Top 10: the best five-star hotels in Las Vegas
An insider's guide to the top five-star hotels in Las Vegas, including the best for palatial bedrooms, poolside nightclubs, spas, panoramic Strip views, understated elegance, large casinos and romantic restaurants.
It's luxury from the get-go at Las Vegas' Mandarin Oriental. As soon as you enter the downstairs lobby, you're greeted with museum-quality Chinese art. An exclusive VIP atmosphere makes a welcome escape from the hoi polloi on the Strip, especially as there’s no casino here. You’ll find nothing sub-par in any of the almost 400 luxurious rooms and suites. Plush contemporary design is soothingly earth-toned. Service is impeccable. Check-in happens in the impressive 23rd-floor sky lobby, with panoramic Strip views, day and night. Afterward, cocoon yourself inside the spa, stretch in the yoga studio, or swim laps in heated pools on an outdoor deck.
• The best hotels in Las Vegas
It's not easy to make an American casino seem elegant, but impresario Steve Wynn has done it at his eponymous Strip hotel. This curvaceous copper-toned high-rise was built on the imploded ashes of the vintage Sands casino, where stars like the Rat Pack once played. Marble walkways inlaid with floral mosaics, jewel-toned carpeting, and windows letting in natural light all add to Wynn's genteel allure. More than 2,700 rooms and suites fill this 45-story hotel; some have panoramic views of the Strip. Spacious resort rooms are done up in soothing earth tones with floor-to-ceiling windows, high thread-count linens, and soaking tubs.
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The Palazzo’s elegance is understated, with spritzing fountains and marble statues in the high-ceilinged lobby. Rooms border on palatial, with more than 3,000 posh suites featuring high-thread count linens, sunken living rooms with rich furnishings, and marble baths with spa robes and slippers to cosy up in. There are more than enough top chefs’ restaurants to graze for a few days here, from Table 10 by Emeril Lagasse to Cut steakhouse imported from Beverly Hills by Wolfgang Puck. Sexy lounges for imbibing abound throughout the casino and adjacent shopping mall. The Canyon Ranch SpaClub, inside the next-door Venetian’s Grand Canal Shoppes, is top-flight.
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This boutique hotel (by Las Vegas' standards) is an elegant oasis set apart from the madness of the Strip. An expansive, high-ceilinged lobby clad in cool marble and warm wood panels welcomes arriving guests. White rattan and camel-coloured leather lounge chairs look out onto a private pool area, lushly landscaped by palm trees. More than 400 gorgeous rooms and suites beckon on the 35th to 39th floors of a gold-tinted tower. Retreat to your luxurious hotel room and a rooftop swimming pool fringed by palm trees.
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The Bellagio is centrally located on the “Strip” – the place to be in Las Vegas – but is set back from the noise and hustle behind its celebrated fountains. Don’t get the wrong idea about the Bellagio just because it has appeared in a host of films: it’s not all glitzy surface and no style. Quite the contrary: there’s the obligatory big casino, of course, and it has plenty of the ostentation you’d expect in Las Vegas, but it is also a sleek, well-run and well-presented hotel. And despite having 3,933 rooms and suites, it doesn’t feel impersonal: while the public spaces are vast, the rooms are private, intimate and restful. There's a dozen or so places to eat, covering a wide culinary spectrum and with well-defined formal and informal options.
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The genius of Steve Wynn has struck again: how else to explain a casino that looks so gorgeous? Everywhere you turn are blooming flower bouquets, gilt tile work, plush royal-purple and rouge-red carpeting, and perfumed scents. It’s an almost completely kitsch-free zone (well, except for those slot machines). Although this high-rise hotel feels intimate, more than 2,000 five-star rooms and suites are housed inside. All come with mod cons, pillow-top beds, and dual-sink bathrooms outfitted with deep soaking tubs, TVs and yes, telephones. Highly professional, motivated staff work hard to meet every need. Encore guests enjoy the full amenities of the connected Wynn resort, plus special access to Encore’s summer beach club and poolside nightclubs.
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Among the Strip’s most romantic resorts, the luxurious Venetian charms even long-time Vegas visitors. Gaze at singing gondoliers plying the canals, feast at a star chef’s table or bag fashions at the Grand Canal Shoppes. Out front are replicas of the Rialto Bridge and the Campanile di San Marco tower. Cinematic canals wind around and through the property. Unlike many other Strip casinos, the Venetian is light-filled, with vaulted ceilings, marble floors and the aroma of flowers floating through the air. Each of the hotel's more than 4000 suites is unusually spacious, featuring a separate living area and one king or two queen-sized beds behind a wrought metal fence on another level.
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The Cosmo breaks the casino hotel archetype, its cutting-edge contemporary décor (notice the digital new-media art collection on the walls) mixed with vintage touches like champagne-pink chandeliers. Almost 3,000 clean-lined, contemporary rooms and suites were originally designed as condominiums. Terrace suites possess private wrap-around patios with sparkling city views. Cosmo’s star chef line-up is impressive, and even the casual Wicked Spoon Buffet has garnered ace reviews. The triple-decker Chandelier Bar, with its shimmering curtains, is the place for cocktails, but the Bond Bar gives it some svelte competition with trend-setting DJs.
Adapting Miami’s chic South Beach style to the Nevada desert, the contemporary Delano spells sophistication. Enter the lobby, hung with gauzy white curtains, by waltzing down the Colorado River-patterned carpet, then inhale the sweetly perfumed air. Whimsical quotes from famous people are everywhere you look – written on chalkboards by the lift, or printed on a card placed on your bed. High inside a 64-floor, gold leaf-flecked glass tower, Delano’s 1,117 hotel suites offer creamy, white leather headboards, gold-accented furnishings and sensual photographs which set the mood.
• Las Vegas hotels for pool parties
This Greco-Romanesque casino resort is a Vegas classic and completely over-the-top, from the giant statuary and Colosseum concert hall to a sprawling pool complex where bronzed gods and goddesses laze in cabanas. Cocktail waitresses still wear mini-skirted toga-inspired dresses. Replicas of famous Greek and Roman statuary abound in the gargantuan twin casinos and around the sparkling pools and fountains. Though kitschy, it’s also a touch glamorous. Movie-worthy crowds of beautiful people lounge at the gaming tables, and everything looks larger-than-life, even the roulette wheels. A mind-boggling 4,000 rooms and suites fill the hotel’s six towers. The most sophisticated room designs are in the Julius Tower, where slate grey, cream and charcoal colour palettes set off accents like gold ottomans and aqua bedside lamps.
