It seems as if Halloween has reached critical mass in Las Vegas this year. Already we’ve seen the opening of Eli Roth’s Goretorium, The Amazing Johnathan’s Screamont Experiment and Fremont Street Experience’s Asylum. That’s before we even get to Mandalay Bay’s Haunted Hotel Ball (Oct. 27), Haunted Reef (Oct. 26-28), Madame Tussauds After Dark (Oct. 26-28) and others. But the one that started it all, or the one that’s at least had the audacity to stick around for a whole decade, is Circus Circus’ theme park-turned-haunted attraction, Fright Dome (“Decade of the Dead”).
By day, Adventuredome is your average theme park underneath a pink dome, complete with a loop-the-loop roller coaster, Rim Runner log flume, Sling Shot, Chaos, Disk’O and other thrill rides. But come 7 p.m., it transforms into Fright Dome, home to haunted houses, scare zones and all those daytime rides, which have now become all the more frightening in the dark.
Not half as scary but just as riveting and almost three times as enduring is Legends in Concert (“Off the Bucket List”), the long-running tribute show at Harrah’s that celebrated 29 years on the Strip earlier this year. Because the lineup changes so often, it’s one of those shows you can go back to over and over again without fear of redundancy. When I first saw it more than three years ago, Garth Brooks, The Temptations, Jay Leno and Whitney Houston were all part of the show; this week, you can expect Adele, Justin Timberlake, Michael Jackson, Blues Brothers and, yes, Houston, whose untimely death earlier this year has made her in demand on the tribute circuit.
With more than 500 items at any given time, the new $17 million Bacchanal Buffet (“Roman Decadence”) at Caesars Palace is practically a required visit these days. The word on the street is that breakfast is particularly impressive, but a recent dinner there revealed expert touches, from dim sum and carving stations to dessert.
