The Most Un-Vegas Thing You Can Do in Vegas

We took a trip to Las Vegas in May but I’m not the biggest fan of the city which is why I haven’t posted anything about it.  This last time especially it felt like prices had really gotten out of control.

You know the free cup of coffee that motels put in your room, the paper cup with powder creamer and tiny plastic straw for stirring? Not free at The Delano. That shit was $6.  SIX DOLLARS!!!

Okay, I’m done complaining.

An Exhibit of Titanic Proportions

The real highlight of the trip was the Titanic Exhibit at the Luxor Hotel.  If you don’t gamble, don’t eat, don’t drink (aka, don’t DO Vegas) but find yourself there anyway, DO THIS. In fact, even if you love those other things you should still do this.

The “exhibit” is in the lobby of the Luxor.  I put that in quotes because it is actually an amazing museum.  Once you step inside you immediately forget that you are in a giant hotel modeled after an Egyptian pyramid.

An adult ticket is only $32 which is like 15 minutes of a Cirque du Soleil show.

It’s done up as if you’re boarding the Titanic yourself. You get a “boarding pass” that has a little bio on the back that tells you who you are. At the end of the journey, a large wall lists all of the passengers – and you can see if you survived or perished.

Although “I” survived, it was still heartbreaking to see the list of all the people who didn’t.

 

On The Ship

Inside, the floor vibrates, the air hums, and you feel as if you are below deck on a real ship.  It’s uncanny.  The museum takes you through all of the different areas of the ship, including the outside deck which is chilled to some ungodly temperature to mimic the actual air that night. (Although I don’t think it’s quite as cold.)

There is a real iceberg out there. A REAL (faux) ICEBERG! You can touch it and imagine how cold the water around must have been to make chunks of it actually freeze into ice.  Instructions on a plaque invite you to keep your hand on it as long as you can.  I lasted about 5 seconds.

Kind of a terrible photo of the iceberg that I sniped from the Luxor’s website. It’s way cooler in person.

Then Comes the Most Awesome Part

There is a huge – the largest ever surfaced, in fact – segment of the actual Titanic ship on display.  It is truly amazing to see the gargantuan size of this thing and know that it’s only a tiny piece of the whole.

What’s even crazier? It cost like $2 million and 2 years to work out a plan to bring it to the surface and when they did – ooops, the chain broke and down, down, down it went. Back to the murky depths. It wasn’t until another 2 years and $2 million later that they were able to “Take 2” and get it successfully out of the water. (Timelines and amounts might not be exact here.  I tried to find this online and couldn’t so I’m just going from what I remember of what the plaque at the exhibit said.)

I’ve seen many Cirque du Soleil shows in my life (and they’re awesome) but this was such an amazing piece of history, and so well done.  I just can’t believe it’s in Vegas.

Bravo, Luxor. Bravo.