Skip to footer

Vegas Ferris wheel, tallest in the world, wows with view of Strip

Vegas Ferris wheel: The structure is part of $550 million restaurant, bar, retail and entertainment development built by casino giant Caesars Entertainment Corp. between its Flamingo, Harrah's and renamed Quad hotel-casinos.

|
David Becker/AP
The Las Vegas High Roller at The LINQ began to operate on March 31, in Las Vegas. The 550-foot-tall attraction, which opened to the public on Monday, is the highest observation wheel in the world and features 28 cabins that can accommodate up to 40 people each.
  • By Ken Ritter Associated Press

| LAS VEGAS

Tourists began taking in the view Monday from a skyline-changing observation wheel that offers a unique overview of sparkling Las Vegas Strip resorts, wide skies and craggy brown mountains in the distance.

Van Kim, an airline call center employee from Phoenix, declared the experience "unanimously awesome."

Kim stood in line for six hours to be in the first gondola to complete the 30-minute ride on the 550-foot (168-meter) High Roller. Its height eclipses the 541-foot (165-meter) Singapore Flyer and the nearly 443-foot (135-meter) London Eye, and is expected to be the tallest in the world until planned Ferris-style wheels are completed in coming years in New York and Dubai.

"It's probably the best view of the Strip," said Kim, who made mental images on a sunny and blustery day of the iconic Bellagio fountain across Las Vegas Boulevard and the stunningly green Wynn Golf Club a short distance away.

Kim compared what he saw from his spherical pod with the panorama from an observation deck at the 1,148-foot (350-meter) Stratosphere tower, just 2 miles (3 kilometers) away. He said he liked the view better at the heart of the Strip.

"We didn't feel the wind at all," Kim added.

The Las Vegas wheel is part of $550 million restaurant, bar, retail and entertainment development built by casino giant Caesars Entertainment Corp. between its Flamingo, Harrah's and renamed Quad hotel-casinos. The Quad used to be the Imperial Palace.

The outdoor pedestrian mall — dubbed LINQ — is across the Strip from the company's flagship Caesars Palace resort. The walkway features beer bars, shops and a trendy "Cupcake ATM" at a Sprinkles sweets store, anchored by a Brooklyn Bowl venue offering concert, nightclub, bar, bowling alley and restaurant experiences.

It leads to the High Roller, resembling a big white bicycle wheel with spoke-like cables. It sits between two stations of the nearly decade-old Las Vegas monorail line, which runs 3.9 miles (6.3 kilometers) and connects several hotels and the LasVegas Convention Center.

From a distance, the motion of the wheel is nearly imperceptible. Its profile is unmistakable.

At night, it changes hues from blue to red to green to purple. Each of its 28 glass-enclosed and air-conditioned gondolas can hold up to 40 people. Tickets are $24.95 during the day and $34.95 at night, with front-of-the-line VIP passes selling for $59.95.

About 10,000 people, mostly Caesars employees, took preview rides in recent days before project chief David Codiga and a Caesars executive, Tariq Shaukat, broke champagne bottles Monday at a midday ceremony surrounded by elected officials and dignitaries who then rode the wheel.

Steve Sisolak, chairman of the seven-member Clark County Commission that governs the Strip, emerged afterward calling the view spectacular and the jobs boost provided by the two years of construction important.

"You can see the entire valley," Sisolak said. "This is going to be one of those things everyone who comes to Las Vegas is going to want to do."

Another developer's effort to build a 500-foot (152-meter) wheel called SkyVue near McCarran International Airport has proceeded slowly, leaving twin support spires marking the site across the Strip from the Mandalay Bay resort.

Officials with that company, Compass Investments, say it could open next year.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Vegas Ferris wheel, tallest in the world, wows with view of Strip
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0401/Vegas-Ferris-wheel-tallest-in-the-world-wows-with-view-of-Strip
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe