The San Francisco Chronicle at SFgate.com, reviewed the European style topless sunbathing pools in Las Vegas. It is interesting to see the reporter's view compared to our take on the topless sunbathing scene in Las Vegas. Of course it was a guy writing about his experiences. (Probably the first time he has ever seen bare breasts in ).
As he writes "pool visitors regularly steal not-so-furtive glances of anything they can glimpse [meaning naked breasts]." And I bet he was one of those guys staring.
The first thing you need to know is the whole purpose of those adult pools in Las Vegas is not to allow women to avoid tan lines on their naked chest. No it is is to try to get some women to take off their tops and to be the "entertainment" for guys which will spend a lot of money on drinks and entrance fees. Margaritas for instance are $12.50. Call brand cocktails are $15.00. Entrance fees for guys are $10 to $50/day. These pools need topless women to keep the guys drinking. We were told some of the pools pay showgirls to topless sunbathe midweek when they can't get "civilians" to topless sunbathe.
Also at Caesars Palace, they have rooms that overlook the topless pool. We were told those rooms are more expensive.
Las Vegas pools are NOT for women where it is their first time topless sunbathing in public as the guys very obviously stare and blatently check out the topless women. They make the women feel very uncomfortable.
At the end of July, we spent 3 days at Caesars Palace. We went to use their Venus pool on a Wednesday for 3 hours and Thurs for 1 hour.
When we got there on Wednesday, the regular bathing suit pool was packed. The Venus pool was about 1/3 full. There were 4 rows of lounge chairs. The ones next to the pool were reserved for high rollers or you could rent them for $150-$250/day depending on how busy they were. They had 6 cabanas that rented for $650-1000 per day or again went to high rollers.
We had to show our hotel room ID. There was no charge midweek for us. When asked, we were told that it wasn't that busy, so they wanted women there. However, if I was not staying at the hotel, they would have charged me being a guy $20 midweek.
We said sometimes we stay at the Bellagio and asked if we could come to the Venus pool. We were told that as long as Mary Clare promised to go topless, then sure he would let us use their pool. However, if they were real busy on a weekend, and if Mary Clare said she wasn't going to go topless, then we would have to wait while they let in hotel guests and women who said they would go topless. It would then be available to us at a fee on space availability.
There are maybe 150 lounge chairs around the pool. We are told we could spend $150 to be next to the pool or it was complementary to sit 1 row away from the pool. We chose the cheap seats 1 row back.
There were maybe 15 couples and another 25 guys with groups of 2 to 6 guys hanging around.
We sat on the lounge chairs. We looked around. Not one single woman was topless. Mary Clare commented, "this is really creepy." A pool attendent walked by and Mary Clare asked "is this really is a topless pool" to which the attendent said midweek sometimes no one goes topless all day long, and at other times a few women go topless. He said they only really have some topless women on Saturdays and Sundays.
Mary Clare told me that even though we own a nudist resort, even though she is comfortable having nude pictures of herself used on our blog and website, she feels really uncomfortable going topless there. However, since we are there to report on the Las Vegas European style sunbathing experience, she decided she will take off her bikini top. I told her she didn't have too, but she insisted to get a full flavor for their experience.
We were restaurant critics in Chicago for 10 years. We learned that even though you may have a bad server, and bad food, if you were to give a restaurant a correct review, you had to go twice and put up with the bad service and food without complaining, otherwise you would not get a true feel for the restaurant. That is why we went to the topless pool 2 different days.
As soon as Mary Clare went topless, a woman sitting right across from us immediately took off her top too. She obviously did not want to be the only woman with bare breasts there.
Then came the next phenomenon. Guys in lounge chairs "had" to get up and walk right past Mary Clare and this other woman. And when they got in front of Mary Clare and the other woman, most slowed down and blatently stared for a second or 2 and walked on. The other woman and her male friend left after maybe 15 minutes of her being topless.
We were there for about 3 hours and it was nonstop new guys walking by stopping and staring as if they had never seen bare breasts before in their lives. Now in all fairness, once the guys had walked by the topless women once, most didn't walk by again. They just stared from their lounge chairs.
When we left at 3pm there were maybe 20 couples and maybe 50 guys there. There was never more than 3 women at a time topless sunbathing. Most woman would take of their top and then either cover back up after being subjected to all the guys leers or they would leave shortly after going topless.
Women wearing bikinis, tops and bottoms were not subjected to the leers.
We had other weird experiences there. Mary Clare got up and started walking into the pool topless. A pool attendent ran over and said "you can't do that." Upon asking what he meant, he said "all women have to wear their tops in the pool. It is topless sunbathing not topless in the pool." Really weird!!!
It was hot. Here at our resort, we invested in a $6000 poolside misting/cooling system. It is state of the art and our guests love it. At the Venus pool, they have the misters like at our resort, but only at the cabanas. Everyone else is treated like a second class citizen and has to suffer in the heat. And the poor women can't even go topless in the pool.
Later Mary Clare got up, topless, to go to the bar which is in the topless pool area, to buy some bottled water since it was so hot. Again, another pool attendent runs over and says "you can't do that." Now the "that" is women can not walk topless she is told. Mary Clare can only be topless while sitting or laying on the lounge chair. As soon as she gets up, she must wear her bikini top. They had the most bizarre rules.
Needless to say, the experience was very unsatisfactory. If you are a woman going topless for the first time, you will feel so intimidated by all the men, you will never try it again. It is not a pleasant esperience like you find at nudist resorts.
Mary Clare, said to me, she felt like a piece of meat on display for hungry dogs (the men). She would have kept her top on except to experience the European style pool for herself.
We went there Thursday. Mary Clare could only put up with it for 1 hour. Now when we got there, there were 2 women already topless sunbathing and at one point including Mary Clare there were 4 women topless sunbathing, but the men were so annoying again. As soon as she took off her top, guys came by to check her out.
We have learned the Venetian's topless pool has already closed. If it was run anything like Caesars Palace's topless pool, it does not surprise me.
All of our female guests that have ever used these pools in Las Vegas midweek told us they hated them as they felt they were on display for the guys. Guests from Southern California tell us on weekends, more women do go topless, so they don't feel quite so much like big exhibitionist, but they do not feel comfortable. They all tell us they would rather go to a nudist resort than then topless pools in Las Vegas if they had a choice. They only went to the topless pools in Vegas because they were there, not because that was their first choice for nude sunbathing.
As the SFgate author writes "Of course, the pools also incorporate a key ingredient for Vegas circa 2007: half-naked women... Steve Davidovici, managing partner of Pure Management Group, which runs the Venus Pool Club at Caesars, said "In Europe, it's not that big of a deal to walk on the beach and have women swimming or sunbathing topless," Davidovici says. "We're just trying to re-create a little of that ourselves."
In conclusion, you can tell no one has a clue as to how to run a nice topless pool. I assume no one has ever been to a topless beach in Spain or France. If they had, they would know, just like we know, the most importnat thing is make the woman feel comfortable. If she doesn't, the couple will never come back. We for instance will never try the Venus pool again unless we hear from guests that it is more women friendly.
Caesars Palaces topless pool is a phony "European style" pool as much as the Las Vegas strip is an imitation of real Venice, Paris, New York, etc.
For the full article
click hereThe picture here is the entrance to the Venus pool. i took the picture.
Now if you want a nice relaxing fun nude vacation, where men and women feel very comfortable nude sunbathing, give us The Terra Cotta Inn clothing optional resort and spa a call at 800-786-6938. Visit our site at
http://sunnyfun.com Hope to see you in sunny Palm Springs!
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