Thursday December 19th 2019
Today was an incremental improvement in the weather from the previous couple of days. It was a bright sunny day with the high temperature in the mid fifties. The positive trend is forecast to continue into the weekend, but next week has rain in the forecast.
I took the Sam’s Town shuttle back to the Las Vegas strip today. The purpose of my visit was exploring the Christmas decorations in the northern part of the center strip. Just about all of the decorations on the strip are inside the casino hotels and shops. There is very little indication of the season on the outside of the properties.
Venetian and Palazzo
I walked from Harrah’s north to the Venetian and Palazzo. The second floor mall was filled with shoppers, but not much Christmas cheer. Most of the decorations were at the entrance to Palazzo from Venetian.
Wynn and Encore
My second major stop was at the Wynn and Encore properties. The holiday decorations were all surrounded by red, why and gold fake poinsettias. It was very pretty, but very culture neutral.
Fashion Show Mall
After walking through Wynn, I crossed Las Vegas Boulevard to the Fashion Show Mall. It was packed with people wandering in and out of the stores. I’m not sure what percent were shoppers and what percent were tourists. I didn’t see a lot of shopping bags in peoples hands.
Mirage
As I continued south along the strip, I passed through Treasure Island on my way to the tram to Mirage. I didn’t see any decorations worth noting in the casino. The Mirage atrium had some decorations among the plants.
Caesars Forum Shops and Caesars Palace
The entrance to the Forum Shops mall near Mirage leads to a lot of construction, but once you work through the maze the mall has some nice decorations. Caesars Palace has all of the seasonal decorations near the hotel lobby.