Waking Up In Vegas

I recently returned from 3-day, 4-night stay in big, bad Las Vegas, Nevada.  It's only the fourth time I've been there, and the first time for a legit 100% leisure stay.

I'm always interested to see for myself how Vegas changes over time, and I've got a few observations:

1) Conventional wisdom is that over the past 20 years, Vegas went from Sin City, to a more family-friendly atmosphere, and back to Sin City again.  I'm not sure it ever stopped being an adult playground, but I can confirm that there are still plenty of kids there.  In fact, I saw kids with their parents all over the strip.  While there may be some benign things for kids to see, like the Bellagio fountains, it's disturbingly dumb for parents to drag small kids around that town, because there are also things kids shouldn't see.  My conclusion is, many of the strip hotels are marketing themselves as resort destinations for the whole family, especially in the summer.  They have great pools, restaurants, shops, like an all-inclusive resort would have, but the thing is, nobody just stays on the same hotel property when they're in Vegas.

2) The days of cheap lodging and meals on the strip are gone.  Same for casino action - it's hard to find a table game with under a $15 minimum bet at night, maybe $10 during the day.  This is another reason why it's dumb to bring kids there.  If you want deals at Vegas now, you have to go downtown, where table games are cheap, music is live, and you can still get a great buffett for between $5-$10.  In a related story, I saw no kids downtown at Fremont Street.  There's nothing for them to do there, except watch the Fremont Street Experience light show once an hour at night.

3) Vegas and its strip hotels have come a long way in providing ground transportation by tram or monorail at various points up and down the strip.  Still, this is a 5+ mile long piece of real estate, and there is a helluva lot of walking to be done if you want to get around without a car, or don't want to pay for a taxi.  If you aren't in shape, the heat and the physical activity will bite you.

4) It didn't look like a town that's supposedly in a major recession.  Maybe everything is just tremendously leveraged, but from what I saw the Vegas tourism and hospitality indistries were doing pretty well.  I saw plenty of people spending money anyway, on both commerce and gambling.

Bottom line, Las Vegas is still Disneyworld for adults.  Cool architecture, lights, music, food, even rides.  A lifetime multi-visit venue.