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Can you spend an entertaining weekend in Las Vegas in just one resort? The author put the Venetian——with its Italianate architecture and 4,000-plus suites——to the test.
I'M DOING RECONNAISSANCE on the glitzy Venetian Resort-Hotel-Casino, with its marble columns, fresco ceilings and eerie Blue Man Group posters. Unexpectedly, Wayne Brady makes a cameo. He’s the singer from the improvisation comedy show Whose Line Is It, Anyway? and host of the Fox game show Don’t Forget the Lyrics!
Brady also stars in his own variety show here at the Venetian. Called Making It Up, it’s a 90-minute improv/singing tour de force. It’s mid-August and the show hasn’t been open long, but it’s already a hit. After a little gushing about how funny he is, I tell Brady I’m doing an experiment: I’m going to spend the whole weekend under the roof of this all-suites resort (with occasional trips to a poolside cabaña).
“Yeah, there’s no need to go outside——this brotha’ does not need to feel that desert heat,” exclaims Brady. “While I’m here doing my five days a week, I don’t ever feel the need to leave.” He raves about a restaurant he frequents——David Burke’s Modern American Cuisine——and the enormous Venetian gym, Canyon Ranch SpaClub.
I promise to catch Brady’s show, then proceed with my one-roof improvisational task. The average Las Vegas tourist visits 3.2 casinos per trip. But even Venetian president Rob Goldstein admits getting around Vegas’ clogged driving arteries can be a royal pain. Limited to just one venue, though, will I go stir-crazy? Will I make a break for it by swimming out past the gondolas and onto the Strip? Might I give up, and jump from a rafter on the set of Phantom of the Opera? Let’s see.
THIS WILL REQUIRE going outside my usual Vegas comfort zone. I wouldn’t normally sign up for a gondola ride. But when in Venice . . . I’m schooled by a gondolier on the correct pronunciation: GON-do-la. My gondolier is an amazing tenor. He sings a Dean Martin song as we cruise under a tunnel. The entire trip——we pass a re-creation of the prison that housed Casanova——takes just 12 minutes. No panic, but I can’t run out of things to do so quickly.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long to tour the resident art exhibit. “Modern Masters from the Guggenheim Collection” holds fewer than 40 paintings. It’s a snapshot look at some great painters——Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet and Paul Cézanne among them. One uniformed security guard who takes it upon himself to narrate seems to be enjoying his shift, not marking time like the other two guards.
Pyrotechnics and a simulated chandelier crash highlight Phantom: The Las Vegas Spectacular, which gets you in and out in 95 minutes. That’s the same running time for Wayne Brady’s show. My new acquaintance is a lightning-brained comedy genius. He’s also brave enough to dress up like Tina Turner——big spiky wig, skimpy skirt——and talented enough to pull it off as a show-closer.
Fortunately for me (call me “Phantom of the Venetian”), there are 20 on-property restaurants. I hit six, doing tasting menus in most. Wolfgang Puck’s Postrio warms me up with a tomato soup (and I hate tomato soup). Aquaknox is a seafood smorgäsbord, and gregarious managing partner Mario Gonzalez could make dour Dick Cheney crack a smile. Bouchon, a French bistro located in the resort’s Venezia tower, serves a Tabasco/pepperoncini-infused Bloody Mary that spins my taste buds. If you dine at Valentino (formal but cozy), don’t miss the quail-sausage gnocci. Canyon Ranch Café is a health food oasis——hit it after you work out in the 69,000-square-foot gym (which includes a three-story rock-climbing wall).
As a culinary capper, I enter immense Tao. It’s part Asian bistro, part nightclub and part outdoor beach lounge. The sushi roll not to miss at the bistro is the crispy tuna sashimi. In the popular and populous nightclub, you’ll fit in by dancing——anywhere. It’s a roving, gyrating party that extends outside to Tao Beach. Outdoors on a midsummer night, I can still feel the desert heat, but there’s more room for groove-thang shaking.
Of course, I find time to gamble. I sit at one of the 39 tables in the Venetian’s new, 11,000-square-foot poker room (the high-limit area has gourmet dining and butler service). I make friends with a poker ace named Chris, who deals me in on his Vegas travel tip: He books one night at the hotel but stays three days. Chris flies in on a Friday and plays poker all night, then checks in on Saturday. Wow. Here I am feeling special about a lengthy weekend stay under one roof. Meanwhile, Chris spends most of his visit at just one table.
Chris’s approach is more extreme, but I’m now sold on the feasibility of a one-roof Vegas weekend. I could even do it again in the Venetian——where a 3,000-room Palazzo tower is opening in December, and there are still 14 restaurants I haven’t tried.
If You Go
For information on entertainment, dining or reservations at the Venetian (3355 Las Vegas Boulevard South), call 702-414-1000 or go to Venetian.com.
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