I stayed at The Mirage Hotel, one of the iconic hotels in Las Vegas. When it opened in 1989 on 65 acres, it was the most expensive hotel ever built, costing $630 million. This past year it was purchased by The Hard Rock International and is going to be turned into Hard Rock Las Vegas sometime later this year.
There are a couple things The Mirage is known for. Since 2006, the hotel has hosted the Cirque du Soleil show celebrating the music of The Beatles. This stunning view of the hotel shows The Beatles in their "Sgt. Pepper" attire and the name of the show on the other side, "Love." As a very big Beatle fan it was pretty impressive seeing them on top of a hotel, something I'm sure they never could have dreamed of when they came to this country almost 60 years ago. More on the show in another blog, but the Mirage also has a volcano. I wasn't able to see the volcano because of time restraints, but the picture below shows that it shoots water 12 feet high which is pretty impressive.
The below picture is from my window showing the pool, which looked just as good when you were in it. There are some waterfalls and you can find some shade in the pool too. The unusual and disappointing thing was that it was open from 9 am to 5 pm, I'm guessing due to staffing issues? Picture this: at 8:30 am, my brother and I got in a line with maybe 100 plus people in front of us. Thirty minutes later there were about 150 people behind us. I would have gone down there at 7 am if it was open or even at night when the temperature was not near 100 degrees. Walt Disney could not walk by a line of a couple hundred guests trying to get into a pool each day, I'm pretty sure of that.
The hotel had plenty of slot machines in the lobby and a few restaurants also. The front desk in the next picture is displayed in front of an amazing aquarium(?) or display of a lot of fish. This was the first thing I saw when I walked in and it was pretty amazing.
Less impressive was the interaction I had later on when my room was ready. I was walking towards this desk and trying to figure out which line the woman said I should go to, when a man about my age in a suit and tie walked in front of me and said, "ask me." I did and he told me to go into the waiting line which had only one person. What surprised me was that he was not friendly, did not smile, and his greeting was the same if he had said, "this is a stick up." He got the job done, but that does not happen in The South and for a major hotel in Las Vegas, it was not good.
If you "ask me" if you should stay at the Mirage, I would say, "absolutely, " but you better hurry. It may be closing for awhile as it turns into a newer hotel, but it was an enjoyable stay and I had a great view from the 24th floor.
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