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# Viva Las Vegas! A look at sin city through virgin eyes
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/viva-las-vegas-a-look-at-sin-city-through-virgin-eyes/
- Published: 2004-02-19T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T23:16:24.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica Airport, #archive-import

*By Amy Perritt*

Visit Las Vegas — it’s a must. From here, one just has to get on the I-15 north to arrive in Las Vegas in about four hours. It will be bumper to bumper at times, but it’s worth it. Every dollar saved by not buying a plane ticket is another chip for the slot machines.

Of course, the choice to fly is always there. Nowadays, a round trip fare to Las Vegas can be as low as $100 and arrival time is within the same hour as departure.

In the ’70s, flight attendants (stewardesses back then) would ask everyone to place a dollar in a bag and their boarding pass in another. The person whose pass was drawn collected the money.

Thirty years later the big-money excitement is equally as sophisticated. Upon walking off the plane at McCarran International Airport during my first visit to Vegas, I was met by a receiving line of slot machines. Their bright lights and polished chrome smiled welcome. Such warm hospitality!

While waiting for my suitcase, I was able to bet the $20 my friend gave me to gamble for her. Imagine. I could’ve been “up” before ever leaving the airport.

And that’s just the beginning. Another feature that makes Las Vegas a fierce competitor amongst other tourist destinations is the short 10-minute taxi ride between the airport and the strip. Before you know it, the cab driver will have delivered you to your hotel. You’ll be equipped with the latest Celine Dion saga and Siegfried and Roy joke; you’ll have made it through the hotel check-in line; and, you’ll find yourself forever lost in the casino searching for your hotel room.

You’d think the Vegas hoteliers would have spent more time and consideration mapping the flow within their hotels before painting their ceilings sky blue with white fluffy clouds. What sort of first impression is it for jet-legged, small-town tourists lugging their suitcases through rows of slot machines, clusters of black jack tables and unconcerned gamblers drinking “free” booze?

Isn’t Las Vegas lucky to have such customer-oriented cab drivers who keep bags in their cars for clients who need to throw up? That’s value-added service — service was when my cab driver spent several hours one morning calling around to hotels on behalf of a customer who couldn’t remember where he was staying.

“It happens,” the cab driver explained. “You’re gambling and drinking all night and then you step outside and the sunshine and fresh air just hit you.” Huh?

Anyway, I bet you Vegas cabbies don’t accelerate their meter speed.

Kudos to the female waitresses in all of the hotels. Rarely seen in most cities today, these ambassadors abide by what appears to be a dress code —high heels, short skirts, tight tops and breasts with deep cleavage squeezing out of them. Amongst the smoke-filled casinos decorated with brown carpeting and orange curtains, men hoot and holler from craps tables raising their fists in the air. Always on their feet, you wonder how these women keep from spilling their trays, heavy laden with beer bottles, all over them.

There is the magnificent Hoover Dam in Black Canyon just a short 25-minute drive from the center of Vegas. In the early ’30s, men died building the monolithic structure that provides electricity to Southern California. Tourists can also drive four or so more hours to view Arizona’s Grand Canyon. The chasm leaves one speechless.

But who needs a natural wonder of the world when you’ve got Paris’ Eiffel Tower, New York’s Statue of Liberty and a wax museum full of stars including two versions of Elvis Presley — fat and not-so-fat? These landmarks are an easy walk from your hotel, nestled between casinos in all shapes and sizes for your gambling pleasure.

For the active tourist, there are full-service fitness centers in the hotels — $30 for an all-day pass — if you could find them. But who can afford to spend the table price of two rounds of blackjack to run on a treadmill when you’re down and you owe your friend $20?

Still today, more than 50 years after The Flamingo opened its doors, anything goes in Vegas. I just wonder what message we’re sending the children walking around the casino at one o’clock in the morning with their parents? (You can reach Amy at).

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 19, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/021904.pdf?ref=smdp.com)