In between Monte Carlo and Cosmopolitan was the Boardwalk Holiday Inn. The Boardwalk has been demolished and is being replaced by "Project City Center".



    The Cosmopolitan (866-339-4519) is in between the Jockey Club and the old Boardwalk site. Like Jockey Club, it appears that Cosmopolitan will both sell condos or time shares and rent condos by the night. The Cosmopolitan towers appear to be part of Project City Center, but are not. I don't have any good photos of Cosmopolitan as it was still under construction during my last visit in December 2007.

I checked into The Jockey Club the last day of February 2006 based on an incredibly low rate of $65 per night for a one bedroom condo. A condo, right on the strip next to Bellagio, for $65? I couldn't pass that up although I suspected a catch. Which was, the heavy construction going on next door at the Project City Center and Cosmopolitan sites. The Jockey Club parking lot was basically being used as a storage and staging area for all the construction. Las Vegas strip construction crews typically work 24/7 so the noise was relentless. BUT once the construction is finished, Jockey Club will be a nice place to stay once again. I expect prices will be much higher as well. Also, Jockey Club has NO CASINO. Which you might like, or not like. Always check the Las Vegas Tourist Bureau web site for unadvertised special rates before making a reservation. I stayed at Rio Suites in December 2000 for a ridiculously low price of $25 per night, which was only advertised on the LVTB site.






Next in line northbound after the Jockey Club, is the Bellagio, (3600 S. Las Vegas Blvd. Las Vegas, NV 89109 1-888-987-6667) which was briefly the "number one" most upscale strip resort casino until Wynn was completed in 2005. Rarely will you get a rate below $200. Walking around this place is like being in an absurdly luxurious museum. The most famous feature here is the musical water fountain show in front. Bellagio is one of the few properties you should choose if cost is not a concern and you want to experience top level luxury.



Next up to the north is the jewel of the "center strip", Caesars Palace (that's the correct spelling, there is no apostrophe in Caesars). (3570 Las Vegas Boulevard, Las Vegas, NV 89109. 877-427-7243). Caesars is still an upscale property and is doing well at holding off the effects of age. Caesars has a huge maze of casinos plus the Forum Shops, which is a shopping mall connected right to the Forum Casino. You could live here for years and never have to go outside. Caesars also houses the Shadow Bar, Pure, and Cleopatra's Barge.





The moving walkway into Caesars Forum Shops is just a few feet away from the moving walkway into the Mirage. (3400 Las Vegas Blvd. Las Vegas Nevada 89109. 800-374-9000). Famous for its volcano eruption shows (which are natural gas flames; there's no molten lava), Mirage is a mid level to upscale property. I've never stayed there but have walked through many times. The casino and hotel scenes in National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation (with Chevy Chase, Beverly D'Angelo and Randy Quaid) were filmed here. This DVD can be bought new for around $10 in many stores, it's a perfect movie to watch before going to Las Vegas for the first time.



                                       

Across the street from the Caesars Palace area (at 3595 Las Vegas Blvd. South to 3535 Las Vegas Blvd. South) are several properties close together:
Bill's (formerly Barbary Coast), Flamingo Hilton, Harrahs, Casino Royale, and Imperial Palace.
If you like walking to a variety of properties, then this cluster is the place for you. Imperial Palace has a long standing reputation as the mid-strip's lowest cost property. And it's almost always crowded and noisy. The other properties in this cluster are mid-level. Casino Royale often has cheap drink specials and doesn't look like a hotel but has 152 rooms and there's an Outback Steakhouse in their lobby. You might get the table with the excellent view of the Mirage Volcano if it's not crowded.

O'Sheas has the same address as the Flamingo, and is also owned by Harrah's; but it does not have hotel rooms. It's a small casino which seems to be an extension to the Flamingo's casino.

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Update: as of February 2008, Harrah's (which owns Rio Suites, Harrah's, Paris, Bally's, Caesars Palace, Flamingo, and Imperial Palace) was purchased by a private corporation, Hamlet Holdings (Apollo Management and Texas Pacific Group.)

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Next up is the Venetian. ( 3355 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Las Vegas NV 89109. 877-857-1861). I've been a guest there twice and it's my favorite place to stay. It's an upscale (usually $199 or more for standard rooms) property but sometimes they have $119 to $149 rates. Modeled after Venice, Italy; the Venetian is as extravagant as the Bellagio. Everywhere you look you see reproductions of Renaissance art, marble sculptures, marble floors and columns. There are even canals with gondolas you can ride in. An added bonus is that every guest room is a suite. For a romantic atmosphere, I strongly recommend Venetian or Bellagio.




I shot this photo August 13, 2007. It's the new 3,025 room, 53 story Palazzo at Venetian - which is being marketed as an independent property although it's under the same ownership as Venetian.



       Across the street is Treasure Island. (3300 Las Vegas Blvd South Las Vegas, NV 89109-2692. 800-288-7206). They toned down the Caribbean pirate theme in 2003, taking down the skull and crossbones sign to replace it with a giant "TI" (the old and new logos are both shown to the left), and discontinued the pirate battle show in front. (Now the show is called "Sirens of Treasure Island" and doesn't involve pirates so much.) It used to be impossible to walk past Treasure Island while the "Sirens" show was going on; but a bypass sidewalk was built to resolve that problem. Treasure Island is a mid-level property comparable to Luxor. I stayed here in December 2007 and it was nice overall but the room was smaller than expected. I've now learned that if you want a really nice room in most of the MGM/Mirage Corporation properties (I've tried four of them so far), you have to upgrade to a suite. Bellagio is perhaps the one exception.



   

The northernmost "upscale" property is just north of the Venetian - Wynn (3131 Las Vegas Blvd South, Las Vegas NV 89109. 1-888-320-WYNN) opened for business April 28, 2005. The Venetian outdid Caesars Palace, only to be outdone by Bellagio, which has now perhaps been outdone by Wynn; which may be outdone by the Cosmopolitan and Echelon. Las Vegas strip developers seem to be very competitive; trying to outshine the last place that was built rather than simply building a resort that is comparable to the existing resorts. Styles vary, however, so opinions may differ as to which resorts are more luxurious and "upscale." Wynn has a clean, modern, linear look both inside & out while Bellagio and Venetian are over-the-top in their mimicry of classic European art and architecture with frilly curves & flourishes. Wynn basic rooms average 640 square feet and include flat screen high definition LCD TV, fine linens, and a second LCD TV in the bathroom. Room photos on their web site are impressive. I visited Wynn briefly in early 2006, it's extremely elegant and so unreal in its perfection it feels like being in a dream or fantasy. Their parking garage roof, like MGM's, is a good photo shooting location. When Wynn opened across the street from the New Frontier, it helped change the old "north strip = cheaper, older hotels" rule of thumb. Stardust, Frontier, and Westward Ho were all demolished shortly after Wynn's construction; leaving only Circus Circus, Sahara, and Riviera as the remaining "old Las Vegas" north strip budget properties. I don't think Stratosphere falls into the "old Las Vegas" category anymore, since all traces of its prior existence as Bob Stupak's Vegas World are gone.




Here's a photo I shot of the new $1.4 billion 2,000 room "Encore at Wynn" tower, nearing completion on August 13, 2007. Wynn demolished a two year old parking garage to make room for Encore.



       Directly north of Treasure Island, across the street from Wynn, is Fashion Show Mall. An escalator at the north end will take you directly up to the food court if you want to avoid walking past all the stores where you may be tempted to spend money. This is a fairly standard medium sized shopping mall. The food court now has public Internet terminals with printers (I first noticed these in December 2007) so it's a handy place to stop if you want to check in for a flight and print out your boarding pass.

The north strip is in a state of flux; with older, inexpensive properties being replaced with new construction. Frontier was demolished in December 2007, Stardust was imploded in March 2007, and Westward Ho was demolished in 2006. Taking the place of the Stardust will be the "Echelon" (a Boyd Gaming project), which has been described as being similar to Mandalay Bay. The north end of the Las Vegas strip changed remarkably between 2000 and 2008; with Echelon replacing Stardust; condo towers being built at the old Wet-N-Wild waterpark site; Turnberry Place, Hilton Grand Vacation Clubs, Sky, and other huge condo towers going up in the area.