Las Vegas holidays

As bizarre as it may seem, Las Vegas, Nevada – the undisputed world capital of gambling – was effectively borne out of harsh anti-gambling laws introduced on 1st October 1910! Within three weeks of the Nevada State Journal’s now immortal editorial “Stilled forever is the click of the roulette wheel, the rattle of the dice and the swish of the cards” in announcement of legislation even forbidding the toss of a coin, there was a wholly unconcerned and flourishing gambling underground accessible by passwords available to those ‘in the know’.

Las Vegas today sees gambling permitted and very much encouraged 24 hours a day, 365 days a year – earning this crazy city the affectionate nickname ‘Lost Wages’! Beyond poker, blackjack or roulette, however, Las Vegas claims to be the entertainment capital of the world and the head-spinning array of attractions and activities available make this hard to dispute. Over 35,000,000 annual visitors to Las Vegas would also happily back this claim!

What surprises most visitors to Las Vegas however, is that in comparison with much of the USA, it is a very cheap destination. You can eat and drink and keep yourself fully entertained cheaply, but Las Vegas hotels also offer excellent value. Hotels in Las Vegas vary greatly, as everywhere, but are of generally fine quality. Whatever your tastes and budget, there will be a Las Vegas hotel to meet your needs.

Las Vegas is a city like no other. Where else can you find a place built almost entirely on values that are considered vices everywhere else? Gambling, or more euphemistically, gaming, is the lifeblood of the town, the major industry and the main reason people came here in the first place. Today, the draw goes beyond the gaming tables, but it is fundamentally at the heart of everything.

The excitement and energy of Las Vegas is reflected in its neon lights – and the city shines 24 hours a day. The world-famous Strip is a continuous display of the biggest and brashest, with a total disregard for overkill or bad taste.

From the enormous sphinx that guards the pyramid of the Luxor Las Vegas to the Eiffel Tower outside Paris Las Vegas, the symbols of the Strip seem to say, “We can give you anything”. There are castles, tropical hideaways and luxurious palaces. You can travel to Venice, New York and ancient Rome by foot. You can dine in some of America’s best restaurants, or shop for the best European designs. And you can finance (or lose) it all with one roll of the dice.

The history of Las Vegas can be traced back to 1829 when Antonio Armijo lead a party of 60 on the Old Spanish Trail to Los Angeles. While they camped about 100 miles northeast of the present site of Las Vegas, a scout set out to look for water. A young Mexican scout who left the main party and headed due west over the desert, discovered an oasis. The water he found here shortened the trail to Los Angeles by allowing travelers to cut directly through rather than around, the vast desert. Spanish traders, who used this route were grateful for the shortened journey and they named this convenient desert oasis Las Vegas, Spanish for "the Meadows".

John C. Fremont was the next visitor to the Las Vegas Springs in 1844. He is still remembered today and his name graces one of the most spectacular streets in Las Vegas, Fremont Street.

Ten years later Mormon settlers were sent by Brigham Young from Salt Lake City to colonize the valley. They built a 150 square foot adobe brick fort, part of which still stands today as the oldest structure in Las Vegas and is appropriately named the Mormon Fort. The Mormons spent two years here before the harsh desert defeated their ambitions. By 1857 the fort was abandoned.

Las Vegas really started to develop from 1904, when the San Pedro, Los Angeles and Salt Lake Railroad laid its tracks through the Las Vegas Valley. The Railroad purchased prime land, bought the water rights and surveyed a town site for its railroad servicing and repair facilities. In 1905, the railroad held an auction and sold 700 lots. Las Vegas became a small watering stop with a few hotels, stores, a saloon and a few thousand residents.

In 1928 the government started the Boulder Canyon Project and Las Vegas received its first wave of residents. Thousands of workers came to help build the Hoover Dam. Three years later construction began and the Governor of Nevada approved a “wide open” gambling bill.

The government was concerned about the temptations of Las Vegas so they created a separate government town, Boulder City, where gambling was and still is today illegal.

Attention was focused on the dam as it was completed in 1935. The dam served as a magnet for federal appropriations, thousands of tourists and new residents and an endless supply of power and electricity. Also, as the country prepared for World War II. Tens of thousands of pilots and gunners trained at the Las Vegas Aerial Gunnery School. Today this property is home to Nellis Air Force Base and the Nevada Test Site.

By the early 1940s, downtown Las Vegas had several luxury hotels and a dozen small but successful gambling clubs. In 1941 a businessman, Thomas Hull, decided to open the El Rancho Las Vegas, just outside the city limits right off the highway from Los Angeles. The El Rancho had 100 rooms, a western styled casino, was located right off the highway and had a large parking lot with an inviting swimming pool. The El Rancho's quick success led to the building of another property down the road called the Last Frontier Hotel. The Las Vegas Strip was born. <

Las Vegas ‘Strip’

Las Vegas is a small city, so easy to get around even on foot. Consequently, your Las Vegas hotel gives you easy access to everything this entertainment Mecca has to offer – and more! Stroll up and down the 4.5 mile-long Las Vegas ‘Strip’ where the majority of the spectacular themed casino-hotels and wedding chapels are located, and we guarantee you will never experience anything quite like it! Las Vegas exists for one reason and one reason only – to give you the time of your life in an environment of fantasy and total escapism – and it never fails to deliver! So book your Las Vegas hotel now for the holiday of a lifetime!


Round-the-Clock Entertainment
Truly a round-the-clock assault on the senses, Las Vegas offers the whole family maximum fun, not just those who may be partial to a flutter. Just walking around the city is entertainment enough, as it is so larger-than-life and completely over-the-top that it is genuinely difficult to comprehend! Remembering also that you are in the middle of a desert, where else in the world could you see a sea battle raging or a ‘volcano’ erupting on a main street - or the world’s strongest laser shooting from the top of a full scale Egyptian pyramid? What about gigantic recreations of the Eiffel Tower, the Manhattan skyline and mythical Camelot? Did you realise that the world’s largest hotel, the MGM Grand, is actually shaped liked a colossal lion (and cost a mere $1bn to build)? All of this and more, bathed in every imaginable colour of blazing neon, is what Las Vegas is all about.