| rev:text
| - I have stayed at Mandalay Bay twice, once on purpose, and once on accident. The one on purpose was way back in 2003, for a surprise trip to Vegas for my 21st birthday. The hotel was pretty new and was the fanciest, most beautiful place I had ever stayed up until then.
This review is about the time I stayed there on accident, in 2010.
My then boyfriend (now Hubs) had never been to Vegas, so I decided to surprise him with a trip to Vegas a few weeks after his birthday. To make things even more memorable, he proposed to me on HIS birthday. So, we had several things to celebrate - his 27th birthday and our engagement.
I had gotten a killer deal through Vegas.com to stay at theHotel (now you're probably seeing where the "accident" part of this comes in). We would be flying out of Sonoma County to Vegas and staying at theHotel for three nights, all for about $500. Total. Killer deal, right?
When we got to the front desk of theHotel the agent asked if we wanted to upgrade to a Penthouse at Mandalay for $100 extra dollars a night. I'm not afraid to admit that on this trip we had a strict budget, so we declined the upgrade. The agent, a little surprised by our decline of the penthouse, tried to talk us into the deal by showing us pictures of the room and telling us that we would have a private entrance, etc. As sweet as it sounded, it was a no-go for us. Plus I really wanted to stay at theHotel. The agent told us to hold on while he talked to his manager. He came back and offered the upgrade for $100 for all three nights. (At this point I realize that they overbooked at theHotel and are trying to avoid telling us that by trying to get us to pay for an upgrade at their sister hotel). My now fiance, in his wisdom, told them, "No, we would really rather spend the money on gaming at Mandalay's casino." The agent steps away again and comes back and tells us that the Penthouse upgrade will be complimentary. I say "Sweet" and he says, "No, Penthouse."
This killer deal of ours included a $100 resort credit, which I asked our agent if it covered the resort fee. He said usually no, but that he would waive the resort fee. We were definitely feeling like some lucky SOBs at this point.
Okay, so now we have a Penthouse. And $100 resort credit, and no resort fees. Things are looking good. We find the private elevator and up we go to the second highest floor. Granted, we are facing the airport but I don't think we really cared too much at this point.
This penthouse was insane. I felt like we needed an entourage to stay there. HUGE is the only way to put it.
However, the rooms are starting to show their age. The air conditioner in the living area rattled a bit (funny story there involving the handyman who came to work on it, but it's not something I will share on Yelp). Some of the controls didn't work great. But for the price we paid it was amazing. So baller. And quiet on those top floors. Seriously, the private elevator thing was so nice.
Mandalay Bay treated us well. No one trying to sell us stuff as we walked through the casino, just staff handing out free passes and being very helpful. (Got free passes to Mix and had a lovely time looking out from that vantage point). It also helps that we won some money on Roulette at a little table we found.
We saw The Lion King here, which was phenomenal.
Checkout was a bit of a pain in the ass with the wait, but otherwise our time here was a happy one, and perfect for our multitude of reasons to celebrate.
I'm not usually one to stay in the same place twice, so I won't be back for a repeat stay since I've been twice already, but I will always remember the time we got to live it up in a Penthouse.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)