I cannot fathom what people find appealing about this sickeningly artificial destination. I saw nothing interesting about it when I went a decade ago with my job. The people are trashy, the value for your cost is low, and the gaudiness of the venues is just nauseating. I wanted to jump ship and take a trip to Hoover Dam or the desert just to breath.
Yeah l hate Las Vegas but the wife loves the shows. I think those have slid downhill too though.
I stayed in LV for a week on business back in the early 70s. It was the tail end of the mob era and things were fairly nice. Everything was affordable. Free booze flowed as long as you kept playing. They almost gave away full breakfasts all over town. The shows were good and affordable. There were still nickel slot machines hidden in the back of the casino floors. And they were the satisfying mechanical machines that went Whirrr....clunk...clunk...clunk, not beep-boop-beep. You pulled the handle and you had a visceral feel you were doing something with the machine.
It was still a make-believe place in the desert, but it was 100 times better than when the corporations have created there.
It used to be cheap.
Some 30 years ago, we never missed to stop at Vegas for Lunch and/or dinner.
The rooms were also dirty cheap.
The entertainment also.
They did everything to get you there to play!
If you did not play, that place was just great!
But now?!
The problem is the corporations skimmed off the top and they got to nickel and dime you for everything. If you don’t have a lot of money, you’ll be broke before you can even gamble.
The casinos sold off their properties to investors and then rent it back. They got to really bring in the cash and they just rip you off every way from Sunday.
Lower comps, resort fees, tax on resort fees, no more cheap rooms, no cheap buffets or food, drug addicts in front of the casinos, Mexicans on every corner handling out hooker flyers. $28 bottled water in your room, $24 beers in the casino, no more free drinks even when gambling...
Do you see the problem yet?
Las Vegas greatly deteriorated over the years.
A few decades ago it was totally different.
Everything was dirt cheap—(free parking, very inexpensive buffets, hotel rooms) and included top notch entertainment of every imaginable kind.
In those days in one weekly visit we would attend:
—Comedy clubs/acts
—Magic acts
—Boxing matches
—Country music concerts
My daughte, SIL and another couple went to Vegas a few years to see a football game. The enjoyed the game but hated being in LV. Everyone smoking tope on the sidewalks and even inside casinos.
If you’re not a lady, stay away.
The Hoover Dam tour is well worth the time. Do it.
Also plenty of hiking in the desert ... Red Rock Canyon is worth at least a day. Frenchman's Mountain is a nice climb, just off Lake Meade Blvd. Other areas exist farther away.
Vegas itself, particularly the "Strip" and immediate surroundings, is vile.
Well, a few places have charm and it is possible to have fun there - with a few caveats. I have been there 400 times at least, going back to the early 1970s actually. Though mostly for conventions but occasionally for fun. A few bachelor parties and weddings. I once pooled a couple hundred bucks from 15 people and sat at a machine for hours running the money up and down. I got a pile of “points” and was able to parlay those points into free nights at the Cosmopolitan (this was before COVID) and had a concierge contact number. He scored my wife and I seats at their venue - which is a small theater maybe a few 1000 people max - we saw Sting from a cocktail table on a platform up near the stage. We also saw Duran Duran and the Foo Fighters. Those were nice perks. We saw Elton John but to me it wasn’t very special. I’d seen him a few times 40+ years ago he was much better back in those days. It changed a lot, they blew up all the old joints and built palaces while the culture shifted into slovenly attire and rudeness.
We still take an annual pilgrimage “boys trip” but it’s starting to degrade into nothingness. This last trip was just no fun at all. Free rooms but everything else was just ridiculously expensive. $55 a night for things that everywhere else in the world is free - wifi, TV, and a pool. Went off strip a few times there are some decent place - but there are decent places near my home too. The whole point is supposed to be an experience and its become a mostly unenjoyable experience overall.
The high end hotels are ridiculously overpriced and the low-end places are total dumps. Really, they should go back and make jacket and tie mandatory. I was at several of the fanciest swankiest joints on the strip and they were full of zhlubs in bathing suits and flipflops meandering around.