Keep calm and hold on — thrill rides of Las Vegas
The Stratosphere resort boasts the 2nd tallest tower in North America with a series of white-knuckle thrill rides at the top
When my daredevil wife informed me she wanted to go on a ride called Insanity at the Stratosphere hotel in Las Vegas, the first bit of research I did was to find out what the ride’s death toll was. Zero, Google answered. In 2005, a couple of people were stuck on the ride for 90 minutes when it was shut down due to high winds, but that’s the only problem I could find.
The Stratosphere, the most northerly resort on the Vegas strip, has North America’s second tallest observation tower, behind Toronto’s CN Tower, with a series of rides at the top.
Insanity’s claw-like arms take riders out over the side of the building and spins them around about 900 feet off the ground.
I’m not a ride enthusiast nor a big fan of heights, but if Mrs. Daredevil, also known as Teri, wanted to do it, how could I possibly chicken out?
Wanting to get it over with, we bought ride tickets on our first full day at the hotel. I surprised Teri by buying two tickets each — I’d read some people considered Big Shot the best ride of all, so that would be the other.
We went up to the 112th floor to get on Big Shot. It’s on the roof of the tower and shoots 160 feet up a pole, freefalls down and does this in varying lengths a couple of more times.
A false start added to the anticipation. I held on for dear life. Mrs. Daredevil let out a scream as the ride started. The adrenaline pumped, but in short order, the ride was over.
It was quite a view over Las Vegas, once you realized you weren’t going to die.
The legs were a bit wobbly when it ended. We had smiles on our faces, although the photos they sold us revealed our terror at the start of the ride.
Alas, it was windy that day — and the next — and Insanity wasn’t running. It’s the only ride that doesn’t operate in the wind.
We could have used our second ticket on X-Scream, but the thought of that one made me woozier than the others.
X-Scream is a roller-coaster on a short, straight track that runs 27 feet over the edge of the building. The car goes to the end of the track, which tilts up and, more terrifyingly, tilts down so people in the front of the car, in particular, have a 900-foot view down and people in the 108th-floor indoor viewing area will occasionally see the front of the car bobbing into their sightlines.
So we did waste our second ticket, but the prices are reasonable, so it wasn’t a huge loss.
As we returned to our hotel from an outing on Night 2, we saw Insanity was running again. It looked a little terrifying to me from ground level as the seats flayed out, leaving the riders looking downward. Mrs. Daredevil thought the ride seemed to go on forever.
It was chilly that night, so that was our latest excuse for not taking the Insanity plunge.
We wouldn’t have minded if it was windy again on Day 3, but the morning was calm and we weren’t planning our next outing for a few hours yet, so we had run out of excuses.
Another ticket bought, another elevator ride and this time, we actually got on.
The ride can take 10 people at once. Each claw holds a platform with seating for two. We were bolted in, along with two Jewish fellows wearing some of their religious garb sitting opposite — visitors from Israel, I guessed. One of them was more nervous than us, which was reassuring in its own odd way. We four were the only riders. As the ride slowly moved out over the edge, it was disconcerting to me as the ground gave way to thin air, but the spinning began and that was soon forgotten.
It was slow at first, but soon the ride began spinning faster and tilting us forward. I looked ahead more than down and watched the nervous guy a bit. He was still nervous, but full of adrenaline too. I felt secure in my seat and by the time the ride neared its end, the terror was pretty well gone.
Mrs. Daredevil enjoyed it almost instantly.
Both Big Shot and Insanity were done in a flash. I didn’t time the rides, but figure they were about five minutes each. X-Scream was probably the same.
The Strat, as I heard no one call the hotel, also has Sky Jump. For US$120, you can jump off the 109th floor. They have an in-house TV channel that lets you watch the jumpers. Tethered to a line, they jump off the platform, dangle in the air a few seconds, then are guided down to a landing pad. On TV, it looks like a controlled, gentle, slo-motion descent.
“That looks like fun,” said Mrs. Daredevil.
Later that day, we spent several hours at the Fremont Street Experience in old downtown Vegas. Now, Mrs. Daredevil wants to ride the ziplines over Fremont.
Didn’t happen this time, but next time we’re in Vegas, that’s on the to-do list.