This hotel is great. Why? It's the only one on the strip that is a hotel and a casino, clear and simple. There is no theme (except the obvious "movie" implication) but it doesn't dominate the experience. You see the problem with all the theme hotels, and I include the Bellagio and the Venetian as well as the true themed hotels like Luxor and Excalibur, is that they tire so quickly both in charm and decor quality.

This is a hotel that doesnt want to pretend to be anything other than a great hotel and the most amazingly large casino to spend your hard earned pennies in.

So the great parts:

+ Rooms that do just what they need to (hunt the internet for a discount code - there are tons out there - and you can get a room at the MGM for a week for the same price as an off the strip no name hotel. This is especially good if your going from the UK right now - we stayed for £25 per night per person. Rock on!

+ Check in - very efficient. I know there are lots of people saying that they didnt get the room the wanted etc etc - my advice - book through the hotels website with a discount code and you will get what you asked for - book through a discounter and good luck.

+ Choice - this hotel has everything you need for a minimum 4 night stay - you would never have to leave.

Not so good points:

- Its all ying yang. The restaurants are pricey, they can be very very busy because its popular and when there is a show in town this is no intimate hotel. This is NOT a family town.

- Its big so its impersonal - that said the tailor in Bernini did my hems for a few dollars and he didnt have to and I felt like he really cared. Staff however get paid peanuts and service thousands of rooms so dont be amazed if they are having an off day. Its a hotel bigger than most US towns!

- This is a big hotel - even the walk back to your room can be a thought so you have to plan well. If you have problems walking distance then stay elsewhere.

This is a great hotel - not amazing - but great and makes you really feel like your in vegas....the constant ting ting ting of the casino slots will pull dollars from your wallet and you wont even notice!!

All in all dont go to vegas if you dont want to spend money. THis is a financially orientated visitor resort - it is no longer a family destination - its adults with money. Go elsewhere for a better family time.

If the MGM isn't your ultimate then try the "Wynn" again no tiring theme here just a very top end hotel.

Peace.

After a 6 hour flight and waiting an hour in line at the airport to catch a cab, the last thing I wanted to do was wait in line for another hour to check in. Checking in was a nightmare. There was a mess of people waiting, hence there should have been more employees working. Every customer took about 20 minutes to check in. There were plenty of empty stations, use them.

The room was nothing to write home about either. The beds were extremely uncomfortable and the room its self was just average. It's Vegas I thought. I expected a bit more than your average room I can find anywhere else in the country.

Also, the room service people need to learn to speak english or get hearing aids. I had to repeat my order about 3 times for her to get it right. If I'm going to give up my first born to pay for a crappy sandwich then I expect some first class service please. Thank you. Speaking of prices, this was my first time in Vegas...be prepared to be raped while buying something as simple as a bottle of Dasani water...$3.00 a pop. Are you sure you don't put gold in it?

Also if I wanted to go to Antartica I would have gone there instead. I didn't expect to go to Vegas or the MGM only to walk through the hallways to the elevator to catch frost bite. You can turn down the A/C thank you! It wasn't that hot!

If you plan on going to the pool area from the main building be sure to put your walking shoes on. You'll be walking for about 25 mins. Speaking of pools...that's a whole other review....

I plan on returning to Vegas because there was so much else to see and do, however I will not be returning to the MGM.

We stayed at the MGM two nights and found the rooms to be nice, clean, comfortable and modern. The staff seemed to be pleasant but when I enquired about a shuttle service to the Outlet store they couldnt seem to help. When there was actually a bus service running every 7 mins down the strip!!

Yes it is a big hotel and it is a long way to walk but hey you do alot of walking around the strip anyway!! Make sure you pack your walking shoes. There is a lot to see!!

We found the hotel/casino area to have a strong smokey smell and the rest of the casinos we walked into didnt.

We didnt eat at any of the hotels restaurants which we thought to be a bit pricey and instead chose to eat at NY NY both nights.

We stayed at the MGM Grand over two weekends in May 2008. We usually stay at MGM for our visits to Vegas as it is located centrally for the Casinos we spend most of our time in (Luxor, Excalibur, New York New York and of course MGM!)

This was the first time we had stayed in Vegas over the weekend, for our first visit in May the Casinos were reasonably quiet, however, for our second visit, over Memorial weekend, the casinos were way too busy for us. If you love the party atmosphere do visit over holiday weekends. But for us, we like to be able to get on to our favourite slot machines and like to move onto another machine when someone starts to smoke next to us, at times this was impossible to do.

For the first time at MGM, we had problems when we checked-in for our holiday weekend stay. We were told that ‘due to unforeseen circumstances’ they were moving us to Treasure Island. We had just parked our hire car and dragged our luggage from the car park, we had dinner and show reservations at MGM, so there was no way we were going to be moved. We refused the ‘offer’ to move and the check-in assistant asked her manager if she could find rooms for us. We had two Grand Tower rooms booked under the ’No Regrets’ deal. When she came back we were offered two West Wing rooms instead (these rooms are a higher grade room to the Tower Rooms), we didn’t want to move to TI so we accepted the offer.

For those that have not stayed at MGM Grand, the Grand Tower Rooms are probably one of the more generous sized rooms for Vegas, they are very comfortable and good value for money. However, these rooms can be noisy depending on where you are in the corridor so if you value your sleep these rooms may not be for you. The West Wing rooms are smaller than in the Tower but they are a lot quieter, I don’t think we heard any noise from the adjacent rooms. Personally, I feel the West Wing rooms are ideal for singles, they have no bath, the shower and toilet have glass doors straight into the room (so you have no separate bathroom area as such), this means you don’t really have much privacy from your partner!

Despite the check-in issue, we still love MGM Grand and we will be returning again when we next visit Vegas!