The Sin city has for years forged an agreement with visitors and made dreams come true: Take your chances at the casinos and we’ll take care of the rest. For years, Las Vegas, irrespective of being the gambling capital, has also been considered a value destination - the home of 99-cent shrimp cocktails and super-cheap hotel rooms has given way big-name entertainers and celebrity-chef-helmed restaurants. Who needs a cheapo shrimp cocktail when you can dine with superstar cooks like Mario Batali or Bobby Flay? But these days, Vegas doesn’t need low prices to attract travelers. As the stats suggests, Las Vegas had nearly 39 million vacationers in 2011, over 4% more than in the previous year and close to the city’s 2007 pre-crisis peak. And the reason they are here has often little to do with gambling. Think plush resorts, superstar dining, and the best night life that money can buy. In 2012, Las Vegas beat popular tourism icons such as Disney World and Niagara Falls, as the third most visited tourist attraction in the world.
Most of the visitors to Las Vegas who are on the look out for fun things to so are sure to do some things common - for example, every visitor will watch the dancing fountain show at Bellagio, the erupting volcano at the Mirage, or the animated statues at Caesars Palace and will stroll The Strip, look up at the city’s own “Eiffel Tower,” and most will make it to recently revived Downtown Las Vegas and its Fremont Street Experience. There are some very profitable Las Vegas deals that are on for most part of the year, but peak seasons push the prices up.
For an intimate experience with wine, and other brewed spirits, Las Vegas is the place to be, as the most impressive difference between watering holes in the rest of the world and those on the Strip is the sheer number of bottles. Another fun thing to do in Las Vegas is visit the Craftsteak, for single malt enthusiasts where you can find the bottles and brands that you never seen or thought possible to lay hands on.
At André's and Alizé, you can splurge on Cognacs to knock your socks off reside at Rochat's three restaurants, whereas in Treasure Islands Isla you get to know and taste Tequila through a full-time Tequila Goddess, who is employed to educate the customers. For the more connoisseur Wine tasters, Aureole, is the place to be where the wine bottles are stored in a four-storey wine tower that requires harnessed 'wine angels' to retrieve them.
A cost-free fun thing to do in Las Vegas can be had at the Bellagio, all-American Italian villa, is the signature jumping fountain, where the Cirque du Soleil's most sophisticated show, O, comprises more than 70 swimmers, divers, aerialists, contortionists and clowns performing acrobatic feats around a pool/stage containing 1.5 million gallons of water. If you have the time to see only one show, make it O.
