The Plaza -- yes, that Plaza -- has been under so much stress lately: the $400 million dollar renovation and shift toward a more residential focus was one thing, but now there are lawsuits flying around over the exorbitantly-priced condos that turned out to be a lil' crappy. Plus, you know, people are already selling their brand new Plaza digs or people aren't really buying those condos at all.
Naturally, the Plaza kinda took a strategic approach to coping with such stressful times: they're goin' to Vegas. Word.
Well, wait. She's kind of a Rio staffer. Technically, she's part of a fleet of strippers that the Rio now stocks poolside.
See, the property has established a partnership with the nearby Sapphire gentleman's club -- the first hotel/stripclub partnership of its kind. Essentially, Sapphire strippers are offered incentives by the club and perks by the hotel to take off their tops and sit by the adults-only pool to lure dudes to the Rio (and probably to the strip club later on).
When hotels open, they've got kinks. We're usually willing to forgive those little issues that are clearly a product of the just-opened jitters -- lack of training, new facilities, green staff, the whole bit. And as we've always thought of hospitality as a sort of performance art, we imagine that the opening of actual performances -- like Criss Angel's Cirque du Soleil show at the Luxor (we use the term "performance art" loosely) -- would be no different. The show has been getting some pretty bad buzz, but we were willing to cut it some slack since it was still technically called a "preview."
If you're lost: the show -- called "Believe" -- was originally set to debut on September 1st but was delayed until September 26. The show has been in "preview" mode since then, and will continue to be touted as a "preview" until October 28th.
And there has been a lot of buzz going around lately that's been saying the show is, well, crap. We ignored it until some commenters came into our house and told us about it in the comment thread of our last story.
We got word from a tipster that Lance Armstrong checked into the Presidential Suite at Palazzo Las Vegas on Wednesday of last week.
He arrived and sat down for a late dinner at the Wolfgang Puck restaurant which is not particularly worth noting except for one thing: the place is called CUT. Ha! Cut! Because that's obvi what the L-Man is all about (being cut? You know? Cause his body is cut? Yeah.)
So then he gallivanted around the hotel and hung out with his other cut friends.
If you're a real baller, you will order some pricey sake for your table at SugarCane inside SushiSamba.
Headed to Vegas? Wanna meet some folks? Alright, here's the deal: a lot of the tourists who head to the big LV come down with some kind of mission in mind -- they want to get over an ex or win thousands of dollars or celebrate their bachelorette party or just engage in general debauchery.
We don't like to get involved in that because, you know, if people think that what happens in Vegas will stay in Vegas, lord only knows what kind of things they've got planned.
So when we hit up Vegas, we like to mingle with the locals: they've all got incredible stories to tell. They've seen it all. They know where all the hotspots are and, most importantly, they're usually not on any kind of shady missions acquire bed-partners or tons of money (but we could be wrong about that).
Our pick for where to go to meet locals in Vegas? The newly opened SugarCane lounge at the Palazzo holds SUGARBeats "Industry Night" every Wednesday inside SushiSamba starting at 10 pm. Featuring a DJ and tons of booze, "industry associates" get discounted cocktails and bottle service while you get access to a veritable treasure trove of Vegas locals.
We hit up Las Vegas over the weekend and shacked up at the Monte Carlo Hotel. The hotel has recovered nicely from a dangerous fire earlier this year and we shot a video of room 20-108 to show you what it's like.
However, this is in no way a modern hotel room on the strip. Judging by the room decor, we are having a hard time believing this hotel only opened 12 years ago. Also, beware of seriously fugly room carpeting.
Enjoy the video today and we'll bring a you full review tomorrow.
Sigh. Only in Vegas would we hear of an establishment spending $25 million on a volcano. A fake volcano. A likeable synthetic replica of a naturally-occuring thing that nobody likes when it actually occurs in nature.
Still, the famous volcanoes in front of the Mirage have been around since 1989 and the Vegas powers that be have decided its hot time for a makeover on those bad boys.
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."
