DAY ONE

Start your morning at the Bellagio Conservatory while the casino floors are relatively quiet. Seasonal botanical installations fill the glass-ceilinged space with suspended sculptures, thousands of flowers and elaborate displays rebuilt entirely several times a year. Outside, the fountains begin their first performances across the lake beneath the Strip’s gradually intensifying noise and traffic.

Before lunch – and preferably before several glasses of wine – step into one of the High Roller’s spherical cabins and rise above the bustling Las Vegas Strip, watching the resort pools, casino towers and multilane boulevards spread out below in every direction, the scale becoming much easier to understand from here than it ever does at street level.

Time for lunch around the Bellagio fountains. Mon Ami Gabi at Paris Las Vegas is one of the best positions on the Strip for people-watching over steak frites, onion soup and uninterrupted views across the water towards the Bellagio opposite, particularly once the fountain performances begin gathering crowds along the railings outside

This afternoon, pay a visit to the Grand Canal Shoppes at the Venetian, which lovingly reimagines Venice at sufficient scale and conviction that the gondoliers on the indoor canals feel less absurd than they probably should. The Forum Shops at Caesars are similarly committed to their Roman theme. Neither makes much architectural sense and both are entirely worth seeing.

As evening falls, The Chandelier inside The Cosmopolitan is one of the more visually surreal places for a cocktail on the Strip. A three-storey bar set inside a giant chandelier hanging through the centre of the resort, it’s worth experiencing for the space alone: part playground, part art installation, part cocktail haven.

Dinner awaits at Joël Robuchon at MGM Grand – the only Las Vegas restaurant ever awarded three Michelin stars, now continuing under executive chef Eleazar Villanueva. The city’s most formally ambitious dining room – modelled on a 1930s Parisian mansion and restrained by Las Vegas standards (think deep purple velvet, dark wood and quiet formality) – keeps the focus on the precision of the 16-course tasting menu, the bread cart and the petit fours, making no concessions to the casino surrounding it.

Afterwards, O by Cirque du Soleil still justifies its reputation: acrobatics, synchronised swimming and aerial performance staged above and inside a vast custom-built pool unlike anything possible on a touring production. A final drink at Bar Parasol beneath the Wynn’s 40-foot waterfall and Lake of Dreams light show keeps the night going without needing to return to the casino.

DAY TWO

Begin your morning by leaving The Strip behind. Head towards Red Rock Canyon with a private guide, where casino towers quickly give way to Mojave desert, sandstone cliffs and empty roads cutting through the landscape west of the city. Guided hikes and rock climbing excursions reveal a side of Nevada that feels almost incompatible with the version of Las Vegas most visitors know, particularly once the silence of the desert replaces the constant soundtrack of slot machines and traffic.

Lunchtime beckons at Lotus of Siam, which has become practically obligatory for anyone seriously interested in food in Las Vegas. Having just returned to its original location on East Sahara Avenue after a five-year absence, this is where chef Saipin Chutima earned a James Beard Award and Jonathan Gold, the Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic, declared it the finest Thai restaurant in North America. Long before the city became a recognised dining destination, the restaurant built its reputation on Northern Thai cooking, and dishes like garlic prawns, khao soi and crispy duck curry continue to justify the near-constant demand for reservations.

Your afternoon leads you downtown around Fremont Street, where echoes of the city’s earlier gambling culture endure beneath the enormous Viva Vision canopy overhead. The Neon Museum presents a visual history of Las Vegas through retired casino signs from across the city, arranged through the outdoor “boneyard” – Stardust, Caesars Palace, Golden Nugget and Moulin Rouge among them. The guided tours are worth booking in advance, particularly the Brilliant! light show when the signs are partially reilluminated after dark.

A sunset helicopter tour over the Strip as the light drops and the neon builds is one of the experiences that explains Las Vegas best – isolated towers of neon and LED light rising abruptly from complete darkness in the middle of the Mojave, making the city’s improbability suddenly and completely visible from above.

For dinner, é by José Andrés is unlike anything else in Las Vegas or anywhere else. Hidden discreetly inside Jaleo at The Cosmopolitan, there’s just one table, ine counter seats and a 20-course tasting menu – smoke, liquid nitrogen, sculptural plating and intensely technical Spanish cooking – prepared inches in front of you by a dedicated kitchen team using the avant-garde techniques Andrés helped pioneer at El Bulli. Tickets open three months in advance and disappear quickly – this is the reservation to make before anything else in the itinerary.

DAY THREE

Your final morning is crying out for a visit to the hotel pool before the city fully wakes up: think private cabana service, poolside breakfast and the particular Las Vegas luxury of having nowhere specific to be before noon.

Midday at Qua Baths & Spa at Caesars Palace feels far removed from the casino floors outside. Recently reopened following extensive renovations, the spa reinterprets Roman bathing traditions through steam rooms, plunge pools, heated stone loungers and the Arctic Ice Room, where artificial snow falls gently from the ceiling throughout the day. The atmosphere is unapologetically theatrical – very Caesars, very Las Vegas – though the treatment rooms and thermal spaces are somehow surprisingly calming once inside.

A special lunch at Bardot Brasserie, Michael Mina’s French brasserie inside Aria, keeps things comfortably indulgent – oysters, steak tartare, French onion soup and champagne in a room that feels deliberately more Parisian brasserie than Las Vegas spectacle.

Afternoon adventures begin at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art, which offers something quite unexpected on the Strip – a rotating programme of museum-quality exhibitions in a compact gallery that has previously shown Picasso, Monet, Warhol and Lichtenstein. An hour here, then across to Ghost Donkey at The Cosmopolitan – the mezcal and tequila bar behind the unmarked donkey door in the Block 16 food court – for a masterclass in agave spirits.

For your farewell dinner, Carbone Riviera at the Bellagio leans fully into old-school glamour – tuxedoed service, red leather banquettes, strong martinis and Italian-American classics delivered with the kind of confidence Las Vegas understands instinctively. Having opened in November 2025 in the former Picasso space, spicy rigatoni vodka, veal parmesan, whole fish and caesar salad are presented tableside, all arriving with a deliberate flourish; the room itself feeling more like a film set version of mid-century Riviera excess than a conventional restaurant. A 33-foot Riva yacht is moored at the waterfront terrace for private rides across the Bellagio lagoon while the fountains perform beyond. It’s a fitting Las Vegas ending: operatic, slightly improbable and entirely committed to its own logic.