Excalibur / New York-New York
A castle that was once the world's biggest hotel, and a half-scale Manhattan with a roller coaster on the roof.
Key facts
- Excalibur, the medieval-castle resort, opened in 1990 and was the largest hotel in the world at the time, with 4,032 rooms.
- New York-New York opened in 1997 with a roughly one-third-scale replica New York City skyline and the Big Apple Coaster, a roller coaster that runs outside and around the resort's towers.
- T-Mobile Arena, behind New York-New York, opened in 2016 and became home to the Vegas Golden Knights, who entered the NHL as an expansion team in 2017 and won the Stanley Cup in 2023.
Narration transcript
On your left, the fairy-tale castle with the red-and-blue turrets is the Excalibur — and don't let the drawbridge fool you. When it opened in 1990, this castle was the single largest hotel on the planet: four thousand and thirty-two rooms. In Las Vegas, “biggest in the world” is a title that changes hands about once a decade, and you'll hear it again before this drive is over.
Right next to it, that skyline you're looking at — the little Statue of Liberty, the Empire State, the Brooklyn Bridge — is New York-New York, opened in 1997 at about one-third scale. Watch the towers for a second: that yellow track threading between them is a roller coaster, the Big Apple Coaster, which loops right out over the sidewalk and back in.
And tucked in behind New York-New York is T-Mobile Arena. That's home ice for the Vegas Golden Knights, who arrived in 2017 as a brand-new expansion team — and who then did the least Vegas thing imaginable, which is show up and actually win, lifting the Stanley Cup in 2023.
Up ahead is one of the great crossroads of the Strip, the corner of Tropicana Avenue and the Boulevard. As you roll through it, shift your attention to the right side of the road — because on that side, the story is about something enormous that isn't there anymore.