I’ve been living in Las Vegas for almost five years now, since 2018 (this excludes the couple years I spent road tripping across the United States and living out of hotel rooms), but there are still a lot of iconic things in the city that I haven’t experienced. Up until yesterday, one of those things was taking a ride on the High Roller Ferris wheel at Caesars Entertainment’s LINQ Hotel + Experience on the Las Vegas Strip.

One of my friends is in town for a work conference near the central Strip, and while we were going for a walk around the LINQ Promenade together after picking up her admission credentials, the entrance to High Roller caught our attention. There was no wait and the box office was nearly empty, so we made an impulse decision to go for a ride around the wheel.

The wheel constantly spins at a very slow rate and you enter your pod while it still in motion, sort of like how you mount a bench on a ski lift. Because of how few people there were on a Tuesday late afternoon, my friend and I were able to get our own private pod without needing to share with any other parties.

I used to live in high-rise condos on the Las Vegas Strip, so as we ascended in altitude, I got waves of nostalgia looking out onto the city.

A little after ten minutes into our climb, we were high enough that we passed the elevation at which I lived in my old condos.

My friend took some photos of me in the pod. Here is me being confused why she is holding the camera up so high…

… and here is me looking like I somehow just now finally noticed that they put the Sphere there.

About 15 minutes into our ride, we reached the summit of 550 feet (~168 meters). From the top, I was able to get some great 360° views and captured some nice photographs of the sunset.

Soon after, we began our descent, and after about half an hour, our loop was over.

Going into the ride, I assumed that I would only end up liking it a moderate amount because of how desensitized I am to the view after living in high-rise condos, staying in rooms on upper floors of Strip hotels, and riding in aircraft over Las Vegas. However, surprisingly, I enjoyed High Roller a lot more than I expected.

I imagine a big part of it was attributed to the fact that we were able to get a fun, private experience in our own personal pod. There was amazing lighting due to the pod being fully surrounded by large glass windows and the setting sun shining in, so my friend had a great time taking glowing selfies. I was also able to roam around freely taking a lot of photographs of the view without feeling like I was distracting or detracting from others’ experience.

Apparently High Roller has flexible pricing depending on demand and time of day, with adult tickets starting at US$29 each and sometimes being eligible for discounts if you purchase ahead of time. My friend and I ended up paying US$33 each at the box office, which isn’t exactly cheap, but also wasn’t too bad in my opinion.