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Travel

What Made Bellagio Go Dark?

Hotel Without Power For Several Days

UPDATED: 10:44 a.m. EDT April 19, 2004

A mysterious power outage hit the Bellagio on Easter Sunday, forcing the hotel, casino, restaurants, clubs and attractions to close for several days. More than 1,500 guests were moved to other hotels throughout the city as workers tried frantically to restore electricity to the darkened resort.

The hotel lost millions of dollars in revenue before power could be completely restored nearly four days later. Guests and gamblers were allowed back into the hotel late on Wednesday after the laborious task of bringing the resort's myriad of computer-controlled systems back online was complete.

There's still no official word on what caused the lights to go out around 2 a.m. on April 11, although the theory being advanced by some surrounds an error made by construction crews working on a new room tower. An investigation is in the offing to find out why the outage occurred and why the back-up systems failed as well.

Minimal emergency power lit some halls and common areas, but the bulk of the hotel was dark. Slot machines, air-conditioning systems and even the electronically controlled plumbing were not functioning, leaving guests who woke up to the power outage with stuffy rooms and no showers.

Most of the hotel's guests were transferred to other properties within the MGM Mirage family (Mirage, Treasure Island, MGM Grand, etc.) but a few had to be placed at competing resorts, including Caesars Palace and the Venetian.

Several performances of Cirque du Soleil's "O" were cancelled, as was the extremely popular water fountain attraction in front of the hotel. Workers had to hand-water the thousands of plants in the Bellagio Conservatory to make up for the powerless irrigation system; attendants monitored the air inside the Bellagio Gallery of Fine Art and Picasso restaurant to ensure there would be no damage to the expensive artwork hanging on the walls.

All of the hotel's restaurants were closed as well and were not expected to open until at least a day after the rest of the property came online, since everything in their refrigerators had to be thrown out and the chefs had to start from scratch.


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