City of Lights - Las Vegas
This hotel is right in the centre of the strip so it was a great base for us to explore the bright lights and sounds of Vegas! The Mirage was built by developer Steve Wynn and opened in November 1989. Steve Wynn has since had the fantastic Wynn hotel built - a great looking hotel that has a Lambogini and Masarati show room in the hotel. Only in Vegas!
The Mirage was the most expensive hotel/casino in history, with a construction cost of $630 million. The hotel's distinctive gold windows get their colour from actual gold used in the tinting process. It was reported that the resort would have to bring in a million dollars a day to pay off a 7-year construction loan. But in fact The Mirage did so well, the loan was paid off in just 18 months.
We chose this hotel has it also has a fantastic pool with waterfalls. At the back of the hotel there is a fabulous dolphin enclosure, where we were able to be a trainer for the day. In addition to this there was a hidden garden that had all types of rare animals including white tigers. This was unbelieveable and we thoroughly enjoyed this addition to our hotel.
From 1990 through 2003, the Mirage was the venue for the Siegfried & Roy show. The two headliners combined magic and the use of wild animals. The closing of the popular attraction was in 2003, after Roy Horn was attacked by one of the white tigers used in the show, and this had a big impact on the Mirage for a while.
Just up the road from the hotel there was a large shopping mall so if, like me, you like shopping this is the place to go. We also found there is also another mall a bit further out of town and we were able to book a bus trip to take us there.
There are some fantastic restaurants in the area and a favourite for us was a great steak restaurant in the hotel Circus Circus (this hotel is more for families as there are more things for the kids to do - it has a fairground outside the hotel).
There is so much to do in "The City Of Lights" and we enjoyed every moment of our holiday.