RSS FeedVegas tips from Oz
I caught this wide-eyed Vegas puff piece on an Australian news website, and I had to laugh. I’ll spare you the article, but here are the tips. I’ll let my readers deconstruct them at will. From NEWS.com.au:
# Stay on The Strip. All the action is there and everywhere else is a bust. Try to stay midweek, when room rates are slashed.
# Key mid-range casinos include Luxor, MGM Grand, Excalibur and Ballys, with high-end options including The Bellagio, Wynn Las Vegas and The Venetian. If you’re down on your luck and need a cheap option on the Strip, try the Imperial Palace.
# Avoid Circus Circus at all costs. Travel agents here still have it on their books, but it is a run-down stinker.
# The best gambling casino is still Caesars Palace. Its magnificent after all these years and has been kept in tip-top condition.
# Explore The Strip yourself. Unlike in other major tourist spots, your hotel wont help you much, as it wants you to stay and gamble. Buy The Las Vegas Review-Journal newspaper for $US1, with its daily visitor guide.
# Do not take a taxi down The Strip at night. The traffic is unbearable.
# Bypass the hordes of illegal Mexican immigrants in oversize T-shirts handing out advertising cards for hookers – the saddest sight on The Strip.
# Get out of Las Vegas, at least for a half-day, to check out the amazing surrounding sights including Death Valley, Red Rocks Canyon, Hoover Dam and the Grand Canyon. Use a tour company, like Pink Jeep Tours, for these day trips.
If you read the article itself, you’ll see some revisionist history: the Bellagio is now given credit as the progenitor of “classy” Vegas, and New York-New York is singled out as “garish.” Strange.
I always thought it was “Red Rock Canyon,” but I guess with all of the economic problems we’re having we need more of them to attract tourists.
Big laughs at the “illegal Mexican immigrant” porn slappers. Talk about over-generalizing. Like this guy a) checked everyone’s immigration status and b) made sure that everyone out there’s from Mexico and not El Salvador, Honduras, or some other country. And if this guy’s got a tip on how to “bypass” porn slappers, he should have shared it.
It’s ironic that Jay Sarno’s two casinos are side by side here: Circus Circus is a “real stinker” and Caesars Palace is “magnificent.”
So if you don’t take a taxi down the Strip because of the traffic, you should take a bus? Limo? Monorail? Hovercraft? Teleport? Oh yeah, Star Trek: The Experience is closing up shop, so scratch that last one.
Back to the first item: so much for the Downtown revitalization, huh?
Posted in business of gambling, life in vegas
August 19th, 2008 at 5:07 pm
You’re right, it was too easy to find fault with the article. I myself am taken aback by the characterization “gimmicks such as a giant fake pyramid”. The Luxor hotel pyramid is *smaller* than the Great Pyramid in Giza, and, as far as I can tell, there is nothing “fake” about it, except that it is not made out of 10-ton blocks of sandstone. (In my mind, it is difficult for a “pyramid” to be fake. Either it is a pyramid or not; if not, it is, perhaps, an icosahedron, or a sphere, but not a “fake” pyramid.)
However, I rather liked the comment that “Las Vegas is… a must for anyone venturing to North America. Even if it’s just for a look, some great meals and shopping.” Just the idea that, of all of North America (does this include Mexico, too?), Las Vegas is *the* place to go–Las Vegas as microcosm, maybe? I can imagine a European dude in New York City for a business meeting thinking to himself, “I’d like to swing by Las Vegas this afternoon to look at the fake New York, too… maybe get a bite to eat, gas up the tank….”
Perhaps we shouldn’t be too harsh. After all, an article with the blatant typos “McCarron” and “gamlbing” is not really vying for academic recognition, now, is it?
August 19th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
I’ve seen “McCarron” elsewhere, and I wish it would catch on. It’s a brilliant portmanteau of “McCarran International Airport” and “moron,” and it would be the perfect thing for someone who’s had their luggage lost to scream.