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Trips to Europe, Africa or Australia require meticulous planning, advanced scrimping and saving, passports and sometimes even shots. Las Vegas isn’t like that. Sure, you can plan. I’m assuming you’re a little bit of a planner since you bought (maybe borrowed or stole) this guidebook. But planning is not necessary. Vegas is the kind of destination that begins as a whim that need not be much stronger than the impulse to make an ice cream run. If you live within quick driving distance in Utah, Arizona or California, it’s easy. Just throw a bag together, pick up a few girlfriends, roll down the convertible top and go. If you live farther away, airfare deals and hotel specials are numerous, even with minimal notice. For ideas on how to pick a hotel, get a deal on a room and when to visit, check out my “Where to Stay” guide in the Sloth Chapter. For now, let’s concentrate on getting you here, and helping you get around once you arrive. Flying is the preferred mode of transport for 45 percent of visitors. Before September 11, 2001, that number was much higher. Since then, airport security and fear of terrorism have scared scads of foreign tourists. As if you didn’t have enough to fear, our friend Stephanie Wasano reminded me to warn readers about the airport escalators. A few years ago, an escalator collapsed. The metal stairs flattened into a slippery slide, sending luggage and travelers zipping to the floor below. Other than that, you may be happy to hear that flying into town is easy. Flights in are packed with excited tourists (many of them male and hot) planning their exploits, talking, laughing, making friends. I’ve been on flights where strangers buy girls drinks and propose future rendezvous. If you have the opportunity, fly in at night. The view from the airplane window as the plane circles the Strip is second to none. The way home may not be so jovial. Get on a Sunday afternoon flight, and no one is happy. Tired, grouchy, hungover crowds are the norm, and that’s just in the long security lines before you get on the plane. Be sure to allow plenty of extra time for departure. It’s not unreasonable to bank an extra hour or two for your return voyage. If you arrive far too early or you’re stuck at the airport, no worries, there is plenty to do. McCarran is one of the best airports to get stuck in. The place is packed with hotel gift shops (just in case you didn’t get enough of that in the actual hotels), reasonably good food and, of course, slot machines. But whatever you do, don’t put any money into these slot machines, unless you would like to make a direct donation to Clark County. Instead of working the one-armed bandits, check out the aviation museum. The Sen. Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum has no walls of its own, but is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, with collections displayed throughout McCarran International Airport. “We get greater visitation than any museum in Nevada,” Museum Director Mark Hall-Patton jokingly testifies. “From 350,000 to 400,000 people per year come through. We’re where the people are. ” The main museum collection is set up over the baggage claim area on the airport’s second level. Exhibits extend out to the A and B gates, C terminal, ticketing and the D satellite gates. The star of the collection is a plane used by Robert Timm of Las Vegas and John Cook of Los Angeles in 1958 to set the world record for the longest flight at 64 days, 22 hours, 19 minutes and 5 seconds. A museum exhibit tells of the harrowing adventure. But if you are a new arrival, you’re not here to waste time in an airport museum; you’ve come to Vegas to play. Step one is to get out of the airport and to your hotel. The flight in can be deluding. It looks like the airport is on top of the Strip, just a quick walk away. It’s actually about five miles, with no direct easy access. Lugging suitcases, you’ll never make it. In many towns across the country, hotels will send a shuttle or a car to the airport to fetch incoming patrons. That is not the case in Vegas. Unless you’re a high-roller, there will be no man in a black hat with your name on a card. So it’s up to you to find a ride. You can take a taxi or a limo. Ask both to skip the airport tunnel and take Swenson Avenue or Paradise Road, routes that should save you money in rushhour traffic. You can also hitch a ride from a shuttle service. Bell Trans (702-739-7990) is one of the most popular. You can buy your ticket and jump on board right outside the baggage claim area. Bell Trans charges $5 for one-way transport to hotels on the Strip, $6.50 for downtown or off-Strip hotels. It operates from 7:45 a.m. to midnight. Tipping the driver a buck or two as he unloads your bags is expected. They may try to talk you into purchasing a round-trip ticket for cheaper, but don’t do it. If they’re not timely on the pickup (and they weren’t the one time I trusted them), you could be left holding your return ticket when you give up and catch a taxi to avoid missing your flight. If all you have is a carry-on bag, you may want to consider taking the Citizen Area Transit (CAT) buses. You can get from the airport to downtown with no transfers, but there is no direct service to the Strip, so you’ll have to take a transfer. For detailed, up-to-date route and fare information, visit www.rtc. southernnevada.com. Once you get to your hotel, CAT buses can get you up and down the Strip cheaply. At www.lvmonorail.com, you can find detailed information about Las Vegas’ newest transportation option, the Monorail. So far, the system has seven stations stretched along a four-mile route between the MGM Grand and the Sahara. In addition to those two stations, you can get off at the Las Vegas Hilton, Las Vegas Convention Center, Harrah’s/Imperial Palace, Flamingo/Caesars Palace or Bally’s/Paris stations. Tickets are $1 for locals, $5 for tourists. Eventually, the goal is to have the Monorail go downtown to Fremont Street and extend to the airport. But we’ll believe that when we see the powerful taxicab company lobby topple. “Monorails don’t wait in traffic!” the website brags. The Monorail can travel the seven-station route, end-to-end, in as little as 14 minutes as it reaches speeds of up to 50 miles per hour from 7 a.m. to 2 or 3 a.m., 365 days a year. Las Vegas is using the Monorail for advertising, too. I went to the kickoff for the system’s first car, bearing a burst of bright green Monster Energy Drink along its side. The event was filled with typical Vegas fanfare. Fireworks went off and showgirls danced while Mayor Oscar Goodman sipped his energy drink from a martini glass. In fact, the ceremony was held up at least 20 minutes while organizers scrambled to find the mayor that martini glass. The hope is Monorail branding will bring in millions every year to help fund the $650 million project. If you plan on staying out after 3 a.m., the Monorail won’t do. You’ll have to turn to your friendly taxicab driver. You can get a cab anywhere in town at any time, but before you do, take one simple step that will save you enough money for at least a cocktail. Make sure you won’t be asking your cab driver to make a U-turn to get to your destination. Sometimes simply crossing the street before you catch a cab, especially on the insanely busy Las Vegas Boulevard, can save time and money. Are you daunted at the thought of trusting cab drivers? Maybe a rental car is the answer for you. Just about every car rental company in the country offers rentals at the airport. Make certain to reserve in advance, and call the day of your reservation to make sure a car will be waiting. There’s nothing like being stranded at the airport waiting for a car to come in. On the Strip, there are luxury car rental sites where you can rent a splashy convertible by the day or the hour. A California entrepreneur tried to set up a rental service for the trendy new Segway scooters, but dust from construction on Steve Wynn’s newest resort made his rental course too slippery. One of the quirkiest options is the open-air, buggy-style cars rented on Las Vegas Boulevard near the Harley-Davidson CafÈ. The back seat is raised, and there are no windows, so these cars are perfect for quick sight-seeing. They’re kind of glorified golf carts, not really street ready, so don’t try to take one on the freeway. If you would like to make yourself street-worthy, the world’s largest Harley-Davidson dealership, at 2605 S. Eastern Avenue, rents bikes by the day, week or hour. It has a free shuttle that will pick you up from your hotel for renting or just shopping. It also teaches multi-day 25-hour riding classes on its dealership course for $350. Bikes are provided, but you’ll need your own helmet. Classes run from 5 to 9:45 p.m. on Friday, and from 6:45 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday. So in just a weekend, you could walk away ready to ride with the Hell’s Angels. For more information, call the dealership at (702) 431-8500. You may just decide to drive to Vegas yourself. Be prepared for traffic insanity. The freeway system, with crazy traffic jams in the tied-up interchange, referred to as the Spaghetti Bowl, and lanes that force you off the highway onto roads you never intended to visit makes driving here a challenge. Commuting isn’t helped by the fact that (at least when I moved here) new residents simply swap their out-of-state license for a Nevada license without even a written test. Since only 3. 5 percent of the population is native, that means 96 percent have never even glanced at the rules of the road for Nevada. The traffic is starting to resemble that of Los Angeles. In movies, driving down the Strip is a romantic thing. You’re welcome to try it, but only once. After that, use either Interstate 15 to get around or any one of a number of super-secret back ways. Roads like Koval Lane help to sneak behind casinos and beat the traffic. My new favorite is Frank Sinatra Drive. The entrance to the route is just past Mandalay Bay on the east side of Russell Road. Frank Sinatra Drive is a frontage road that travels behind all the casinos on the west side of the Strip. You can use the road to get all the way down to Industrial Road. From Industrial, you can access the back parking lots of the Stardust, Circus Circus and more. Parking in Las Vegas is surprisingly cheap and easy, especially when compared to big cities like New York or Seattle. Almost every casino on the Strip has a free parking garage behind it. Several do security checks and some require photo I. D. , but most are pretty simple to enter. Just be sure to remember what floor you parked on, or you may never find your way back to your car. Downtown, most parking garages charge or they make you jump through hoops. The key is to get a parking validation from the casino. If you’re planning to check out the Fremont Street Experience, it has a garage just for the Experience that accepts validation from any participating casino and several retail outlets. A list in the garages is updated frequently to let you know where to go. Free valet parking is provided at most hotels. Tipping a couple of dollars when you drop off and pick up is expected. Rarely in this book will we provide you with addresses to hotels on the Strip. Saying that the MGM Grand is at 3799 Las Vegas Boulevard South doesn’t tell you anything. The Strip is about three miles long, so knowing a casino is located there is direction enough. You can see most of the hotels from the interstate. It’s a little like having the address for the Statue of Liberty. A stop in Las Vegas wouldn’t be complete without a photo next to the famous “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign. It’s located on the Strip, just south of Mandalay Bay. The easiest way to keep from playing a live game of Frogger across the street is to park at the Klondike and walk across a couple of lanes of traffic to the median, where the sign is located. In the old days, visitors from California would travel to town via the old Los Angeles Highway (now Las Vegas Boulevard) and see the sign on their way in. Today, most travelers who drive to Vegas don’t see the sign because they come in on Interstate 15. |
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