Leaving soon for first trip to Vegas! Can anyone tell me if you can smoke in the casinos? Any suggestions about what shows I should see or avoid? What are your favorite restaurants? Thanks for any input.

yes u can definitely smoke in the casinos and u can even smoke inside the airport beleive it or not. I saw danny gains, and it was pretty entertaing and elton john that was good to. I really liked the buffet at the bellagio, mexican place at venetian was good and they had fabuluos margeritas. I did not like sensi in the bellagio not that good. We also went to Paris hotel they had god live bands.

www.cheapovegas.com

No more smoking inside the airport as of when I was there last June...

One place to try if you like haut cuisine is Bouchon. It's owned by Thomas Keller (of Ratatouille fame).

http://www.bouchonbistro.com/

Yes, at least as of last summer, there is no smoking in the airport. But I think it will be a long time before they prohibit smoking in the casinos.

What kind of restaurants are you looking for? Budget, expensive, seafood, steakhouse, etc. There are a lot of good choices.

Some casinos have groups of tables and banks of slot machines that are for non-smoking guests. If you smoke, make sure you don't light up in one of those areas. Also, smoking is not allowed in the restaurants in the hotels or casinos. You can smoke at the bars.

Try to get dinner at Mix, which is atop Mandelay Bay, it's an Alain Ducasse off-shoot and the food, view, & ambience worth every penny. It will run over $200 per couple. Food in Vegas has gotten very expensive, especially the latest on the "A" list.

Emil's Delmonicos was fab. I also saw Danny Ganz and liked it. Spam o lot was also great, even though I am not a Monty Python fan. See also the Free "big Elvis" at Bills.

Many if not most of the decent casinos thankfully have non-smoking areas, where customers are not forced to breathe death exhaled from rude, selfish "people" who don't care if they poison their neighbor.

http://govegas.about.com/od/lasvegas.../a/smoking.htm

I asked a similar question last year and the postbag very quickly filled with dozens of comments about the evils of smoking. Yes, you can smoke in casinos. On the casino floor, and in bars which do not sell food (virtually all casinos have at least one of these - my smoking chums particularly liked the one in the Luxor, Wynn's is quite pleasant too) and in nightclubs. If you like to have a smoke after a meal, not so easy. In Mandalay Bay, where we stayed, the Sports Book bar was popular because one could buy food from the deli, carry it over to the bar, eat it, then light up. Excellent burgers, incidentally.

Shows. We only saw Spamalot, and it was brilliant. The best meal we had during our stay was in Billy Bobs Steakhouse in Sam's Town, a bit out of the way, but a pleasant change from the glitzy Strip casinos and, if you like, there are free shuttle buses. Oh, and KarenL is dead right, Big Elvis is an absolute blast - you can sit, watch, enjoy a $3 beer AND smoke. A friend raves about Love and, slightly off topic, the Star Trek thrill ride at the Hilton is astonishingly good fun. Sorry if this smoking info offends our chums from California.