Kids in Vegas
by

David W. Toll

I first came to Las Vegas as a kid, and I've been bringing kids to Las Vegas myself since my son Sam was 7.

The two of us had arrived in Las Vegas from Ely and Pioche. Las Vegas was neon overload even in those innocent times, and Sam spent his first day in paradise scurrying between the swimming pool and the color tv. That night, at the Perry Como dinner show, we sat across from one another at a table down front. The house lights dimmed and the old smoothie took the stage, dishing up one mellifluous slowball after another. Three tunes into the set Sam made a slow and solemn bow, face-first into his medallions de bouef. I rescued him before he drowned in the Bernaise sauce, but he was out like a light. It's a memory we both treasure.

Here's our report:

We had a blast! It was great. Tremendous. Experiencing everything in this new Las Vegas kept us busy from early morning to late at night.

We went ballistic upside-down on the roller coaster in Grand Slam Canyon. We bumped into and bounced off one another in bumper cars at the MGM Grand Adventure. We plunged and veered into the vast and threatening depths of computer-manipulated virtual reality beneath the great pyramid of Luxor. We stayed up late and yelled and banged our hands on the table as knights on horseback jousted at Excalibur. We saw a crew of pirates sink a British man o' war at Treasure Island.

It was fabulous.

And I didn't even mention the shopping. The evolution of the new attractions for kids has overshadowed the relatively recent development of spectacular shopping as a part of Las Vegas' appeal. For Rachel especially, a small-town teenager in the big city, shopping was a big part of the Las Vegas adventure.

We stayed five nights at the Excalibur, in two adjoining rooms. We liked the Excalibur because its Toon Town architecture so aptly reflects the kid-friendly character of the town these days. We were in the hotel five days, and got to know it: we'd recommend it for a family visit any time, both for its own virtues (new, comfortable, lots of games for kids on the floor beneath the casino, ice machine down the hall) and for its location, next door neighbor to the Luxor and catty-corner across the Strip from the MGM Grand. Chris enjoyed himself so much that by the third day he was assuring everyone that the Excalibur was our new home.

I'd also (here is Tip for Parents #1--see list below for more) consider a non-gambling hotel as your headquarters, to lower the intensity level all around. Las Vegas is an intense and wildly energetic environment in every respect, including the attractions that have been built to entertain kids. Don't try to do what we did and squeeze everything into one visit.

Me: The view.
Our panel of experts made these specific comments about the Excalibur:
Best things:
Chris: Nice big beds to jump up and down on.

Allie: The swimming pool, but it closes too early (5 pm).

John: King Arthur's Court (the $24.95 dinner show) in which the jousting and edged-weapon combat is riveting and the horsemanship (and the acrobats!) are most admirable.

Rachel: The few quiet moments

Robin: Valet parking.

Me: The view.

On our second morning we migrated across the Strip to the enormous MGM. We promenaded into the lion's mouth, through its Hollywood-themed gastronomical tract, and out the other end into the Grand Adventure Theme Park for the shops and rides.

This is a large, people-friendly, Disneyland-like amusement park, built to represent the back lot of a movie studio, with its different "streets" representing locales ranging from Paris to Olde England. The seven rides are quite enjoyable if not actually thrilling, and the number of visitors at any one time is controlled in a not-quite-successful attempt to prevent overcrowding. It's a pleasant day's outing with a variety of entertainments and restaurants, with no sharp edges.

In fact, this is a great place to visit if you just want to stroll around in the fresh air in quiet surroundings. It's the only car-free environment in Las Vegas, and that alone might be worth the entrance fee in this gridlocked city (see Tips for Parents No. 8).

We quickly became acquainted with the house rule: Kids are admitted to rides according to height. Heads that don't reach the minimum-height line at each entrance gate can't ride that ride. Chris was right on the cusp of the 42-inch minimum, so he had to step up to the mark everywhere we went, but his cowlick helped him pass muster.

He was short of the 48-inch height requirement for the MGM's big-boy rides, but he cleared 42 inches, so there was still plenty for him to do-and there was no height requirement to ride with Dad in the bumper cars or to sit on Mom's lap for the splashily acrobatic and entertaining Dueling Pirates show.

It was all perhaps a little too exciting, as we realized that afternoon when Chris flamed out. Overdosed on Parisian Taxis and frustrated by height rules, he launched a furious attack against all humans with the styrofoam sword we had foolishly armed him with and wept himself to sleep after inflicting considerable slaughter on parents and siblings (see Tips for Parents 7 and 7a).

Best things about the MGM Grand Adventure Theme Park:

Chris: The Parisian Taxi bumper cars.

Allie: Over the Edge.

John: Over the Edge.

Rachel: Shopping.

Robin: The Dueling Pirates show. We enjoyed the show ourselves, and the kids were squealing with delight.

Me: The Parisian Taxis and the fact that they are the only cars anywhere in the place.

Entry fees: Early-summer rates were $18.95 for ages 13 and up, $13.95 for ages four to 12, and free for under four. Once inside, you can ride at will. You'll encounter tedious lines here at times; it's the only negative. Study the brochure and map, arrive early, head straight for the rides you want to try, and bring a book.

The Luxor is a three-minute walk south from the Excalibur. This unique artifact creates strong feelings; people usually love it or hate it. We loved it. We liked its uniqueness, and not just for the pyramid shape that makes it one of the three instantly- recognizable structures in the Las Vegas Valley (the other two are the MGM Grand, for its sheer size, and Stupack's Tower at Vegas World).

This place has an attitude. The 30 stories of black glass loom large in the daytime, recognizable from anywhere in the valley and from above, in the airliners bringing visitors from around the world. Its glass walls take on every shade of color, from sandy tan to blazing gold. But at night the huge hotel disappears, black on black, against the desert sky. The dark glass dims the lights burning in the 2,526 guest rooms to glints, and then each evening a 40-billion-candlepower light is turned on, shining straight up from the apex of the pyramid into outer space, bright enough to read a newspaper at 10 miles up.

Out front, the eyes of the 150-foot sphinx spray emerald light through a curtain of water to create magical images that play to the passing crowd. Inside the glass pyramid a steady stream of "barges" follows the course of the casino-encircling "Nile River" as knowledgeable guides deliver mini-lessons in archaeology and the history of ancient Egypt.

Another of the Luxor's attractions is the guided tour (on foot this time) through a replica of King Tut's tomb. The artifacts in the exhibit are made to be identical to the originals, with all the gold, jewels, and other lavish touches. It is tasteful and edifying, and in the course of our visit Allie learned that the Egyptians thought that thinking came from the heart, and that in the course of mummification they took out the heart and replaced it in the body with a little statue. John learned that the tomb had been raided, but in deep antiquity, thousands of years before the rediscovery of the tomb in 1922. Chris learned that if you yell, Dad takes you outside.

But the Luxor's greatest attractions for kids are its virtual reality rides.

There are three of them, called the Pyramid Trilogy. In the first one we were pulled in a breakneck ride through the labyrinthine depths beneath the pyramid, crashing and swerving as we went. In the second, we wore 3-D glasses and served as the audience of a TV talk show that goes weirdly wrong. The third one is a big-screen, curved-screen ride through a vision of the future.

These "rides" are tied together in a confusing and basically irrelevant story, but you can take them in any convenient order.

Best things about the Luxor:

Chris: The outside and the escalators.

Allie: The Theater of Time (Pyramid Trilogy Part III).

John: In Search of the Obelisk (Pyramid Trilogy Part I).

Rachel: Shortest lines.

Robin: In Search of the Obelisk (Pyramid Trilogy Part I).

Me: The guts it took to design and build the place.

Entry fees: The Nile River ride is $3, and King Tut's Tomb is $2. Admission to all three Pyramid Trilogy rides is $13; individually, In Search of the Obelisk (I) is $5, Luxor Live (II) is $4, and The Theater of Time (III) is $4. Kids must be 42 inches tall or 45 pounds, or they won't register with the computer that drives the rides. Chris was just heavy enough to make the cut and had no apparent problems with the virtual reality experience.

Grand Slam Canyon at Circus Circus is a fuscia-colored dome enclosing a vest-pocket amuse- ment park. It is a fascinating environment, a puzzle to find your way around at first, but friendly and fun.

If parents are comfortable about the way their kids handle themselves, they can be just as comfortable sending the kids here as sending them to the hotel pool. This is a thoroughly kid-friendly environment. John and Allie rode the double-loop, double-corkscrew Canyon Blaster Roller Coaster, accelerating to 55 mph. But they thought the Rim Runner boat ride was scarier. The roller coaster goes so fast you're through the turns almost before you know it, but the big barge tips over the lip of a water flume high up in the dome, to careen down, down, down to a monster splash landing.

Chris gamely confronted the park's height requirement, but by the time we got to Grand Slam Canyon his cowlick had flattened. He was standing a little high at the heel and was detected. "Look at him!" cried the gate gestapo. "He's standing on his tippy toes! No way he's tall enough!"

Best things about Grand Slam Canyon:

Chris: The dinosaur babies and the big splashes.

Allie: Canyon Blaster Roller Coaster.

John: Canyon Blaster.

Rachel: Canyon Blaster.

Robin: The liberal attitude toward ticket collection.

Me: The architecture and engineering.

Entry fees: An all-day pass is $10. Or you can pay $3 for admission, and rides are $2.50 a la carte.

We missed a lot of great things in our five days. We didn't get to the Cirque du Soleil's "Mystere" at Treasure Island or to "Starlight Express," the Andrew Lloyd Webber show on roller skates at the Hilton. We didn't even get to Wet 'n Wild, the landmark kid place on the Strip. John and I spent our first Las Vegas outing there, and the joy he experienced all those years ago still brightens his life: in the kids' pool, grasping the controls of a large-caliber water gun and squirting Dad in the face. Come early to get your choice of picnic places, and bring shoes or your feet will burn up.

Because our focus was on the kid's stuff on the Strip, we took only one excursion out of the bright lights, to Hoover Dam and Lake Mead. On a different trip we would visit the Lied Discovery Children's Museum and the Museum of Natural History, or even go ice skating at the Santa Fe Hotel. We'd have spent an afternoon at FunTazmic and perhaps have spared Chris his big blow-up. We could easily have stayed two weeks without exhausting the possibilities.

Five days was enough to exhaust us, though. Here's what our team members liked best about the new Las Vegas we discovered:

At 17, Rachel is only barely a kid anymore. She enjoyed the various entertainments, but she almost always did double-duty as Big Sister and Assistant Grown-up. She enjoyed the rides, and the baseball game we attended, but on her own, her favorite activity was shopping.

Actually, all the feminine members of our troupe enjoyed the shopping throughout our visit. Especially favored: the Factory Outlet Stores 'way out on Las Vegas Boulevard South (where Robin found a leather purse she couldn't resist and Allie got a pair of sandals). Also earning attention were Walmart, Phar-more, and the 99c Stores.

We didn't get to the Forum Shops at Caesars, an omission that still irritates us. The Forum Shops are high on any serious shopper's agenda, and I--no shopper--will go to the Forum Shops any time just for the pleasure of being there.

John was a big enthusiast for rides of all kinds, but his clear favorite was In Search of the Obelisk, Pyramid Trilogy Part I, at the Luxor. He was also fond of the jousting and other chivalric hacking and whacking.

The highlight of my visit was an exhibition baseball game between the San Diego Padres and the San Francisco Giants that Rachel, John, and I took in at Cashman Field, home of the triple-A Las Vegas Stars. Pads 6, Giants 4, dang it. Cashman Field is built to a more intimate scale than the grand structures of the big leagues, and we had great seats behind home plate-close enough to see Matt Williams' expression change when the Padres' Archi Cianfrocco hit a sizzling rope straight at him.

But even when Matt Williams and Barry Bonds are back at Candlestick, the games are great at Cashman Field. Kevin McReynolds, Sandy Alomar, and John Kruk played for the Stars on their way to the bigs, and at $5, a bleacher seat at a Stars game is one of the best bargains in Las Vegas.

Robin's fave was watching the H.M.S. Britannia engage the pirate ship Hispaniola from the Battle Bar at Treasure Island. By the time the performance is about to begin, the sidewalks out front and the gangway to the casino entrance are a solid mass of humanity, so she developed this strategy:

Immediately after a performance go to the Battle Bar overlooking Buccaneer Bay. Take a table on the left so you get a good view of the pirate ship. Sip cool drinks for 90 minutes and watch the SRO audience accumulate on the sidewalk and gangway. The Britannia will come around the point on your left, bombard the brigands with cannonades, and then explode and sink right before your eyes. Very satisfying.

Allie's biggest favorite was "just seeing Las Vegas at night."

Chris liked everything.

We left Las Vegas at mid-morning, heading westward out Blue Diamond Road toward Pahrump, Shoshone, and Death Valley. Our experts had been away from home for six long days. In Las Vegas we had ranged freely from one extravagant experience to another, but now, minus Rachel, who'd already flown home, we were cooped together in a metal box on wheels rolling endlessly through the desert. Without Rachel to enforce the rule of law, someone touched someone. Someone yelled. Someone else yelled. Everyone yelled!

By the time we reached Shoshone the van had shrunk alarmingly small. We pulled up across from the post office, where a little patch of grass had been fitted out with a rickety swing made with a bald tire. A sprinkler was squirting water eccentrically around, and for 10 minutes John, Allie, and Chris ran in circles squealing with excitement, the three of them creating virtual reality together the old-fashioned way.

But when they got back among their friends at school by the jungle gym at recess, did they tell them excitedly about the sprinkler at Shoshone? Nah. It was all Luxor, Excalibur, MGM Grand, Canyon Blaster Roller Coaster and H.M.S. Britannia, taxi rides, and baseball games.

Kids can have a good time almost anywhere. In Las Vegas they can have the time of their lives.