Las Vegas Pool Parties
It's Wet, Wild At These Best Party Playgrounds

The pools of Vegas casinos are the nightclubs of the daytime.

There's more to Las Vegas nightlife than meets the night.

It's the daytime pool parties!

While just about any hotel pool can be fun any day of the week, it's taken to new heights on Sundays. Hotels are have turned their pools over to nightclub operators and they now include DJs and bottle service.

It's fun in the Vegas sun on summer Sundays at the pool parties.

Party at the pool!

Many higher-end hotels have added these "club pools" for lack of a better term. And, unlike Mandlay Bay with its huge wave pool, cabanas and cocktails, you don't have to be a guest to be invited. A hot body (girls) and a fat wallet (guys) usually does the trick.

The pools are open from mid-March thru September and are in full party mood in the hot summer months.

This is Rehab, the one that started it all, still going strong.

Long considered the best pool in town, the Hard Rock (and we're also talking rock hard bodies here, both sexes) really cranked up the party level when it created Rehab in 2004. Within a week, the place was jammed and it's been so ever since. It's a Sunday afternoon experience and is so popular some actually stay in the hotel Saturday and Sunday night to go hard at the Hard Rock.

People start lining up as early as 8 in the morning and Rahab doesn't even open until 11 ($30 for guys, $20 for girls, $15 in-state and free for hotel guests, up to four per room). In addition to Sundays, there is also a Friday Night Live concert series.

Beauty and the beer at the Vegas pool parties.

When the Hard Rock starts to wind down later in the day, The Tao Beach Club at the Venetian begins to crank (starts at 5 p.m., opens late April). It's called Sunset Sessions.

Tao Beach doubles as a nightclub above the popular club Tao. By day, its bar features drinks such as TAO-tinis and TAO-jitos and food that includes sushi and grilled items. High loungers can reserve an air-conditioned cabana with plasma TVs and WiFi (10a.m.-sunset, seven days a week). By night, Tao Beach is an open-air extension of its nightclub with a DJs and "strategically-placed beds" above Tao the club.

The elegance of nightclubs extends to pools like Tao Beach.
Photo: Tao Beach

The Venetian Pool at Caesars Palace is one of the many that offers a private area for topless female sunbathers (guys can go in for a heavy fee). Bare, at the Mirage, is not the massive thousand-person party but a much more intimate setting for about 250 guests.

Like their nightclub cousins, you just don't walk into these pool parties on their big days. Cover charges vary, at least $20 for women and $30 for men. It's easier the next day, for some people like to stay a day and stay by the pool. Therefore, Rehab becomes Relax on Mondays. And Rehab is seasonal, May thru September.

The day after Rehab, it's Relax at the Hard Rock pool.

The pool parties are seasonal; most are open from the firset of may until mid-September. Ironically, the Las Vegas police have been throwing water on pool parties of late. Citing "lewd behavior and prostitution" several have had to reel in the wildness to a degree. The Rio closed its Sapphire topless pool (which was run by a strip club) last July and in August, a few people were arrested at Rehab on prostitution and drug charges. Spring break-type contests – Lose the Tan Lines and Boobs or Bust – have all been eliminated.

"But this type of behavior is what attracts people to Vegas," said one Vegas regular, Mr. Lay Vegas, who penned this article for PubClub.com on How to Get Laid in Las Vegas. "That's part of the attraction."

Fortunately for Mr. Lay Vegas and most visitors, it's pretty much party as usual for most patrons at the pool parties.