Las Vegas with Kids. May, 2019

Las Vegas is the city of lights, entertainment, and sin. It is also the world's gambling capital, with more than 100 casinos!

How do you plan a trip to Las Vegas? When is the best time to visit? What are the must-see attractions? Food, entertainment, helpful travel tips — and, of course, what it's like to visit Las Vegas with kids

Overview, The Strip 

Hotels

On the map, all the hotels appear to be right next to each other, and Google will tell you that the Strip is only about 7 km (4.3 miles) long. In reality, however, the distances are enormous!

Just by walking along the Strip and exploring the hotels, we logged more than 20,000 steps every day. So here's Tip #1: bring very comfortable shoes that you can walk in for hours.

The reason is simple — each hotel is a massive resort complex that you could easily spend hours wandering through. Every hotel has its own casino, shopping areas, cafés, and restaurants. What makes them unique are their individual themes, architectural styles, and entertainment.

So, let's begin our tour with the hotel where we stayed — The LINQ.

By the way, I can confidently recommend it. Its location couldn't be better — right in the heart of the Strip. The hotel is relatively inexpensive, modern, and not as overwhelming in size as many of the other hotels

Outside the hotel is a lively pedestrian promenade lined with cafés, restaurants, and shops, as well as the enormous High Roller observation wheel. This is how beautiful the Strip looks from the top of the Ferris wheel. You can also see the hotel pools below.

I wouldn't recommend planning to spend much time relaxing by the pools. They tend to be quite crowded and noisy. Our hotel had an adults-only pool, and we were also allowed to use the family pool at the neighboring Flamingo hotel. However, we had so many things we wanted to see and do that we simply never found the time to spend at the pools

Yes, we stayed in Las Vegas for four nights. I think that's the perfect amount of time to explore the city and also take a trip to the Grand Canyon. Our neighboring hotel was Flamingo, one of the oldest hotels on the Strip. Of course, it has been renovated many times over the years and still looks quite good. Later, I'll tell you which hotels looked a little less impressive.)))

One of Flamingo's highlights is its small tropical oasis, where, as you might expect, flamingos roam freely. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to get any photos of the real flamingos

On the other side of our hotel was The Venetian, one of the most beautiful hotels on the Strip. I'll let the photos speak for themselves

Inside are beautiful decorations 

And by the way, despite the blue sky, this view is actually inside the hotel. You can enjoy a gondola ride, complete with songs from a gondolier, from $30+ per person, both inside and outside the hotel 

We leave the Venetian and continue heading north. Here’s the hotel we liked the most — Wynn. Most of its decorations are made from real flowers  

Later, this is where we'll see the most extraordinary, magical, and beautiful show we've ever seen...

We cross the street and arrive at the Mirage  hotel. We didn't go inside every hotel — it's simply impossible to see them all in just a few days. We only admired the Mirage from the outside. The hotel is famous for its volcano, which periodically "erupts" from a rocky landscape. Of course, it's not a real volcano, but like so many attractions in Las Vegas, it's all part of the entertainment. The city is full of free attractions like this to enjoy. After all, it's the Entertainment Capital of the World...

Next to the Mirage is the Treasure Island  hotel

And here is the enormous Caesars Palace  hotel complex. The hotel is designed in the style of Ancient Rome 

Inside is a massive amphitheater that was originally built specifically for Celine Dion's show. Today, the theater also hosts performances by Elton John. We also watched the free interactive Atlantis show 

The next hotel is Bellagio. It is famous for its dancing fountains, which became iconic after being featured in the movie "Ocean's Eleven." Yes, so many movies have been filmed in Las Vegas... 

The hotel is also famous for its ceiling, which is decorated with beautiful glass flowers. There are more than 2,000 of them! We also saw a beautiful pavilion featuring seasonal floral displays 

And this is how beautifully the lobby is decorated 

And Bellagio also has a café with the largest chocolate fountain in North America! Not to mention delicious crepes and pastries)) 

Now let's move to the very northern end of the Strip to understand why it's actually not necessary to walk all the way there)))

At the northern end is the circus-themed hotel — Circus Circus . It attracts visitors because it is supposedly designed for families with children. The hotel really does have a huge amusement complex, many arcade games for kids, and decent circus performances that take place regularly

Otherwise, the hotel is quite old and run-down, with the smell of cigarette smoke deeply embedded in the old carpets. By the way, smoking is allowed in all casinos, so there's always a lingering smell of smoke.

And here's another hotel in the "you can skip it" category — Stratosphere 

Now let's head in the opposite direction — toward the southern end of the Strip 

And here is the Paris hotel. Complete with its own Eiffel Tower, of course. Inside, you'll find the romantic atmosphere of the good old Paris 

Continuing south along the Strip, we come to the Cosmopolitan  hotel. It's best known for its enormous chandelier adorned with cascading pink crystal strands 

On the way to the next hotel, we stop by the art galleries 

And this is the entrance to the Aria  hotel. You can see the train gliding by, connecting two neighboring hotels 

And this is what it looks like inside the hotel

The New York-New York  hotel. Outside, you can see a replica of the New York skyline, complete with an exciting roller coaster attraction 

And this is practically sacrilege)) They put a beer advertisement on the Statue of Liberty 

Across the street is the MGM hotel. It once housed several tigers, but they are no longer there, and the hotel no longer has any major attractions. However, we discovered that it is actually the largest hotel in Las Vegas by number of rooms.

Across from it is the Excalibur hotel

And this Egyptian pyramid is the Luxor  hotel. Behind it is the southernmost hotel on the Strip — Mandalay Bay 

Casinos

It would be impossible not to show one of the main symbols of Las Vegas — the casinos. They are everywhere, starting right from the airport.

Yes, our trip was planned as a surprise for my husband's birthday. Here is our fun group departing from Toronto to Las Vegas, along with a little glimpse of the casinos

We spent very little time in casinos — mostly in the evenings after the kids were asleep, and just for the sake of the experience)) You could say we practically didn't lose any money. By the way, every hotel has several entrances. Naturally, the main entrance usually takes you straight into the casino, and after walking through the casino, you can reach other parts of the hotel.

Tip #3: Look for an entrance that doesn't go through the casino. Why walk through a smoke-filled room unnecessarily when you can enter directly into the beautiful and interesting parts of the hotel? The largest casino is located in the Venetian hotel

Food

Eating in Las Vegas can be expensive. A small bottle of water on the Strip costs $4–5. There are, of course, countless restaurants, but finding affordable options can be quite challenging.

Naturally, everything depends on personal preferences. We were not planning to visit fancy restaurants or spend a lot of money on food. For breakfast, we found a budget-friendly restaurant option. I can confidently recommend this place — Ocean One Bar and Grille. The restaurant was located inside Planet Hollywood, right in the center of the Strip (unfortunately, this restaurant has since closed).

One evening, we also had dinner there. The food was delicious

The most popular breakfast in Las Vegas is the so-called American breakfast — eggs, potatoes, bacon, toast, pancakes, crepes, or waffles. Here is one of the restaurants from the popular Denny's chain and a typical American breakfast

Each hotel has numerous restaurants as well as buffets. Our friends visited the Wynn hotel's buffet for brunch and said it was an incredible experience — extremely diverse, beautifully presented, and delicious.

You can also find restaurants by famous chefs, such as Gordon Ramsay. Another popular option in Las Vegas is cocktail bars. There are countless cocktail bars throughout the city

At Caesar Palace, we had lunch at a Planet Hollywood restaurant. The idea behind these restaurants was to bring different Hollywood celebrities into the business. In the beginning, the stars actually did make occasional appearances at the restaurants.

Now, as I understand it, those celebrities have long moved on from the business, and the restaurants are no longer in the best financial position. But it was still interesting for us to visit

And this beauty, which looks so much like a variety of sweets, is actually made of soap. In Las Vegas, we came across many similar soap shops with wonderful fragrances 

And just for the sake of beauty — some selection of an ice cream 

Entertainment

You could write endlessly about entertainment in Las Vegas. There is something for every taste: concerts by Hollywood stars, shows by the famous Cirque du Soleil, musicals, legendary fights, dance performances, adult shows, magicians, and hypnotists. There are also many museums and unique exhibitions.

Earlier, I already described some of the free attractions you can see simply by walking into different hotels. But we also wanted to experience something truly special. Choosing was not easy. Of course, we wanted to see everything at once, but unfortunately, financially, that is difficult to manage. In the end, we chose two of the most famous shows in Las Vegas. After many discussions, the group split: one couple chose the legendary "O" by Cirque du Soleil, while the other two couples (including us) chose the equally famous "Le Rêve".

The reason is that both of these shows are water-based and, due to their incredibly complex sets and technology, they cannot travel. They can only be seen in Las Vegas. So, here is the Le Rêve show at the Wynn hotel. Looking ahead, I can say that none of us had ever seen anything more beautiful and impressive than this show. The performance takes place in a circular aqua theatre. It is not huge, and almost every seat offers a great view. The first five rows are slightly cheaper because guests sitting there may get a little wet from the splashes.

At the center of the theatre is a pool that transforms throughout the show, taking on different shapes and becoming part of the performance. It is difficult to describe what we saw, but at its heart, the show is a love story filled with incredibly complex acrobatics, dance elements, synchronized swimming, humor, and breathtakingly beautiful sets and costumes

We also took the kids to a 4D cinema at the Excalibur hotel 

We also planned to go to an adult show one evening (there are many of them in Las Vegas), but somehow we never made it there.

One of the evenings, we went downtown to Fremont Street. The street is famous for its spectacular light show, which is projected onto a huge screen right above the street. The atmosphere is very lively — loud music, casinos, shops, restaurants, and entertainment everywhere. And the later it got, the more the entertainment became "adult-oriented." So, with the kids, we didn’t stay there for very long

One of the days, we also took a trip to the Grand Canyon. It is a national park and one of the most beautiful natural wonders in North America. But this unique place deserves its own separate post...

And finally, I’ll show you a little bit of fun))) But, as they say: "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."