We've been going to Las Vegas for 10 years now and have always enjoyed seeing the changes that have taken place in that fast-moving town.
Until this year.
This was our first trip in which the new City Center project was open. When we stayed at the
Monte Carlo in 2000 our room overlooked what is now City Center. Back then it was a large parking lot with a couple small hotels/shops and a heliport that separated
Monte Carlo and
Bellagio to the north. A tram connected the two big hotels.
City Center sort of looks like the complex you would have seen in a 1966 Disney special showing the city of the future, complete with a monorail that passes through the buildings. Here are some photos I took as we walked around:
One of our first stops was in the new
Aria, at the center of the complex. We were hoping to see something really spectacular, but instead got just another contemporary glass/steel/funky artwork hotel with no discernible theme. We also stopped in
Vdara, another new hotel and almost identical in decor to
Aria. Both were frankly disappointing. The age of imagination seems to be over in Vegas.
Las Vegas went through a very creative period between 1989 and 1999 when a series of old Vegas properties were demolished and a new series of theme resorts were built. Old Vegas was basically casinos with some cheap hotel rooms attached. Steve Wynn changed that when he built the tropical island themed
Mirage in 1989 complete with dolphins and white tigers. That was followed by the King Arthur themed
Excalibur in 1990. The rest of the 90's saw the opening of Egyptian themed pyramid
Luxor in 1993, Hollywood themed
MGM Grand in 1993,
Treasure Island complete with pirate battles in 1993,
Monte Carlo in 1996,
Stratosphere with its 1,149 foot tower in 1996,
New York, New York with its skyscraper and Statue of Liberty replicas in 1997, Arabian Nights themed
Aladdin and
Bellagio with its dramatic fountain show
in 1998, South Sea island themed
Mandalay Bay,
Paris with its scaled down Eiffel Tower
and the
Venetian with the singing gondoliers cruising in fake canals on the 2nd floor above the casino in 1999.
Each property was an experience just to walk in the door. You felt like you'd traveled somewhere else in the world and if you tired of that location you could go next door and find some other far off place. I'm sure a lot of tourists just like us traveled from hotel to hotel just to check out the sights. Of course, the casino operators hoped we would stop and gamble and maybe that was the problem.
The next property to open was Steve Wynn's self-named hotel in 2005, and though very nice, does not have a specific theme - other than catering to Asians who seem to be where modern Vegas thinks most of their money will be coming from. His second property,
Encore, is nearly a carbon copy with an even stronger Asian influence.
The newest hotel is
Palazzo which is attached to the
Venetian and has gone for the modern contemporary look. You literally walk from the Grand Canals in Venice into a theme-free shopping zone full of designer brands and very much lacking in shoppers. I really don't know how those places stay in business, and the only reason we've ever gone into
Palazzo is because it's an air conditioned shortcut between
Venetian and
Wynn's (and the Fashion Show Mall across the street).
Even the themed properties are undergoing changes to minimize the original theme and contemporize the decor.
Luxor, which would be hard to update given the building is a giant pyramid, has dumped much of the old Egyptian decor in favor of contemporary lighting and other fixtures.
New York, New York, with its faux NYC street scenes and landmarks has even toned down the NYC hype a bit. They used to have trees in their fake Central Park area on the casino floor, but the trees are gone and they've downplayed some of the decor.
Aladdin was taken over by
Planet Hollywood in 2007 and the old Arabian Nights decor was dumped in favor of a modern sterile Hollywood look. They also changed the attached mall, eliminating much of the Moroccan street scenery and now most of it looks just like any other mall you'd see anywhere else in the country. Nothing special at all. The Street of Dreams at
Monte Carlo, their small mall and restaurant area, has also lost the Old World decor in favor of a modern contemporary look. Instead of trees with lights and an Old World street scene you get this:
I think the consultants finally convinced the developers that themes don't make people gamble and so now we're going to see a bunch of soulless glass and chrome boxes go up around town. The soulless boxes are probably cheaper to build since there's so much less detail in the decor, but they're also a lot less fun to visit.
And decor isn't the only thing that's changing. According to a local gaming newspaper I saw the Strip casinos are tightening up the odds on their slot machines. Players can expect to lose faster and more often as they reduce payouts to the state-mandated minimums. To me that's sort of like raising taxes in a recession - if you want more players making them lose faster would seem to be counterproductive.
Part of the problem is the lack of individual ownership of the properties on The Strip. When Steve Wynn was making his mark with fantastic hotel after fantastic hotel he was constantly trying to one-up the competition and himself. Now nearly everything south of Flamingo is owned by MGM, most of the central strip is owned by Harrah's, and in the north Sheldon Adelson has his two hotels and Steve Wynn his two. The large corporate ownership undoubtedly contributes to the lack of creativity in the new projects.
There are still remnants of old Vegas on The Strip.
Caesar's Palace, which opened in 1966, has gone through many renovations and in many ways is the first real themed resort on The Strip.
The Flamingo has also undergone complete rebuilding since Bugsy Siegel opened it in 1946. Both
Caesar's and
Flamingo have held up pretty well, but others are in real need of updating or demolition. The
Sahara (1952),
Riviera (1955),
Tropicana (1957) and
Circus Circus (1968) look pretty shabby these days.
Bally's (1973),
Harrah's (1973) and
Imperial Palace (1979) are still busy thanks to discount rates, but certainly aren't impressive next to many of their neighbors.
I've said all this because of my disappointment that the age of imagination seems to have ended in Vegas. The new resorts are back to being casinos with hotel rooms attached (though they're a lot more expensive these days). We realized after this trip that going to Vegas to see the sights is pretty much over for us, at least for awhile. We've seen pretty much everything we want to see and the new properties don't give us any reason to want to visit again. Although we've visited at least once a year since 2000 we might break that streak next year.
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