I just gotta ask... First time ever visiting Las Vegas. And I gotta say... I am enjoying the atmosphere of these mega resorts more than I am Epcot these days..
..some of these places are like Epcot in crack! Did the Epcot imagineers pack up and move to Vegas??? This place is amazing!!
You should have seen it in the 90s and early 2000s with all the actual themed entertainment too. And yes, many projects were done by former imagineers. Huge moving AND sinking sailing ships... elaborate dining theatre... the Star Trek Experience. All things that rivaled Disney and in many ways exceeded Disney in pockets.
The rise of the kind of work that was done in Vegas (and since, other locations) were prime reasons I always said Disney had lost it's lead. When Disney did things like the immersive hotels in the 70s, and EPCOT in the 80s... there was nothing like it. But in the 20 years after, people looked at what Disney did, took the concepts, did it themselves, and in many ways bigger, more elaborate and better.
"Others have caught up to Disney, and Disney is no longer so unique and out ahead of everyone" -- That's what concluded when I went back to WDW in the early 2000s after a long break. And it's also why so many people bash on Disney fans who think Disney can do no wrong, when they literally haven't gotten around to sample what others have been doing since Disney built it's reputation decades earlier. The water parks were the only area people hadn't really caught up to Disney's efforts at the time.
The big pyramid, the Italy resort... Absolutely insane. I'd argue some of these resorts do a better job on theming than quite literally any modern day Disney architecture.
Unfortunately most of those mega themed resorts are just a shell of what they used to be. Once Vegas dropped the idea of becoming a family vacation resort, and moved onto 'ultra lounges' and the like... the big over the top fantasy theming all basically got gutted and just left there for visuals. And that switch in trends was almost 20years ago.. so most of the remaining stuff is REALLY long in the tooth.
Luxor would have live characters based on eygption art... shows... Excalibur had shows with knights and horses.. Mirage had it's gardens and the S&R tigers... Ceasers would have Roman soldiers marching around and streetmosphere like characters. Treasure Island had a nighttime stunt show performance that could rival any theme park show and had far more impressive stage effects (Thanks Bob Gurr!)
Now you get ultra luxury like Wynn, etc. But you can still get great environments like what was built at Venentian, Bellagio, etc... because those were still easily adult focused.
