THE FORUM SHOPS AT CAESARS

The Forum Shops at Caesars, The Shopping Wonder of the World, hosts approximately 100 retailers and restaurateurs housed in palatial splendor at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas.

Opened May 1, 1992, the shopping attraction is an integral part of the bustling activity in the Caesars casinos, adjoining the resort's Forum Casino. The center routinely welcomes more than 50,000 people per day, while holiday visitor volume easily can exceed 70,000 persons in a single day.

The Forum Shops at Caesars is a visual as well as a retail attraction. Storefront facades and common areas resemble an ancient Roman streetscape, with immense columns and arches, ornate fountains, massive piazzas and classic statuary. Overhead, on a barrel-vaulted ceiling, a painted sky emulates a changing Mediterranean day.

Shopping is fun at the Forum. Every hour, on the hour, the Festival Fountain comes alive with a realistic special effects show that includes lasers, computerized dancing waters and robotic statues. Here, Bacchus, Plutus, Venus and Apollo have a party, inviting all of their Forum visitors to join them. A second robotic statue show is featured hourly in the west corridor, where lifelike animatronic figures of mythology's Neptune and his feuding children reenact the tragic story of Atlantis. The two moving statues shows are presented daily free of charge.

Adjoining the Atlantis statues is a 50,000-gallon saltwater aquarium with hundreds of tropical fish from 25 fish families. Aquascaping was designed by Los Angeles -based architect Terry Dougall (designer of the Forum Shops at Caesars) to represent the legendary sunken city of Atlantis. Consulting fisheries biologist Brian Baldassian supervised the aquarium project.. Included are both solitary and schooling fish - many indigenous to Caribbean coral reefs. On weekend afternoons, a marine biologist, assisted by a scuba-diving aquarist, gathers young visitors to describe the marine life; these sessions are timed during fish feedings, when some of the shyer species, like sting rays and baby sharks, are likely to appear.

Combining shopping with entertainment makes The Forum Shops at Caesars a destination attraction in Las Vegas. A half-court basketball arena and treadmill machines in the athletic shoe store Just For Feet offer customers the opportunity to test run their purchases. Magic Masters, designed as a replica of Harry Houdini's private library, features magical demonstrations to passersby; prospective buyers are escorted through a secret door into a secret room to learn how to perform an illusion. The Warner Bros. Studios Store has a video wall showcasing new movie trailers, popular cartoons and bloopers from classic films, as well as a free make your own cartoon discovery area for young visitors. The award-winning Caesars Exclusively! store, which sells Caesars brand leisure wear, accessories and fragrance, celebrates the sports and gaming tradition of Caesars Palace with its sculpted marble roulette wheel in the foyer floor and in other specialty display fixtures.

Internationally celebrated designers like Versace, Bernini, Armani, Christian Dior, Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Escada are among the many prestigious tenants, as are Wolfgang Puck's Spago, The Palm, Chinois (a second Wolfgang Puck restaurant), Cheesecake Factory, Caviarteria, Bertolini's, Stage Deli and Planet Hollywood.

From the casino, guests enter The Forum Shops at Caesars at the Fortuna Terrace under an arch that stands 48 feet high. A statue of the goddess Fortuna is the centerpiece of the rotunda, which is surrounded by a Roman colonnade and ceiling-high recessed arches that house replicas of classic statuary. The Warner Bros. store in this area gently chides the Palace decor with its statues of Porky Pig and Wile E. Coyote dressed in Roman garb.

A transition area from casino to shopping street, the Fortuna Terrace flooring is made of imported Italian marble. At the apex of the L-shaped facility, under a rotunda measuring 62 feet high by 140 feet in diameter, the Fountain of the Gods recaptures the grandeur of Rome's fountains, with Jupiter ruling from his mountain surrounded by Pegasus, the winged horse, Mars, Venus, Neptune and Diana. The nearby Bertolini's Italian restaurant offers its version of al fresco dining with outdoor as well as indoor seating.

Near the Festival Fountain at the Las Vegas Boulevard entrance are the Forum's lower level attractions, which include the CyberStation game arcade and Cinema Ride.

Pedestrians along the famed Las Vegas Strip enter the Forum Shops through a rotunda under its brilliant Quadriga statue -- four gold-leafed horses and charioteer. A moving walkway brings visitors in and out, through five giant heroic arches -- an ancient symbol of great achievement.

In addition to the valet parking available in the underground traffic tunnel at Caesars Boulevard (north driveway), the shopping plaza offers self-parking in the Caesars Palace free covered parking facilities.

The Forum Shops at Caesars is located on eight acres of Caesars Palace land leased to developers Simon DeBartolo Group, of Indianapolis, and The Gordon Company, of Los Angeles. Designed by Dougall Design Associates, Inc., of Los Angeles, it was constructed by Las Vegas-based Marnell Corrao and Associates.

The Forum Shops at Caesars was expanded in August 1997 by 283,000 square feet of leasable space, bringing the total to more than 500,000 square feet of gross leasable space. Included in the August addition were 35 new merchants and 3 new restaurants. At the west end of the added shopping corridor is a Roman Great Hall measuring 85 feet high and spanning 160 feet in diameter, where shoppers are entertained each hour by the Atlantis moving statue attraction. The Atlantis story line has inspired the addition of the nearby Race For Atlantis

IMAX 3-D motion simulator adventure ride. Opened Jan. 9, 1998, "Race For Atlantis" is a joint venture of IMAX and Caesars Palace. The adventure ride is the first attraction of its kind to combine 3D imagery on a giant domed screen (which measures 82 feet across).

Shopping hours are from 10 a.m. until 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, 10 a.m. to midnight Friday and Saturday (some restaurant hours later).