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good vantage points for New Years fireworks & viewing from strip

#1

A great vantage point to see most of the strip is from the Rio parking lot.
You should be able to park in the back (near the Pavillion). The Rio stages
a party inside and near midnight their party goers go outside to look.

If you want to try the strip, the area in front of Fashion Show mall might
not be too bad, because right now there are no hotel guests at Wynn. But
remember most strip hotels close their doors to non-guests on New Years, so you
may not be able to get inside to get a bathroom!

Someone with a player's card probably can get into any casino though.

If you try the fireworks from the strip - be aware that there will be
wall-to-wall people - literally you will be standing shoulder to shoulder with
other people. This can be a bit scary in the crush, and I don't recommend it for
children. If you plan to go, look for a good spot on the same side of the
street as your hotel so you don't have to walk through narrow crosswalks. A
vantage place with wider sidewalks is preferable to narrow ones. One year we
did well in front of the Mirage, where the sidewalk is wider.

You might want to get into position an hour before midnight to avoid total
crush conditions. After the fireworks try to wait a few minutes to move to
avoid crush conditions.

The inside of some hotels may have good viewpoints. For example Bally's has
some big windows that look out toward Flamingo Hilton which are in the
hallways near the elevators. If you can get into Ballys you should be able to get
there without a room. Or book a room with a good view (make sure you
request this early).

Check the newspaper the day before the fireworks to see exactly where they
are being released. For example usually Caesars and Mirage have none, while
Venetian, Ballys, and Paris do - so you want to be able to see the correct
side of the street.

The strip closes early - sometimes as early as 8pm - so you cannot drive
over it. Crosswalks over the street are also closed. One lane on each side is
reserved for emergencies, which means there is less room for people on the
closed roadway that you would think.

For gosh sakes, don't take small children onto the strip where the crush can
be terrible.

Have fun -

Linda

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

#2

Based on my one and only experience two years ago, I would make a stronger
recommendation than misscraps--STAY OFF THE STRIP ON NEW YEARS EVE. In my
case, it was more than "a bit scary". It was darned frightening and I will
never do it again:

  I parked my car in the Barbary Coast parking garage in the late afternoon
and spent the evening just meandering up and down the strip. I ended up at
Caesar's Palace around 9pm. A 100-play penny JOB machine was being nice to
me, so I played until about 10:30, then decided to head back to Barbary.
It's basically just across the street so no problem, right? WRONG. I waded
into the crowd and made it across to the Flamingo and then it turned into
hell. People VERY tightly packed against each other and no way to get out
or move in any direction. It was very uncomfortable, to say the least.
Small children would have been in a lot of trouble. Somehow I managed to
make it to a recessed entranceway of the Flamingo, where a family was
cowering. The woman was crying and so were a couple of the kids and I
didn't blame them. The Flamingo had their doors locked and the security
guards were simply ignoring people's pleas to be let in. We stayed (I
should say were stuck) for about 30 minutes until two LV police officers on
horseback came plowing through the crowd and made people disperse. They
were not polite about it, but the only people that argued were a few stupid
drunks (for the first time in my life, I was honestly in favor of police
brutality).
  With the crowd thinned out, I got over to Barbary as quickly as possible.
Amazingly, they hadn't locked their doors yet. You can't really see the
fireworks show from inside the BC, but at that point I didn't care. The
security guards wouldn't let me up to my car in the parking garage (I had
planned to put the seat back and snooze until the strip opened, then drive
back to my hotel) so I just stayed in the casino until about 3. All-in-all,
it was not a fun experience.

···

-----Original Message-----
From: misscraps@aol.com [mailto:misscr…@…com]
Sent: Monday, November 29, 2004 1:25 AM
To: vpFREE@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [vpFREE] Re: good vantage points for New Years fireworks &
viewing from strip

A great vantage point to see most of the strip is from the Rio parking lot.
You should be able to park in the back (near the Pavillion). The Rio
stages
a party inside and near midnight their party goers go outside to look.

If you want to try the strip, the area in front of Fashion Show mall might
not be too bad, because right now there are no hotel guests at Wynn. But
remember most strip hotels close their doors to non-guests on New Years, so
you
may not be able to get inside to get a bathroom!

Someone with a player's card probably can get into any casino though.

If you try the fireworks from the strip - be aware that there will be
wall-to-wall people - literally you will be standing shoulder to shoulder
with
other people. This can be a bit scary in the crush, and I don't recommend
it for
children. If you plan to go, look for a good spot on the same side of the
street as your hotel so you don't have to walk through narrow crosswalks.
A
vantage place with wider sidewalks is preferable to narrow ones. One year
we
did well in front of the Mirage, where the sidewalk is wider.

You might want to get into position an hour before midnight to avoid total
crush conditions. After the fireworks try to wait a few minutes to move to
avoid crush conditions.

The inside of some hotels may have good viewpoints. For example Bally's
has
some big windows that look out toward Flamingo Hilton which are in the
hallways near the elevators. If you can get into Ballys you should be able
to get
there without a room. Or book a room with a good view (make sure you
request this early).

Check the newspaper the day before the fireworks to see exactly where they
are being released. For example usually Caesars and Mirage have none,
while
Venetian, Ballys, and Paris do - so you want to be able to see the correct
side of the street.

The strip closes early - sometimes as early as 8pm - so you cannot drive
over it. Crosswalks over the street are also closed. One lane on each
side is
reserved for emergencies, which means there is less room for people on the
closed roadway that you would think.

For gosh sakes, don't take small children onto the strip where the crush
can
be terrible.

Have fun -

Linda

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

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