Two Days at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida

The 450-foot brightly lit guitar dazzles from miles away.

This post contains affiliate links.  For more information, click here.

The Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Florida, boasts a fabulous collection of music memorabilia, a lagoon-style pool area, and the world’s first guitar-shaped hotel building.

Staying there for two days before a cruise out of Fort Lauderdale, I opted for a spacious room in the Oasis Tower — which featured a close-up view of the more flamboyant Guitar Hotel.  The unusual building is designed to resemble two back-to-back Gibson Les Paul guitars.  During its nightly shows, colorful LED lights are choreographed to different songs, and six beams project at least 20,000 feet into the sky, evoking the strings of a guitar.  Ever since my first trip to Las Vegas, I’ve loved the sight of lit-up casino-hotels, but this is something spectacularly uncommon.

The property’s large casino has all the expected offerings — table games like Black Jack, glittering slot machines, and a poker room.  I had fun playing video poker in the non-smoking room.

The grounds are beautifully landscaped.  The enormous pool area boasts a bar and grill, well-appointed cabanas, and even paddle-boards and space to enjoy them.

There’s a broad range of bars and restaurants.  I enjoyed a surprisingly good steak Cobb salad at the Hard Rock Café.

The Rock Spa & Salon offers a variety of massages and other treatments.  Hard Rock Live is the property’s 7,000-seat theatre, where Billy Joel once had a residency.

But the highlight for lovers of cultural history is the music memorabilia.  Among the most meaningful items for me were:

Johnny Cash‘s custom-made Grammer acoustic guitar

Neil Diamond‘s 1956 Ford Thunderbird

Elvis Presley‘s Harley Davidson motorcycle

If you like to enjoy some cultural history along with your gaming, the Seminole Hard Rock Casino & Hotel in Hollywood is a fun place to explore.

* * *

Continue your adventure in the Southeast:

• Ava Gardner Museum in Smithfield, North Carolina
• Things to Do in Colonial Williamsburg
• Wentworth Mansion in Charleston, South Carolina