VegasChatter

Tags: Snapshot / Earth Hour / Green Vegas / → All Tags

Don't Be Scared, This Is Just Vegas Being Green

Is this a scene from a movie? Has the apocalypse come*? Did the combo of Jay Z and John Mayer in town blow the fuses? Nah, it was only Vegas on Saturday night, after most of the Strip turned off its lights between 8.30pm and 9.30pm in observance of Earth Hour.

A big thumbs up to all the casinos that did power down. A big middle finger up to the Stratosphere which, according to Norm Clarke, was merrily blazing away as everyone else was dark, and to Fremont Street, which declined to partake in the experience.

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Tags: Green Vegas / Luxor / Snapshot / → All Tags

Surprise Of The Day: Luxor is Hot For Recycling

Normally when we write about Luxor we feel like we have a bit of a downer on it (well if they will employ Criss Angel, have a stupid no photo rule or run possibly fake competitions and offers…)

But today, we’re pleased to report that Luxor is in our good books because it recycles! Who’d have thought it?

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Tags: Green Vegas / McCarran / Snapshot / → All Tags

If Only The Rest of Vegas Would Follow McCarran's Green Lead

We’re just off down to McCarran to await the arrival of Mr President for the next four hours. Not that we mind too much – apart from the fact that the travel geek in us is highly excited about seeing Air Force One touch down on Vegas tarmac, we also thoroughly approve of McCarran’s green policies.

We’d seen the “McCarran’s going green” signs before, of course, but it was only the last time we went through that we realized just how far ahead it is than most of the rest of Vegas – and by “just how far ahead”, we mean “light years ahead”.

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Tags: Celebs in Vegas / Vdara / CityCenter / Green Vegas / The Crystals / → All Tags

Orlando Bloom Is Guest of Honor at Vdara's Opening

And there we were getting excited about Eva Longoria Parker coming along to open Beso in The Crystals. Today, we found out the guests of honour at the Vanity Fair opening party for Vdara: Orlando Bloom and Rosario Dawson.

It’s not all glitz though – the eco message will be fairly prominent too. The evening will be hosted by Sebastian Copeland, photographer, green campaigner and, incidentally, Mr Bloom’s cousin.

The evening will double as the launch for the Sebastian Copeland Foundation – which will be campaigning against climate change. Will CityCenter turn Vegas into an eco paradise? That’ll be one to watch. Meanwhile, we're hoping Orlando's not flying into town.

[Photo: Nettekeyif.net]

Tags: CityCenter / Vdara / Spas / Vdara Health and Beauty / Green Vegas / → All Tags

Do Not Call It a Spa But Rather, Vdara Health and Beauty

With only one month left until the first building in CityCenter opens, The Vdara Hotel and Spa, you can expect press releases to hit the wire at least daily about all that's opening inside CityCenter. We'll do our best to report on them as we see 'em, starting with this announcement on the Vdara Health and Beauty also known as "The Spa."

As you can gather, Vdara is trying to move away from all previous connotations that the word "spa" might bring to mind. So will Vdara Health and Beauty be all that different from other spa offerings on the Strip? Yes and no.

Yes, because the hotel is heavily emphasizing its eco-friendliness and green options from the organic elements incorporated into spa treatments to the natural products that will be sold post-treatments to the SpaRitual vegan nail treatments and nail care products offered in the Salon. Vegan nail treatments? That's really going above and beyond CityCenter's LEED Certification.

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Tags: CityCenter / Green Vegas / LEED / → All Tags

CityCenter Hopes to See Green for Being Green

Not only is it big, it's also green. The LVRJ reports that the massive CityCenter has been awarded Leadership in Energy and Environment (LEED) certification for two of its buildings, Aria Hotel and the Vdara hotel/condo tower. According to the story, the CityCenter resorts are the largest hotels in the country to earn the LEED Gold status and naturally, the CityCenter folks are eager to shout the accomplishment from the rooftops.

Some of the features that earned CityCenter its LEED rating include the first-ever fleet of stretch limos powered by clean-burning, compressed natural gas (cool), an 8.5-megawatt onsite natural gas/co-generation power plant, and the reuse/recycling of 97 percent of the materials from the old Boardwalk Hotel-Casino that was imploded to make way for the megaresort development.

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Tags: The Palms / Green Vegas / Pools / DJs / Music / Technology / → All Tags

The DJ Booth at The Palms Pool is Actually Good For the Earth

The next time you find yourself laying out by the pool at The Palms, feeling slightly guilty because you've been drinking too much, eating too much, flirting too much and gambling too much, here's a thought to quell your fears about over-partying---that music coming from the DJ booth and to which you are dirty-dancing is actually helping the environment.

That's right. The DJ booth by the pool is solar-powered--a first in Las Vegas.

The DJ booth, built by Sustainable Waves, uses Sharp solar panels to capture power directly from the pool deck and Outback inverters to convert the sun’s energy into 110 volts of electricity to rock the pool. Palms Pool sponsor Miller Lite is also a sponsor of the solar-powered DJ booth.

So keep on doing the Soulja Boy "Crank Dat" dance or the Tootsee Roll or whatever it is the kids are doing these days. It's good for the earth!

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Tags: Transportation / Getting Around / LV Monorail / Green Vegas / Recession Vegas Style / → All Tags

Riding the Rails, The Las Vegas Monorail That Is

It’s been almost a half-decade since the Las Vegas Monorail debuted on the scene in all its 1960s Disneyland, space-age glory. Some of us at the time wondered what all the fuss was about. I mean, weren’t monorails so…well, 1960s Disneyland? Hadn’t a monorail and its snake-oil salesman promoter been convincingly lampooned on an early episode of “The Simpsons”? With a free monorail operating between properties on the west side of the Strip (Mandalay Bay – Luxor – Excalibur and Mirage – TI), would people be expected to pay to ride this one?

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