Even though I’ll be heading right back into Sin City next month for the Consumer Electronics Show (I hope to bring back some more awesome swag to give away again), Susanne and I made our way down to Las Vegas last week for a little vacation. She hadn’t been to Vegas in years, so I took the opportunity to show her around some of the newer developments, like Wynn, Aria, and Planet Hollywood. We also made our way downtown for the Fremont Street Experience, spending some time in historic casinos like Golden Nugget and Binion’s.
The other big motivator was there happened to be a pretty terrific Groupon deal going on where we could get two nights at the Treasure Island Las Vegas, along with two tickets to watch Cirque du Soleil’s Mystere, for just a little over $200. That’s a great deal, considering that just the tickets themselves are worth over $200 for the pair. We paid for a couple of extra nights too, since we were already down there.
Over the years, I’ve stayed at many Las Vegas hotels. I’ve stayed at the old Aladdin, the “new” Aladdin (which is now Planet Hollywood), the old Imperial Palace (which is now The Quad), Flamingo, Bally’s, MGM Grand, and Wynn Encore. Interestingly enough, Treasure Island is the hotel on the west side of the Las Vegas Strip where I’ve stayed. All of those other hotels have been on the east side of the street. Go figure.
In chatting with one of the dealers on our last night, I learned that Steve Wynn (as in Wynn and Wynn Encore) once owned the Treasure Island before he sold it to MGM Mirage. I always associated the Mirage and the Treasure Island as being together, since they have that complimentary tram connecting the properties. Since then, some other bloke has come along and purchased TI from MGM Mirage and that’s why Treasure Island has its own separate rewards program now.
Treasure Island may not be one of the newest or shiniest properties on the block and it might be due for a bit of a facelift soon, but it has its charm and the room was perfectly comfortable. Check out the quick video tour that I’ve embedded below, as well as the video I shot of the “live” volcano show outside of the Mirage.
I stayed there on my first CES trip in 2007. It was a nice enough hotel, but seemed kinda bland compared to other hotels on the strip. They were trying to distance themselves from the Treasure Island theme, with the rebrand to “TI”. What that brand meant I couldn’t really discern.
It’s even more confused than ever with both “Treasure Island” and that neon “TI” branding everywhere. It used to be super pirate-themed with the pirate show (pre-Sirens) and a pirate-themed midway/arcade area for the kids. Now it’s got Senor Frogs and Pho and a cowboy bar. A friend of mine was saying it should get purchased by Disney and turned into a Pirates of the Caribbean hotel.
Just glad the Sirens show is gone. It was absolutely awful and generally inappropriate for children.
I don’t think I ever did see the Sirens show. Just the old pirate show.
A great view no matter whether it was a strip view or not. It looked like a great time and more than adequate room for what you paid 🙂