Wednesday, October 13, 2010

City center

A few weeks ago we went down to the Strip and visited the new City Center complex. This is the latest project on the Strip to open, a $6,000,000,000+ project by MGM, with additional financing by Dubai (big controversy there). It was advertised as the largest private construction project in the world, and opened just before last Christmas. There are seven large hotels in addition to a big shopping center and casino. There are seven parking garages, but unfortunately only one is self parking with the others valet only. Might be nice for out of town hotel guests, but locals that go down there usually don’t want to pay a valet (cheap suckers we are), but perhaps that is what management has in mind, paying guests only.

The City Center complex is different than most of the Strip hotels in that it is modern – all glass and chrome and tile rather than carpets and comfort. When we went down we parked over behind the Excalibur and walked through that, New York New York (so nice they named it twice) and Monte Carlo, so it was a very big change between the older themed places and all of that shine.
Here is what the main entrance looks like


That’s the Vidara in the background. If you’ve read about the ‘death ray’, that is the curved surface facing east that reflects a strong beam down into the pool area.

5 comments:

SOL's view said...

That building is huge. And very modern. Well, the outside is. I can't decide if I like the idea of so much glass and chrome or would prefer the softer feel of carpet and dark wood...

Virginia Gal said...

So those were ALL hotels? We stayed at Paris and I walked through City Centre at least twice, I could tell two of the places were hotels, but thought the rest were office buildings, crazy.

AiringMyLaundry said...

Wow, interesting.

I can't wait to visit Vegas one day.

Rob said...

Valet parking: something we don't have in the UK (well, I suppose some of the big London places might have it now but I've never encountered it and definitely not in Edinburgh).

I always like the way Will Smith parked his Audi in "I, Robot"

Kimberly said...

The builging-mirror looks great. It is like, if you are a great executive, you must work there. I heard the Excalibur hotel is pure luxury, as well as the Venetian Hotel. When I make a trip, I usually look for comfort above all the things. When I decided to travel to argentina for instance, I rented a place that was big enough for me and my family but also practical, meaning close to all the main attractions!
Kim