The brand new restaurant/nightclub concept Lavo at the Palazzo Las Vegas -- the hotly anticipated endeavor from the people who brought you the wildly successful Tao at the Venetian -- was a bit too far away for us to trek this weekend. Luckily, we had our girl Babysistah (who works at a hotel on the strip which will go unnamed) check out the scene for us. Her verdict? Awesome.
Check out the snapshot of the inside of Lavo above -- and after the jump, a shot of some of the decor. We were a bit confused by the second shot at first -- until we realized that "Lavo" is Latin for "to bathe or cleanse," so the decor is inspired by ancient Mediterranean bathhouses. And by "realized," we mean "read somewhere on the Internet."
Still rolling out some of its luxury services and amenities after soft opening in May this year, the Diva Hotel in the Maldives has already picked up a reputation for being one of the few places to party on the otherwise totally relaxed islands.
A UK Times report actually got pretty excited about the nightlife possibilities at Diva:
The Diva hotel is about to launch the archipelago's first seriously hip-swivelling disco. Get into the zone at the Iru Bar, where the concept is "shoeless", before shimmying your way into the Musik nightclub, where it will probably tend towards legless.
Iru Bar with its barefoot attitude is understandably right next to the beach with views across the sea, and the name itself comes from the local word for "sun".
There are a couple of other bars and close to half a dozen restaurants at the Diva resort complex so it's probably a place you can spend more than one night.
Don't hurry: half of these restaurants and bars aren't open yet, most of them being scheduled for September openings. Check back on Diva's site for opening specials, because they're not even publicizing room rates yet. And then you can get disco-ing.
Extreme sports star Carey Hart has teamed up with the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino in Vegas to create Wasted Space, a "rock and roll nightlife experience" hyped up to be an "anti-club."
Let's take a moment to acknowledge the greatness of the name and the fantastically appropriate location for a club called Wasted Space, as the Hard Rock Vegas seems to be the place where everyone is wasted in every space on the property.
Co-owned by Hart, the Hard Rock and Yankees baseball player Jason Giambi, the club boasts Benji and Joel Madden as partners and will surely be seeing packs of annoying celebs on a nightly basis once the doors open.
Bloomberg's Jason Harper went inside the fairly-new Ivy Hotel in San Diego -- which touts itself as an "adult playground" -- and found chains, stripper poles and, surprisingly, good service.
Though he didn't stay in the Star Suite (a reality show was filming there at the time; we hope it was something as awesome as I Love New York), he mentioned the swank space is known for its "adult" features: two king-size bunk beds decorated with chains, a six-person shower and, yes, an elevated stripper pole.
If we can trust the reliable folk at er, "Pop Bitch", it would certainly appear that way.
The gossip newsletter says that the basement bar at London's Park Lane Hilton, Zeta, is to be relaunched as a private members club by Mahiki owner Piers Adam and his cohorts, with none other than Madonna rounding out the partnership (Adam was Guy Ritchie's best man at Madge's wedding).
The Zeta bar is actually just one of the many nightlife and dining options offered in the hotel, which also has a Trader Vic's restaurant, a POP champagne bar, and the Galvin at Windows french restaurant on the 28th floor which offers 360 degree views of the city. There's also a more relaxed dining area with the Podium restaurant.
However, with Amy Sacco having launched Bungalow in London last year at the St. Martins Lane Hotel, and Richard Caring's entertainment empire continuing to expand at an astronomic rate, Adam and Mads will have their work cut out for them.
Caring, who owns Annabel's private club and The Ivy and Le Caprice restaurants has just snapped up another of London's most exclusive venues, Soho House. Another elite club is due to open above The Ivy this spring.
But we think if Madonna wants to get into the nightclub business, it can't be much worse than her "movie career." Besides, won't listening to Borderline inside Madonna's club feel that much more special?
Brought to Las Vegas from Miami by the Opium Group, Prive and its adjacent Living Room are the hotel's big nightlife attractions. Both are located on the Mezzanine level of the hotel which has its own escalator up from the casino floor, making it feel as if you are getting on a ride at an amusement park only except five-inch stilettos and mini-dresses have replaced the walking shoes and fanny packs.
Once you walk into the club, four LCD screens are on the right-hand side broadcasting images from the Opium Groups other hotspots (there's a Prive in Miami too as well as Mansion and SET.) Then you are greeted by the massive main bar which features a concave-shape granite top, backlit tortoise shell facade with high gloss millwork and an inverse-pyramid shape chandelier. Chandeliers are big here in PH.
More including our own smoke-affected snapshots after the jump
Over the weekend, we managed to walk around the newly opened Palazzo Las Vegas and to be honest, we weren't blown away but what we saw.
Granted, it's still the first few days of opening but the place was dead. We can't ever recall being in such a dead gambling hall before. On a Friday night. At 11pm. However, as soon as you walked over to the Venetian's main gambling floor, things were popping again. Maybe the folks in there just didn't know about the Palazzo yet.
We also popped into Jay-Z's club 40/40 and the same could be said there. The club has a great lay-out and plays killer hip-hop music, although we could do without the giant screen playing non-stop ESPN. Still, the place wasn't even half-full while Tao at the Venetian was horrendously crowded (thanks to a party for porn star Brianna Banks.)
Hopefully, the Palazzo's opening weekend this weekend will be more crowded than what we saw.
While the Palazzo Las Vegas had initially hoped to open on Dec. 20th, it settled for opening up some of its casino space, the lobby and an atrium linking the new hotel with the next-door Venetian.
According to Globe Street, rooms will open on Jan. 6th but there isn't any availability until Jan. 9th with rooms going for around $200. The full grand-opening is still set for Jan. 17th. Our reservation is for Jan. 10th so let's hope the the rooms are open by then.
Meanwhile, if you're looking for a new place to party on the strip, Jay-Z's 40/40 Club did open over New Year's Eve weekend, despite reports that the place failed inspection and didn't have proper permits.
Whatever shizz went down, peeps came out in full force to celebrate the opening which just happened to also be LeBron James' b-day. The club is actually an upscale sports bar which features 85 plasma screen TV's, 5 exclusive VIP rooms, and 24kt gold and platinum floors. Pimp!
If Jay-Z's got 99 problems, then opening a club in Las Vegas is not one of them anymore.
If we can trust the reliable folk at er, "Pop Bitch", it would certainly appear that way. 
