Luxor Hotel
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The Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, was one of the resort city's first fully-themed megaresorts. Ground was broken for the Luxor in 1991, the same year that construction began on the Treasure Island and the current MGM Grand. It has an Ancient Egyptian motif and contains a total of 4,407 rooms lining the interior walls of a hollow pyramid and contained within two towers. It opened on October 15, 1993.
It is located on the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip, opposite McCarran International Airport. The resort is flanked by the Mandalay Bay to the south and by the Excalibur Hotel and Casino to the north; all three are connected by free express and local trams. All three properties are owned by Mandalay Resort Group, formerly known as Circus Circus Enterprises. It can be considered the "middle child" of Mandalay's south strip properties, both in terms of age (it opened in 1993; the Excalibur opened in 1990, while Mandalay Bay opened in 1999) and level of luxury (it is considered by most to be a step up from the Excalibur, but not nearly as nice as the Mandalay Bay).
The Luxor is arguably among the most recognizable hotels on the strip because of its striking design. The main portion of the hotel is a 350-foot-high (106 meters), 30-story pyramid of black glass (in comparison, the Great Pyramid of Giza tops out at 450 ft, or 137 m). The hotel is marked by a large obelisk with the name of the property in lighted letters, while the porte-cochere travels underneath a massive recreation of the Great Sphinx of Giza.
The tip of the pyramid contains a spotlight that points directly upward – it is the brightest beam in the world, and is visible from anywhere in the Las Vegas valley at night, and can be seen at flight level from above Los Angeles, California, over 275 miles (440 km) away. In the spring, the bright light attracts huge numbers of moths into the light beam, creating a phenomenon that has been likened to snow.
The guest rooms are situated on the outer walls of the pyramid and are reached by riding in so-called "inclinators" that travel along the inner surface of the pyramid at a 39-degree angle. Open hallways leading to the rooms overlook the atrium, which is the largest in the world at 29 million cubic feet (820,000 m³).
The resort is home to some of the most popular entertainment attractions in Las Vegas. The main level features the RA Nightclub, as well as the main theatre, home to the Blue Man Group show "Live at Luxor." The second level, meanwhile, features additional attractions. An IMAX theatre (the first in Las Vegas, according to the hotel) shows a rotating selection of films; there is also an IMAX motion simulator ride called "In Search of the Obelisk," which takes participants into a virtual archeological dig. The "Pharaoh's Theatre" is home to "Midnight Fantasy," a topless revue. The attractions level also features the "King Tut Museum", an authentic replica of the tomb of Pharaoh Tutankhamun. The reproduction is based directly on the descriptions of the tomb recorded by Howard Carter, who discovered it in 1922.
The hotel is named after the city of Luxor (ancient Thebes) in Egypt, the site of the Valley of the Kings, Karnak and Luxor Temples, and scores of other pharaonic monuments – but no pyramids.
External links
- Luxor Hotel website (http://www.luxor.com)
- Photos of Luxor hotel casino (http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/las_vegas/luxor.html)
- Aerilal image (http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=36.095710,-115.175707&spn=0.004603,0.007060&t=k&hl=en)
- Photos of moths in Luxor beam (http://blog.notruebill.com/?p=217)sv:Luxor, Las Vegas