Las Vegas hotels

Hands down the most luxurious hotel in Las Vegas, this is true resort living—and most of its devoted guests don’t leave the hotel while they’re here. Wynn and its sister resort, Encore, look out onto their own par-70 championship golf course – the only one on the Strip. Big, sunlit atriums, private show lakes and waterfalls, and a treasure trove of secret-feeling moments (like dragons guarding century-old pomegranate trees outside the first Michelin-starred Chinese restaurant in North America) keep this resort feeling endlessly surprising. It’s the largest Forbes Five-Star resort in the world, and from the en-pointe service to the no-details-spared design, you’ll see it at every turn.

One of the best-located resorts on the Strip, Aria is part of the vast CityCenter complex and is connected by a walkway to Park MGM (which looks right out to T-Mobile Arena in its front yard and has the popular Dolby Live concert venue). It is refreshingly modern, with its streamlined design and natural materials inside two sleek glass towers. Its seven SkyVillas and 400 Sky Suites on the top floors of the 50-floor hotel have their own separate entrance, pool, and elevator. Other resorts are just catching on to Aria’s details for tech-savvy travelers like in-room tablets through which you can control the room’s features, order takeout from the hotel, and make spa appointments.

The massive, six-tower Roman-themed hotel on 85 acres of the Las Vegas Strip was built in the 1960s to make its guests feel like emperors. Like Rome itself, Caesars wasn’t built in a day but continues to expand and revamp, with its Colosseum concert arena, shopping mall (The Forum Shops at Caesars, which has its own Trevi Fountain), a five-acre complex of seven pools, and a huge variety of hotel rooms – including the separate-but-included Nobu Hotel which now occupies one of its towers. Everything here is over the top (remember, we’re in Rome), so don’t miss the 50,000-square-foot spa with its Roman bath theme, the largest buffet in the world Bacchanal), and one of the largest nightclubs in Las Vegas – the four-story Omnia. Go large or stay on a budget: there’s a way to do both here.

A massive Palazzo Ducale, complete with Doge’s Palace, sits right on the Strip, with singing gondoliers making their way around a canal system. The Venetian Resort is the second largest hotel in the world and with its sister resort, Palazzo, does indeed feel like the entire city of Venice—minus the pigeons and with a convenient indoor Piazza San Marco lined with restaurants. All the rooms are suites, and among the largest on the Strip, and the frescoed lobbies will temporarily convince you that you are not in Las Vegas. One of its biggest surprises is the massive Canyon Ranch Spa – an entire destination spa resort right in the hotel. Parents will love it because the shop-lined canals of its Grand Canal Shoppes will keep families busy for days, plus it has the best selection of reasonably-priced casual restaurants on the Strip. But you can also treat it as a luxe getaway, lounging at the adults-only Tao Beach pool complex and dining at the many high-end restaurants.

The Cosmopolitan has been the slightly zany, cooler younger sibling of the Strip’s megaresorts since it opened in 2010. A decidedly cool crowd stays at this cutting-edge art-filled hotel, with its three-story chandelier with three levels of bars and lounges; lobby with streaming LED columns that are constantly changing, a hidden bar and lounge inside a barbershop, and even a ski lodge inspired by the mountains of Hokkaido, Japan that serves izakaya cocktail specials until late. In the summer, theMarquee Dayclub and Nightclub provide round-the-clock fun, and in the winter its Boulevard pool turns into an ice rink.

One of the city’s most private pool scenes can be found at Four Seasons, which occupies floors 35 to 39 of Mandalay Bay. Its poolside restaurant, Veranda, looks out over the pool which, unlike most pools on the Strip, doesn’t accommodate non-guests. The non-gaming hotel has its own porte-cochere, lounge, and spa, and because you won’t have to walk through a casino floor to get to your room, is one of the best hotels for business travelers who want a little peace at the end of the day. On the other hand, it has access to all the family fun of Mandalay Bay, like the sand beach at the Mandalay pool complex. It’s also the closest luxury resort within walking distance of the perpetually packed Allegiant Stadium.

Las Vegas resorts are renowned for their transporting fake-outs, which is why it’s such a shock to find yourself sitting in a grand library designed by legendary French designer Jacques Garcia whose soaring walls are filled with the actual 25,000-book collection of philanthropist David Rockefeller. It’s the NoMad Library restaurant in the boutique NoMad Las Vegas, and a fine example of what the hotel is all about – whisking you to some imaginary place and time, all on the top four floors of Park MGM. The 239-room boutique is one of the best surprises in Las Vegas, with its own entrance and even its own casino. Its rooms feel like elegant Parisian pieds-a-terre, with their standalone baths and views over the only green space on the Las Vegas Strip. Stay hidden in your private boutique or come down a few floors and join the party that is now Park MGM.

The first newly built resort in Downtown in decades, Circa is a glitzy ode to its Glitter Gulch roots – including a fully rehabbed 20-foot-tall neon cowgirl -“Vegas Vickie” – who kicks up her heels right inside the hotel. But the adults-only resort, one of only two in the resort corridor, is better known as a sports fanatic’s paradise and party zone. Its Stadium Swim outdoor pool area faces a 40-foot-high HDTV screen and its three-story amphitheater that seats 1,000 is the largest sportsbook in the world. This is the best base from which to explore the Fremont Street Experience and historic Downtown since it opens right onto Fremont. One of the best new steakhouses in the city is Barry’s Downtown Prime, and its Legacy Club, a partly open-air lounge on its 60th floor, has some of the most dramatic views of the mountains.

The Lake Como-themed Bellagio was the priciest resort in the world to build when it opened in 1998, ushering in a new demand for luxury in Las Vegas, with its towering verdigris and glass Art Nouveau-inspired Conservatory and Botanical Garden and its nearly nine acres of now-iconic choreographed dancing fountains and 1200 booming water cannons. Over 25 years it has settled into landmark status and is now the very definition of classic Vegas glamour. The best way to enjoy the city’s most iconic free attraction is not from the sidewalk, but from inside one of its lakeside restaurants, like the terrace at Lago by Julian Serrano or Spago, whose tables are nearly on top of the fountains. In the last eight years, Bellagio has renovated all its rooms; most recently, its Spa Tower, which takes design cues from Lake Como and the Alps (think snowy white linens and marble baths and earthy natural tones with punches of bright, lake blue.

One of the most romantic stays, the non-gaming and non-smoking Waldorf Astoria sits in the art-filled CityCenter complex. Its lobby entrance seems unassuming—until you realize that the actual lobby is the 23rd-floor sky lobby with 17-foot floor-to-ceiling windows and sweeping views of the Strip. This hotel is all about personalized service, from the traditional high tea in the 23rd-floor lounge to constantly available personal concierges that wield plenty of power—including in The Shoppes at Crystals, whose private backroom shopping opportunities are legendary. But it’s the hotel’s aquatic deck and two floors devoted to spas and wellness that are the biggest hit with guests who want to trade the scene of the Strip hotels for their own private sanctuary.