There are restaurants from top chefs such as Wolfgang Puck and Lorena Garcia, elegant hotel suites, shows that pull from Motown favorites and the movies of Baz Luhrmann and nightclubs that fill with bouncing bodies year after year.

But the signature attraction at the Venetian casino resort in Las Vegas has always been its gondolas — slim, stately boats modeled after the Italian originals — that carry visitors past cafes and under bridges on indoor and outdoor canals colored an idealized shade of teal. With singing gondoliers in striped shirts and straw hats at the helm, the gondolas, more than the faux St. Mark's Square and ornate Italianate architecture, are what make the Venetian the Venetian.