Caesars Palace opened on 5 August 1966 as Jay Sarno's Roman fantasy, named without an apostrophe so that every guest would count as a Caesar. Evel Knievel crashed jumping its fountains on New Year's Eve 1967, the Forum Shops opened in 1992 and The Colosseum was built for Celine Dion in 2003. It covers 85 acres, with 3,980 rooms in six towers, and the 1966 original lives on as the Julius. It turned 60 in August 2026 midway through renewing itself tower by tower: the Colosseum in 2023, the Augustus from summer 2026 to early 2027, and the Julius and the Palace in 2027.
Each tower is a different hotel. The entry Julius Deluxe Room is 360 sq ft (33 m²) with a walk-in shower. The Colosseum Tower's rooms, redone in 2023, start at 350 sq ft (33 m²). The Octavius, opened in 2012, gives 550 sq ft (51 m²) for little more, and the Augustus has the largest standard rooms at 650 sq ft (60 m²), with views of the Strip, the pools or the Bellagio fountains. Peter Silling & Associates is redesigning the whole tower, due by early 2027, so the marble and grey rooms in older photos are being replaced. Above them come suites, 29 new Sky Villas and the AAA Five Diamond villas.
This is the one to book for Las Vegas as it pictures itself. You arrive under a raised, coffered ceiling hand-painted with Roman gods and hung with a chandelier of 70,000 crystals, where a 15-foot Carrara marble Augustus greets you, and the whole day is on site: from March to October, the Garden of the Gods, five acres of pools on three levels, with statues around the Temple Pool and swim-up blackjack in the Fortuna Pool; more than 160 boutiques and restaurants in the Forum Shops; Qua's Roman Baths; a headliner at the 4,300-seat Colosseum; and dinner at Restaurant Guy Savoy, the chef's only restaurant outside France and one MICHELIN star in 2026.
The trade is scale and extras. Of its seven pools, only Temple, Fortuna and Neptune open daily to every guest; Jupiter and the 21+ Venus open Friday to Sunday, and Apollo is reserved. The $54.95 nightly resort fee plus tax covers Wi-Fi for two devices, local calls and the gym, valet costs $50 a day, and on 85 acres around a casino where smoking is allowed in designated areas, the walk from the far towers to the Strip is long. Some rooms in the older towers show their age. Book it for a first Las Vegas trip, a birthday or a Colosseum night, and sleep in the Augustus. If you want a small, quiet hotel, look elsewhere.
