There's something strangely forbidding about the idea of a secret garden - especially one seeded by those twin towers of Vegas iconography, Siegfried & Roy. Somehow it makes me want to dust off that old Quincy Jones LP where Barry White and Al B. Sure sonorously sing about finding a secret garden...come on, come on, come on. Is it getting hot in here?
Well, it's really a mini-combo park zoo and Marine World, and for $15, it actually provides a nice, budget-level respite from the casino in the Mirage. Given the hotel's recent multi-million-dollar losses, I wouldn't be surprised if the admission fee goes up. It really consists of three parts - the pool where dolphins frolic with their trainers (you can see them up close above the pool and from an underwater viewing gallery), the gift shop where the baby leopard Java plays with one of the staff in a glass room, and the more traditional areas where the big cats and alpacas sleep restfully in their spaces.
I enjoyed it - even though it only takes a half-hour to go through the entire compound. That's just enough time to assess your losses at the craps tables and give the dice one last blow 'cause baby needs a new pair of shoes. I'm not sure what the point of the hot dog stand is in the Secret Garden since you're just a few yards away from all the eateries in the Mirage. Perhaps eating weenies in Vegas are meant to be kept secret as well.