A Bellagio Adventure

If you followed Twitter and the blogosphere yesterday, you'll know that I was at Bellagio yesterday getting an opportunity thanks to an insider friend to take a look at the recently redesigned rooms. I Tweeted out the first photo and even fielded questions from VegasTripping.Com's Chuck Monster about whether the rooms were actually occupied yet.

And then, lo and behold, within about an hour of that very query, Chuck posted his own breathless EXCLUSIVE!!! -- and can never again mock Robin Leach, natch! -- of photos from the same room. Obviously, this miffed me, but Chuck privately insisted that it was a total coincidence and that one his contributors happened to be checking in at the very same time I was there. I didn't so much mind being scooped -- OK, I hate that very much -- but it was the nyah-nyah of his original post (which began, simply, "Sorry, Steve!" and was later replaced with something obsequious) that was weird and juvenile and made me happy to be heading out soon. Lord knows, I was the one who taught Chuck never to sit too long on a scoop (See: Twerps, Twitter), so I couldn't really be that upset if he had had this stuff in his arsenal and put it out before me. Check out their material here.

In private, Chuck insisted no snark or sucker-punch was intended and that this was all just a big, fortunate-for-him surprise. And I have no choice but to believe him, despite the fact that he continues to deny me the benefit of the doubt and sticks even now to his accusation that my regretfully laudatory August column on the Twerps was actually a sellout of everything I stand for in the service of acquiring some Twitter followers. (It's hard to follow logic, but hey, whatcha gonna do?)

Any which way, I got to see the rooms, too. The 27th and 28th floors are now done and the 25th and 26th are out of service while they are renovated. And while earlier images showed the green editions of the rooms with hideous wallpaper that I was later told would be discarded, I think we can assume that everything you see here is just green in the green version. I did manage to look in the entrance of the green-decor'd rooms, too, and there's one shot in the slideshow of that.

I'll say this: As much as everyone wants to bash on it, I actually liked it. It was comfortable. I think I'd prefer the blue more than the same in green, but once they got rid of the horrid Golden Girls wallpaper, I think it improved vastly.

You'll be able to hear what Bellagio's original designer, Roger Thomas, thought of all this soon when the podcast episode is up -- he's not charitable -- but, again, it's a matter of opinion. Somehow I suspect some of the Wynn acolytes would be praising the heck out of this if Thomas had created it, just because it's him and whatever Bellagio does is anti-Roger/Steve.

Meanwhile, a few changes afoot in the lobby. First, they're about to open a Hermes and Omega stores.Hermes replaces...well, I think it's just removing some gaming space, and Omega replaces the no-longer-necessary CityCenter sales office.


The summertime Conservatory is nifty, but with Ferris Wheels being all the tacky rage on the Strip these days, this amused me:


Some other Conservatory visions:


That "portrait" above is based on this:


And, finally, I couldn't stay mad at Chuck for too long because, well, I got lucky at Bellagio, too. I started with $3 and..


So there.