MAGIC CARPET RIDE ALADDIN HOTEL, DESERT PASSAGE MALL TAP INTO WISH-LIST AURA OF THE STRIP.

Byline: Story by Eric Noland Travel Editor

LAS VEGAS - European elegance resonates with most travelers, and in the great thematic derby that is the Las Vegas Strip, developers tapped it pretty thoroughly in recent years: Monte Carlo, Bellagio, the Venetian, Paris Las Vegas. Yet in a city built on the tease of quick and easy wealth, it's difficult to imagine a more appropriate motif than ``Tales of the Arabian Nights.''

Ali Baba stumbling into a cave to find ``great quantities of money, both silver and gold, partly piled up in heaps, and partly stored in large leather bags.'' Sinbad, on his second voyage, winding up in the Valley of Diamonds, among jewels of ``astonishing size.'' Or Aladdin, after gently rubbing a tarnished lamp, encountering a genie who says tantalizingly, ``What are thy commands?''

What a brilliant foundation to lay before inviting guests to try their hand at a green-felt gaming table or a clanging slot machine.

This is the newest fantasy world in Las Vegas - or at least a revival of a proven one. The Aladdin Resort & Casino, built on the site of the 1966 Aladdin Hotel (corner of Harmon Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard South), this time pumps up the voltage of the concept with a half-million-square-foot mall, Desert Passage, which curls around it.

The complex opened in August, but a bit softly, in the Vegas mega-project tradition. The cornerstone restaurants and several stores only recently opened their doors, and the hotel spa will be under wraps at least until the middle of next year.

It further confirms the concept of Las Vegas as a kind of adult Disneyland. People can't seem to get enough of suspended reality here, and this one plunges headlong into the world of ancient Persian fairy tales.

The theme plays out elaborately in Desert Passage, which wraps horseshoe-like around the hotel, casino and a 7,000-seat concert hall. The motif is tied to ancient trade routes, from north Africa to Arabia to India.

The size and scope of the mall - it will have 130 stores and 14 restaurants once the last half-dozen or so vacancies are filled - is another example of Las Vegas' efforts to broaden diversions for its visitors. The Venetian also has 500,000 square feet of retail along its indoor canal. The Forum Shops at Caesars, the pioneer of the concept, has expanded to top that. Even the Strip's true mall, the Fashion Show, is in the midst of a major expansion targeted for completion in 2002.

Can the market possibly bear all of this? ``I think at some point there's going to be a saturation point,'' said Michael Cahill, president of Hospitality Real Estate Counselors, a Denver-based consulting firm that tracks hotel and casino developments around the country. ``But there is so much unaccommodated demand for retail in Las Vegas. Over the last 10 years, it has become a resort destination - it's not uncommon for people to take a vacation there or attend a convention and not even gamble.''

Cahill added: ``What you find is the casinos generate a tremendous amount of foot traffic, and there is a tremendous amount of money, too, obviously. If you have a dollar in your pocket when you go to Las Vegas, they're going to have it one way or another - whether in the casinos or restaurants or retail.''

Desert Passage spokesman Paul Beirnes said the mall is averaging 55,000 visitors per day, and logged 80,000 on a recent Saturday in early November.

Much of that can undoubtedly be attributed to its novelty. But the designers did an impressive job of creating a movie-set illusion, which could keep the curious coming back.

The Morocco Gate, for example, features jasmine arbors, olive trees, walls in which the mud has crumbled away to reveal bricks beneath. None of it is real. At another point are urns stacked atop one another to form a fountain, with water trickling over the lips of some, dribbling out the cracks of others.

A little farther on, the Lost City clings to a jumble of desert boulders and appears in danger of being buried for eons with the next sandstorm.

Merchants' Harbor offers a glimpse of a north Africa wharf area, with cries of sea gulls, a clanging ship's bell, a fog horn, a full-size freighter hull shrouded in fog, and a pile of leather steamer trunks lashed together with rope.

The latter locale also features a dramatic special effect: an indoor thunderstorm. Every 30 minutes (on the hour and half-hour), the sky darkens, ominous claps of distant thunder are heard, lightning flashes. Before long, the sky unleashes a deluge, which splatters onto a rock-strewn section of wharf. After the storm plays itself out, you get the sense of it moving on, as the sky lightens and seabirds begin to screech again.

Desert Passage maintains a high degree of this ambience. The piped-in music is exotic and moody, the kind of thing you might expect to accompany Scheherazade as she spun late-night tales for the sultan in the hope of saving her life. Performers are a common sight, from belly dancers and musicians to acrobats and contortionists.

Down the center of the walkway are small kiosks, but bearing little resemblance to those push carts at your suburban mall. These are designed to look like makeshift Arab market stalls, with screens and lattice and numerous shelves and drawers. One sells nothing but candles, another ``1,001 boxes.'' Others have hats, cigars, rag dolls.

Of course, Desert Passage can carry the ancient-world bazaar theme only so far. So don't try to make sense out of why Tolstoy's Elegant Pens and Watches is in Morocco, the Thomas Kinkade gallery in the lost desert city, Ben & Jerry's on the north Africa wharf and the Tumi-Brighton luggage shop in India.

Generally, this place mixes the requisite mall stores (Gap, Victoria's Secret, Origins, Eddie Bauer) with such designer boutiques as Jhane Barnes, Joan Vass and Herve Leger.

There are also several quirky shops along the way, which make the browsing fun:

--The Candy Caravan has gotten into the spirit of things, with murals on the walls and its wares displayed in bins that look like giant baskets.

--The door of Endangered Species is guarded by two elephant statues. Here's the place to get a leopard skirt or snakeskin blouse - all fake, of course.

--Madagascan vanilla incense is sold at L'Occitane en Provence.

--At African Odyssey, you might be tempted to run your fingertips along the highly polished surface of a dining-room table made of red jarrah wood - $7,650 if you want to take it home today.

When hunger pangs begin to rumble, you don't have to despair that you'll have to eat something made with dates. The theme may be the trade routes that coursed through ancient Arabia, but Desert Passage's restaurant roads lead straight to Italy and France.

Bice follows a recent Las Vegas trend of offering an elegant dining option alongside a casual bar-and-grill setting. At the latter option you can order wine by the glass to complement a sandwich of oven-roasted tomatoes, portabello mushrooms, mozzarella cheese and basil on focaccia bread ($12.75).

Lombardi's serves several pasta dishes ($11-$17 at lunch, slightly higher at dinner), as well as antipasti, soups and salads. Diners here tend to gravitate to the sidewalk tables, perhaps forgetting that the entire mall is indoors. To reduce the intrusion of gawking passersby with camcorders, you might want to opt for the comfortable ``indoor'' dining room.

The dining jewel of Desert Passage is Commander's Palace, which opened in early November - nearly three months tardy. It is the only incarnation of the famed New Orleans restaurant outside Louisiana. Another recent (and late) opening was prestigious P.F. Chang's China Bistro.

For an intriguing - and potentially expensive - indulgence, stop by Beluga Bar, just beneath the prow of the freighter in the Merchants' Harbor. A shadowy establishment with a considerable fish tank behind the bar, you half expect to see Indiana Jones huddled with some nefarious character in one of the booths.

It serves 19 different kinds of caviar. Ask the bartender to describe the differences. You can spend anywhere from $7 for a spoonful to $565 for an 8-ounce dollop.

For pedestrians along Las Vegas Boulevard South, there is no difficulty in finding Desert Passage. The designers cleverly - if deviously - made certain of that.

You can bypass most of the Strip's new resort hotels on the sidewalk, if you wish. But Desert Passage's landscaping was built clear to the curb, such that foot traffic is diverted onto the property - up stairs, escalators, ramps - and funneled within a few steps of the enticing, double-door invitations of the mall and the Aladdin casino.

Once inside that casino, you'll find that the characters and themes of the Arabian-nights stories are played to the hilt. Here are dollar slots with such names as Magic Dollars, Sinbad's Treasures, Aladdin's Famous Fortune.

The fabled lamp of the story was incorporated into the Aladdin logo, and it is everywhere - including an enormous one right there in the middle of the casino. In the guest-room hallways, meanwhile, the carpet design is one of magic carpets, with tassels flying.

The hotel features a European-style casino, where the attire is a little finer, the stakes a little higher, and such games as baccarat can be found. It is called the London Club.

Sure, it doesn't really fit, but in its thematic orgy, Las Vegas hasn't exactly let incongruity bog it down. To be persuaded of this, venture no farther than the Aladdin's twin pools on the casino roof.

The area was modeled after an oasis, with rough, sandstone-colored deck tiles and an orderly grove of palm trees. Positioned between the pools is a weathered desert palace. And the cocktail waitresses here are vaguely attired as harem slaves.

It's a lot for the eye to take in. But if you want to maintain the illusion as you walk toward the north pool, it's probably advisable not to look up.

If you do, you won't be able to miss, just over the top of the palm fronds, the towering, distinctive contours of ... the Eiffel Tower next door.

IF YOU GO

Information and reservations for the Aladdin Resort & Casino: [phone] or [phone]; www.aladdincasino.com. Desert Passage: [phone]; www.desertpassage.com.

CAPTION(S):

8 photos

Photo:

(1 --2) Aladdin Rsort & Casino's large outdoor pool above, resembles an oasis with its sandstone and palm trees. Once complete, the resort's half-million-square-foot mall, Desert Passage, below, will feature 130 stores and 14 restaurants.

(3 -- 4) Aladdin carries and Arabian-nights theme throughout the casino above, with costumed performers, below.

(5 -- 7 -- color) The latest major theme property on the Las Vegas Strip is woven around the tales of Arabia. It includes a reborn Aladdin hotel as well as an expansive mall, Desert Passage. Visitors to the mall may find a movie set concept of an ancient bazaar,left, with elaborate statuary guarding such stores as Endangered Species, below.

Photos by Dean Musgrove/Staff Photographer

(8) no caption (Gold genies lamp)

Dean Musgrove/Staff Photographer