Las Vegas Advisor: Holiday spirit on display in Vegas

With a week to go before the New Year’s rush, there’s still time to experience the Las Vegas holiday scene, as lots of spots run their holiday festivities into January. Some of the standouts are “Holiday at the Park” in The Park at New York-New York, which, for the third year in a row boasts the city’s tallest tree at 80 feet.

Other places to take in free holiday events include the LINQ Promenade (nightly snow), Green Valley Ranch and Red Rock Resort (“Winter’s Village”), Sam’s Town’s Mystic Falls (holiday laser show and “Cowboy Santa”), Silverton (“Underwater Santa”), Bellagio Conservatory &Botanical Gardens, Venetian/Palazzo display, the Fremont Street Experience, Fashion Show Mall and the Town Square and Tivoli Village shopping districts.

Free ride: The Regional Transportation Commission is offering free rides on all 39 routes starting at 6 p.m. on New Year’s Eve and running through 9 a.m. the next morning. All riders can simply board any fixed-route vehicle without purchasing a fare or presenting a pass. The free rides include express services between all park-and-ride facilities and downtown Las Vegas.

Paid parking pull-back: Chalk up another Strip casino backtracking on parking fees. The Cosmopolitan has announced that starting Jan. 1, it will no longer charge hotel guests for self-parking and valet service. Instead, parking will be incorporated into the resort fee, which will go up from $35 to $39. Visitors who aren’t guests of the hotel will still have to pay to park with charges starting at $7 for one to four hours and topping out at $18 for the day.

Question: How many hotel rooms are there in Las Vegas?

Answer: The official count is 146,993, which should hold through most of 2019. In 2020 the count will jump drastically, with major openings, including Resorts World Las Vegas and The Drew, both on the north end of the Strip.

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