← Las Vegas Strip Drive Tour

Planet Hollywood (Aladdin site)

Where Elvis married Priscilla in eight minutes — on the site of an Aladdin that got imploded and reincarnated.

Planet Hollywood (Aladdin site)
Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons. All image credits.

Key facts

Narration transcript

On your right, the towers of Planet Hollywood stand on the site of the old Aladdin — and this corner is where the King got married. On the first of May, 1967, Elvis Presley married Priscilla right here at the Aladdin, and if you'd blinked you'd have missed it: the whole ceremony took about eight minutes. Very Vegas. In and out, back to the party.

The Aladdin itself is a perfect little example of the tour's theme. It was imploded in 1998, rebuilt from the ground up, and then in 2007 they changed the name entirely to Planet Hollywood. Same corner, third identity.

But hold on to Elvis for a second, because the eight-minute wedding is only the warm-up. Two years later, in the summer of 1969, he came back to Las Vegas and opened a residency at the brand-new International hotel — and that is where Elvis and Las Vegas truly married. Night after night, a packed showroom, one of the great runs in the history of this town. The rhinestone jumpsuit, the karate kicks, the whole legend — it was born a mile from where you're sitting.

The song on your screen is his 1964 title track, “Viva Las Vegas” — the unofficial anthem of this entire street. Let your passenger cue it up.

Now keep driving north. On your left, watch for water — a huge blue lake right on the edge of the desert, and a row of fountains. That's Bellagio, and it's standing on a graveyard.

Song heard here