I visited the Mandalay Bay Hotel from June 12 to June 16, 2006, to attend the eBay Live 2006 Convention. eBay Live was superb! The Mandalay Bay Hotel was not.

I will begin this review with my qualifications to provide a realistic review of a high quality Hotel. I was Vice President of Inter-Continental Hotels, until my retirement in 1998. I was responsible for the design and construction of the Hotels in my region. Prior to that assignment, I managed the design and construction of Hotels for Inter-Continental and Sheraton.

The Mandalay Bay Hotel

Summary

• 6 Star prices
• 3 Star facilities
• 2 Star services - some good, many poor

The Mandalay Bay is overpriced, service is generally poor. The design and interiors are worn and outdated. Restaurant themes are pretentious and unrealistic. The quality of the food and service is not commensurate with the prices.

Valet, Bells & Reception

Valet and Bells provided fast, efficient, polite and personable services. They seemed well organized and trained.

Front Desk Reception service was brusque, disorganized, tedious and erratic. No direction was provided being provided by Hotel Staff to assist guests and expedite the check-in process. You had to pick your line and then wait, wait and more waiting. After waiting in a line and arriving at the check in position, the clerk closed the position and directed me to another line. The Front Desk clerks carefully avoided eye contact with the guests. Finally, I arrived at the Front Desk after waiting in the second line. The clerk, this time, was willing to accept my reservation and check me into the Hotel. She was not quite rude, but her manner was not very welcoming either.

Even though I was, supposedly, a VIP guest, ( they upgraded me to to a Suite for no additional charge), they had increased my first night room rate by $100 over the agreed charge (the rate was increased to $304 for one night). The Front Office Manager removed the $100 excess charge when I called down to complain and apologized for the error

Elevators & Corridors

Elevator decor was worn. I noted cracked marble flooring in at least one elevator.

Corridors were worn and a bit shabby. The carpets were stained and unattractive.

There is a fire exit at the end of each of the excessively long corridors on the guest floors. I was able to find emergency exit stairs only at the ends of each corridor. I was unable to find central exit stairs at the central elevator lobby. I assume that they counted the elevators as the required, second emergency exit for the corridors. I did not measure the corridors, but the travel distance to the emergency exits seemed excessive. The Inter-Continental design standards did not allow the use of elevators for exit in a fire emergency.

Guest Room

My suite consisted of a large guest room with a equally large bathroom.

Room amenities were sadly lacking. There was no coffee maker. Bottled water was provided at $4.95 per bottle. Two small water glasses were provided at the small guest room refrigerator (not a Mini Bar as the refrigerator was empty). There were no other glasses provided in the suite.

The bathroom has double sinks, make up mirrors, and the other normal Hotel bath equipment. The bath had marble walls and floors. The floor marble was polished marble. It was very slippery when wet and there were no grab bars or warnings provided.

Bath marble is poorly matched. The shower floor is the inexpensive molded variety. At least the floor in the shower was not slippery marble. The shower door did not close properly.

The bath had a large Jacuzzi style tub with several defective jets. The water flow at the jets was also not balanced. Water pressure in the shower, on the 16th floor, was poor.

The toilet has a Sloan pressure system for flushing. It is effective office or commercial type toilet fixture, but not at all residential.

There was a sign in the bath noting that linens would be changed only once every 3 days, unless special arrangements were made with the hotel. The message noted that this was due to the need to conserve water. While I salute the hotel's apparent concern for the environment, I also recognize that this results in a sunstantial reduction in hotel operating as well as a capital cost reduction for fewer pars (full sets of room linens) that was not reflected in the room rates.

If the hotel was really concerned with water conservation, they would close all the outdoor water features, pools, etc. to reduce the evaporation losses in the desert environment.

The hotel provides high speed, wired or wireless Internet connections in the rooms for an added charge of $11.99 per day. The cost to the hotel for this service is only a very small fraction of this charge, probably considerably less than $1.00 per room  per day. It is the highest cost I have ever seen at a hotel for this service. Needless to say, I eschewed the usurious Internet rates at the hotel and utilized the free ebay wireless connections at the convention.

There is a sofa located in the center of the suite. It has a cheap and unattractive green fabric. The sofa blocks the view of the lower part of the TV screen when viewed from the bed.

There is a 27 inch color TV in an armoire at one end of the suite. The TV is 23 feet +/- from the head of the bed and no binoculars were provided. The sleep timer on the TV remote control was inoperable. The TV needs to be raised about 12 inches to be able to view the entire screen from the bed.

There is a shelf in the armoire above the TV. There is a large hole in the back of the armoire above the shelf. It appears that the shelf was designed to hold some electrical/electronic aparratus that was missing in my suite. The lower part of the armoire contains 3 self opening drawers. When you open the lower cabinet doors, the drawers roll open, whether you want to open them or not.

The acoutical insulation for the rooms was very inadequate. Slamming doors, plumbing noise and guests shouting in the corridors woke us several times during our stay. In retrospect, I have to wonder if fresh air for the rooms is being drawn under the entry doors from the corridors. Most modern Hotels have drop seals at the entry doors to provide compartmentalization for improved acoustics and fire safety.

The room carpet was a monotonous, stained, tufted beige colored carpet that appeared to be well beyond its useful life.

Our room, which was supposed to be a non-smoking room, smelled of stale cigarette smoke. There were ash trays located in the drawers of the bedside tables. Obviously, the Hotel had little concern for the fact that guests may smoke in rooms designated as non-smoking rooms.

Housekeeping

Hosuekeeping was excellent. The room was very clean without considering the worn state of the fabrics and furnishings. There was no dust on any surfaces in the room and the beds were well made. Bath linens were refolded and placed neatly.

No linen changes seemed strange for a hotel charging more than $200 a night for a standard guest room.

Restaurants

Due to the exorbitant pricing at the restaurants in the hotel, we avoided them, as much as possible.

Together with Joyce Banbury, we had organized a breakfast for the Education Specialist group attending eBay Live. The breakfast was held on June 14 in the Bayside Buffet restaurant. We had contracted with the hotel for a setup charge of $125 and, so we thought, a charge of $11.99 per person plus tip. To our surprise, we were charged $13.99 per person ($2 in excess of what was verbally agreed with the hotel Manager of Group Dining) for the meal plus an 18% service charge. Together with tax, it brought the actual charge per person to nearly $18. The 18% service charge provided each person with one glass of juice served by wait staff and the busing of soiled china and silver. 18% service charge for buffet service is ridiculous.

The scrammbled eggs were dried out by the steam table and bore a visual resemblance closer to popcorn. The waffles looked good, but were soggy.

I had a much better breakfast on Friday, at another hotel for $5.99. It was a full breakfast, well served and I left a 20% tip.

I wonder if the hotel management believes that having smoking and non-smoking areas in a hotel restauant is possible due to the fact that cigarette smoke remains at the smokers table only and does not circulate throughout the restaurant  and the hotel? Obviuosly, they do not agree with the Surgeon General's warnings on the dangers of second hand smoke.

Convention/Meeting Spaces and other Public Areas

Most of the guests were seated on the floors of the break out spaces for the meeting rooms due to the lack of adequate seating spaces. The only area I noticed with more than adequate seating was at the slot machines in the Casino. There were sufficient empty chairs there to line the walls of the corridors and meetings space lobbies. Thsi may be due to the fact that several local residents advised me that the Mandalay Bay slot machines were notoriously STINGY.

Public area lighting was of dated design and often appeared to be poorly polished and maintained. I had a thought that some of the ceiling light fixtures looked as though they had been purchased at a "used" lighting store.

Meeting room acoustic separation was very poor. The only advantage being that you could hear two meetings at the same time. It is obvious that the hotel installed movable partitions with inferior acoustical qualities.

Conclusion 

The Mandalay Bay Hotel is in dire need of an extensive renovation. This hotel is in stark contrast to the newer the HOTEL at Mandalay Bay. The interior design, furniture, fixtures and equipemnt are far superior at the HOTEL and the room rates are only about 25% more than the standard room rates at the Mandalay Bay Hotel. Stay at the HOTEL. I suggest that you avoid the Mandalay Bay Hotel.

Many other hotels on the Strip are much less costly than the Mandalay Bay Hotel.