Viva Wax Vegas (Madame Tussaud's)

Member Name: Teena2003

Product:	Madame Tussaud's
Date:	28/04/06 (1049 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Madame Tussauds in Las Vegas, air conditioned, interesting exhibits, celebrities and you

Disadvantages: possibly price, boring if you're not interested in celebrities, you might not know everyone

During our second visit to Las Vegas over Easter we finally found time to visit Madame Tussauds’ museum. We’d been to the one in London and didn’t really fancy the idea but as holders of annual passes for the Tussauds Group we not only have access to all Tussauds properties in the UK but also free entry to Tussauds properties around the world. One of those properties is Madame Tussauds in Las Vegas.

WHERE?

The museum is situated just outside the Venetian hotel and forms part of the Venetian Resort complex. On you way in – on top of the Rialto Bridge – you will be greeted by one or two of the famous people in the USA. When we visited in January and again over Easter you could pose with Michael Jordan and Whoopie Goldberg just outside and Princess Diana just inside the entrance while Placido Domingo was found inside the Venetian hotel complex, somewhere in the Grande Canal Shoppe area (guarded by a Tussauds employee giving out money off coupons).

HOW MUCH?

Prices for entry into Madame Tussauds Las Vegas are $22.95 per person ($14.95 OAP/Student – with ID or Children 6-12 years). Adult admission works out at just under £13.00 at today’s exchange rate, already a bargain compared to the London branch where you can easily spend £20.00 or more per adult. The museum is open all year round, normally from 10am to 10pm.

You can see, Las Vegas it’s not quite so bad and there’s always the money off coupons you find in the free magazines giving you at least another $5.00 off per person. Or, if you do your maths and feel that the half price ticket booth will give you better value, try Tix 4 Tonight, dotted around Las Vegas and always good for a bargain show ticket as well as money off for museums and exhibitions. Just remember that Tix 4 Tonight are charging $4.50 booking fee and it might not work out cheaper in the end.

When arriving at Madame Tussauds with an annual pass you still have to report to the ticket office. Unlike the UK where you proceed to the entrance and your pass gets swiped, here you need to present your pass at the ticket office and a complimentary ticket is issued. Both guys at the ticket office knew our Tussauds annual pass allowed us free entry but neither knew how to run it through the tills so in the end they just jotted the pass numbers onto the receipt before they placed it into the till.

WHAT’S TO SEE? or Who’s there?

First of all I have to warn all UK visitors, you are entering a US museum so a lot of the people in there may not be at all familiar to you as they are quintessentially American, and here in Las Vegas, local Vegas celebrities. You will find the same is true in the UK where a lot of tourists might not know who Davina McCall or Chris Tarrant are.

Walking up the staircase you will be greeted by Lucille Ball. I am of an age where I know who Lucille Ball is but I can’t say I have ever found her particularly funny. Some of my friends think she is the best comedienne ever but tastes are certainly different and thank goodness for that.

Sometime at the top of the stairs you are asked for your ticket, until that moment you had a chance to wander around without being bothered by anyone but if you want to continue further you need to show your ticket – actually, you have to surrender it to the person asking for it.

THE AREAS:

All Madame Tussauds museums are set out in a similar way. Here in Vegas you walk through different themed rooms. The beauty is that some celebrities are created to be interacted with and always good for a photo opportunity. The Las Vegas property has six themed areas from Big Night, Sports, Rock N’ Pop, Monsters Alive, Las Vegas Legends to Spirit of America.

All Madame Tussauds wax museums are relying on current celebrities and the exhibits will be changing over the month. I am sure there are some areas where they are not making many changes because there are no new people coming in but when it comes to Hollywood celebs and movie stars as well as musicians, who’s popular one day may be on the scrap heap the next.

Currently you will find celebrities like George Clooney, Patrick Stewart, Madonna, Bono, Elton John or Ben Affleck all over the place as well as sports stars such as Tiger Woods or local guy Andre Agassi. I’m not so informed about speedway, baseball or basketball so wouldn’t have recognised anyone.

The Monsters Alive is a bit like the Chamber’s of Horror with exhibits from Hollywood horror and monster movies: Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and more. To make it scarier they have employees (actors) dressed up in the dark room, jumping out at you, making noises to scare you. It’s a mix of Hollywood Horror with a bit of the London version of ‘Chamber Live’ thrown in.

If you don’t want to go through you can just bypass it and walk straight into the Las Vegas Legends room. Strangely enough, most of the legends here are not amongst the living anymore. Here you have the Rat Pack (Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr, Dean Martin et all) and Liberace standing next to current Vegas headliner like Wayne Newton or Lance Burton. If the last two don’t mean anything to you then I’m not surprised, they are quintessentially Vegas.

If you thought you might have missed something in the earlier parts of the museum there is nobody to stop you from retracing your steps and walking all the way to the beginning again – why you would want to is another question. It’s nice to know you could go back, unlike the London museum where you are allowed just one way only and there’s no return to earlier rooms. The only place, it seems, where you can’t track back from is once they allow you through the cordon between Vegas Legends and Spirit of America. But I’m sure if you told the guy you lost your party and need to go back, I’m sure he will let you go back.

Spirit of America, apparently, is everything that made and makes America great. I can understand exhibits like Abraham Lincoln, Neil Armstrong, Martin Luther King or even President Bush (he looks even worse here than in the London version) but I’m at a loss to figure out why they have another Princess Diana in this room.

The last room, like everywhere, is the souvenir shop. I couldn’t see anything I really fancied and we left without parting with any money.

I have never been the kind of person who walks through Madame Tussauds trying to get a photo taken with me and the celebrities there. For a start, they don’t always look that real close up – then again, some people might argue that celebrities are fake anyway.

Madame Tussauds Las Vegas prides itself on being totally interactive, meaning you can almost do anything you like with the exhibits in there, touch, grope take photos, etc. While I think it’s nice to go up to the ‘person’ to see how well they are made, I think it’s rather icky when it comes to the particular areas set aside where you are invited to put on a prop and take a photo with the celebrity.

There were a few times when I shuddered and almost felt sick watching people do just that. Take the ‘Marry George Clooney’ exhibit. Women (maybe even a few men?) are invited to slip a wedding dress over their clothes, put on a veil and pose next to George pretending they are getting married.

How many people before touched the dress with dirty hands and pulled it over sweaty, dirty clothes? Or put on a cowboy hat to pose next to your favourite Country & Western singer – how much greasy hair had stuck in those hats before? Share a bed with Hugh Hefner and pretend you’re a playboy bunny, but how many of the great unwashed touched and put on the bunny ears and collars before it’s your turn?

After all, you are walking in from the street, not put on fresh clothes after a shower. Nowhere does it say how many times these items get washed or disinfected. I’m not germophobic or anything but EUGH, the thought of thousands of people touching the props could turn me into one.

The effort that’s going into making these life-like models must be applauded. After all, it takes a lot of skill to get wax figures look like the real thing. I still feel that most of the exhibits look too waxy and not really that good but they have really made good progress with people of ‘black’ skin, they look much better than the pale, milky white, almost see-through skin of a ‘white’ person standing next to them. I’d be more likely to do a double-take if someone showed me a photo of a Samuel Jackson or Morgan Freeman than a Sarah Michelle Geller or Jennifer Lopez.

I must say that I enjoyed the museum a lot more than the one in London. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that there weren’t that many people there and at no time did it feel overcrowded. I have been in the London one a few times and always felt I couldn’t get a foot on the ground because it was just too busy.

I don’t know how busy or popular the museum is but at no time did I feel uncomfortable and I had enough room to wander around the exhibits, frame shots with my camera making sure nobody was in the way or walking through the picture.

If you’re not the kind of person who would normally visit an exhibit like this I doubt you will find it interesting. But if you have been to the London one and want to compare or have an interest in celebrities then you might enjoy it.

It was certainly worth for me as I didn’t need to pay to get in. Having bought an annual pass for the UK theme parks certainly works out well internationally. But even if you have to pay, it’s not quite as expensive as the London museum, there are always money off coupons somewhere for a reduction in price. It will certainly give you a break from the hectic running around the streets and other casinos and allow you to take it easy for a couple of hours – unless you race through and you’re done in 30 minutes. Just remember that Las Vegas can get very hot during the summer and I’m sure Madame Tussauds will be one of the places where you will be guaranteed arctic temperatures. I doubt they will let their wax exhibits melt.


© Teena2003

Summary: Madame Tussauds Waxworks in Las Vegas