Some years ago, I remember flying somewhere that necessitated a very brief layover in Las Vegas. When the plane came to a stop at the gate, I’m pretty sure I was the only person to not get off the plane when we landed in Vegas, as I elected to just stay seated for the brief 30 minutes while the plane emptied and filled with passengers, the ones arriving cheering loudly when the captain announced our destination. From out the plane window, I was able to see the Las Vegas Strip, the Luxor pyramid looming large from the cityscape, and I remember remarking to myself, “Welp! I saw Vegas from my plane window, and that’s enough of Vegas for me!” vowing that I would never see the city ever again.
And yet, I’ve fallen in love with a man who adores Vegas, and so here I am with him, visiting Vegas more properly for the first time. This city was never really very high on my list of places I’ve wanted to visit, as my impressions often left me thinking that Vegas is just a giant facade of plasticized fakery, devoid of any actual real things to see. But this seems to be exactly the point of Vegas. And, I would be lying if I remarked that I am not at all curious to see what this place is all about.
Our flight into Vegas was uneventful yet comfortable (“We’re doing this right!” Matt observed, as we had a three-seat row all to ourselves, an old fashioned and espresso martini in hand), eventually arriving at about 10:00 pm local time. As we landed, the famous Las Vegas Strip prominently appeared out our windows, the Luxor pyramid once again immediately recognizable. Leaving the plane to grab our luggage, various “gambling devices”—as I liked to call them—greeted us in the expansive corridors of the airport, the machines’ gaudy electronic arpeggiations pervading every nook and cranny as garishly tasteless colors spun and spun on overlarge screens, gamblers staring blankly and expressionless into a vortex of misfortune and bad decisions.
By the time we got our luggage and met Gil, our Lyft driver—who kindly offered to take us to a marijuana dispensary before taking us to our hotel, as to avoid the inflated prices of the Strip—we arrived at the Grove to purchase some gummies and a vape, both to become enjoyable parts of our adventures. I’m so grateful that public sentiments around marijuana are shifting—even if ever so slowly—and viewing all the different options at the Grove (edibles, vapes, flowers, joints) was a reminder of the days soon to come back home in Minnesota. I got a real kick out of visiting the Grove, partly because it was outside of the main touristy zone of Vegas, the dispensary sharing walls with the Double Down Saloon, a seedy, divey establishment of the sort I revel in visiting (“Dicey,” Matt would describe it). Our Lyft driver, Gil, was so kind to make this extra stop, and we gave him an extra $10 cash tip for his kindness. (“I love tourists,” Gil exclaimed. “They keep Vegas alive!”)
Arriving at our home for the next week, the Excalibur Hotel and Casino, I will soon discover that each of these resort hotels along the Strip generally follow the same layout in design: the ground floor will feature a giant, warehouse-sized casino, more gambling devices intrusively violating eyes and ears, the smell of stale cigarette smoke vaguely present as it is ventilated out as best as possible; an expansive lobby area located on the perimeter complete with a long, long check-in counter staffed by 10-15 associates; countless hoards of people walking and roaming throughout, drinks in hand; music piped in loudly, vibrating the whole space, all adding to a cacophony of sensory overload.
Where each resort will differ, however, is in their themed design, and some resorts will do it better than others. The Excalibur, for example, draws from a Medieval castle theme, and I would say in a way that is not even half successful. While the building’s facade features architectural elements similar to a Cinderella castle at Disney World—six or seven cylindrical towers rising high, topped with red and blue conical roofs, flanked by two, giant, rectangular towers standing 28 stories high and spanning three city blocks—internally, the building is tired and uninspired, like a Medieval Times dinner hall: cheap, wrought iron chandeliers hanging from ceilings, each outfitted lazily with lightbulbs shaped like candle flames but lacking any flicker; tacky battlements near the ceiling lining tall perimeters of open spaces. Where other resorts will succeed at nearly almost suggesting you’re elsewhere (a plasticized Venice, a fake Egyptian tomb, a faux Paris), Excalibur will not.
Soon, Matt and I were off to explore parts of the 4.2 miles of the Las Vegas Strip, the facade of the New York New York Hotel and Casino greeting us first as we excited the Excalibur, towers rising tall from the Strip, recreations of the Chrysler and Empire State buildings soaring above the street, a Statue of Liberty sarcastically constructed to two-fifths scale to the genuine article. Inside the resort, the casino is another warehouse-sized room, but this time lined at the perimeter with tall facades of walk-up brownstone buildings to remind us that we’re not in Greenwich Village no matter how hard the designers try. We next made our way to the Park MGM, a resort with no real discernible theme beyond “fancy mall.” It was here where we saddled up to the bar at Gran Caffè Milano, an Italian bar situated as an island amongst other busy walk-up counters selling pizza or pasta or gelato. At the caffè, I decided to enjoy a drink called the milano (rye, vermouth, orange bitters, and lemon), expecting to experience a reimagined manhattan, but ending up disappointed by how sweet the drink was (the drink priced at $25, an expensive mistake), while Matt had a pallini spritz, a limoncello affair.
It was here where Matt asked me about my initial reactions to Las Vegas. “Well,” I sighed, “It seems to be built and packaged for a very specific type of person.” “Yes, packaged,” he agreed. “And it’s safe and unchallenging, and it’s for a type of person that I can’t possibly see marching in, for example, a second line parade in New Orleans.” And that basically sums up my thoughts of the Las Vegas Strip, and—writing this back home in Minnesota after all our adventures are over—they are thoughts that remain unchanged. But this seems to be exactly the point of this part of Vegas: it is a giant illusion that rather deftly, I must admit, befuddles the sense of scale and makes a jigsaw of expectations. And when I allowed myself to marvel at the architectural trickery of the Strip and immerse myself in this packaged world, I started to enjoy Vegas for what it is.
The rest of our evening took us through more iconic sights, first the half-size recreation of the Eiffel Tower of the Paris Hotel and Casino and then the instantly recognizable Bellagio, its fountains dormant beneath a human-made lake. As we approached the main entrance to the Bellagio, it was here where it occurred to me just how far away everything is on the Strip, but everything is built to look smaller and closer than they actually are. The Bellagio, for example, is especially remarkable in this regard, as its windows are built to suggest a 10-story building, when in fact each window is built so large that each window is actually four separate windows belonging to separate rooms. (Caesars Palace accomplishes a similar trick.) And these types of illusions will permeate throughout our time here: everything is so big and so far away but built to suggest just the opposite.
And these illusions of size aren’t limited to the resorts themselves. For example, we also spent some time at the intersection of Las Vegas Boulevard and Harmon Avenue, and as we marveled from our view on the elevated walkway, I counted that each cardinal direction of traffic had five, thick busy lanes, the intersection itself capable of fitting two baseball diamonds. The escalators also spanned incredible lengths, moving people to and fro the pedestrian walkways extending 200 feet. My sense of reality was so thrown off that at one point we were walking past several cactuses planted elegantly within sandy soil, and I wondered, “Are those cactuses real or fake?”
Much of our time on the Strip will feature more awesome moments (“As in ‘awe’,” Matt will clarify), and while my initial impressions of the Strip on this first night were somewhat lukewarm, I will surprisingly find myself ever so slowly warming to what Vegas has to offer. As with the Princess cruise along the Mexican coast that Matt and I just enjoyed last fall, Vegas is what it is, and attempts to make it into something else will only cause frustration and disappointment. Even the most cynical skeptic, as with myself, may be pleasantly surprised when fully immersed in such a ridiculous spectacle of glitz, illusions, and debauchery.
Stray observations:
- If you can, try to get a room that is on the higher levels to enjoy views of the city, especially at night. Matt and I were stuck on the fourth floor, our window providing only a view of the wall of the hotel.
- I know I was quite down on Excalibur, but I can’t help but suggest staying there at least once. The gaudy cheapness of it all is basically the point. And it’s super affordable.
- While at the Bellagio, we briefly stepped through the Bellagio Conservatory and Botanical Garden, enjoying views of their current display “Tea and Tulips,” a whimsical collection of giant teacups and pots of springtime pastels surrounded by countless daffodils and tulips all expertly arranged in explosions of color.
- When we walked through Caesars Palace, we stopped quickly for late-night noodles at Beijing Noodle, a highly designed but low-scale restaurant, prismatic tanks of koi greeting us as we entered, the walls and ceiling a facade reminding us both of paper cut-out art. The food itself was fine; don’t go out of your way to find this place.