Warren Beatty has brought stylish gangster Bugsy Siegel back to life in
”Bugsy,” a movie about the ex-hood`s dream of starting ”a gambling Garden of Eden in the desert.” But even Bugsy would have trouble recognizing the gambling mecca he launched in 1946.
It was 45 years ago that Siegel opened The Flamingo-named for his leggy mistress, Virginia Hill-as a glitzy, no-holds-barred playpen for the mob.
But that was then.
What`s happening around Vegas now strains even Hollywood movie-script credibility. Would you believe the Disney-style family entertainment formula is the newest show in town? And that Vegas is being touted as a destination for the family on a budget? Yup. The times, they definitely are a-changin`
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amid the casino-lined neon ”Great White Way of the West.”
Gambling is still the name of the game here, but the house rules have changed for the better, from vice to nice at a good price. Discounting is rampant because of the new family-oriented theme park/resort/hotel/casinos where betting is only part of the action.
Hot spots` lure
New hot spots come in the form of castles, Hawaiian/Polynesian-style resorts and circuses. They feature shows with computer-controlled exploding volcanoes and waterfalls, jousting knights, pirates, porpoises, rain forests, disappearing lions, tigers and elephants, even singing-and-dancing baboons.
Sure, there are still bare bosoms galore in long-running (and discounted) shows like the ”Folies Bergere” and ”Splash.” But the new emphasis is on attracting the family trade with a more wholesome image that promotes
”flightseeing” and bus tours to nearby places such as Grand and Bryce Canyons, Lake Mead, Hoover Dam, chocolate factories and Wild West, Wet `n`
Wild and Mount Charleston skiing/ice skating desert attractions.
There`s also Silver Safari, a company running 10 chaperoned excursions for kids while their parents may be otherwise engaged. And a newly opened Natural History Museum with animated dinosaur replicas and hundreds of hands- on exhibits at Lied Discovery the Children`s Museum.
On the drawing board: ”The Wizard of Oz” and lots of other movie characters in a $1 billion, 33-acre MGM Grand movie theme park with 12 rides and attractions and a yellow brick road leading to what is shaping up as the world`s biggest hotel (more than 5,000 rooms) and casino (171,500 square feet). Building begins later this year.
Also coming: a pyramid-shaped resort with an Egyptian-flavored theme park, and the first Hard Rock Cafe casino.
`Room boom` hurts
The older casino resorts up and down ”The Strip” (Las Vegas Boulevard)
and lining downtown`s ”Glitter Gulch” are feeling the crunch from the ”room boom.” More than 13,000 rooms have been added in the past two years with at least 13,000 more to come in the next two years. The current total is more than 75,000 hotel and motel rooms overall. The result: Vegas is dealing discounts on rooms, food and sightseeing attractions, with discounts available with air/hotel packages, at airport car rental counters and in hotel lobbies as well as at their check-in desks.
The deals come in as many assorted shapes and sizes as the resort hotels themselves. Examples: Deals like a $20 room (double occupancy) at the Imperial Palace (including free admission to its antique car museum) and Aladdin, $28 per night at Excalibur (up to four in a room) including free buffet breakfast. Also twofers to the Liberace Museum, free drinks and two free desserts at the Flamingo Hilton, where twofers on hamburgers and french fries cost $3.25.
Others: a 50-cent shrimp cocktail at the Golden Gate, half price on the $3.99 buffet at the Tropicana, coffee mug and free show at the Sands, free wine at the Dunes, $1.99 steaks at Binion`s Horseshoe. At the Golden Nugget the all-day Sunday champagne brunch runs $9.95. The Palace Station may have the best buffet ($4.95 lunch, $7.95 dinner) and breakfast ($3.95) in town.
Even the classy Desert Inn, the only resort in Vegas with its own top-rated golf course, tennis courts, swimming pool, spa and four-star
restaurants, has discount books at its concierge desks and discounts its show. Wheeler-dealer entrepreneurs behind the casino-hotel/theme park building boom are also playing their own version of ”Can you top this?”
Disneyesque view
As we flew into Las Vegas, for example, the $290 million castle-shaped Excalibur seemed to rise right off the airport, looking for all the world like something out of Disney by way of Bavaria, its gleaming whiteness an eerie contrast to the desert`s red sands and the blueness of the manmade lakes we had been flying over.
Entering Excalibur is like walking into a time vacuum. There are strolling musicians, jesters and wenches in medieval costumes wandering `round a game-filled midway. Jousting knights on horseback battle to save fair maidens while audiences root for their favorites in a banquet hall where meals are served without knives and forks so diners get into the Olde Englande spirit by eating with their hands.
There`s also the ”Wonderful World of Horses” shows at noon and 2 p.m. featuring the Royal Lipizzaner stallions. And, then, of course, there is the casino.
”We tried to have medieval and baroque classical music piped in, but there were so many complaints we had to come back to conventional Muzak,”
shrugged an exec at the 4,032-room hotel, the largest in the world. With rooms at about $30 a day, it has posted occupancy rates close to 100 percent since it opened last June
Excalibur is an offshoot of Circus Circus Enterprises, which pioneered the concept of combining multiple entertainment activities with casinos in themed hotels.
Circus Circus
The Circus Circus complex farther down The Strip for example, includes a circus midway complete with a big top, trapeze artists, clowns, distortion mirrors, games and various circus performers.
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It has its own trailer park for low-rollers, low hotel prices in the $35 per night range (up to four in a room), a $3.99 all-you-can-eat dinner buffet, and a casino operation that is one of the most successful in the world.
Business is so good Circus Circus Enterprises has recently announced plans to build a $290 million, pyramid-shaped, 2,500-room hotel, casino and entertainment complex-yet to be named-adjacent to Excalibur on a 47-acre site. The company will break ground on the resort early this year and expect it to open in 1993.
When it does, the pyramid will include a 30-story atrium, a watercraft that will float the interior perimeter, a ”spaceship” that will simulate takeoff as it elevates passengers to the second level, mythical hologramlike characters who will greet visitors, numerous movie sets and various entertainment attractions involving interactive adventures.
Busy, busy intersection
When the pyramid hotel and the proposed MGM Grand open about the same time on opposite sides of the street, the intersection of Tropicana Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard will contain the most new rooms, casino space, parking and entertainment features of any corner of the city, or the world, says William G. Bennett, chairman and chief executive officer of Circus Circus Enterprises. Entrepreneur Steve Wynn has parlayed his successful Golden Nugget casino/ hotel downtown into one of the town`s hottest new attractions-The Mirage. A Hawaiian/Polynesian themed $700 million, 3,000-room hotel it has a simulated, computer-controlled volcano that erupts every 15 minutes after dark, spewing pina colada-scented lava into vast waterways. There is also an artificial interior rain forest, aquarium, dolphin pool, and a jungle habitat filled with lions and tigers who appear (and disappear) in the hot-ticket Siegfried and Roy magic shows.
Wynn will soon break ground on a Disney-style $700 million, 3,000-room Treasure Island resort with a ”Pirates of the Caribbean” theme park near The Mirage. He plans to import his own European circus-including topless acrobats- to perform under a big top on property adjacent to Caesars, the classy, ancient Roman-themed hotel/casino. He also plans to fill portions of downtown with Venice-style canals and filled with gondola taxis.
Uptown, downtown, all around the town, the ”juice” (electricity) from The Strip and Glitter Gulch still light up a desert region eerily like Australia`s Outback except for the fact that it houses nine of the world`s 10 largest hotels. And you ain`t seen nothin` yet.
For further information on Las Vegas, call 702-735-3611, or in Chicago, 312-951-8655.