The Wednesday before New Years, the Husband and I and our friends Andy and Michelle met up to participate in the Vegas Mob Tour which we learned about from Groupon many, many months ago.  We’d been meaning to do the tour for months now but our schedules only finally matched up this past week.  Going into the tour, we knew that it was a two and a half hour bus tour with a short walking portion that would cover the mob in Vegas – a subject we generally knew very little about.  We were looking forward to seeing what it was all about.

Their website gives information about where to buy tickets, but since we had a Groupon, we didn’t need to buy tickets – we needed to make reservations instead.  The Groupon came with a phone number to call which I did.  The woman on the other end was away from the office (it rings to her cell phone) as I didn’t realize it was a day they weren’t running tours so I suggested I’d call her back in a few hours (though she did offer to call me back).  I forgot so I found her email address on the website and we were able to coordinate via email for the night we wanted to attend.  Tina was very responsive and it was super easy to get that all squared away!

The night of the tour, the four of us piled into Andy’s car and we headed up to the Royal Resort which is located on Convention Center Drive, just a bit east of the Strip.  When we arrived, it wasn’t clear where to go so we grabbed a spot out front and headed inside.  A lot of people were hanging out on the couches in the lobby, and I headed to the reception desk to find out where to go.  We were in the right place and soon Tina, the coordinator, was escorting the whole group out back to the bus (there was plenty of parking behind the hotel that we could have parked in).  It was a nice bus (one of the smaller, executive type ones) and we were all encouraged to sit toward the front.

Before the tour officially got going, our tour guide Bobby A. put on a video for us that showed us the history of the creation of Las Vegas – from the Mexican discovery of the city as a trade post to the Mormon inhabitation to the early 1900s and various policies and groups that tried to build up this desert oasis.  It was super informative and we were only 15 minutes into the tour.  Then we got going and pulled away from the Royal Resort.

This is where feelings about the tour become deeply divided.  In preparation for this post, I read through the reviews on Yelp and TripAdvisor and those who have participated are split – they either really enjoyed it or hated it and I can understand both view points.  The “tour” doesn’t take you very far and you spend a lot of time sitting in parking lots as your tour guide shows photos and mini videos on the television screen and fills your brain with information about the mob in Las Vegas.  Unfortunately, a lot of the places that were around during the mob are gone now, but the few locations we stopped at were fascinating themselves.  We went to Tony Roma’s where Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal had a near death experience when his booby-trapped car exploded.  We saw an Italian restaurant that mobsters and entertainers alike used to dine.  There was the house that Casino was filmed at as well as a store that was the scene of a huge arrest of mobsters in a failed heist.  The tour ended at the Flamingo, one of the only hotels associated with the mob that is still standing (although in a different format as the original was much, much smaller).  There we learned about Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel, a huge influence over the formation of Las Vegas and of the Flamingo hotel.  Hidden in the gardens behind the hotel is a memorial to him (a place we’ll be back to explore in the daylight).

Bobby A. was insanely knowledgeable and informative.  There were a lot of references to the movie Casino, which I’ve unfortunately not seen but is now on my Netflix queue.  If you plan on taking this tour, I highly recommend you see the movie (or rewatch it) close to the tour as a lot of the tour is about parts of that movie (a true, or based-on true, story).  The Vegas Mob Tour was developed with the assistance of former mobster Frank Cullotta, author Dennis Griffin, and retired FBI agent Dennis Arnoldy – people who know their stuff.  The Husband and I love how much we learned and the few spots we did see we enjoyed. 

We’re glad we had a Groupon, though, as we’re not sure we’d pay the full price for the tickets.  For the amount that we saw on what was to be a “tour,” I felt a bit cheated.  Perhaps if the driver took the bus up and down the main strip or over to downtown Las Vegas, just to give some scenery as the tour guide spoke, we would have felt differently.  The amount of time we sat parked somewhat took away from the value of what we learned and what we saw.  However, ultimately the Husband and I enjoyed the experience and we recommend it for those who are fascinated by the mob and/or those who are able to get discount tickets.

Note – This is NOT the Las Vegas Mob Experience which appears to be an interactive museum type attraction at The Tropicana.