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Vitamin C-infused showers, yoga, fresh-pressed juice and artisan-roasted coffeehow to spend a weekend on the Strip without feeling stripped.
There’s no gentle way of saying it: you just don’t have the constitution for the 24-hour party town like you used to. Instead, live it up on the Strip and leave feeling better than when you arrived.
Exit the air-conditioned airport and take off your sweater as the suffocating 40-degree heat greets you. Even the weather in Vegas radiates excess. Head to the MGM Grand. With more than 5,000 rooms, 170,000 square feet of gambling space and 2,500 slot machines, this behemoth is perhaps the Strip’s most iconic example of over-the-top exhibitionism. So why are you here? Because you’re ensconcing yourself in a room on the Stay Well Floor. Recently expanded to 171 rooms, it features Vitamin C-infused showers, therapeutic lights, air and water purification and a mini-bar decked out like a health food store (opt for yogurt-covered raisins paired with a coconut water). Instead of Wayne Newton, Deepak Chopra welcomes you with a TV message guiding you through the myriad of other life-enhancing features in the room.
The Pool Café at the Mandarin Oriental is perfect, but apply sunscreen first or the Energizing light in an MGM Grand Stay Well room (below) will show you the harsh results.
Start the weekend off on the right foot with an Aria Indoor Hike. It may be the only training session on the planet engineered to help you party better. Steve “Rocket” Rosen spends an hour taking you through the sprawling property with its $40-million art collection, fire hall and shopping mall. Your forced march includes countless stairs, lunges, crunches, sprints and step-ups. The idea—using the hotel property to work on your core will ensure you have the balance and control to avoid a fall down the stairs after a few drinks.
Up early: check. No hangover: check. Keep the bliss going with a yoga session. And because the Strip just has to make a show of everything, your class includes dolphins. The 60-minute Yoga Among the Dolphins takes place in a private room inside a dolphin sanctuary. As you switch to warrior pose, your underwater friends look right at you through the window and laugh.
No breakfast buffet! Instead, hit Della’s Kitchen for huevos rancheros made with local beef and house-made salsa or a quinoa cereal depending on your commitment to the cause. Down a fresh-pressed juice (try the Green Pastures, bright with kale, pineapple, cucumber, celery, ginger and lemon) and artisan brewed-to-order coffee served at the table.
If you do your dolphin yoga at the Mirage, you can have huevos rancheros from Della’s Kitchen (below).
Aria’s Sage bar boasts the largest collection of absinthe in North America.
The Pool Café at the Mandarin Oriental offers so many healthy options, the menu comes with a wellness dictionary to help you navigate. Try the Vegas Hangover Remedy (coconut water, strawberry, pomegranate and Thai basil) and then dig into the skirt steak quesadillas. Looking out at the eighth-floor pool, you’ll notice the absence of a few Vegas fixtures—DJs, bouncing beach balls and champagne hose downs. Here the bubbly stays in the glass—a nice touch—while you Zen right out.
It’s Vegas and you’re sprouting a halo! There’s still time to partake in just a little Sin City. Sage is an oversized, over-the-top velvet-cloaked room serving up some of the city’s most indulgent meals (like the Wagyu beef tartare with slow-poached egg). Fine, do it. You’ve been good. Just be careful when it comes to their absinthe tasting (they have the largest collection in North America)—it rarely leads to good decisions. Which is how you end up at Britney Spears’ show.
Veggie hash from the Pantry.
You almost made it. Well, cure that hangover at the Pantry. This 24-hour café dressed up like a family kitchen at the Mirage has a wide variety of healthy options on the menu (egg-white omelettes and veggie hash and a whole series of choices marked “Smart Plate” with fewer than 700 calories). Strangely, the chicken and waffles doesn’t qualify. But you’re going to eat it anyway. It was the absinthe.
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