Mirage

The Mirage is a 3,044 room hotel & casino owned & operated by MGM Mirage. The Mirage was built by developer Steve Wynn on the site of the old Castaways hotel & casino, & was (at the time) the most expensive hotel & casino in history, with a construction cost of $630 million. Other interesting construction facts include that the marquee in front of the hotel is, apparently, the largest free standing marquee in the world, & that the gold tint to the hotel windows was created using actual gold! The Mirage is the sister hotel to The Bellagio, so it is only appropriate that the Mirage also has an outside display to complement the Bellagio Fountains. The Mirage has an artificial volcano that "erupts" hourly between 5 pm - 11 pm. The volcano is natural gas powered which is, naturally, odourless. To make natural gas safer, 'thiols' (pungent compounds containing sulphur & hydrogen atoms) are added so that the gas can be detected if there is a leak; however, to avoid the odour of unburnt natural gas, the odourant is scrubbed from the gas stream & replaced with a Pina Colada fragrance!