The New York - New York hotel and casino has one of the finest roller coaster rides and a spectacularly good Las Vegas attraction to beat them all. Well. almost… You have to go to the second floor of the Coney Island Emporium to get on the roller coaster. Down below there’s a pretty realistic replica of New York harbor. There’s even a tug boat, and of course, the Statue of Liberty, which in Las Vegas, stands at a respectable 150 feet high.

The New York - New York roller coaster ride takes some three minutes from start to finish. That may not seem long, but what a three minute ride it is! It can reach speeds of up to 67 miles per hour, so it’s not exactly crawling along at a leisurely pace. And of course, there are loops to let you scream, bends to make you strain the other way, and corkscrews to make you believe that the world is about to end. But it’s all good fun, in a kind of terrifying way.

The second drop is the one that gets you. After the first one you think it can’t get worse. It does. You fall more than 100 feet down a 50 degree incline - fast! But you won’t have time to worry about it. There’s a 180-degree heartline twist coming up, as well as a 540-degree spiral that will certainly put the G into G-force for you. But get there early. Almost one and a half million Americans and other visitors get on the ride every year. The lines can get long, but boy, they are worth the waiting for.