I guess I always figured the Luxor was one solid building – it’s hollow, with terraced halls lining the interior. I’m kinda glad we stayed in the tower next door… standing beneath all those rooms I got a little freaked, imagining an awful telescoping accident.

The Mandalay Bay hotel next door has a high-tech sports book (I think the Luxor’s was all dry-erase). No cellphones allowed in any of those places, and I’m surprised cameras aren’t expressly forbidden as well. Just the same I took shots furtively, and none of them turned out very well.

Lots of vehicle tie-ins. When you think of all the money flying around, the price of a car probably doesn’t even register.

There’s a House of Blues at the Mandalay. Built to Spill played on Sunday night, unfortunately at the same time we were at the Rio watching Penn and Teller. I didn’t know!

The Bellagio is luxurious, very flowery. There were wedding photographs happening in the flowery conservatory – why anyone would want thousands of strangers bustling about during their wedding I don’t know, but the setting is pretty nice. A hotel for the ladies, Melanie astutely observed.

The travel book says the blown-glass flower display in the lobby is the largest in the world. Who keeps track of that kind of thing? Just tell me how much it cost (there’s over a billion and a half sunk into whole hotel).

Caesar’s Palace has been around since the ’60s. It’s kept pace okay, but the casino feels a little cramped comapred to the gambling arenas in some of the other resorts.

The MGM Grand sports a lion habitat with two of the laziest felines outside of my house.