The Las Vegas Lounge Crawl: Five Routes You Can Walk
The best kept secret about Las Vegas lounges is that several resorts hold three, four or five of them under one roof. You can do a genuinely good three stop evening without going outside, without paying a cover anywhere, and without a taxi at any point. Here are the routes, using the rooms that are actually worth the stop.
Why crawl a single resort
Two reasons, and both matter more in Las Vegas than anywhere else. Distances on the Strip are deceptive: the walk between two neighbouring resorts is routinely fifteen minutes, and at 1am in November it is fifteen cold minutes. And a rideshare at closing time is slow, surge priced and involves a long walk to a designated garage pickup. A crawl inside one building removes all of it.
None of these routes require a reservation for a group of two to four on a weeknight, and none of them charge a cover.
Route 1: The Venetian and Palazzo. Six rooms, one building.
The densest concentration of good cocktail rooms in the city, and the strongest recommendation in this guide.
- Bellini Bar to start. A 24 hour octagonal casino floor bar with gilded candelabra lamps and onyx panels. Genuinely the Strip's classic any-hour stop, and a good place to meet.
- Electra Cocktail Club next, for the energy shift. Wrapped in a kinetic LED light wall with shareable cocktails. This is the loud one.
- The Dorsey for the serious drink. One of the best craft cocktail bars in Las Vegas, jazz and soul leaning, and the room where the evening slows down.
- Juliet Cocktail Room to finish, if you want candlelit and romantic. Renaissance inspired, rust velvet sofas, palms.
Also here: Rosina, an intimate, opulent room with a Champagne call button, and Bar Luca over at the Palazzo, a 24 hour bar under a faceted gold ceiling. Six rooms, no outdoors, no taxi.
Route 2: The Cosmopolitan. Three rooms, one of them famous.
- Vesper Bar first. The 24 hour lobby bar, mirrored tiles, gilded ceiling waves and a serious classic cocktail programme. Arrive, get a proper drink, orient yourselves.
- The Chandelier second, and take all three floors. It is a bar suspended inside a 65 foot chandelier built from two million crystals, and each level is a different room with a different menu. It is the single most photographed drink in Las Vegas and it earns it.
- Clique Bar and Lounge to finish. Gold scalloped bar, plush seating, refined early and DJ driven late, so it takes you into the night if you want it to.
This is the best route for a first Vegas trip, because The Chandelier is the thing people should see and the other two are genuinely good rather than filler.
Route 3: Caesars Palace. Three rooms, three completely different moods.
- Vista Cocktail Lounge, wrapped in LED panoramic cityscapes and chrome. Cocktails as theatre.
- Vanderpump Cocktail Garden, Lisa Vanderpump's opulent garden of lush botanicals and pink tones. It is exactly as extra as it sounds and that is the point. Popular enough to be worth booking on a weekend.
- Montecristo Cigar Bar to land, if that is your thing. A 400 square foot humidor, whiskey, and a 208 inch video wall.
Route 4: Bellagio. Two rooms, and the best music night on the Strip.
- Petrossian Bar at 6pm. The lobby bar under the Chihuly glass ceiling, a grand piano, caviar service, classic cocktails. Quiet, elegant, a proper start.
- The Pinky Ring at 8pm. Bruno Mars' live music room, with his own band playing nightly.
Twenty steps between them. The Pinky Ring is the one thing on this page you must book rather than walk into, and it runs a strict no phones policy on the floor. See how to get in.
Route 5: Wynn and Encore. Two properties, one indoor walkway.
- Bar Parasol beside the Lake of Dreams, with oversized parasol fixtures and a creative cocktail list.
- Overlook Lounge directly above it, jewel toned, with a palm and bird ceiling mural.
- Eastside Lounge at Encore for nightly dueling pianos, which is where the evening gets fun rather than pretty.
Wynn and Encore connect indoors, so this is one walk. If you want to end at a nightclub, XS is in the same building, which makes this the best warm up route in the city.
How to run a crawl properly
- Start at 6 or 7pm. These rooms are at their best early, and starting early means you are not choosing between the crawl and dinner.
- One drink per room. Four rooms and four cocktails at 20 to 25 dollars is a complete evening for around 100 dollars a head, with no cover anywhere.
- Eat properly first. Cocktail bars are not a meal, and the drinks here are strong and well made.
- Book only what needs booking: live music rooms, anything on a weekend, and any group of six or more.
- Dress for a restaurant. Smart casual clears every room listed here, and clean sneakers are fine.
Tell a host which resort you are staying at and we will build you a route from the rooms in and around it, book anything that needs it and tell you what is playing that night. It is free, there is no booking fee, and it is often the recommendation we give ahead of a nightclub. See every room on our lounges page.
Common questions
Plan it with a host
Reading is the warm up. Tell a host your dates and we will turn this into a booked, sorted night. No fees.
