Well the day we went they were predicting a 20 chance of showers for Las Vegas. We arrived at the Stratosphere around 10:30am. There were clouds and off in the far distance you could see the dark clouds forming. By the time we go our wrist bands and got all the way up it was about 10:50am. I got on the ride Intensity which was great and when the ride was over 11:00am they announced to us that they had to close the rides and observation deck down due to lightning in the valley and they would reopen in 30 minutes. Well 30 minutes led to 4 hours later 3:00pm with no timeframe of when they were going to open the rides and deck. I wasted all that time of my vacation and only got on one ride for 40.00. My Dad got the same time on the observation deck and that cost me another 20.00. That is expensive to spend for one ride and about 10 minutes on the deck. Now I understand about weather and we cannot control that but in all that time looking out the window and seeing rain off in the distance but no sign of lightning of any kind leaves you frustrated because this was going to be the high light of my whole trip to Las Vegas. I do not like heights but could not wait do these rides. I do not know if they ever reopened the rides and deck after we left because I was so upset and frustrated to give them a call to see if they had opened back up. Plus I really did not want to spend another 30.00 in round trip taxi fair from where we were staying Encore. I even purchased a GoPro camera to video this before I finally got an email back from Richard who is the Tower and Retail Operations Manager saying that I could not use the camera. He told me that weather is monitored by computer and that they want to operate at maximum safety. He also said which I expected is that they have no control over the weather. Basically to me that says we got your money and wasted your time on vacation. I had other plans for that day after going on the rides which had to be changed because of the 4 hours wasted.
So anyone who purchases these tickets in advance take warning because they will use the weather as an excuse to shut down the rides and the deck. There was no lightning around or threat of lightning because I saw the helicopters flying around Las Vegas. Plus if you go during the week you will have no problem getting on the rides because there was hardly anyone there. I could have gone on all the rides multiple times which I was planning to do since there was hardly anyone there.