What is Las Vegas like right now in a COVID-19 world?

This past weekend, I took a vacation and traveled to good ole Las Vegas. While I was there and since I've been back, I received a lot of questions about what it is like right now. So I figured I would answer the most asked questions here and give a couple of tips for those who play on visiting Sin City in the near future.

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Here are the top questions I've received so far:

  • Are the pools open?
    • Yes. Pretty much every pool that I saw was open. I was staying at Bally's and the pool was open and not too crowded either. While I didn't investigate every pool, all of the ones we traveled by had people enjoying some Nevada sun.
  • What is the mask situation?
    • Masks are still required inside the casinos. When strolling the strip, mask enforcement wasn't really a thing, unless you were in the Linq Promenade where the security guards were patrolling asking guests to keep their masks on. Inside the casinos, some were more strict than others. Certain casinos wouldn't approach if you had a drink in your hand while others were there to remind you to keep it on if you were not physically drinking or eating at the time.
  • Were there shows to see?
    • Many of the smaller shows were back to performing but were also sold out weeks in advance. Unfortunately, none of the Cirque du Soleil shows are back yet.
  • Can you smoke in the casinos?
    • Yes. While we didn't go to all the casinos, all of the ones we went into were allowing smoking.
  • Was it busy?
    • It wasn't the busiest I have seen the strip, but it wasn't empty. We arrived early on Thursday (7 am Vegas time) and it was somewhat slow on the strip then, but each day by 11 am the city had plenty of people moving around. The strip itself was just about perfect for my liking when evening hit. Not too crowded but not dead by any means. Fremont Street on the other hand was obnoxiously busy. Of course, we hit Fremont on Saturday night so we weren't too surprised. (Side note: the new Circa Resort & Casino on Fremont is amazing!)

Here are a couple of other tips if you are planning a trip to Vegas soon.

  • Make reservations as early as possible. All of the restaurants are open with limited capacity, so plan ahead and make a reservation if you plan on going out to your favorite spot. Most of the places we tried had to be booked the day before.
  • Uber and Lyft are not as readily available as they use to be. Before the pandemic, there were thousands of ride-share vehicles just hovering, but not anymore. We waited for over 30 minutes to get one at the airport and longer than that to get around the strip. We ended up dishing out the extra money for taxis because they were way easier to get.

If you need a vacation, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend Las Vegas! We had a blast!

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