Is there ever! No less than a dozen or so different tour companies do half-day and half-night city tours, in conventional buses and shuttles, plus unconventional double-decker open-air buses, party coaches, pink Jeeps, scootercars, and Segways. There are also a couple of specialty tours involving the Vegas Mob and Haunted Vegas. In short, Las Vegas is a tour-goer’s promised land.
We first turn, as we’re wont to do, to the LasVegasAdvisor.com’s Activity Promo Codes, Discounts, and Deals pages.
Here, you’ll find a deal for one of the most popular city tours, on the open-top double-decker Big Bus sightseeing trip. On this tour, when you buy your ticket, you get a 90-minute trip from downtown to the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, including a narration from an onboard guide. You can also hop off and back on at 20 different locations around the city. The deal is a two-fer: buy a one-day pass (at the discounted price of $39, regularly $49) and get a second day free. It’s an excellent way to tool around, explore the hot spots, and get the tour along the way.
Another double-decker bus company cruises the same route and offers similar deals. Looktours uses London-style double-decker buses for its Sightseeing Show Experience, guided by superstar impersonators such as Elvis, Cher, Dolly Parton, and Elton John. It’s a 75-minute trip (not hop-on hop-off) and departs at 10 a.m. and 7 and 9 p.m. (from the Miracle Mile Shops on Harmon Avenue); $40 for seats in the enclosed lower level, $50 for the upper outadoors VIP seats.
Check it out and buy tickets at looktours.com/double-decker-bus-of-the-stars.
A more standard four-hour tour is conducted by Viatour, leaving daily at 10 a.m. from Bally’s on 35-passenger shuttles, $60. This is a typical guided tour that covers from the Welcome sign to downtown, including a dozen hotels, a drive-through wedding chapel, and an optional trip to the Stratosphere Tower’s observation deck.
Another option is the Gray Line "rockstar" trip in a party bus or limousine coach that leaves between 5:40 (Golden Nugget) and 6:50 (Excalibur), with a dozen pickup stops along the way. It’s a three-and-a-half-hour tour of nighttime Vegas, from Fremont Street Experience to Bellagio and beyond, with a glass of champagne thrown in.
A number of other companies do the same nighttime trip. For example, Big Bus does a three-hour Las Vegas Panoramic Night Tour, leaving from Circus Circus at 7 p.m. and Excalibur at 7:30 p.m., $29.
Pink Jeep Tours also does a three-hour nighttime trip that starts at 6:30 p.m. and covers downtown, the Strip, a pawn shop, and wedding-chapel row; $55 per person. PartyTours Las Vegas offers nightclub tours, "booze cruises," and happy-hour specials starting at $21.25.
Then there’s Scoot City Tours, which run April 1 through October 31 and gather at 6:30 a.m. for an organized five-hour joy ride in three-wheel, two-seat, open-air, brightly colored scootercars. This tour takes in the Strip, downtown, Mob and Neon museums, the "Pawn Stars" venue, and more. The $125-per-person tour covers 25 miles over four hours of driving in the scootercars.
You can also do a Segway tour on the futuristic motorized two-wheeled upright personal vehicles. These tours are more about the ride than the sights; they’re limited to the Fremont Street area, with the two-hour Fremont South and Fremont North tours (9 a.m., noon, 3 p.m.; $129), and the 75-minute Fremont Street tour (9/11 a.m. and 1 p.m.; $89), which includes training.
The first specialty tour is the Haunted Vegas Ghost Hunt. You’re given ghost-hunting equipment (EMF meters, temperature guns, dowsing rods), then taken to the most haunted locations in the city, including the "Motel of Death" and "the former home of a Las Vegas legend" that a ghost continues to haunt ("despite numerous attempts to exorcise it"); $85, Thursday-Monday, leaving at 9:30 p.m.
The Vegas Mob Tour gives you a history lesson, a visit to sites where underworld activity, such as loan sharking, robberies, and mob murders transpired, topped off with a pizza party at the old Bootlegger (now Angelina’s); 2.5 hours, $107.50, Thursday-Monday, 6 p.m. (With advance notice, you can even arrange to have real-life mobster and former Tony "the Ant" Spiltro hitman Frank Cullotta act as your tour guide!)
Of course, if you want to leave the city, organized half-day tours run out to Red Rock Canyon, Valley of Fire, and Hoover Dam. There are also off-road trips into the desert in the Pink Jeeps, Hummers, ATVs, even mini Baja dune buggies.
