Did Vegas get more seedy or did I just get old?

Ah – Las Vegas, Nevada. What a charming town. You can almost smell it, can’t you? The musty air, the cheap perfume, the passing clouds of marijuana smoke… or is that from a crack pipe? Who cares?! It’s Vegas, baby! Let’s catch a show… or hepatitis… my head is spinning with so many things to do! 

I always encountered three distinct responses whenever Las Vegas is brought up in conversation… 1. I hate Vegas. 2. I love Vegas. 3. I’ve never been to Vegas. If you happen to be part of the number 3 crowd, I promise after about an hour of your visit, you’ll immediately fall into either crowd 1 or 2. Usually, it’s that clear. I have yet to meet someone like, “eh – yeah, Vegas is OK – I guess”.

So, why write a post about “Sin City” (the corniest nickname ever)? Well, because until recently, I happened to be a Vegas lover. I am usually the first to excitedly yell, “I LOVE Vegas,” whenever someone brings up the destination. Response number 2 from above if you’re following along.  Basically, I always loved the extremes of the city. You could go shopping at some of the most exclusive and expensive stores on earth, then walk 25 feet and show off your new purchase to a hallucinating meth addict. You could have a world-class meal prepared by a celebrity chef while gazing out the window and glimpsing a transvestite hooker happily dressed as a Disney princess. You could enjoy an incredible Cirque du Soleil show featuring death-defying acrobatics or watch a street performer with no arms and no legs pretend to be a human bowling ball, rolling along and knocking over a grouping of plastic pins. You get the idea… it can be a weird place, but it’s always a lot of fun.

As I mentioned, I was recently back “in town” for NCAA’s March Madness opening weekend, my 7th time visiting. This weekend trip happened to coincide with a big 50% reopening from the previous COVID restrictions. It was busy. We stayed at The Linq. Not recommended, but more on that another time. The Linq is between Harrahs and The Flamingo, with the main attraction being the Linq Promenade. If you know anything about Las Vegas, these hotels mentioned are not exactly high end. Therefore, the hotel’s clientele is also not high end. Imagine a crowd made up of say… 5% foreigners, 10% wholesome yet wildly regretful families shielding their children’s eyes from the call girl advertisements, 10% pot-smoking Nevada locals, 15% middle-aged dudes drinking themselves stupid because they are finally away from their wholesome wife and kids, and finally, the remaining 60% being those you would find in the audience of The Jerry Springer Show. Now that you have that image in your head and some of my earlier descriptions, you will hopefully get a feel for the picture I am painting.

Maybe I just wasn’t used to seeing people out in public or just forgot how people interacted since the pandemic. Still, for the first time in my many trips out, I was turned off by the usual charms of debauchery. The area was just a little too rough and dirty for me. People just dropping their garbage as they walked, guys just walking up to a wall and pissing in broad daylight (I saw this a couple times), aggressive homeless people, and I even saw a scooter fight. A scooter fight? Yes, a scooter fight. Two morbidly obese women were on their rental scooters screaming and ramming each other while trying to get through the doors at The Flamingo. It was hilarious but also sad. What was happening? Why was the usual chaos of filth now bothering me? I am I getting too old for this? I took a walk to the nicer side of the strip for a social experiment.

I made my way to the Bellagio, Cosmopolitan, Aria section of the strip. Lo and behold…It was DEAD. Very few people walking through the hotels, the restaurants were half empty or closed, even the casinos were quiet. So quiet the Cosmo had their table minimums down to only $1000 a hand. *hits drum* Ba-dum-tss! 

Why were the nicer hotels quiet? Well – It seemed the mutants of society… like me apparently… were ready to get out of the house after being stuck there for almost a year (thanks, COVID) and were looking for a bargain. The cheaper hotels offered that, while the more expensive higher end hotels did little to discount their rates on what usually is a very popular weekend in Vegas. I, therefore, concluded not that I was getting older, nor was I less in love with the usual Vegas revelry, but I just had been subjected to a higher concentration of it!

Speaking of concentration of smut… Fremont Street (aka Old Vegas). It was wall-to-wall people while we were there. You couldn’t even walk down the covered portion of Fremont. For what it’s worth, I was never really a fan of the Fremont Street Experience. If you saw the show once, it was enough. The only reason I ever ended up in Old Vegas was that I had no money left and was forced to play $1 blackjack while enjoying complimentary room temperature Red Dog Ale. Which mind you was usually served in a mini plastic cup resembling that of a urine sample catch. Fun times. Things down on Fremont have changed, and now you MUST head there to check out Circa. The new hotel is beautiful and a sports gambler’s dream. The main sportsbook is incredible, and Stadium Swim offers a Vegas pool party vibe with the ability to watch and bet on games. Some pictures from Circa below. This is likely our destination next year!