WHEN I CAME TO LAS VEGAS FOR THE FIRST TIME MORE THAN 30 YEARS AGO it was still a wind-blown dot on the desert landscape. You'd fly out for a convention or company meeting, schlep through some casino where old biddies pulled on one-armed bandit handles and the cocktail waitresses spilled out of their costumes. You walked a thousand yards to your room, then tried to find a decent place to eat. If you wanted morning room service, you needed to order it two months in advance. Nothing happened in Vegas because no one wanted to stay in Vegas for very long. Then, quietly, something did happen. In 1989, Steve Wynn opened the Mirage Hotel, with its flaming volcano, plush rooms, good restaurants and shopping that gave visitors something to do besides gamble or see boozy, Rat Pack-style shows. Caesars Forum followed, with high-end shopping in an area that looked and felt like being outdoors. Artificial clouds moved along the ceiling, foretelling the winds of change that would blow across the Strip over the next few years: Treasure Island, Paris Las Vegas, New York-New York, Luxor, Excalibur, the MGM Grand, the haughty Bellagio and the Epcot-like Venetian, where gondolas glide along canals flanking an indoor replica of the Piazza San Marco. Today, Las Vegas has become a destination for "high rollers" who never even set foot in a casino. A Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority survey in 2004, in fact, found that only four percent of the city's tourists said they went there solely to gamble. But they do spend money-lots of it-and increasingly expect to be treated as royalty of the house, particularly as Las Vegas feels competition from other worldwide gaming destinations like Macau and Australia, and from Native American casinos at home. Currently you'll find a building boom in all-suite towers going on, many with private entrances that bypass the casino and main check-in desks. Some suites will have "bath butlers" who'll prepare your favorite bath for you and a partner. Look for electronic "blackout" drapes, toiletries from Bulgari and flat-screen TVs on every possible surface, including the bathroom mirror. Here are a few of our personal preferences following a recent ten-day visit: the best of the best of Sin City right now. But if you don't care for our picks, remember that there's something just as grand-maybe more so-right across the street.
