I travelled to Las Vegas for a friend's wedding and spent 4 nights at THEhotel. My friend lives and works in New York and THEhotel at Mandalay Bay was suggested to him as one of the most exclusive hotels in Vegas. It advertises itself as the boutique style hotel but it is anything but. It's got 1117 rooms for a start. It's huge, impersonal and apart from the large standard room size (actually suites) and some of the decor, there's nothing exclusive about it at all. Nearly all the wedding guests who stayed there reported 20 minute to 40 minute waiting times for check in. The bell boys slouch around and look like you're being a nuisance when you as them to get you a taxi. I left the hotel at 6:30am one day, pressed the special button on the door to let them know that the room could be serviced and when I returned at 3:30pm, it hadn't been. That does not seem like the service one would expect from an exclusive hotel. I went down to the pool area and there was an absolute sea of people. Three of us went down together at 9am but it was so busy that we had to carry loungers around in order to be together. There was an area next to the pool that was quieter with better loungers and so we enquired about it. It cost $100 a day for a lounger and $50 for an umbrella. Being stuck with more than a thousand people squashed together felt more like being at a cheap package hotel than anywhere else.
My final comment was about how they treated my friend and his fiance / wife. He had to check out of his room into one of the massive suites they have there for drinks with the guests on the wedding night. He paid $1,300 for this suite. He was told to check out of his standard suite by 11am - which he did. He was then told that the person occupying the large suite he was to move into hadn't checked out and to wait until 1pm. He did this and was then told that he would have to wait until 5pm. He was to get married at 5 and come back to the suite with guests at around 6:30 so this was out of the question. He had told the hotel of his plans when he made the booking and they showed absolutely no can-do or any form of special treatment for his wedding day. After getting quite vocal with them and after being messed around for hours, they finally managed to sort things out and move him into the suite in the early afternoon. It's hardly the way to treat someone on their wedding day, particularly when they have been responsible for bringing around 30 additional bookings to your hotel.
I liked the rooms. Apart from the size, the beds were comfortable and there was a good view over the strip and the airport.
I didn't like the service and the feeling that I was staying in a hotel with service levels like a holiday camp.
