Las Vegas Hotels and the Las Vegas Strip

Las Vegas is probably best known for its gargantuan, humongous, lavishly decorated theme hotel casinos. And did I mention they are big? Despite the size of some of those hotel giants (up to about 3000 rooms) many offer top quality service and attention to detail almost exclusively available at much smaller sites any place else in the world.

Would you like to walk though a rain forest? How about visit Venice, Rome, Paris and New York? Maybe see the Sphinx and pyramids of Egypt, or a jousting tournament? Theme Las Vegas Strip hotels offer all this and more on a 4 mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard known as the Strip. These theme hotels are major tourist attractions, and you can spend hours and days just going from one to another, exploring what they have to offer. Some Las Vegas Strip hotels even come with a roller coaster. You can find roller coasters at the New York, New York, Sahara, and Stratosphere hotels.

The Strip is the main Las Vegas "play ground", and is home to the best known and largest hotels, casinos, and attractions. The Strip runs roughly north to south, and is conceptually divided into three sections: The South Strip, the Center Strip, and the North Strip.

The South Strip extends from Harmon Avenue to the south, and its southern portion is adjacent to McCarran International Airport. The major hotels on this segment of the Strip include Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur, Tropicana, NY-NY, and MGM Grand.

The Center Strip runs from Harmon Avenue to Fashion Show Lane, which is just north of the Fashion Show Mall. This is the busiest and densest part of the Strip. The major hotels on the Center Strip include Monte Carlo, Alladin, Paris, Bellagio, Bally's, Caesars Palace, Flamingo, Imperial Palace, Mirage, Harrah's, Venetian, and Treasure Island.

The North Strip extends from Fashion Show Lane north to the Stratosphere Hotel. Relatively to the rest of the strip, this area is quite barren and has many empty lots with few hotels and attractions. It does offer excitement, though a bit spread out. The major hotels here include Stardust, Riviera, Sahara, and the Stratosphere.

The Strip is by no means the only center for hotels and casinos. Paradise Road, a long street that also stretches north to south and is located roughly a mile east of the Strip for most of its length, is also a center of hotels, but less so than the strip. Downtown Las Vegas, which is a bit north of the Strip, is a more historic part of the city and the place where it all began. Consequently, many hotels and casinos are also located there.

Since the Strip is such a major attraction and center of life, many non-Las Vegas Strip hotels provide courtesy shuttles to and from the Strip.

Las Vegas offers a vast amount of hotel options and choices, but if you don't want to spend much time researching, don't have severe restrictions on your budget, and are not an extremely picky traveler, restricting your search to the major Las Vegas Strip hotels will most likely yield a good choice, especially if it is your first trip to Las Vegas. Major Las Vegas Strip hotels won't be the cheapest hotels around, but the good news is that stiff competition and high gambling revenues allow hotel room prices to remain surprisingly cheap compared with prices you might find in other urban areas. During holidays, conventions, and peak season weekends, prices may be much higher than normal, so plan accordingly. Staying at a major theme hotel on the strip will also give you a fuller Las Vegas experience than staying at a small out-of-the-way place with no casino.

The Places to Stay Web site is a very good resource for finding and booking Las Vegas Hotels of all levels. This site is unique because it lets you book small hotels and motels (read cheap), whereas most other sites only deal with the big boys. I also found the hotel search capabilities quite handy. You can sort by various types of criteria such as price and quality rating, and filter results by amenities such as pool or gym. The filter feature also lets you quickly get a list of Las Vegas hotels with pets allowed.

For major hotels and resort deals you can also try the well known travel sites Orbitz and Travelocity.

Priceline has a service that also lets you book hotels. But unlike traditional travel Web sites or agencies, which let you select a hotel and pay the stated price, Priceline lets you set your own price and then it looks for hotels that are willing to accommodate you for that price.

While you can't specifically choose the hotel you want to stay in, Priceline does let you select a general location and a quality level for your hotel. For example, you can say you're willing to pay $50 per night, and let Priceline look for a room only among five-star Las Vegas Strip hotels.

This service works because many hotel rooms go empty every night, and hotels are interested in filling them, even at a considerably lower price, if they think these rooms would otherwise remain empty. Therefore, you've got an opportunity for great bargains, especially during off-peak times. But, on the other hand, when getting a hotel through Priceline, you can't choose a specific hotel, and you have to pay in advance and can't cancel your reservation.