![]() The battle between the crews of the pirate ship Hispaniola and the British ship Britannia, which sailed into view around the corner from Spring Mountain Road, involved trading insults and cannon fire, the latter of which was accentuated by 45-foot fireballs that generated several thousand degrees of heat. Two dozen cast members performed as many as seven times a day aboard two $12 million, 90-foot ships in the $33 million village known as Buccaneer Bay. (Las Vegas Review-Journal) Treasure Island Here’s a closer look at those attractions that soon will be joined by the volcano in the annals of Lost Vegas: The sirens of Treasure Island’s long-gone pirate show. You can also see it, with a reservation, from the patio at Lakeside, with its “resort elegant attire” dress code, and SW Steakhouse, where Wagyu steaks sell for $75 an ounce. It’s still free, but viewing spots are largely limited to the upscale Overlook Lounge and Bar Parasol. The hotel’s namesake made sure, though, that the show was tucked away inside the resort, past high-end retailers including Dior, Chanel and Van Cleef & Arpels. ![]() The only thing that even resembles them is the Lake of Dreams, with its massive animatronic singing frog and birds, at Wynn Las Vegas. In a sign of just how much the Strip has changed, nothing close to those attractions has opened in the quarter century since Bellagio. Wynn would expand on Luxor’s fountain show concept in 1998 with the opening of Bellagio, bringing the shared influence full circle. There has to be that romance, that mystery, that drama to lure them in.” “I think you have that idea that you can’t just give people slot machines and craps tables,” he says of the years after The Mirage’s opening. Schwartz describes the Strip before the arrival of The Mirage and its volcano as “workmanlike” and credits Wynn’s showmanship for the change. Case in point: After an almost exactly 20-year run, the last 10 of which were as the retooled “Sirens of TI,” the pirate show was shuttered to make room for a CVS. It was the era when Las Vegas began courting families with bigger and bolder ideas - and before the corporatization of the Strip, which demanded ways to monetize every square inch of a property. If you still had the energy, you could cap off your journey at Luxor, with its 300,000-gallon Karnak Lake and its more than 100 computer-controlled fountains.Īll of that was available without venturing within a hundred feet of a casino door. After heading next door to see the volcano spit fire, you could trek to Excalibur, where a mechanical Merlin encountered an animatronic dragon in the hotel’s moat. If you were so inclined - and wearing comfortable shoes - you could start at Treasure Island, where characters aboard a pirate vessel and a British warship waged explosive battles as many as seven times a day. The early ’90s was a wild time to be a tourist in Las Vegas. Given the way crowds flocked to see it, it’s little surprise that the Strip’s next three resorts - Excalibur, Luxor and Treasure Island - each put their own spins on the volcano, with free, water-based spectacles front and center. Schwartz, professor and gaming historian at UNLV. “It definitely was something that changed the way people thought about what casinos were supposed to look like,” says David G. With its mix of waterfalls, fire and smoke, the volcano was right there, for anyone to see from the sidewalk, for free. The volcano was for everyone, and the public simply couldn’t get enough of it. And for your own safety, try not to be distracted by the hotel on the right.”įamilies. It was so unlike anything people had seen, a sign warned drivers heading south on Las Vegas Boulevard: “Please drive carefully. When it debuted, the volcano was the sort of attraction that stopped traffic. In a cruel twist of fate, renderings of the guitar-shaped hotel that will replace the volcano, at some point after Hard Rock International’s takeover of The Mirage is complete, show it gleaming as though every last bit is dripping with the stuff. “I’m burned out on neon,” Wynn said in the same interview. The developer simply wasn’t a fan of the noble gas and the ubiquitous signage in which it was used. “It would have been no good to design this environment, then walk out and get hit in the face with the neon.” “Wherever there was a neon sign or something intrusive, we blocked it,” Steve Wynn told the Review-Journal in October 1989, less than a month before he opened the lush resort. It was built to obstruct the view of other casinos. ![]() It wasn’t intended to inspire imitators and ultimately change the face of the Strip. The Mirage volcano wasn’t designed to be iconic. ![]() ![]() (Benjamin Hager/Las Vegas Review-Journal) A large crowd gathers to watch the volcano erupt at The Mirage on the Strip in Las Vegas. ![]()
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