Customer Reviews

Access Las Vegas 5e

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While I have enjoyed the compact format of Access Las Vegas with its color-coded run-down's of various restaurants, casinos and hotels in the past, I found this edition to be slightly out-of-date, especially in the section on shows (featuring several that closed or changed stars prior to January 2000). I enjoyed the featured "Bests" comments by local Las Vegas personalities and trivia boxes with interesting Vegas facts. However, [..] for 140 pages [..] I found this to be a little pricey.

'Access Las Vegas' was not exactly what I was looking for, but is a well rounded guide to the city and the attractions. I am a college student taking my first trip to Las Vegas, and I was looking for a guide to the sites on a very small budget. This would be a good book for someone with more of a budget to work with, and more time to spend in the city.

I am a fan of the Access Guides because of their unique format, which divides a city into neighborhoods and then describes specific buildings, but this particular guide is a disaster. With this format, the neighborhood maps are especially important, and the most important of all - the map of the Strip - is riddled with errors. I counted 19 key buildings that were incorrectly located on this one map, including such landmarks as Caesars Palace, Bellagio, Paris, Aladdin, New York New York, MGM, and Tropicana. The New Frontier, a Strip hotel, is shown as being on Industrial Road! Who edited this debacle?

At the time I am writing this (early 2005), this 2000 edition is the most recent version available. It is shorter than the others in the Access series, about 140 pages, of which 20 pages are devoted to gambling tips. Coverage of the Strip and Downtown is thorough (if you can figure out where things are located), but outlying neighborhoods get less attention when compared to other guides in the Access series.

The Access series tends to be a great series of guide books and the Las Vegas book is well done for 2000 but it is 2007 and the amount of changes in Las Vegas has me begging for a complete overhaul and update to this book ASAP!

We love the Access series travel guides and have been using them since 1988. Typically they are just absolutely great, we actually always buy one before traveling anywhere. They normally have maps of all locations in the book as well as convenient transportation maps, often times a mass transit route. This one did not have the tram service or trolley route, and our hotel although mentioned was not on the map. It also said that taxis were expensive when they were actually competitive to the mass transit and quicker. Normally Access does an especially good job of highlighting interest such as architecture and great restaurants. When we went looking for one restraunt it wasn't there. This is the first Access guide that has been a disappointment to us. There were many errors that we could not trust the map in the book. My husband actually said that we should get our money back.
We had just used the Los Angeles Access and were just as happy as we always have been with Access. The Las Vegas Access is just a dud. Every other one we bought we great.

In 1996 I purchased several books about Las Vegas for a trip I was planning. I found that the third edition of this book, Access Las Vegas, was a great source of information. I found the maps and the information cross referenced to them especially helpful. Plus the size of the book made it very easy to take along as you explored Las Vegas. Since I was highly impressed with the 3rd edition I decided to purchase an updated book for our up coming trip.

Upon looking thru the book for the additions to the ever-changing landscape of The Strip, it became apparent that the map of the strip was filled with errors. Based on their map the Monte Carlo was built on the site of New York New York. The MGM Grand has moved east on Tropicana Ave. New York New York has moved to the site of the Tropicana and the Tropicana has moved off of the map. The Excalibur, Luxor and Mandalay Bay are not even referenced on the map. The majority of the maps cross-references for the Strip are inaccurate. Did anyone with any knowledge of Las Vegas check these maps before they were published? If the maps are this inaccurate what other information is incomplete or inaccurate? It is a real shame for what was a great vacation guide to become useless. I am highly disappointed in that Mr. Wurman produced in this 5th edition.

I went to the Access Guides web site to see if they posted corrected maps for this book. Unfortunately they have not made corrections available. I looked for a way to email them about the problems with their book. However they did not offer that option.

For correct maps of Las Vegas visit the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority web site. There are numerous other Las Vegas web sites with very useful information. My recommendation is to skip the book and use the web sites.