Luxor Las Vegas is unique in its design. While you could say it's a copy of the existing pyramids in Egypt; those pyramids aren't lined with hotel rooms. Luxor added a standard room tower about ten years after the pyramid was built, so guests now have the option of a pyramid room or tower room. I've been a guest at Luxor three times; twice in the mid to late 1990s and once more in December 2006. I always request a pyramid room and recommend it simply for the uniqueness of the experience.
The Luxor pyramid has 30 floors of rooms. Floors 1 through 5 are not high enough to offer any interesting views; and floors 25 and above are sealed off from the rest of the pyramid by a ceiling. Floors 6 through 10 can be too noisy; you can hear the silly slot machine noises and people yelling when they hit a jackpot if your room overlooks the casino area; of which you have about a 50% chance. So I suggest booking a pyramid room between floors 11 and 24.
The pyramid rooms line the walls of the pyramid and therefore are set up in 4 rows per floor, rather than the usual 2 rows on each side of a hallway. Each row of rooms is against the wall, and instead of having another row of rooms across the hall; there is just the empty space of the pyramid interior.
A short wall (about 3 feet high) keeps you from accidentally falling over. However, there have been suicide jumpers and there is no safety device to prevent anyone from intentionally jumping over.
Like other MGM/Mirage owned properties, Luxor requires you to put your room key in a slot to operate the elevator (at the Luxor they're called inclinators since they don't go straight up and down). If you're not staying at Luxor, however, there are enough crowds going up to and coming from their rooms that you'll be able to hitch a ride up to a guest floor if you want to shoot some photos from up there.
As you walk around the perimeter of the pyramid, you'll be presented with views of the front check in desk, parts of the casino, and parts of the atrium level attractions.
The lighting is fairly dim regardless of the time of day so you'll need to use some camera-steadying tricks for some of your shots. The short wall alternates with taller segments of walls at the four corners of the pyramid (where the inclinators are located) as you walk along the hallways. I've found that pressing your camera up against the edge of a wall works very well. You can hold the left side of the camera to the wall for landscape shots, or hold the bottom of the camera flat against the wall for portrait shots. I also strongly suggest using a neck strap as a safety catch in case you lose your grip on the camera.
The first, third and fourth photos posted below were shot with 1/2 second shutter speed, aperture F 2.8. The second view offers a bit more light and was shot at 1/4 second at F 2.8. As you may be aware, all Las Vegas casinos are constructed without windows and therefore never receive any natural sunlight. The reason behind this, is the same reason there are no clocks in any casinos... losing track of time may cause you to gamble much longer.
While indoor photography used to be strongly discouraged in Las Vegas casinos, the attitude is now much more relaxed. As long as you aren't annoying gamblers by taking their pictures or acting like you're "casing the joint" for a robbery, photography is allowed to some degree in most Las Vegas properties. The most common statement you'll hear if approached by security while shooting photos is that they'll tell you not to shoot photographs in the gaming areas.
Before Aladdin became Planet Hollywood, I was told by staff that photography is allowed with no restrictions but that they prohibit camcorders. I also shot many photos in the Paris casino without being reprimanded. Security at Rio Suites, on the other hand, told me that photography is not allowed at all, period. All three of these properties have had changes in ownership since then, though, so the rules may have changed. Sometimes "rules" are not company policy but merely the opinion of an individual security staff. In any event, don't be nervous about shooting photos in a casino; the worst that will happen is that security staff will tell you to stop or they'll direct you to areas where photography is allowed.
If you don't use a flash, nobody may even notice that you're shooting photos.
There are no laws against shooting photos on private property in areas that are accessible to the public - even if you're told not to shoot photos and do anyway, the only law that can be used against you is trespassing. Since you're on private property, the property owner (or representative of the property owner which is usually security staff) can tell you no photos, or don't chew gum, or don't sing... whatever they want. Breaking the rule is not a crime in itself but can result in your being ejected from the property for trespassing. Security cannot under any circumstances take your camera or film or digital memory cards. If they do you can file a civil suit for violation of your civil rights, and a criminal complaint for intimidation, harassment, or assault if any of those techniques were used to seize your property.
