What did you do there? Would you do it again or not?

I went with dh. I wouldn't bring my child. They smoke in the casinos and food places. Also, there are people who hand out "baseball" cards on the street to anyone, including young kids. The cards show sexually explicit images of naked women (advertising legal prostitution). You would think that they would have enough decency NOT to hand them out to kids. But it IS Sin City. There are scantily clad women walking around too. For me, it's adults only in Vegas.

I was under the impression that it is much
more family oriented lately. The place with
the roller coaster on top and lots of G rated
entertainment.
When were you last there?
Jen

I do Jen, but it is not totally fair that I jump in becuase I was born adn raised there and my family is there.

However, there are lots of places besides the strip you can go.

Red Rock Canyon is awesome nature. You can do hikes and have lovely picnics out there.

Lake Mead if you like the lake scene and Hoover Dam is interesting.

There are hot springs outside the city (can't remember where they are)
and petting zoo's and Mt Charleston if you need to get into snow:)

Gosh, it has been so long since I lived there I am not up to speed on everything that can be done there, but they have the past decade, become more family friendy.

My husband had a business conference there five years ago and we went as a family. We stayed at the MGM Grand, and while Scott was doing his conference I took the kids (ages 1, 4, and 6 1/2) around to see the sights.

We did not have a car so we walked everywhere. It was kind of fun, and we found lots to see, but dh and I decided that we probably wouldn't choose to take kids there again.

First, there are escelators (sp?) everywhere, so strollers would have been a pain. My two older children walked and I slung the baby. You cannot take children to the gambling floors and they are very strict about that--so that wouldnt' be something you and dh could do. Some of the hotels have things that are of interest to kids (MGM had lions, Cesaer's Palace had the white tigers and dolphin habitat which were free, the Luxor had a king tut exhibit, and the Excalibur had some neat storytellers and knights/ladies-in-waiting stuff), but if you want to go to any shows, know that you'll have to pay full-price for your kids. The biggest hit was the burning pirate ship outside of one of the hotels. I know that the MGM has a cool water park and amusement park, but it was closed when we were there (and it was in Feb, so it was too cold to swim) (We wanted to take my magic-interested son to see a magic show, and it was going to cost our whole family over $300 to go!)

Hope that helps!



I'm glad we went, but wouldn't choose to do it again. We didnt' see any of the "sin city" stuff that the other poster mentioned--but we pretty much stayed in the newer part and not down on the "old strip."

I personally wouldn't take kids to Vegas. I was just there last June and I believe they were changing the kid oriented things back so it's Sin City again. Have you seen the commercials for Vegas lately? :eek: There were pictures/handouts of naked women all over the streets and people handing them out every block or so. This was on the newer strip, not the old Vegas strip. The pirate ship another poster talked about was taken down and a more adult oriented show was being built last I was there. There are some things to do with kids.....Circus Circus, the roller coasters, Excalibur, etc., but to get to them all you have to take the kids thru the smut on the streets. Oh, and another poster talked about strollers.....definitely not possible with all the escalators. Sorry!

I was there recently and would not take my children there.

It's a different story if you are going to the places the organicmama mentioned, but I would not take them close to the strip.

I went years ago when i just had Emaline. She was in first grade at the time.
We had fun. We stayed at the Excalibur. They had kids games downstairs then, not sure if that has cahnged now. We went to the Luxor a lot. Circus Circus always had kids stuff to do. The Treasure Island pirate battle was neat. She loved the white tigers.
We also drove to the Hoover Dam.
Oh and the statues at some mall that come to life, those were neat.
We did a lot of walking and we did run into the people passing out flyers to strip clubs but they never handed one to me or my dd, but they did try to give them to my Dad. We just walked by and they weren't persistent or anything.
And we could walk thru the casinos but not stop in them. We had to walk thru to get to our hotel room anyway, but that might have changed by now I guess.
I don't really gamble, but we took turns going to the casino. I played for all of 5 mins before I decided I didn't ewant to lose all my $$
Mindi

no.. but we live in Vegas LOL

There are lots of kid orientated things to do off the strip.. and there is kid orientated stuff to do on the strip as well. When we go to the strip we typically dont walk down the side walks.. its not necessary.... thats where you will see people who get paid to hand out photos of girls, etc. But almost all of the nice casinos have ways of getting to the other casinos (over the street bridges, free bus/trams, etc) so its easy to avoid all of that stuff if your kids are old enough to notice and be bothered by it. We also use strollers on occassion when we go down there... every hotel has an elevator as well as escalators and have never found ourselves having a problem with it! :) Also many many restaurants are moving to no smoking... tho you can still smoke in most of the casinos or at least in designated areas of it.