Greetings from Las Vegas. This is Day 4 of our trip report, covering Thursday,
April 6, 2000.
This was our day to depart from The Rio and move over to a "vacation villa"
at Sun City Anthem. Before doing so, however, we immersed ourselves in the recounting
of an event that happened on April 14, 1912. The event, of course, is the sinking
of the Titanic on her maiden voyage, and the recounting is Titanic: The Exhibition,
in The Rio's mezzanine-level exhibit space.
I've seen many bulletin-board and newslist posts asking if anyone had seen
the Titanic exhibit, and seeking opinions about the value of spending $15.95
to view it. Read on and decide for yourself, because the answer is not as simple
as you might imagine.
The show is beautifully staged, occupying much of the same space used for the
Treasures of Russia exhibit that was such a huge success. A key ingredient in
the Titanic exhibit working as well as it does is the professionally narrated,
recorded guided tour, which is included in the admission price. Visitors entering
the exhibit are given a cassette recorder, with the narrator explaining the
items as you proceed through the collection and directing you in such maneuvers
as "now turn to your left," and "pause to study the recovered
artifacts in this cabinet." The green button plays the tape, and the red
button stops it if you want to linger along the way. The narration incorporates
a musical score, and also employs the voices of actual Titanic survivors as
well as actors speaking as some of the specific passengers and ship's officers.
Most of the tape is in stereo, and it works very well.
Recovered items, including dinnerware, jewelry, shaving brushes, coins and
personal letters, bring the incredible tragedy to life. But just as the re-creations
of the palace rooms of the czars were the highlight of Treasures of Russia,
the re-creations of Titanic's famous Grand Staircase, its first-class passageways
and staterooms and card room, as well as a second-class bunk-style room, are
what combine to put a face on the ship and its occupants.
If you visit the Titanic exhibit, one of your most dramatic moments will come
when you enter a room dominated by a large block of ice intended to simulate
the exposed surface of an iceberg, which you are encouraged to touch. "No
one could survive longer than 10 minutes in the North Atlantic waters of that
evening," the narrator intones, and suddenly the reality of collision,
darkness and death is brought home to you.
Now for the big question: Is Titanic: The Exhibition worth attending? Not necessarily.
If you are a rabid fan or student of the Titanic story and have not previously
attended any of the other Titanic exhibits touring around the world, or if you
can't get enough of the film "Titanic" and Celine Dion's promise that
the heart will go on, then by all means go see it. You will be happy you did,
because it will add a little to your knowledge base.
Rosalyn and I did get something out of this show, but we both agreed that we
left it feeling a bit let down, in the way you might if you were hungry after
eating a delicious gourmet dinner whose portions were too small.
More than 5,000 artifacts have been recovered from the Titanic wreck site,
but only about 200 are on display at The Rio. In short, what is shown is presented
very effectively, but there is simply not enough of it. In part this is understandable,
because the recovered items are supporting many Titanic exhibits around the
world. At first, the overall effect fools you, but then you begin to notice
that each exhibit room throughout the presentation is furnished with just one
or two display cases holding a small number of artifacts, along with a few wall
hangings.
The Titanic exhibit is in residence indefinitely, which will allow the show
to be changed from time to time as items from other Titanic exhibits are rotated.
But this does little for Las Vegas visitors who are unlikely to see the display
more than once.
Moving methodically through the Titanic exhibit, following the narrative and
stopping the tape a few times to linger, took us only 50 minutes, making the
attraction an attention-holder for adults and children alike. I mentioned above
that the cost is $15.95, but we were able to reduce this to $12.95 with a discount
coupon available at the registration desk. Cost for children under 14 is $9.95.
At about 11:30 a.m., we returned to our Rio room and did a smooth automatic
check-out via television. Our total bill for the four nights, with tax and after
deduction for our various package credits, was $181.77.
We stopped at a Burger King in Henderson on the way over to Sun City Anthem,
and before too long we pulled into the sales pavilion parking lot for our meeting
with Karl Kuhns, the Del Webb landscape architect who had sent us a preliminary
landscape design for our lot.
People familiar with master-planned communities, homeowners associations, condo
associations and the like, know that most of these developments are governed
by a "bible" called the CCRs. This stands for covenants, conditions
and restrictions, which spell out, in excruciating detail, the rules residents
must abide by as a condition of living in the community.
When it comes to how Sun City Anthem homeowners landscape their lot, the CCRs
have something to say. Depending on lot size, there's a requirement stating
the minimum number of bushes, trees and plants that must be on the site, and
there are also restrictions on the use of some types of non-native flora.
Beyond that, homeowners are left with two major choices as to how they want
to go. They can make use of traditional landscaping with lots of water-guzzling
grass, or they can go with xeriscape, the desert landscaping which is easy on
the water supply and is urged upon residents by Clark County authorities.
Desert landscaping can be very attractive, creatively applying colored stones,
palms, cacti, and all sorts of tree and plant varieties ranging from desert
willow and mesquite trees to the loveliest of flowering shrubs.
From Karl, we learned a little bit about our soon-to-be immediate neighbors.
On one side we will have a couple from California, and on the other a couple
from New York. Both couples have opted for a substantial amount of lawn but,
reassured by Karl's assurance that our own concept will not be jarring, we are
sticking to our original plan for desert landscaping.
Karl took us on an hour-long drive around the streets of Sun City Anthem, where
we observed and discussed landscape themes that have already been installed
by his department, as well as by commercial landscapers that residents are free
to hire after they own their homes. We spent a few minutes walking the lot of
a home buyer who is spending $26,000 on his landscaping. This is the Rolls-Royce
of installations to date, while minimal plans that comply with the CCRs can
cost as little as $3,000. We are estimating that our final cost will fall somewhere
in the middle of that range, but we were pleased to know that we don't have
to commit to anything until 90 days after taking title, which allows us to wait
to make a commitment until we are actually living in the house. Karl gave us
a good comfort level, and we expect to have a revised landscaping plan from
him before we fly home next week.
As soon as we finished our two hours with Karl, we made the brief drive over
to the reception center for the vacation villas, where we checked in and received
the keys to our assigned villa. This will be our base for the next week, and
the setup is just the same as it was on our October visit. We're in a small
house, on a little street devoted just to the villas. The villa is a small house,
with a fully equipped kitchen, cozy living room and dining area, bedroom with
king bed, two bathrooms, lots of storage space. The living room and bedroom
each have a large-screen TV with full Cox Cable, as well as VCRs. The back of
the house opens onto a golf-course fairway, and we can sit on the patio to watch
the golfers and enjoy the weather. Towels, soap and laundry detergent are provided.
We received a remote control for the garage, and a Review-Journal is left at
our doorstep each morning. And, of no small significance for my Internet access,
local calls are free.
Midway through our stay, a cleaning crew will come in at no charge to clean
the house from top to bottom and replace the soap, linens and towels.
The villa welcome center puts on a continental breakfast each morning. Each
week there are two late afternoon wine and cheese parties, as well as complimentary
bus tours of Henderson.
The only requirement to stay in these villas is that one of the guests be at
least 50 years old, because, although no pressure to do business with Del Webb
is applied, the company does intend these accommodation to be a selling tool.
A locked door in each villa opens to a second bedroom so that two couples can
share the house.
Our cost for the seven nights will be a bit over $600, not a bargain but an excellent value in line with some of the better hotels around town.
After settling into our villa, we drove over to The Olive Garden on Sunset
for dinner. After a shared appetizer of mussels cooked in white wine sauce,
Roz ordered Chicken Capri, which is grilled boneless chicken breast over angel-hair
pasta in a red-pepper sauce. My choice, which has become my "usual"
at Olive Garden, was a veal cutlet with spaghetti. Add the standard salad bowl
and soft warm breadsticks, it was a good dinner for about $34 before we applied
a $5 coupon.
Noting that another tenant in the same plaza is a United Artists cinema complex,
we checked show times and decided to see "American Beauty." This was
a very good film about the ennui affecting modern American life, but we had
no idea it was such a dark comedy and would be such a downer by the end. In
a year that was not dominated by any other major films, "American Beauty"
certainly deserved the recognition it received at the recent Academy Awards
ceremonies.
After the film, we drove back to the villa, stopping enroute to stock up on some groceries at a Smith's Supermarket on Eastern. And that was Day 4.
