It may seem as though a Christmas trip to Las Vegas stands in complete contrast to a trip to Disney World, where my family went last year for Christmas, as Vegas is known as Sin City and Disney World is known as the happiest place on Earth. The contrast is even more marked because Vegas is often thought to be adult Disney World. Now that I have visited both places with the same people during the same holiday, I must say that the two places have more in common than you would expect. I write today from a place of knowledge, having seen the highlights of both locations. So that you don’t have to make the back alley detours yourself, I will present to you the similarities and difference between Disney World and Las Vegas.
1. The Lights
Both Disney and Vegas are covered with lights. Many of the lights at Disney World are put up especially for Christmas, whereas the lights in Vegas are on all year round, especially in Downtown Las Vegas. Both locations have lights in the shape various characters. Disney favours the shape of Mickey Mouse, its most famous character, while Vegas favours the shape of dancing girls, its most infamous attraction. The lights make the streets bright, though I doubt that anyone has been blinded by Cinderella’s Castle in the way one might be blinded by the lights on The Flamingo.
2. The Themes
Everything in Disney World and Las Vegas is themed. Both places take their themes to a point of obsession. Disney World is a theme park, so it makes sense that rides and attractions follow a given theme. Of course there are animals at Animal Kingdom, that’s to be expected. The presence of a replica Kilimanjaro certainly takes the theme to a new level. (My photos of Animal Kingdom certainly looks like I’m somewhere more interesting than Orlando.) Hollywood Studios replicates Hollywood in various eras. Epcot created an imitation Mayan temple for the Mexico pavilion, and created a less claustrophobic Casbah for Morocco. Las Vegas Strip also imitates world famous sites, with an Eiffel Tower for the Paris Hotel and Casino, and a Statue of Liberty for the New York-New York Casino. The Luxor takes its theme to the next level with a model sphinx standing outside a hotel that is shaped like a pyramid. The only thing that Vegas is missing is lovable cast of anthropomorphic animals, but the city has enough characters as it is, and I certainly don’t want to see any of them in costume.
3. The Christmas Decorations
Disney World is beautiful at Christmas, with trees decorated according the park or resort theme. Magic Kingdom’s decorations centre around the characters, while Epcot focuses on Christmas celebrations around the world. Nightly shows include choirs and fireworks. The hotels and casinos on the Las Vegas Strip are similarly decorated. The Venetian’s holiday theme was called Winter in Venice, complete with masked figures break dancing to Christmas carols. (The break dancing was awkwardly performed and had little to do with winter or Venice, but I appreciated the thought none the less.) The holiday theme in Downtown Las Vegas seems to be A Scooby Doo Villain’s Christmas Vacation. Nightly shows include classic rock cover bands, strippers and old men drinking out of paper bags.
4. The Food
Both Disney and Vegas offer refillable drinking cups shaped like Buzz Lightyear and Eiffel Tower, respectively. The size of the cups is similar across both destinations, as is the accessibility to beverages. The difference is what goes in the cups. In the Disney resorts, the cups are used so that children can drink enough sweet tea to kill a man. It’s the economic drinking choice, as the refills are free for the whole family. In Vegas, the cups are filled with alcoholic slushies – twenty-six flavours of them if you buy your drinks at La Bayou – because you can drink all day and drink in the streets. Downtown Disney allows for drinking in the streets, but only on Pleasure Island, which only sounds like a strip club. In Las Vegas, you can drink anywhere. At least, it seems like you can drink anywhere. I didn’t want to try this off of the Strip or the Fremont Street Experience, in part because I would look strange walking around UNLV’s dental school with a margarita in a football cup, but mainly because I didn’t want to see what they would be drinking in the back alleys of Downtown.
The buffet features prominently at both locations, as do excessively long lines for burgers. There are restaurants at all the Disney resorts, which, of course, adhere to a theme. (I like the flaming torching at the Polynesian’s restaurant.) In Vegas, the restaurant possibilities are endless. There were twenty in The Venetian alone, ranging from Japanese-Brazilian fusion to pizza places offering the same pepperoni pizza twenty-four hours a day.
5. The People
I expected to see the young and the old at Disney World, but I was surprised to see the same range of ages in Vegas. There were children with their parents walking around casinos. Four girls in high heels wiped out over a stroller. There were the people that you expect to see in Vegas, hence the Scooby Doo villains. Christmas time in Vegas is the slow season, so there are fewer people in clubs and casinos. Instead, there are long lines for Denny’s and McDonald’s. Disney, on the other hand, experiences its busiest season of the year. It was mayhem when we were there, with crowds blocking paths with their babies and Mickey Mouse ears. I waited an hour and a half in line alone to go on the Tower of Terror. (Neither of my parents like rides.) Unlike the people in lines in Vegas, the people at Disney are generally safe to talk to. I talked to very nice siblings from Puerto Rico, and then I talked to a family that like me so much, I think their mother wanted to set me up with her son in community college. And in spite of what my stories of Vegas suggest, we actually met some nice people. A man on Fremont Street got us change from his car when we didn’t have any quarters for the parking meter. It goes to show you that there are nice people everywhere, but it’s probably best you don’t approach them on a darkened street in the middle of the night.
Whether you’re in Disney World or Las Vegas, what matters most are the people you’re with. That, and the beverages. The beverages always help.
Song of the Day: Waking Up in Vegas by Katy Perry
