On the last night of the year the Strip stops being a road. Barricades go across Las Vegas Boulevard in the early evening, the traffic is gone well before the countdown, and the asphalt belongs to a few hundred thousand people until the small hours. Nothing drives in. Nothing drives out. That rideshare you're counting on is a fiction, and the dinner you booked eight blocks away may as well be in another city. So the hotel becomes the night -- your table, your bathroom, your warm room, your view -- and five properties answer that very differently.
The Cosmopolitan: watch it from your own balcony
The Cosmopolitan is the Strip hotel where a private balcony is a real room category rather than a rumor. Most Terrace One Bedroom Suites have one, and the Wraparound Terrace Suites carry the view along the Boulevard in both directions depending on which face of the building you land on. On the one night of the year when the street below is solid people and the desert air has gone cold, a door you can open above all of it beats any table you could have reserved. Ask for a fountain-facing position when you book those suites, because it is not automatic.
Where: center Strip, alongside the Bellagio fountains. On the closure: inside the closed stretch, walk-in only. The night: a private terrace above the crowd. Best for: seeing the countdown without standing in it.
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Caesars Palace: the shells go up off your own roof
Caesars Palace is one of the rooftops the fireworks are actually fired from, which gives you the shortest walk home available to anybody on the Boulevard that night. The display runs about eight minutes, produced by Fireworks by Grucci and launched simultaneously off a line of casino roofs, so the sky over the street is the show rather than any one building. Being at a launch property is about the return trip: when the count hits zero and several hundred thousand people all start moving at once, you're already standing at your own front door. Keep a room key on you, because late in the night you may be asked for it to get back in.
Where: center Strip, with the Forum Shops opening onto the Boulevard. On the closure: inside the closed stretch, and a launch rooftop. The night: the shortest walk back of any room on the street. Best for: wanting the crowd and then wanting out of it fast.
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Planet Hollywood: an indoor ring road when the street jams
Planet Hollywood sits on the tightest, busiest stretch of the closed boulevard and wraps itself in a shopping corridor that works as a bypass the moment the sidewalk outside stops moving. It is a launch rooftop too. The Miracle Mile Shops ring the property and meet the street at several points, which on a night when the crowd decides which direction you're allowed to walk turns into a real advantage. One thing to plan around: the route from the self-parking garage to the lobby runs up escalators and through the shops, so get in ahead of the barricades and drop everything at the front entrance.
Where: center Strip, wrapped by the Miracle Mile Shops. On the closure: inside the closed stretch, and a launch rooftop. The night: an indoor loop when the pavement locks up. Best for: being in the thick of it with a way out of the crush.
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Paris Las Vegas: a deck between two launch rooftops
Paris Las Vegas owns the one piece of high ground on this street sold as an attraction rather than a suite. The Eiffel Tower Viewing Deck rides a glass elevator up to a view straight down the Boulevard and directly across at the Bellagio fountains. Paris is not itself a launch site, and that is the point: the shells climb off roofs on either side of it, so the sky you are standing under holds more of the show than the sky above any single launch building. Mon Ami Gabi keeps genuine sidewalk tables at the same address facing the water. The Monorail station shared with Horseshoe runs behind the hotels rather than along the closed street, which is the side of town still moving.
Where: center Strip, across from the Bellagio fountains. On the closure: inside the closed stretch, with a Monorail station attached. The night: a viewing deck with launch roofs on both sides. Best for: height, and more than one rooftop in the same frame.
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The STRAT: north of the barricades, with a car that still works
The STRAT sits north of where the closure line is drawn, which makes it the property on this list you can still drive to and away from. The shutdown runs the resort corridor from Spring Mountain Road south, and The STRAT stands above that, at the top of the Boulevard toward downtown. It is also a launch rooftop, and it puts the tallest observation tower in the country over your head: Top of the World turns a full rotation while you eat, and 108 Drinks sits just above the observation level. That's the whole Strip going off at once, seen from above every roof it is launching from, with a taxi that can actually reach your door afterward.
Where: north end of the Boulevard, toward downtown. On the closure: outside the closed stretch, still reachable by car. The night: a launch rooftop with an observation deck over it. Best for: the whole Boulevard in one frame, and a way home.
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What the closure actually changes
Three things decide this night, and none of them are the party you bought a ticket to. Las Vegas Boulevard shuts to vehicles in the early evening between Spring Mountain Road and the south end of the resort corridor, and it doesn't reopen until the small hours, so whatever you want in between has to be inside walking distance of your room. Security screens what you carry in from the evening of the thirty-first: no backpacks, no coolers, no strollers, no glass bottles or metal containers, and no bag much over twelve inches by twelve by six. And once it is late, getting back into your own hotel can mean showing a room key at the door. Book the building you actually want to be standing in and the logistics stop being your problem. What else is running that night sits on the New Year's Eve in Las Vegas hub, and if the trip starts earlier in the season, the free holiday displays are a few doors from most of these rooms.
