3730 Las Vegas Boulevard South, Las Vegas, 89109, 866-359-7111;
Rates: Start at $149 per night for the hotel’s grand-opening special through May 9, which requires a two-night stay and includes a $75 credit to use on food, spa or entertainment. Regular rates begin at $199 for a deluxe room, but with 14 categories of rooms and suites to choose from, there’s a wide variety.
Stay here if you: want to experience the newest, latest and most modern attraction Las Vegas has to offer. And if you like to gamble: It’s the only one of the CityCenter properties with a casino.
It’s close to: the other hotels and residences, shopping and entertainment in the 67-acre CityCenter development on the Strip. A tram between the Bellagio and Monte Carlo hotels stops at CityCenter’s Crystals shopping mall, which is a short walk from Aria’s lobby. The tram is a convenient way to navigate between the resorts.
The rooms are: so high-tech everything from the curtains to the lighting and TV is run from a touch-screen on the bedside table. When you open the door to the room (you wave the key card over the entry pad rather than insert it), the curtains pull back, lights and music come on. Don’t make the mistake of someone we know who jabbed at the touch screen, or you’ll be plunged back into total darkness for the next 10 minutes until you figure out how to get things working again. (Better yet, read the instructions on the website before you get there.) The basic rooms are a comfortable 520 square feet, while suites are almost double that at 920. Everything is clean and modern, from the granite dual sinks and thick white towels in the bathroom to the 42-inch television, computer-friendly workstation and laptop-size safe.
They put all of the money into: everything. This is a state-of-the-art gold LEED-certified property with artwork around every corner (Henry Moore, Claes Oldenburg, Maya Lin), restaurants, convention center, deluxe spa and pools, theater (Cirque de Soleil’s “Viva Elvis”) and massive casino — you don’t need to venture off the property to be entertained. (Remember to bring your best walking shoes.) Even if you’re not into designer fashion, the Daniel Libeskind-designed Crystals shopping center is a visual feast, exploding with angles, color, sculptural elements and an all-star cast of retailers, including Cartier, Tom Ford, Hermès and Miu Miu.
The bottom line: This is the future from the comic books of the late 1930s — soaring metal and glass buildings, and skyways in the air. Suzanne S. Brown
