Question of the Day - 25 March 2022

The Cosmopolitan's parking garage is completely underground on four levels. It has 3,800 total parking spaces.

Since the Cosmo has 3,027 rooms, you might assume that the 800 extra parking spaces would easily accommodate non-guests who visit the casino and/or the numerous restaurants, bars and lounges, retail outlets, and clubs at the Cosmo. 

But not so fast.

First, locals get three hours for free in the garage; they just scan their driver's license to open the gate on the way out. So any Las Vegan coming in to go to a restaurant, attend Spiegelworld's show Opium, and/or party at Marquee, will take up a parking spot, especially on weekends when the property is at its busiest.

And second, the Cosmo parking garage also has roughly 200 spaces for people who stay at the Jockey Club timeshare facility next door.

When the Jockey Club was built in the mid-1970s, its surface parking lots (and two tennis courts) occupied several acres. In 2004, the developers of the Cosmopolitan bought that acreage and some surrounding it. One of the stipulations of the sale was that Jockey Club timeshare owners and hotel guests have a dedicated parking area (on the second level of the garage near a bank of elevators that connect to the casino, as well as the first and second floors of the timeshare). Jockey Club guests actually park in the garage for free, a perk that even Cosmo hotel guests aren't entitled to. So that leaves 600 or so parking spaces for overflow.

Deke Castleman owns units at the Jockey Club; they've been in his family since 1976. He uses up his weeks every year and, of course, parks in the Cosmo garage when he does. He tells us he's never seen it completely full; there are always spaces, though they might be in the far corners of the third and fourth level. Reader boards at the entrances and on the ramps show the number of available spaces in green; Deke always looks and there are always spaces available. 

That said, we're sure it fills up for New Year's Eve, the Super Bowl, etc. We've been shut out of casino garages on a number of occasions, so although they can almost always handle the hordes, the only thought we know of that's been been put into accommodating the overflow has been charging for parking. That alone has definitely limited the non-hotel guests.