I always stay at Mandalay Bay during summer, for the kids to go to the wave pool. The pool area is still clean and safe as before. They let you bring your own beer and tube for the lagoon. For that part, it is a 5-star for sure!
The only reason I am giving 1-star is their internet. The free internet (not really free, part of the resort fee you pay) is provided by Cox Business Calbe. And guess what? They are blocking VPN and I cannot log in to my work to check email!
What got worse is that the support people denies they are blocking VPN. They make you think it is your computer. I googled and found a ton of post that Cox is blocking VPN.
It also looks like Cox has a program running in the background trying to identify and terminate encrypted internet access (easy way to identify VPN). When you first connected their internet (agree to terms, etc., and you need to do that every 24 hours in the hotel), VPN would work. Five minutes later, VPN got terminated and you were not able to use VPN again.
I am pretty high tech and so does my employer. I called my corporate tech support and we figured out why VPN is not working. So I "worked around" it and VPN started to work.
Guess what? The VPN got killed about 4 hours later. This time it looks like they reset my connection (I had to agree the terms etc again although I just did it a few hours earlier). The VPN workaround no longer works. The workaround I had was pretty sofiscated and it looks like someone had actively worked on to block it.
What I really do not understand is why Cox is doing that. This is a business hotel and it is pretty common for business traveler to use VPN to log into their work computer. The VPN I am trying to use is Cisco VPN, which is also a very popular tool.
I stayed at Monte Carlo last year and had the same problem. Their internet is also provided by Cox.
VPN was working fine at Mirage last year. I think they do not use Cox.
Unless I do not need to work, I will no longer stay at Mandalay Bay anymore.