The Central Strip
Long the scene of fierce inter-casino rivalries, the central portion of the Strip now feels much more like a pedestrian neighbourhood, where visitors stroll from one casino to the next thanks to new outdoor spaces like the Linq development adjoining the Flamingo and the Roman Plaza outside Caesars Palace. What’s not obvious, however, is that all those casinos, from the block-spanning Caesars Palace to grizzled veterans like the Flamingo and Harrah’s across the Strip, and newcomers like Paris and Planet Hollywood to the south, now belong to the same conglomerate; you’d never guess that it was Harrah’s that came out on top.
Planet Hollywood
3667 Las Vegas Blvd S 
866 919 7472, 
planethollywoodresort.com. MAP
The only Strip giant saddled with a brand name not otherwise known for gambling, Planet Hollywood has struggled to establish a strong identity; it’s not part of the dining chain or even an independent entity. The building itself opened in 2000 as a new version of the long-established Aladdin, where Elvis Presley married Priscilla in 1966. Planet Hollywood took it over in 2004, after the Aladdin went broke in the wake of 9/11, but they in turn soon floundered and sold out to Harrah’s in 2010.
Planet Hollywood has subsequently raised its profile by signing Britney Spears for a long-term residency. As the Aladdin, though, it always seemed to be empty, thanks to the design flaw that meant the door from the Strip was too hard to find – simply rectified by erecting a huge sign reading “Casino Entrance”. The main attraction within is the Miracle Mile mall; the actual casino is relatively small, and is largely targeted, with its blaring music and flashing lights, at “hip” young visitors.
Miracle Mile
Planet Hollywood, 3663 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 866 0704, www.miraclemileshopslv.com. MAP
Coiled like an enormous snake around and through Planet Hollywood, the Miracle Mile mall is nonetheless an entirely separate operation. Built at the same time as the new Aladdin, in 2000, and still bearing traces of its original Arabian Nights theming, it was credited by some as being responsible for the Aladdin’s financial failure; given the chance to stroll into a mall without having to walk through a casino en route, Strip sightseers simply ignored the Aladdin altogether. Besides a free “thunderstorm” attraction, the Miracle Mile holds a wide range of bars, restaurants and theatres to complement the clothing boutiques, shoe shops and galleries.
Paris
3655 Las Vegas Blvd S 877 796 2096, parislasvegas.com. MAP
Designed by the architects previously responsible for New York–New York, and opened a few months before the millennium, Paris represented the final flourish of the Las Vegas craze for building entire miniature cities. Its exterior remains one of the Strip’s most enjoyable spectacles, surmounted by a gigantic Eiffel Tower whose legs crash through the ceiling into the heart of the casino itself, and anchored by the Arc de Triomphe, the Opera and a Montgolfier hot-air balloon, which becomes a glowing landmark at night.
Although it’s slightly misleading to think of Paris as a separate casino at all – it was originally built as an extension to Bally’s next door, to which it’s linked by a broad corridor at the back of the building – it was an immediate hit. With both of these properties now owned by Caesars Entertainment, the tail these days is clearly wagging the dog, and Bally’s feels like a minor adjunct to Paris.
Pleasing Parisian touches, such as the ironwork that echoes the city’s Metro stations, still abound throughout the interior. From the excellent buffet to the pastry shops and bridal-wear boutiques, the great majority of Paris’s shops, restaurants and bars have some sort of French connection. Much of it is tongue-in-cheek, so even the more tenuous links, as in calling the sports bar the Bar du Sports, are just part of the fun. The one area where visitors have balked at the Gallic flavour has been entertainment; Paris has long since abandoned its hopes of staging all-French productions (like, say, Phantom of the Opera or Les Miserables) in favour of safer options like Barry Manilow and Engelbert Humperdinck.
Eiffel Tower Experience
Paris, 3655 Las Vegas Blvd S 888 727 4758, www.caesars.com/paris-las-vegas. Mon–Fri 9.30am–12.30am, Sat & Sun 9.30am–1am. $14 daytime, $19 evening. MAP
Towering 540ft over the Strip, Las Vegas’s version of the Eiffel Tower is half the height of the Seine-side original. It’s not simply a half-sized replica, however; if it was, you wouldn’t be able to squeeze into the elevators, for example. In addition, this one is made of steel not iron, and doesn’t have a public staircase to the top.
Visitors can either dine in the luxury restaurant 100ft up, or buy a ticket inside Paris’s main entrance for the Eiffel Tower Experience and ride all the way to the summit viewing platform. While it offers great views all day long, the prime time to come is in the evening; as its builders always cheekily intended, the Eiffel Tower makes the perfect vantage point for watching the Bellagio fountains.
Bally’s
3645 Las Vegas Blvd S 877 603 4390, www.caesars.com/ballys-las-vegas. MAP
These days, you could easily fail to notice Bally’s, set well back from the Strip opposite Bellagio. When it opened in 1973, however, this was the MGM Grand, the biggest hotel in the world. Only after a terrible hotel fire killed 84 people here in 1980 was it bought and renamed by the gaming manufacturer Bally’s, and a new MGM Grand constructed further south. Now owned by Caesars Entertainment, Bally’s has become a humdrum casino that was mainly noteworthy for hosting the throwback revue show Jubilee!.
Bally’s was built in the era when casinos still needed huge Strip-front car parks. Legendary in Las Vegas lore as the landing site for Nicolas Cage and the parachuting Elvises in the 1992 movie Honeymoon in Vegas, and subsequently spanned by a network of neon-covered walkways, the former Bally’s car park has now at last been built over to become the site of an open-air mall, the Grand Bazaar Shops. The small booths and kiosks are largely devoted to snacks and souvenirs, so it’s hardly a must-see attraction, but it’s one more step towards making the Strip truly pedestrian-friendly.
Caesars Palace
3570 Las Vegas Blvd S 866 227 5938, caesarspalace.com. MAP
Still a Las Vegas headliner in its own right, fifty years since it was built, Caesars Palace remains arguably the biggest name on the Strip. During the casino-building spree either side of the millennium, it slipped for a moment behind its newer rivals, to the point where Harrah’s Entertainment were able to buy up control. Recognizing the prestige value of the name, however, they’ve not only reinvigorated Caesars and put it back on top, but changed their own name to Caesars Entertainment.
Caesars Palace was originally the creation of Jay Sarno, a hard-gambling associate of legendary Teamsters leader Jimmy Hoffa. Cobbled together for just $24 million, it was unveiled in 1966, complete with clerks dressed as Roman centurions and cocktail waitresses kitted out like Cleopatra. Sarno himself doubled his money and sold out in 1969; he moved on to build Circus Circus, and eventually died of a heart attack in a suite at Caesars in 1984.
As well as coming up with the Caesars Palace name, designed to appeal to American and European gamblers alike, Sarno also decreed that the one thing it will never have is an apostrophe – it does not belong to Caesar, it’s filled by the thousands of Caesars who choose to visit it. His crucial legacy, however, was that he’d set Caesars up on an expanse of land – originally rented from Kirk Kerkorian, who remained a major Las Vegas player until his death in 2015 – that has so far proved big enough to hold every enlargement architects have been able to imagine.
Pausing to admire Caesars Palace from the Strip is one of the great joys of visiting Las Vegas. White marble Classical statues are everywhere you look, from Julius Caesar forever hailing a cab on the main driveway to the Winged Victory of Samothrace guarding a row of gently cascading pools. Most impressive of all are the ornate fountains that surround the entrance to the Forum mall.
The central bulk of Caesars Palace is still proudly set back around 150 yards from the Strip; all that space between the casino and the Strip originally held an enormous car park. Once Las Vegas visitors began to arrive by plane instead of by car, the gap became a deterrent to pedestrians. It was Caesars that pioneered the use of long moving walkways to haul them in – and naturally neglected to build corresponding outbound walkways to let them back out again. Bit by bit, the space has been built over. First, at the northern end, the vast Forum mall steadily extended until it reached all the way to the Strip; then the mighty Colosseum appeared alongside, in 2003; and more recently the Roman Plaza has burgeoned at the south, and now holds bars, restaurants and even, currently, a circus marquee, which is home to the Absinthe show.
Inside, Caesars Palace bewilders most first-time visitors. Unlike newer Las Vegas properties, designed to be user-friendly and let you find what you’re looking for, Caesars was laid out in the hope that gamblers might never be able to escape.
Making your way between the casino itself and the Forum is easy enough; the two simply meet on the casino floor. However, exploring the rest of Caesars Palace is less straightforward. A network of narrow and circuitous corridors lead to the older Appian Way mall, which offers the chance of a close-up inspection, from directly below, of Michaelangelo’s naked David, and Cleopatra’s Way, home to the Egyptian-themed Cleopatra’s Barge nightclub.
Much of the rest of the property, including the luxurious Garden of the Gods pool complex, based on the baths of Pompeii, is only open to registered guests.
The Forum
3500 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 893 3807, www.simon.com/mall. MAP
By opening the Forum mall in 1992, Caesars Palace not only became the first Strip casino to turn both shopping and dining into major reasons to visit Las Vegas, it also created one of the city’s most iconic attractions.
Though widely copied ever since, the Forum’s domed false-sky ceiling still packs a mind-blowing punch. Designed to evoke the skyline of ancient Rome, it cycles hourly between the dazzling blue of “day” and the orange glow of “night”.
Sadly, though, many of the kitschier elements of the Forum’s earlier years, such as the animatronic “living statues” that adorned its centrepiece fountains, have been discarded in favour of ever more opulent and ornate decor. The most striking feature these days is the amazing convoluted spiral escalator at the Forum’s main Strip entrance. Its separate moving pathways follow different trajectories, so you can never be sure they’ll take you where you want to go.
The Forum Shops themselves still rank as Las Vegas’s premier shopping spot.
THE CROMWELL
3595 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 777 3777, www.caesars.com/cromwell. MAP
Squeezed into a sandwich-sized slot at one of Las Vegas’s prime intersections, the Strip’s smallest casino used to be a budget alternative, known originally as the Barbary Coast and since 2007 as Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon. It reopened in 2014, however, as a self-styled “boutique hotel”, The Cromwell.
For no obvious reason, the name is intended to evoke Parisian splendour rather than those titans of English history, Thomas and Oliver. Its 188 rooms are now luxurious and expensive, while the principal new features are Giada, an Italian restaurant run by TV chef Giada de Laurentiis, and Drai’s, a massive indoor-outdoor rooftop club; the entire structure had to be strengthened to support the colossal weight of its various pools and pavilions.
The Flamingo
3555 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 733 3111, www.caesars.com/flamingo-las-vegas. MAP
Now that it’s just another glossy casino, shoulder to shoulder in the Strip’s endless procession of identikit giants, it’s all but impossible to picture the Flamingo in its original form. Whatever anyone may tell you, when it opened in 1946 it wasn’t the very first Strip resort of them all. Standing alone in the desert, however, a mile south of its nearest neighbour, the Last Frontier, the Flamingo was an enticing hundred-room oasis that put Las Vegas on the map as a glamorous, even dangerous, getaway.
Not that the Flamingo was an immediate hit. So disastrously over-budget that it was forced to close within a fortnight, its initial failure cost owner Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel his life, when his fellow mobsters gunned him down the next year. By then, however, the Flamingo was already going strong, and a wave of imitators was starting to appear.
With Bugsy a distant, sanitized memory, the Flamingo these days is much more Donny and Marie – long-term residents in its showroom – than Don Corleone. Its current owners, Caesars Entertainment, target it largely at older visitors who remember Las Vegas as it used to be back in the 1980s, when the Flamingo was still the biggest hotel in the world, and before everything had to keep reinventing itself to suit the latest trend.
From its superb neon sign and the Strip-facing patio of Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville at the front, to the real-life flamingoes and penguins in the free Wildlife Habitat and garden-set pool complex around the back, there’s a lot to like about the Flamingo. As the Linq development next door expands, further upgrades and improvements will doubtless follow.
the LINQ
3535 Las Vegas Blvd S 800 634 6441, thelinq.com. MAP
Caesars Entertainment responded to MGM Resorts’ construction of CityCenter by carving out its own rival “neighbourhood”. Centring on the showpiece High Roller, it took what was previously a narrow roadway between the Flamingo and Imperial Palace casinos, and turned it into a broader pedestrian corridor of shops, bars and restaurants.
The long-standing Imperial Palace was not demolished, but totally “re-skinned”, with its previous Japanese facade stripped away and its interior decor transformed. Briefly re-christened the Quad, it has now appropriated the name of the entire project – the Linq.
New features include a 32-lane bowling alley with its own restaurant, plus a tattoo studio, a “sneaker boutique” opened by rapper Nas, and several bars.
For the moment, one final relic of the Imperial Palace survives – the Auto Collections, a remarkable array of vintage cars, most of them for sale, on the fifth floor of the garage – but that will surely vanish soon.
las vegas high roller
3545 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 322 0593, thelinq.com. Daily 11.30am–2am. $26 11.30am–7pm, $37 7pm–2am. MAP
The world’s largest observation wheel, the Las Vegas High Roller, stands just off the Strip at the far end of the pedestrianized Linq entertainment district. At 550ft tall, it’s over a hundred feet taller than the similar, 443ft London Eye, and rotates non-stop. Each of its 28 see-through cabins can carry up to forty passengers. The long-range panoramas are spectacular, though intervening buildings mean it doesn’t offer ground-level views of the Strip.
Harrah’s
3475 Las Vegas Blvd S 800 214 9110, www.caesars.com/harrahs-las-vegas. MAP
Harrah’s is the great unsung success story of the Strip. When all its rivals were going crazy for adding eye-catching, child-friendly gimmicks, constructing replica cities and enticing young hipsters to day-night pool parties, Harrah’s just carried on giving their parents the same old, same old formula of cheap eats, plentiful slots and middle-of-the-road entertainment. And it did it all so well that one by one Harrah’s swallowed up all of its Central Strip rivals. Then, having bought the lot, the Harrah’s organization simply changed its name to Caesars Entertainment; it’s as if it never happened.
For anyone under a certain age, Harrah’s itself remains as boring as ever. Walk past on the Strip, and your attention may be captured by the performers on the open-air Carnaval Court stage, but step inside and you’re in a soporific time warp, where country superstar Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill! is the biggest attraction. To be fair, Harrah’s does put on some good-value daytime shows, including Mac King and Big Elvis, but it’s no place for thrill-seeking sightseers.
The Buffet of Buffets
Buffet fans should watch out for the Buffet of Buffets pass, sold at all the buffets in every Caesars-owned casino, which allows 24-hour unrestricted access to them all for a total cost of $60 on weekdays, $75 at weekends. Use it to eat at, say, 8pm one night, 7pm the next, and you get two dinners into the bargain. Note, however, that each visit to the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars Palace or the Carnival World Buffet at the Rio costs extra.
Shops
Appian Way
Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 731 7222, www.caesars.com/caesars-palace. Store hours vary. MAP
Much smaller than the Forum, the Appian Way is arrayed along two corridors just off the casino floor at Caesars Palace. Centring on an 18ft marble replica of Michaelangelo’s David, it includes upscale jewellery stores, high-end crafts at Martin & MacArthur, and a shop selling Caesars’ merchandise.
The Forum Shops
3500 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 893 3807, www.simon.com/mall. Mon–Thurs & Sun 10am–11pm, Fri & Sat 10am–midnight. MAP
Still going strong after a quarter of a century, the Forum Shops is foot-for-foot the country’s most successful mall. That’s partly because its big-name brands tend to be squeezed into smaller spaces than usual. While its two main “streets” are hardly full of surprises – expect to see an Apple Store, Gap and H&M, for example – they do offer a very intense burst of shopping.
Miracle Mile Shops
Planet Hollywood, 3663 Las Vegas Blvd S 888 800 8284, www.miraclemileshopslv.com. Mon–Thurs & Sun 10am–11pm, Fri & Sat 10am–midnight. MAP
Give or take the odd fountain, the largest casino mall, the Miracle Mile Shops, could be just about anywhere. Easily entered straight from the Strip, it really is a mile long; walk from one end to the other and you’ll pass a huge range of stores, from mall staples like Urban Outfitters, American Apparel, French Connection and Quiksilver to some jaw-droppingly awful “art galleries” and a couple of ABC convenience stores.
Buffets
Bacchanal Buffet
Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 731 7928, www.caesars.com/caesars-palace. Brunch Mon–Fri 7.30am–3pm $40, champagne brunch Sat & Sun 8am–3pm $50; dinner Mon–Fri 3–10pm $55, Sat & Sun 3–10pm $58. MAP
The Strip’s latest gourmet buffet – much the best at any Caesars-owned property – opened in 2012. It features five hundred freshly made items daily, from sushi, dim sum and pho soup to fresh oysters and wood-fired pizzas, prepared by chefs at nine separate “show kitchens”.
Le Village Buffet
Paris, 3655 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 946 7000, www.parislasvegas.com. Breakfast Mon–Fri 7–11am $22, Sat & Sun 7–10am $24; lunch Mon–Fri 11am–3pm $25; champagne brunch Sat & Sun 10am–3pm $31; dinner Mon–Thurs & Sun 3–10pm, $31, Fri & Sat 3–10pm, $34. MAP
Unique in focusing on a single cuisine – or rather, on French cuisine, from Brittany to Provence – Le Village offers the most satisfying meal of any casino buffet. You’ll find a wider array elsewhere, but if you’re partial to French meat or fish, or simply fancy a fresh baguette and all the cheese you can eat, in a playful themed setting, don’t miss it.
Restaurants
Beijing Noodle no. 9
Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd S 877 346 4642, www.caesars.com/caesars-palace. Daily 11am–10.30pm. MAP
Approached via aquariums that hold a thousand goldfish and resembling a pale, mysterious, underwater cavern, this Chinese noodle shop is one of Las Vegas’s most enjoyable places to eat. Fortunately, the food matches the setting, though with dim sum buns and dumplings at around $13, and the (large) noodle dishes more like $20, so too do the prices.
Gordon Ramsay Pub & Grill
Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 731 7410, caesars.com/caesars-palace. Mon–Thurs & Sun 11am–11pm, Fri & Sat 11am–midnight. MAP
Stylized version of a British pub, run by TV chef and new Las Vegas darling Gordon Ramsay, with some tables adjoining the casino floor and the rest inside, close to a bar decked out with pretend red phone kiosks. Fish and chips cost $30, steak-and-ale pies $25, while the many draught beers cost $9 during the “Hell’s Kitchen” Happy Hour, weekdays 2–5pm.
Gordon Ramsay Steak
Paris, 3655 Las Vegas Blvd S 877 346 4642, www.caesars.com/paris-las-vegas. Daily 4.30–10.30pm. MAP
For his first Las Vegas venture, perfectionist pottymouth Gordon Ramsay played it safe, opening a high-class steakhouse near Paris’s main entrance – its tunnel approach represents the trip from France to England, incidentally. Diners select from a trolley laden with marbled, aged slabs of prime meat; a superbly cooked veal chop costs $50, a strip steak $63 and the $145 tasting menu includes Beef Wellington.
Koi
Planet Hollywood, 3667 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 454 4555, koirestaurant.com. Mon–Thurs & Sun 5.30–10.30pm, Fri & Sat 5.30–11.30pm. MAP
While not the celebrity favourite it is in Hollywood, this fancy restaurant serves tasty Japanese food at what, for Las Vegas, are reasonable prices – especially considering its views of Bellagio’s fountains. Sushi rolls, tuna tartare or tempura shrimp cost well under $20, mains like steamed sea bass or wasabi short ribs up to $30.
Mesa Grill
Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd S 877 346 4642, mesagrill.com. Mon–Fri 11am–2.30pm & 5–11pm, Sat & Sun 10.30am–3pm & 5–11pm. MAP
Contemporary Southwestern chef Bobby Flay, who made his name in New York, has shown enough commitment to his Las Vegas outlet, across from the Colosseum entrance, for it to become Caesars’ most dependable fine-dining spot. Mexican-influenced favourites include sixteen-spice chicken, which costs $18 in a lunch salad, more like $33 for dinner.
Mon Ami Gabi
Paris, 3655 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 944 4224, www.monamigabi.com. Mon–Thurs & Sun 7am–11pm, Fri & Sat 7am–midnight. MAP
Among the first Las Vegas restaurants to offer al fresco dining, this exuberant evocation of a Paris pavement brasserie remains the city’s premier lunchtime pick. For a real taste of France, you can’t beat a $15 croque-madame (ham, cheese and egg sandwich) for breakfast; moules frites (mussels and chips) for lunch ($14 or $26); or steak frites for dinner ($29).
Nobu
Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 785 6628, noburestaurants.com. Mon–Thurs & Sun 5–11pm, Fri & Sat 5pm–midnight. MAP
Flagship restaurant for the world-spanning empire of Japanese-Peruvian chef Nobu Matsuhisa, whose fans are so devoted that Caesars even has its own Nobu hotel tower into the bargain. Ambience and audience alike are very upmarket; and the food is exquisite, with hot mains including black cod miso for $37 or beef tenderloin for $36, and full chef’s-choice tasting menus starting at $125.
THE PALM
Forum Shops, Caesars Palace 702 732 7256, thepalm.com. Daily 11.30am–11pm. MAP
A veteran of the Forum scene, this offshoot of the legendary New York steakhouse offers a stylish, surprisingly formal escape from the shopping mania outside. For lunch, $16 will buy you a salad, burger or sandwich. In the evening, classic Italian veal dishes cost $34–36, and a prime, 24oz rib-eye steak is $55.
Yard House
Linq Promenade, 3545 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 597 0434, yardhouse.com. Mon–Thurs & Sun 11am–1am, Fri & Sat 11am–1.30am. MAP
Lively restaurant/bar along the pedestrian mall that leads to the High Roller, where the extensive food menu ranges from jambalaya or Southern fried chicken to a vegetarian quinoa salad, all priced at well under $20. They also offer craft ales and ciders from around the world, many of which you can indeed drink from a genuine “yard”.
Bars and lounges
Alto Bar
Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 731 7778, caesars.com/caesars-palace. Mon, Wed & Thurs 9am–2am, Tues 9am–4am, Fri–Sun 24hr. MAP
Catch your breath after walking Caesars’ endless hallways in this up-to-the-minute open-fronted lounge, which replaced the much-missed Seahorse Lounge in 2016. Raised above the casino floor, and specializing in very fancy cocktails at $16–21 – a beer costs $8 – it’s the perfect spot to see and be seen, though you can also hide away in a private booth.
Cleopatra’s Barge
Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 731 7333, caesars.com/caesars-palace. Tues–Thurs 7pm–2am, Fri & Sat 7pm–3am. MAP
Caesars Palace was built just three years after Elizabeth Taylor’s iconic performance as Cleopatra; centred on a floating replica of a Pharaonic barge, surrounded by gilded furniture and campy little nooks, this bar’s been here ever since. A glorious reminder of Las Vegas’s golden era, it never charges for admission, though every night sees appearances by either live musicians or DJs.
Napoleon Piano Bar
Paris, 3655 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 946 7000, caesars.com/paris-las-vegas. Daily 4pm–1am. No cover charge. MAP
Come in the early evening to this plush, dimly lit, bordello-red bar, poised halfway along the internal corridor that connects Paris to Bally’s and, while there may be a lounge act on stage, like a vocal group or comedian, it still feels like a sophisticated venue at which to enjoy a glass of champagne, cognac, cocktails or cigars. Between 9pm and 1am nightly, however, things turn much more raucous, as duelling pianists vie to belt out whatever tunes the audience requests (and is prepared to tip for) – expect there to be energetic, enthusiastic sing-along renditions of Bohemian Rhapsody and the like.
Clubs and music venues
The Colosseum
Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd S 866 227 5938, thecolosseum.com. Showtimes and prices vary; Celine Dion typically ranges from $55–250. MAP
Built in 2003 to house a long-term residency by Celine Dion, the 4000-seat Colosseum is the last great stronghold of the old-style Las Vegas headliner. Celine still returns frequently, while Elton John, Rod Stewart and Mariah Carey also play regular extended engagements. Stars who appear for a night or two have included Jerry Seinfeld and Van Morrison.
DRAI’s beachclub • nightclub
The Cromwell, 3595 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 777 3800, draislv.com. Nightclub Thurs–Sun 10.30pm–4am; Beach Club summer only daily 11am–6pm. Cover $20. MAP
This huge indoor-outdoor night/day club, on The Cromwell’s roof, enjoys the best Strip views. Named for EDM entrepreneur and film producer Victor Drai, previously responsible for creating XS at Encore and Tryst at Wynn Las Vegas, it has big-name DJs and live performers – Kendrick Lamar for New Year 2016–17– plus go-go dancers, with poolside cabanas for high-rollers.
Omnia
Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 785 6200, omnianightclub.com. Tues & Thurs–Sun 10.30pm–4am. Cover $20–50.MAP
Unveiled in 2015 as the successor to the massively popular Pure, this club boasts a huge open-air Strip-view terrace. Ordinary mortals can expect a long queue, and astonishing prices for drinks ($28 for a beer) for what is truly a once-in-a-lifetime Las Vegas experience, with the world’s biggest DJs.
Shows
Absinthe
Caesars Palace, 3570 Las Vegas Blvd S 800 745 3000, absinthevegas.com. Wed–Sun 8pm & 10pm. $109–134. MAP
Staged in the round, in a marquee on Caesars’ outdoor Roman Plaza, this no-holds-barred circus-tinged burlesque show has taken Las Vegas by storm. Conceived as a crude and abrasive counterpoint to the fey whimsy of Cirque du Soleil, and eschewing PC in all its forms, it’s more of a drunken night out than a traditional show, but it still charges Cirque-level prices.
Big Elvis
Piano Bar, Harrah’s, 3475 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 369 5111, www.caesars.com/harrahs-las-vegas. Mon, Wed & Fri 2–6pm. Free. MAP
Las Vegas’s biggest and best-loved Elvis impersonator, Pete Vallee, has shucked off the pounds in the last few years to become merely Large Elvis. His King-like voice still packs a powerful punch, though, and his mastery of Elvis’s repertoire and easy audience rapport – requests welcome – make this the best free show in town.
BRITNEY SPEARS – PIECE OF ME
Planet Hollywood, 3667 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 777 2782, caesars.com/planet-hollywood. Schedule varies seasonally; usually Wed, Fri & Sat 9pm, $55–210. MAP
The girl from Kentwood, Louisiana has reinvented herself as Las Vegas’s consummate post-millennial headliner. Britney lip-synchs – but there is a live band – as she flings herself around the stage in a stunning show. All kinds of premium packages are available, culminating in the opportunity to “meet and greet” Britney.
CRAZY GIRLS
Planet Hollywood, 3667 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 777 2782, caesars.com/planet-hollywood. Daily 9pm, $54–98. No under-21s. MAP
Newly relocated from the sadly missed Riviera casino, the Strip’s best-known “adult revue” remains a throwback to the Vegas of yesteryear. Half a dozen topless, if not exactly crazy, sequin-encrusted showgirls dance through a medley of show tunes, and there’s an interlude of comedy and magic.
DONNY & MARIE
The Flamingo, 3555 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 777 2782, caesars.com/flamingo-las-vegas. Tues–Sat 7.30pm, $104–250. MAP
Anyone who doesn’t need to ask the surname of this brother-and-sister duo will know what to expect – family-friendly service with a smile. As well as singing their combined hits, each does his or her own thing, and there’s lots of new material, which in Donny’s case includes a “hip-hop” routine. The old-style showroom seating is at shared tables, with drink service.
Mac King
Harrah’s, 3475 Las Vegas Blvd S 702 693 6143, mackingshow.com. Tues–Sat 1pm & 3pm. $38 & $49. MAP
Just so there’s no doubt, Mac King is billed as a comedy magician. With his clownish country-boy persona, clean-talking patter, easy way with his audience and family-friendly prices – plus of course his stunning sleight of hand – he’s Las Vegas’s best daytime entertainment bargain.
V – The Ultimate Variety Show
Miracle Mile, Planet Hollywood, 3663 Las Vegas Blvd S 866 932 1818, vtheshow.com. Mon–Thurs & Sun 8.30pm, Fri & Sat 7pm & 8.30pm. $70 or $90. MAP>
This enjoyable, long-running variety show features established acts and crowd-pleasing routines. Regulars include “hip-hop contortionist” Turf; gloriously deadpan Mexican juggler Wally Eastwood; and Russ Merlin, whose Halloween mask audience-volunteer stunt brings the house down.