Lucky Dragon Enters the Las Vegas Strip
This article appeared in Successful Meetings Magazine Jan 2017 issue http://www.successfulmeetings.com/News/Destinations/West/Lucky-Dragon-Enters-Las-Vegas-Strip/
In December, Lucky Dragon Hotel & Casino (a nine-story hotel with 203 rooms, including 23 suites) opened in Las Vegas, the first newly built from-the-ground-up hotel in the city since 2010. Coinciding with the launch of Hainan Airlines’ nonstop service from Beijing, the hotel was opened with an eye toward appealing to the Asian-American market, incorporating feng shui elements, table games, specialty spa treatments, a tea sommelier, and heavy use of lucky number eight (hence phone number (702) 889-8018 and the octagon-shaped casino). Special Chinese New Year celebrations, starting Jan. 28, Year of the Rooster, are also planned. Vice President of Hotel Blaire Dela Cruz spoke to Successful Meetings:
Q: What does Lucky Dragon offer to group travelers?
A: Lucky Dragon Hotel & Casino offers a unique environment where groups can enjoy an authentic Asian gaming, dining, and lifestyle experience — an atmosphere unlike any other on the Strip. Groups will enjoy private dining areas in Pearl Ocean, our dim sum and seafood specialty restaurant, and Phoenix, our fine-dining restaurant. In addition, the 1,250-square-foot penthouse suite features a living and dining area perfect for catered meetings and intimate events.
Outdoor functions are available at our pool, and Lucky Dragon is also very close in proximity to the Las Vegas Convention Center.
Q: Who is your core market?
A: The local and regional Asian-American clientele will be the largest market represented. Other domestic Asian-American markets are a close second, and Asian tourists, particularly with the new flight direct from Beijing, will represent an additional segment of our guests.
Q: How has the “authentic Asian cultural and gaming experience” been created?
A: From the very beginning, our property was designed with the rich history of Chinese culture in mind, to bring good luck and good fortune to all our guests.
The number four, unlucky due to the phonetic resemblance to the pronunciation of the Chinese word for “death,” is absent wherever possible. Guests will notice there is no fourth floor in our hotel tower, nor is there in our parking structure.
All property signage is in Chinese first, English second. More than 70 percent of our staff of more than 750 is bilingual (both Mandarin and Cantonese). Our rooms feature [media with] the most Chinese-language channels available and more Chinese language programming than any other hotel in Las Vegas.
The core of Lucky Dragon’s authenticity is most likely found in our culinary program. With five restaurant concepts….we will feature the freshest and some of the rarest ingredients available.
Vintage Vegas at the Tuscany Suites & Casino, by Lisa Skriloff
Vintage Vegas lives on at the Tuscany Suites & Casino, a privately-owned, all-suite hidden gem on East Flamingo Road near the Las Vegas strip. Swing dancers who seek the ideal venue to stay, dine and dance in Las Vegas will find nightly live music for dancing in the Piazza Lounge at the Tuscany, also home to the tribute show, “The Rat Pack is Back.”
At 650 square feet, the newly-refurbished suites at Tuscany Suites & Casino are among the largest in the city with in-room kitchenettes, dining areas and open sitting areas in each room.
Earlier this month, Janice Paluzzi, Director of Catering, showed us around; we couldn’t help asking her to share some stories from her over 30 years of experience in catering and conventions working with prominent headline performers including Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Barbara Streisand, Neil Sedaka and Barry Manilow.
Now at the Copa Room at the Tuscany Casino, “The Rat Pack is Back,” in its 18th year and billed as the only full time Rat Pack show in the world, is “the next best thing to seeing the original Rat Pack themselves.” These Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin headliner impersonators perform nightly at 7:30 pm. Tickets available at https://trpentertainment.ticketspice.com/the-rat-pack-is-back-show.
Dinner and a show combo is offered at the Tuscany Gardens, the fine dining Italian restaurant adjacent to the Piazza Lounge. We enjoyed a dinner of antipasto platter, cioppino(fennel scented tomato broth, mussels, clams, shrimp, calamari) for me, Surf and Turf for him and then 3 desserts for the 2 of us: their famous crème brulee, molten chocolate cake and affogato (espresso with vanilla ice cream.)
The Piazza Lounge, a no-cover cocktail lounge with live music nightly, features the favorite Laura Shaffer and the Noir Nightingale Trio on Monday nights bringing back the glamour and the fabulous music of the lounge era in Las Vegas. Count on her to indulge us with our favorite “Sunny Side of the Street” for a swing or foxtrot, and “Peel Me a Grape” for a west coast swing. Other favorites we have danced to: Cheek to Cheek, Ain’t Misbehavin,’ Straighten Up & Fly Right, Perfidia and You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To.
Sunday nights in the Piazza Lounge there’s more dancing to “Nik at Nite,” Nikolas Mastrangelo singing Sinatra-era music. Entertainment schedule at http://www.tuscanylv.com/entertainment/.
Not only dancers but convention goers at the nearby Sands Expo Center and meeting planners will find convenience and value at the Tuscany Suites & Casino, ideal for extended stays. Indeed, meetings are more popular than weddings here as demand repurposed the wedding chapel into a meeting room. Family reunion, medical meeting and training session planners have 40,000 square feet to configure to their needs, from a 60-person classroom to a sit down dinner for 1100 with stage and screen to an outdoor balcony reception overlooking the pool. Learn more at http://www.tuscanylv.com/meetings-banquets/.