Viva Las Vegas!

3. Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino

Las Vegas, NV

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For many years until 2006 the low-slung Klondike Hotel and Casino was the southernmost casino on the Las Vegas Strip. It began life in 1962 as a tiki motel known as the Kona Kai Inn, located across the road from the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign. It transformed into the Klondike in 1976. The property was bulldozed in 2008 and became the realm of skateboarders. Mandalay Bay assumed the mantle of "southernmost casino on the Strip." Mandalay Bay itself was constructed on the bones of the Hacienda that had been imploded on New Year's Eve, 1996. The Hacienda opened in 1956 and was so far removed from downtown Las Vegas that it operated its own airline to fly gamblers into McCarren Airport from across the Midwest on inexpensive, all-inclusive junkets. Circus Circus Enterprises bought the Hacienda and replaced it with the 43-story, Hawaiian-themed Mandalay Bay at the cost of $950 million. Dan Aykroyd, James Belushi and John Goodman led a parade of Harley Davidson motorcycles through the doors to open the resort on March 2, 1999. Inside was America's largest unobstructed ballroom with 100,000 square feet of dance floor. Out back Mandalay Beach boasted three heated pools, a wave pool and a lazy river with a plunging waterfall. Mandalay Bay would win the Las Vegas Review Journal's reader poll for "Best Pool of Las Vegas" for seven years running. The main tank in the Shark Reef Aquarium is one of the largest on the continent and Mandalay Bay was the first closed-system aquarium to successfully exhibit a great hammerhead shark. The shipwreck tank is the third largest in America and harbors green sea turtles, sand tiger sharks, and green sawfish. On land in the surrounding jungle exhibit are golden crocodiles and a Komodo dragon.