The insider's guide to Las Vegas

AMERICA'S fastest-growing city has gone beyond kitsch, through audacious and now operates on a 100 per cent wow! factor. The Nevada nugget today is as much about luxury and indulgence as drive-thru weddings and Elvis shades with fun-fur sideburns. And it's easy enough to combat the 100 degree heat with Arctic air-conditioning, foot-long margaritas and casinos so dark you need a mining helmet to find your way to the roulette wheel. Not that you have to gamble a dime to have a good time. Just roll with it ...

The Bellagio fountains. They rocket out of a mock Lake Como from noon until 8pm, spraying and swaying in time to the music every half hour, every 15 minutes from 8pm until midnight. Vantage points: by day, pressed up against one of the sidewalk speakers so you can feel Pavarotti pulsing in your stomach; by night, from the terrace of brasserie Mon Ami Gabi across the road. Come the euphoric conclusion to Singing in the Rain you too will break into spontaneous applause, only seconds later to murmur bemusedly, "I just clapped water."

2 Tom Jones. At the 650-seat Hollywood Theatre in the MGM Grand (891 7777).

August dates yet to be confirmed but always worth checking as he plays regularly. Recent audiences included The Stereophonics, Robbie Williams and Catherine Zeta Jones.

Mandalay Bay. It's a rare thing to find a club here sustaining (or even attaining) a hip vibe, but one year on its rum jungle is still sizzling.

Water teems down slate-panelled walls, infinite vintage bottles of rum sway precariously on suspended glass shelves and if your Jennifer Lopez booty finds a Ricky Martin bonbon you can pair up on one of the slickly curved wooden love seats. Avoid daunting weekend queues (and the after-9pm cover charge of up to $20 [13]) by arriving early for dinner, then supping mojitos and dancing till 4am on the Latin- lubricated dancefloor.

Bellagio lunch buffet. If you're going to gorge, you may as well do it in style; $13.85 (9.25) (or $18.50 [12.35] for Sunday's champagne brunch) will buy you a saliva-spilling array of everything from sushi to gourmet pizzas and divine pistachio crme brle.

Alternatively, the seafood buffet at the Rio (4pm daily, $27 [18] a head) is much acclaimed if you're a sucker for shrimp and lobster cooked every imaginable way.

7 Charlie Palmer's Aureole. Las Vegas used to be more famous for 99 cent steak dinners than fine dining. Le Cirque at Bellagio, Drai's at Barbary Coast and multiple Wolfgang Pucks have changed all that. The most stylish restaurant is at Mandalay Bay. A globule of fuchsia pink on a stark white wall lures you to the entrance before you plunge 40 feet into Charlie Palmer's restaurant, passing a towering "cellar in the sky" holding 9,000 wine bottles. Make your selection and it will be retrieved, Mission Impossible-style, by an abseiling waiter. Dinner is $55 (37).

Reservations 632 7401.

8 Cirque du Soleil's O. Don't skimp on shows. Top productions have a surreal extravagance that will leave you with a satisfying sense of mystery and wonder - the perfect antidote to fruit-machine zombies. The most spectacular and sophisticated is O (as in "eau"). Aptly described as "liquid magic", it's a show on, above and under 1.5 million gallons of water. You know it's good when the $100a-pop (66) tickets sell out every night.

(Bookings 796 9999).

Also recommended: much-mocked illusionists Siegfried and Roy (792 7777), irresistible in person, they will have you straining from your seat with kiddy glee as you watch their ice-blue-eyed white tigers (and $95 of your money) do vanishing tricks. Ultimate in trashy, flashy Vegas entertainment is Enter The Night at the Stardust. It's where Showgirls was filmed. Say no more.

9 With Prada and Tiffany at Bellagio, Sephora and Jimmy Choo at the Venetian, and Bloomingdales, Macys et al at the Fashion Show Mall, Vegas now has top-of-the-range shopping. But the Forum still offers the ultimate shopping experience, featuring Gucci and Guess? interspersed with attractions such as the "statuescome-to-life" clash at Atlantis, a vast, beauteous aquarium, and the ever-changing skyscape.

The Venetian. All-suite, sumptuously ornate hotel with canopy- draped bed chambers, movie-star bathrooms and sunken salons for entertaining, totally living up to the hotel's watchwords of "calme, luxe and volupt". Rates vary from $119 (79) to $499 (333) per night, according to availability.

Reservations (414 1000). Bon Voyage (02380 248248) has seven nights at the Venetian for 689 per person room-only, including return flights from Gatwick (departs 8 June). Peregor Travel (01895 630 871) has five nights room-only in a suite for 655 per person, including return flights from Gatwick (departures three times a week until end of June). Caesar's Palace (731 7110) is the best bet for Sin City virgins - a classic seamlessly merging old and new style Vegas (standard rooms $89-$500 [59-333]) - whereas Vegas multi-timers might prefer the latest addition to the Strip: the new incarnation of the Aladdin opens 17 August with prices starting at $99 (66) for a deluxe room (736 0111). Genie extra.

lBelinda Jones's debut novel, Divas Las Vegas, is to be published by Arrow in spring 2001.

VIRGIN VEGAS FROM 8 June Virgin Atlantic (01293 747747) flights leave from Gatwick on Sundays and Thursdays. Return fares from 273 (around the 400-500 mark in summer). Virgin Holidays (01293 617181) offers seven-night package deals from 779 at hotels like the Sahara and Circus Circus, and 1,079 for the five-star hotels such as Bellagio and Mirage, this summer.

Further information from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority website at www.lasvegas24hours.com (brochure line 0990 238832).

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