Thanksgiving in Las Vegas - Things to Do in November & More

Whether you're visiting for the first time or you've got family descending on Vegas for Thanksgiving, we've got your holiday activities all wrapped up.

UPDATED NOVEMBER 2024
Las Vegas

Las Vegas is a city of lights year-round. So how do you find something particularly festive to do in time for the Thanksgiving holiday? While there are certainly plenty of concerts, buffets, and casinos to fill up your time, we’ve put together a selection of other activities for Thanksgiving in Las Vegas.

Whether you're a visitor touring the city or a local in search of something out of the ordinary, we've got an idea for you. Some top things to do for Thanksgiving in Las Vegas include...

  • Las Vegas Hop-On Hop-Off Tour
  • Black Friday shopping
  • Grand Canyon Tour
  • Hoover Dam Tour
  • See a show
  • Bellagio Conservatory
  • Cactus Garden Holiday Lights
  • Magical Forest
  • And more!

So check out these suggestions for local activities and more seasonal things to do in November.

Las Vegas Hop-On Hop-Off Tour

For new visitors to the city, there's nothing more effective as an introduction to Vegas than a tour. Choose a hop-on hop-off option like this one from Big Bus Las Vegas to help you make the most of the experience. Stay on to enjoy the informative narration, and disembark at something that interests the family.

Along the way, you'll pass all the major neighborhoods and sites of interest, so you'll leave feeling like you got a good overview of the city. Or, if you're a local who's entertaining visitors, a ride aboard this bus can be an excellent way to show them around your hometown without the stress of driving them around yourself.

Black Friday shopping

LINQ Promenade 

illuminated-welcome-las-vegas-sign-on

Make the most of the Black Friday sales and pick up some deals before Christmas. There are dozens of shops to choose from, spanning everything from clothing and shoes to high-end luxury goods. Arrive early to take advantage of special sales! There are also plenty of delicious restaurants around, should you choose to stop for a bite to eat in the middle of all that intense Black Friday shopping.

And don’t forget about the High Roller Observation Wheel – it’s a great way to unwind and enjoy the sights of the city after a long day of shopping.

Tour the Grand Canyon

orange-sun-lights-pass-though-grand-canyon

A wonderful Grand Canyon Bus Tour experience is the centerpiece of any fully-rounded Vegas vacation. When you've had your fill of casinos and shows, head out to commune with nature in one of the most beautiful places in America. This time of year is perfect for seeing the Grand Canyon because you're avoiding summer crowds.

It could be a bit chilly, but your tour bus will be heated and you can always pop on a scarf when you get out to take pictures. You'll also be enjoying an extra special experience: this ticket includes meals, park entry fees, and tours of some of the best spots of the South Rim and Grand Canyon Village.

Visit the Hoover Dam

looking-atop-hoover-dam

If you're looking for more outdoorsy fun while in Vegas, a tour of the Hoover Dam is an excellent option. It's also a good opportunity to explore more American history during a time of year when we particularly reflect on our heritage.

Visit this National Historic Landmark and learn all about its history, how it was built, and the future we envision for it. You can explore their many exhibit spaces, see an informative film, take tons of photos, and much more. If you're interested in taking the power plant tour, there's a small upgrade fee – worth it!

Catch a Show at the V & Saxe Theaters

If there's one cultural thing you have to do in Las Vegas, it's to see a show at one of their iconic theaters. The V & Saxe Theaters offer plenty of opportunities to see a wide variety of performances and genres, including magic, comedy, percussion, dance, and even grand productions like "Vegas: The Show."

If you're a music fan, you may also like The Beatleshow Orchestra or All Shook Up: Tribute to the King. There are plenty of kid-friendly options, too, including Popovich Comedy Pet Theater and the Nathan Burton Magic Show. Many Las Vegas shows will have performances over the Thanksgiving weekend. However, it is likely to be busy so consider reserving tickets ahead of time.

Harvest Display at the Bellagio Conservatory

bellagio-conservatory-botanical-garden-passionate

Enjoy the beauties and bounties of fall with a trip to the Bellagio Conservatory. Talented decorators put together a delightful arrangement of leaves, pumpkins and squash, cornucopias, and other seasonal plants. It’s a grand display that fills the entire space, from arches of autumnal leaves to sculpted trees and floral designs. Flowers adorn the much-loved giant mushroom sculptures.

The Harvest-themed exhibition will be displayed until mid-November. So, you'll have to make your way over there a little before Thanksgiving to make sure you can marvel at its beauty before they switch to Christmas décor! You'll also enjoy the yearly appearance of the enchanted talking tree – made of plant materials! 

It's free to enter the Bellagio Conservatory.

Cactus Garden holiday lights

Ethel M. Botanical Garden, Henderson, NV. 

Cactus holiday lights Vegas

There’s nothing quite like the holidays in Nevada – after all, where else will you see Christmas lights on a cactus? If you’re looking to enjoy this unique spectacle, then head to Ethel M.’s Chocolates for a chance to see a gorgeous botanical garden all decked out for the holidays. It's the perfect Thanksgiving in Vegas attraction.

The cactus garden is open nightly, is free to enter, and is a big favorite with local families. While you’re there, don’t forget to pick up some thoughtful (and delicious) gifts.

Magical Forest

Opportunity Village 

Get yourself psyched for the holiday season with a visit to the marvelous Magical Forest at Opportunity Village. It’s jam-packed with holiday attractions, including a seasonally decorated train, an enchanted carousel, Rudolph’s Raceway, and of course, the magical forest itself – hundreds of trees strung with brilliant, dazzling lights. It’s a southern Nevada tradition dating back years, and a visit here is a chance to participate in local holiday culture.

Getting In: Admission to the Magical Forest at Opportunity Village is separately ticketed and is not included with Go City Las Vegas passes. For more information and to purchase tickets, please visit the attraction website.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving in Vegas!

So whether you’re gearing up for the holidays or just enjoying a leisurely time in November with friends and family, grab a Las Vegas attraction pass and dicover the wonders of Vegas for yourself! Please note, some of these special November events may be separately ticketed and not included on the Go City Las Vegas passes.

Want to save money on those bucket-list attractions? 

Check out passes from Go City and you could save yourself up to 50% on your must-sees – perfect!  

☀️Compare Las Vegas passes☀️ – 🌏 Explore other destinations 🌏 –  ✈️ Buy a pass ✈️ 

 

Katie Sagal
Go City Travel Expert

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Panorama of the Las Vegas Strip
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4 Days in Las Vegas - Perfect Itinerary

Las Vegas is the entertainment capital of the world, so believe us when we say you’ll have zero trouble filling four days with high-octane, dice-rolling, Strip-tastic fun. Your only difficulty will be deciding what to do first. And that's where we come in! Read on for our perfect 4-day Las Vegas itinerary, including: High Roller Observation Wheel Fremont Street Experience Grand Canyon Mandalay Bay Beach Club Bellagio fountains, gallery and gardens Colosseum theater Las Vegas Arts District Hoover Dam Red Rock Canyon Day 1: Viva Las Vegas! Kickstart your Sin City adventure by getting the lay of the land aboard the open-top hop-on hop-off bus. There’s really no better way to get an overview of this sizzling city’s must-see landmarks. Tick off the bucket-list classics, including that essential selfie stop at the ‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas’ sign, and marvel at how the Strip's flamboyant hotels vie for the tourist dollar with their increasingly outlandish gimmicks.  We’re talking Paris’s replica Eiffel Tower, the Bellagio’s legendary dancing fountains, and the exploding volcano at The Mirage, to name just a few. You’ll also get to whiz around the OG downtown area, home of the glitzy Fremont Street Experience (of which more later). There’s even a nighttime version of the bus tour that gives you an opportunity to experience the Strip in all its neon glory, all without having to lift a finger (or indeed a foot). Having experienced Vegas’s uniquely surreal atmosphere at arm’s length, it’s now time to go full immersion mode in the city’s legendary casinos. So put on your best poker face, cram your pockets full of dollar bills and get lucky. Take your pick from dozens of casinos, from old-school giants like Caesars Palace, the MGM Grand and the Bellagio to beloved downtown faves including the famous Golden Nugget. Expect hundreds of classic table games like like roulette, blackjack and Texas hold ‘em poker plus thousands of slot machines in these cavernous, money-guzzling twilight zones of capitalism. Day 2: Strip Highlights Ok, day 2 of your awesome 4-day Vegas experience and it's time to get up close and personal with some of the Strip’s main attractions. And you really could fill a whole day or more exploring this vast thoroughfare, with its supersize hotels, monster malls and hundreds of bars and restaurants, from fast food to fine dining. Top tip: the Strip is much longer than it looks. Avoid aching calves and pesky blisters by taking full advantage of the Las Vegas Monorail, which connects a number of major hotels and casinos along the Strip’s eastern side, running for nearly four miles. But what to see and do? Bit of an art fiend? Good news: Vegas does high culture every bit as well as it does low culture. Case in point: the ever-rotating exhibitions at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art have included works by household names including Warhol, Picasso and Lichtenstein; the horticultural marvel that is the resort’s botanical gardens is also something of a work of art in itself. Here during pool party season (March-October)? Hit up Mandalay Bay’s epic Daylight Beach Club, home to a ridiculously large pool (4,400 square feet, fact fans), a man-made beach and a seemingly endless lazy river. You could sip bubbly aboard the knee-knocking High Roller Observation Wheel at the LINQ Hotel, which soars 550 feet over the Strip. Or catch a show at the legendary Colosseum theater at Caesars Palace – superstars from Sinatra to Madonna have graced the glittering stage here down the years. Ride the glass elevator up Paris’s replica Eiffel Tower or cruise the Venetian’s faithful replica of Venice’s Grand Canal in a gondola. The possibilities are almost literally endless. Day 3: You can always go… Downtown! It would be easy to overlook Las Vegas’s laidback downtown area for the considerable thrills and spills of the Strip, but that would be to miss out on Sin City most old-school enclave, home of the boho Arts District and terrific Neon Museum, a sort of retirement home for Vegas signage of yore. Best visited in early evening, this is the place to nab Insta-perfect selfies bathed in the neon glow of such iconic signs as the Stardust and Lucky Cuss Motel. Check out the nearby Arts District for the best of Vegas’s indie scene, including galleries, boutiques, vintage clothing emporia and hipper-than-thou craft breweries like Hop Nuts Brewing and the Nevada Brew Works. There’s nothing old school about the Fremont Street Experience. Easily Vegas’s most popular attraction outside the Strip, this huge complex features a video-screen canopy the length of five football pitches, beneath which tourists and locals browse stores galore and sip colorful cocktails in the chi-chi bars. Eye-popping hourly light shows and live music across three stages every evening means there’s never a dull moment here in Glitter Gulch. Day 4: The Great Outdoors Sure, Las Vegas is terrific fun, but three sinful days of sensory saturnalia can be more than enough for most people. What better way then to round out your perfect 4-day Las Vegas itinerary than swapping the noise, neon lights and general chaos of the Strip for the wide open spaces of the Nevada and Arizona deserts? You can take a helicopter ride over the awe-inspiring Hoover Dam to the enchanting South Rim of the Grand Canyon, where a restorative stroll among rust-red rocks and vibrant wildflowers is pure manna for the soul. Opt for an afternoon trip that will time your return descent along the Strip around sundown, for some of the most spectacular skies and Sin City views you’re likely to find. Helicopters not your bag? Rent a soft-top instead and strike out south along Interstate 15 to Red Rock Canyon deep in the Mojave Desert. This relatively diminutive sibling of the Grand Canyon promises equally otherworldly landscapes, characterized by soaring sandstone crags and towering cacti. Don’t miss sculptor Ugo Rondinone’s hallucinatory art installation on the way there. Seven Magic Mountains is a series of gravity-defying boulder stacks painted in a kaleidoscope of vivid colors – essential eye candy for any Insta addict worthy of the name. Save on attractions in Las Vegas  Save on admission to Las Vegas attractions with Go City. Check out @GoCity on Instagram for the latest top tips and attraction info.
Stuart Bak
Stuart Bak
Spectators watching the Bellagio Fountains by night.
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Caesars Palace vs Bellagio Hotel Attractions Comparison

Caesars Palace and the Bellagio are two of the titans of the Las Vegas Strip, each with close to 4,000 rooms and oodles of high-end bars, restaurants, shops, pools, spas and more. That, fact fans, puts both comfortably inside the top 10 most supersized hotels in town (and inside the top 20 on the entire planet). But which is better? There’s only one way to find out! We pitted these two Sin City heavyweights against each other to find out how their many and varied attractions measure up. Caesars Palace vs Bellagio Hotel Attractions: The Must-Sees In terms of the kind of must-see attractions that will leave your Insta followers green with envy, it’s fair to say the Bellagio is your best bet. Sure, Caesars has a certain allure, thanks to its flamboyant Greco-Roman style architecture, Corinthian columns, winged statues, fountains and 20-foot likeness of Augustus Caesar. Strip first-timers are sure to adore its old-school glitz, while movie mavens will enjoy re-enacting scenes from the likes of Dream Girls and The Hangover, both of which were filmed here. But does it have its own fine art museum and botanical garden? It does not. And that’s before we even get started on the Bellagio’s world-renowned fountain show... Surely the biggest and best free show in town, this watery extravaganza sees skyscraping jets of balletic water swaying in time with classical music belters and modern pop bangers, and runs at regular intervals from 3PM to midnight daily. Head inside to take a peek at the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art, with ever-changing exhibitions that have included works by some of the biggest names in 20th-century art, among them Picasso, Warhol and Lichtenstein. There are yet more blooming wonderful works of art on display in the Bellagio’s Conservatory & Botanical Gardens. These colorful and hopelessly flamboyant horticultural displays change with the seasons and culminate in a hugely camp and over-the-top festive spectacular at year’s end. Meanwhile, Dale Chihuly’s vibrant glass Fiori di Como sculpture (pictured above) is in bloom year round, and dominates the Bellagio’s main lobby area. Caesars Palace vs Bellagio Hotel Attractions: Entertainment and Nightlife Make no mistake: Caesars Palace is an absolute titan of the Las Vegas entertainment scene. It’s legendary Colosseum theater has hosted performances and residences from some near-mythical music makers over the years. We’re talking Frank Sinatra, Madonna, Elton John, Celine Dion and the mighty Liberace. Add to this the epic Omnia nightclub, 75,000 square feet of multi-level dancefloors with state-of-the-art sound and lighting and an awesome 11-ton kinetic chandelier centerpiece, and you have the beginnings of quite the evening out. They love a bit of water-based entertainment over at the Bellagio so, in addition to those dancing fountains, Cirque du Soleil’s resident show takes place over a 1.5-million-gallon pool. O – pronounced ‘eau’ not ‘oh’, darling – has been wowing audiences with synchronized swimming, daredevil diving and various other acrobatics since the hotel opened in 1998. It’s good, but it’s not quite Sinatra, so the smart money’s on Caesars in this round. Caesars Palace vs Bellagio Hotel Attractions: Having a Flutter Opened way back in 1966, Caesars Palace is the place to catch some genuine old-school vibes, with 1,324 slot machines (at last count) on which to try your luck, as well as 185 table games that keep it real with classics like roulette, blackjack and Texas hold ‘em poker. High rollers hit up the Bellagio for up-to-the-minute slot games. There are more than 2,300 reel, video reel and video poker games on the casino’s slot floor as well as, of course, the usual glut of table games, many of which can be played in the exclusive high-limit lounge. Sports fans are in for a treat at both hotels. The Caesars sportsbook is an absolute corker with a whopping 143-foor HD screen while the Bellagio’s mammoth venue has multiple (not-quite-as-big) screens and around 100 individual racing monitors. We’re talking two of the very best betting facilities in the West here, so you’re not really taking much of a gamble by choosing one over the other. Let’s call it evens. Caesars Palace vs Bellagio Hotel Attractions: Bars & Restaurants Neither hotel is short of a celebrity chef. Nor indeed a cocktail lounge or six. Whether you’re in the market for a prime steak filet, gourmet Italian food, a flamboyant floral cocktail or, you know, just a decent cup of joe, Caesars and the Bellagio have you more than well covered, with something like 50 bars and restaurants between them. The Bellagio just edges it in terms of sheer number and variety of eateries but – in-keeping with its overarching bacchanalian theme – Caesars has more (and better) bars. Caesars highlights include celebrity hotspots like Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen with its decadent signature beef wellington, and the foliage-festooned Vanderpump Cocktail Garden, where you can sip – if you’re feeling brave enough – on imaginatively named drinks including Checkmate Bitch, Cold Blooded and Puff the Magic Dragon. Smokin’! Meanwhile at the Bellagio it’s all about late-night liquor in the lavish Lily Lounge overlooking the casino floor. Take a break for steak at PRIME or dine in style at Wolfgang Puck’s flagship Spago restaurant, directly overlooking the Strip and dancing Bellagio fountains. Odds are that, again, you’ll have a good time in either hotel. Caesars Palace vs Bellagio Hotel Attractions: Shopping It should perhaps go without saying that a city that effectively exists for big spenders and high rollers is going to have some of the best shopping on the planet. But prices are often not for the faint-hearted. That’s perhaps especially true along elegant Via Bellagio, where luxury designer brand after luxury designer brand will have your bank manager coming out in a cold sweat in no time at all. We’re talking – deep breath – Bulgari, Cartier, Chanel, Dior, Hermes, Prada and Valentino, to name just a few. Perfect, in other words, if you’ve recently won big on the craps tables. The shopping at Caesars Palace is an altogether more extravagant affair, with around 200 chic boutiques and speciality stores. Here, amid soaring marble columns, Romanesque courtyards, burbling fountains and statues including a life-sized replica of Michelangelo’s David, you’ll find more of the world’s biggest fashion brands, as well as high-end chocolates, glittering jewelry and unique Vegas souvenirs. For those reasons, we’re betting on Caesars for the win in this round. Caesars Palace vs Bellagio Hotel Attractions: R’n’R An afternoon spent sipping margaritas and people-watching by the pool should be considered all but essential on any Vegas vacation. Set around Mediterranean-style courtyards strewn with luxurious cabanas and daybeds, the Bellagio’s five pools are ideal for just such an activity. Caesars ups the ante in its modestly monikered Garden of the Gods, where epic Romanesque columns, statues and fountains surround seven pools. Have a flutter at the Fortuna pool’s five swim-up blackjack tables, take the kids for a splash at Jupiter pool or join the all-day bacchanalia at Neptune. If you prefer to spend your day mostly horizontal, you can even have a massage in your poolside cabana courtesy of the hotel’s sprawling Qua Spa. Our verdict? Caesars seizes the crown in the R’n’R stakes. Caesars Palace vs Bellagio Hotel Attractions Comparison: Conclusion So, while the Bellagio is where it’s at in terms of sheer visual spectacle and must-see attractions including the Bellagio fountains, Museum of Fine Art and Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, Caesars Palace more than holds its own in many of the other categories, notably entertainment, nightlife and the kind of extravagant pool scene that would make Caligula himself blush. Save on attractions in Las Vegas Save on admission to Las Vegas attractions with Go City. Check out @GoCity on Instagram for the latest top tips and attraction info.
Stuart Bak
Stuart Bak

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