Las Vegas

Las Vegas is bustling with nightlife, gaming, shopping and fine dining. The vibrant resort city provides a wide variety of entertainment activities to both families and businesspeople. / Courtesy of Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority

Sin City transforms into family-friendly spot

This is the second of a two-part series on a road trip to the Western United States ― California and Las Vegas in Nevada. ― ED.

By Chung Ah-young

LAS VEGAS — As we entered Sin City after driving along the desert on the state border between California and Nevada, the neon lights greeted us like a mirage in the jet-black night.

Located in the southeastern desert area in Nevada, Las Vegas is bustling with nightlife, gaming, shopping and fine dining, as we expected. Soon, however, we discovered that there is more to the city than that.

The vibrant resort city provides a wide variety of entertainment to both families and businesspeople, including performances, theme parks, natural wonders, conventions and meetings.

Some 10 hours away from San Francisco, Las Vegas was the final destination in our road trip to the western United States, where we intended to indulge in all the activities and delicacies we could think of in the limited time we have.

SlotZilla is a zip line attraction inside Fremont Street Experience in the old downtown area of Las Vegas. / Courtesy of Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority

Paradise of hotels

One reason travelers visit the city might be the high-quality hotels that are more affordable than those in other hip cities around the world.

Accommodations range from popular hotels and casino resort hotels to non-gaming hotels, which have emerged in recent years to cater to family travelers.

Hotels in Las Vegas are truly jaw-dropping in scale and features. Six of the 10 largest hotels in the world are in Sin City.

Leisure travelers who simply want to relax rather than seek adventure can stay in one of the hotels equipped with various entertainment and dining facilities, including theaters, world-renowned restaurants and shopping malls. At these hotels, they can enjoy the charms of Las Vegas without having to go far.

Among the various casino resorts in the city, MGM Grand (www.mgmgrand.com), which opened in 1993 with more than 6,000 guest rooms and suites, comes highly recommended, as it hosts the popular Cirque du Soleil show “KA” and features restaurants with celebrity chefs.

MGM Grand, located on the Las Vegas Strip, which is known for its concentration of resort hotels and casinos, renovated 4,300 guest rooms and the Hakkasan Nightclub in 2012. It has also recently refurnished 171 guest rooms on the 14th floor, named “Stay Well”; the rooms on the floor are equipped with Vitamin C-infused showers, air purifiers and a water purification system for health-conscious guests.

The High Roller, the world’s tallest observation wheel

Epicureans’ dream

Food in the city, especially at top-tier hotels, is second to none.

Sage, inside the Aria Resort & Casino, is headed by Shawn McClain, the San Diego-born star chef who creates unrivaled signature dishes, including baked scallops, foie gras and wagyu steak, to name a few. We had wagyu steak, which was extremely tender but not too fatty and went well with the Barbaresco, Piedmont wine we ordered.

Also, Italian food is another must-have in the city. Lago (https://www.bellagio.com/restaurants/lago.aspx), an Italian restaurant inside Bellagio Resort and Casino, is headed by James Beard Award-winning Executive Chef Julian Serrano. With its wonderful dishes and floor-to-ceiling windows that gave us an amazing view of the hotel’s world-famous fountain, the restaurant indulged all of our senses.

L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon in the MGM Grand offers masterful dishes by Joel Robuchon, France’s Chef of the Century. Among others, the 10-course Seasonal Discovery menu is highly recommended for visitors, especially gourmands.

For visitors who may be intimidated by these fancy restaurants, the relatively affordable buffet restaurants are good options. Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars Palace is one of the best buffet restaurants, offering a wide range of cuisine, including Asian and Mexican. Opened in 2012, the restaurant has more than 600 seats, nine cooking stations and more than 500 dishes.

The Buffet of Buffets (BOB), a 24-hour Las Vegas buffet pass, is another good option. Similar to a one-day pass at a theme park that gives customers unlimited rides at different areas of the park, the BOB pass enables customers to try diverse eateries at seven different Las Vegas buffets. The BOB pass costs $49.99 per adult on weekdays and $69.99 on weekends.

Entertainment capital

If hotels and restaurants satisfy visitors’ primary needs, casinos fulfill their entertainment needs.

We experienced the thrill of zip-lining at SlotZilla (https://www.vegas.com/attractions/off-the-strip/slotzilla-las-vegas/), a 12-story, slot machine-inspired zip line attraction inside Fremont Street Experience in the old downtown area of the city. Adorned with more than tens of thousands of lights and featuring a domed ceiling, the Fremont Street Experience is an incredible entertainment and gaming complex that also holds concerts and other shows and events.

The High Roller (https://www.caesars.com/thelinq) is a 167-meter-tall, 158-meter-diameter new attraction for thrill-seekers. The world’s tallest observation wheel, which opened in 2014, reshapes the skyline at the LINQ’s outdoor shopping, dining and entertainment promenade. The wheel features 28 glass-windowed cabins and takes 30 minutes to make a full circle. The cabins provide a spectacular view of the city. Tickets are $26.95 during the day and $36.95 at night.

A tour of the Grand Canyon (www.grandcanyonairlines.com) gives visitors a break from the city’s neon lights and a whole new level of sightseeing inside the Papillon’s helicopters, especially for travelers who are pressed for time. From a heliport in Boulder City, the tour lasted 3.5 to 4 hours, offering aerial views of Hoover Dam and Lake Mead as well as the marvelous Grand Canyon. The tour costs $344 per person.

For family travelers, Mirage Las Vegas’ Siegfried & Roy’s Secret Garden and Dolphin Habitat is a rare attraction in this artificial city. Visitors, both adults and children, can touch the trained dolphins inside the habitat. Tickets cost $19.95 for adults and $14.95 for children aged four to 12.

“KA,” the Cirque du Soleil show at MGM Grand, (https://www.mgmgrand.com/entertainment/ka-cirque-du-soleil-show.aspx), has been running since 2004 and was one of the most lavish productions we saw in this city. Solely dedicated to “KA,” the immense theatrical space perfectly showcased the aerial and acrobatic performances, leaving the spectators speechless.

Reluctantly, we left all the entertainment and delights behind. Passing by the slot machines that were set up at the gates of the McCarran International Airport, we thought, “This is so ‘Las Vegas.’”

For more information, visit www.visitlasvegas.co.kr by Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.