I spent the week in the New York New York hotel in Las Vegas on a family holiday, The Hotel is well suited for combining a holiday with some spotting time.
When booking you need to make sure you book a strip view
room, any of the rooms in any of the towers will work, The higher the
better. We were allocated 1872 which was
ideal, In my very limited experience there is little point in trying to
negotiate with the front desk for a room change or a specific room as all
allocations seem to be controlled remotely by a central reservations team and
whilst they can and will ask for a change the front desk staff have no authority
to make their own decisions.
Spotting will require electronics and nothing can be read
off, The hotel is also too far away for any photography but views are good.
Following the demolition of the Tropicana hotel there is currently a relatively
unrestricted view over the airport, with only Terminal 3. the D gates and Cargo being out
of view however, crucially all four runways can be seen so nothing will be
missed. I believe it should remain this way for much of 2026 however
construction of the Major League Baseball stadium and NBA stadium on the site
has started and depending on the hight of these facilities views may be
interrupted. Even of this were the case there should still be gaps between buildings
for nothing to be missed.
Whilst Las Vegas is well known from a purely spotting perspective there are a few tips that can assist with combing it with a holiday. Firstly I don’t do biz so that made life a lot easier for me.
On a more general point Las Vegas is all about “the strip” which runs adjacent to the airport, In General the further South your hotel is the better the view but most hotels will work. If your hotel is on the west side of the strip then you need a strip facing room which are generally more expensive, if your hotel is to the east of the strip then a strip facing room wont work and you need a cheaper non strip view. In general this holds good however there are a few exceptions such as Caesars palace and some rooms of the MGM Grand where rooms are adjacent to the strip.
Aircraft departing from Runway 26L will fly over the strip on departure and can bee seen if you are outdoors. Aircraft departing from 1R headed North or East will turn right after departure and not overfly the strip. Departures to the West or south will bank sharply and overfly the strip. That said we were there in the winter when temperatures were in the 20’s I cant imagine you will want to spend much time outside in summer when its in the 40’s.
