and dinner. On the other hand, the selections are wide and the quality of the food at this buffet was good. But still....
Here is what we liked:
1. Location on the south end of the Strip was convenient to McCarran Airport
2. Great view from our room
3. Room size was very nice
4. Free parking (standard in LV, by the way)
Here is what we didn't like:
1. No coffee maker in the room
2. No mini-fridge (available for $10/day!) or microwave
Rating: 7
Landing at McCarran Airport
View of the West Tower (where our room was) from the pool area
Every few minutes, you'd see a plane taking off from McCarran and briefly appearing between the towers of the Mandalay Bay. This was one of those times
Our room
Nightime view to the west of the Luxor
Las Vegas Strip
Seven years had passed since our last trip to Vegas. In that time, a number of new huge resorts had sprang up, including Mandalay Bay, Bellagio, Paris, Wynn and the Venetian. These have dramatically changed the look of the Strip, mostly for the better.
Walking the south Strip (especially at night) was one of our favorite activities, a nice way to end the day. There were, however, two annoyances. The first had to do with the people hawking their "adult entertainment" cards all over the place. I'm guessing that there is some type of city ordinance which prohibits their talking to you, so what they do is to flick two of the cards together, hoping it draws your attention. It's rather a pain, but they're harmless. What wasn't quite so harmless was the trash left all over the sidewalks by the moron tourists who take the cards from these folks and then drop them on the sidewalk. If you didn't want it, then why take it? And if you didn't know better, why not wait until you can dump these cards into a trashcan? Oh, that's right....you're tourists so you're entitled to make a mess of the place 
The second annoyance falls more into the catagory of "Royal Pain in the A$$" and this refers to the solicitors who approach you with one of many telltale starting lines such as "How would you folks like to see a show?". You can either a) ignore them, b) tell them "sorry, we're leaving tonight", or c) tell them to get a real job. If anybody has any other responses, email me and I'll post them in an update.
Polo Towers
Barbary Coast
The Wynn
Monte Carlo
Excalibur
Replica of the Eiffel Tower at The Paris
Sphinx in front of The Luxor
Excalibur
Replica of the Statue of Liberty at New York, New York
The Mirage
View to the north from a Las Vegas Blvd. walkway, looking toward the Stratosphere
The Bellagio
Red Rock Canyon
Unless you plan on doing some major hiking in Red Rock, you can easily combine a tour of this canyon with a trip to Hoover Dam in one day. We did this, and started at Red Rock fairly early in the morning.
It's an easy drive to get there, heading west on Charleston Boulevard will take you less than an hour from Las Vegas. A 13-mile scenic drive takes you around the canyon. The fee for this is $5 for a one-day pass, and is well worth the money.
Rating: 8
Previous: 4/6/2004--Our Trip to Hawai'i (2004)--Final Thoughts
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