The Luxor Hotel and Casino is an ancient Egypt themed structure that anchors the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip. The hotel and casino are massive as the hotel houses 4,400 rooms along with 487 suites and the casino gaming area is 120,000 square feet.

From the outside, the casino features three distinguishing elements that establish the casino’s Egypt theme. The main pyramid shaped structure is built to about 75 percent scale of the Great Pyramid of Giza. In front of the pyramid is a larger than life replica of the Sphinx that is 110 foot high which is 40 feet taller than its ancient counterpart in Egypt. Thirdly, next to the Las Vegas Blvd. is a 140 foot tall obelisk sign bearing the Luxor name.

Inside the hotel lobby the Egypt theme continues as the lobby is modeled after the Abu Simbel temple, also at about 75 percent scale. There is a two story tall statue of Pharaoh Ramesses II which appears to be overlooking the activities of casino. Additionally, the lobby has several Egyptian style statues, Egyptian style wall paintings and Egyptian figured wall tiles.

Similar to the outside there is a smaller sphinx and another Egyptian obelisk that are inside the hotel lobby.

In typical Las Vegas style, the Luxor casino gets brighter after dark. At night, the sphinx lights up and the 350 foot (30-story) pyramid shoots a beam of light from the tip of the pyramid. The beam is created by 39 individual xenon lights with 7,000 watt bulb. The lights are located in a room 50 ft. below the tip of the pyramid and the room temperature rises to 300 degrees F when the lights are on.

The light attracts moths and other insects to the top of the pyramid and they create a sparkling effect in the light beam which can be seen in the photo below.

The Dust on My Shoes

Prior to my first trip to Las Vegas, I had been to several of the locations that the casinos were themed after. I expected to have the repulsive feeling of being in a mediocre knockoff of some of the world best attractions. Las Vegas is by no means like seeing the world’s best sites but I found that seeing the replicas brought back my memories of seeing the real places.

Now having been to Las Vegas several times, I actually like the themed casinos. I enjoy going from casino to casino and seeing the Vegas interpretation of the different places around the world.

As far as themed casinos go, I think the Luxor fits about in the middle. There are some really over the top casinos that are better than the Luxor and there are many that I feel are much less theme driven casinos.

Themed casinos are intended to attract visitors by bringing a little bit of the world into the desert. I think it is fun to check out the casinos recreations of famous places around the world. They make my Vegas experience much better than going to a basic casino.

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