At the hotel-condo Vdara, the smallest suites -- and they're all called "suites" even though it appears there's only one room, borrowing from the fraud that the Venetian started -- are 582 square feet, have "fully equipped gourmet kitchens" and start at $214 pre-taxed on that opening evening. For $40 more, they offer "pool view" "lake view" rooms, which makes me wonder (a) what kind of views you get from the other basic suites are ("interstate view" doesn't have a ring to it?) and (b) whether there'll be a TV channel where you can pipe in the Bellagio Fountains music when the show's on. Right now, there's no price difference between a lake view and non-lake view room. Either way, this is what you get:
Here's what they show for a rendering of the Vdara suite, which goes for $315 on opening night and boasts 809 square feet:
It's an odd image inasmuch as there's some sort of red MGM Mirage sign in the window reflection. I'm at a loss to figure out what the artist was trying to say there. Subliminal marketing?
I'm also trying to figure out what's going on in this bathroom shot from the 1,316-square-foot Two-Bedroom Penthouse. (Prices not online, booking not permitted via web.) It looks like those are windows behind the sinks, so what's a shower doing out there suspended in mid-air?
See? There it is again in this photo for the $400, 836-square-foot Panoramic Suite -- windows over the sink. Where do I look when I'm shaving if there's no mirror there? Odd, right?
Here's what the two-story, one-bedroom 948-square-foot Penthouse Suite will look like. If it's two stories and less than 1,000 square feet, that actually strikes me as sort of cramped. But I like look.
The real steal seems to me to be the $149 rates currently available for the night of Dec. 16. If the rest of CityCenter really does open that night, that's going to be an incredible rate to be at the center of all the action.
Also, you can't book at Aria for Dec. 16, at least not yet. The hotel-casino's site only allows you to start booking for Dec. 17. At that point, this is what the basic 520-square-foot room, now priced at $299, looks like:
I am most curious about the Sky Suites and SkyVillas, clearly Aria's version of the SkyLofts at MGM Grand. Here's the image they've got available now...
...and the description:
An alternative-fuel limousine whisks you from the airport to an exclusive arrival under a private porte cochere. Immediately, you are escorted into a separate lobby for your private check-in. Then, after enjoying a drink and hors d'oeuvres in the exclusive ARIA Sky Suites lounge, a private elevator takes you to one-of-a-kind accommodations with custom furnishings, unparalleled amenities, and soaring floor-to-ceiling windows providing dramatic views of the world's most famous skyline.
Nice. Now, let's just hope there's someone with some money to spend on this stuff by the time these places are scheduled to open.
7 comments:
Steve,
The window/mirror transition really throws you. In the first picture, there is a window right next to a mirror. The mirror allows the showing of the shower across the bathroom. In the second, its all mirrors that show an outside view from across the bathroom.
In both cases, look for the faucet reflected in the mirror as the giveaway.
well, no. that doesn't make any sense, either. especially in the second image where you clearly see the bellagio out the window and not as a reflection from behind. And in the first, while there are faucet reflections, the spacial relationships and the various reflections of both solid things and light don't make any visual logic. Are there two showerheads there? Why is the sky unbroken by the end of the window and the beginning of the alleged mirror? This is like a Cezanne.
Was it really Venetian that started the started the one room suite fraud, and not the Rio? I thought I recall that way back when it opened it called itself all suites, even tho the rooms were just large one rooms with a couch and cofee table
the rio "all-suites" does not include two rooms? really?
I think Ryan is right. In the second picture you see the reflection of the Bellagio. The Strip makes a left turn on the picture.
I stayed at a suite in the Aladdin (pre-PHo) and the bathroom had windows over the sinks. Looking out over Bellagio in fact. They had small mirrors on stands between the sink and the window that you could move if you wanted to. Brushing your teeth while watching the fountains was quite cool, I thought.
Re: mirror reflections, I suspect the renderings are too clever, albeit accurate. The first image appears to have a window on the left and a mirror on the right (behind the right sink). The reason the shower looks duplicated is that you see the first image of the shower reflected in the mirror but then the second (more ghostly shower image) is actually the reflection of the shower in the mirror reflected back on the glass of the shower. (Imagine mirrors on opposite walls--you get multiple reflected images).
You can see the floorplans for the suites now on the Vdara website.
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