I’d probably give Mandalay Bay 3 and a half stars. I’m going to review the hotel and resort all as one here. I stayed here for my bachelor party. Let’s break things down:
Rooms:
The rooms are pretty nice by Vegas strip standards. (Note that Vegas strip standards are pretty darn high.)
Food:
The food’s a-ok here. The Noodle restaurant is pretty good. (I had the Pad Thai). The buffet is pretty much your standard Vegas buffet. You can probably save on food by looking for a buffet pass at the cheap tickets booths on the strip.
Casino:
It’s nice, though the rules aren’t very liberal. Minimums are higher. Put simply, I probably wouldn’t gamble a bunch here. But I’m cheap, and I also don’t like to lose a lot of money.
Rates:
“Out of the box”, they seem to be on the high side of reasonable. However, a friend of mind got me a discounted rate once. I’m not sure how he did that. I feel like you can get comparable rates at other strip hotel / casinos that offer the same quality of room at about the same cost.
Location on the Strip:
Put on your walking shoes… it’s located on the very end of the strip. The monorail that goes between Mandalay Bay and the Excalibur helps a bit, but if you want to get to the main monorail, your closest stop is the MGM grand. That’s a looooong walk. Actually, I measured–one way, it’s at LEAST a .65 mile walk, making it an even 1.3 miles round trip if you decide to wait for the monorail to Excalibur. If you decide you don’t want to wait for the monorail, double the distance (if you walk inside–that’s exactly .65 more one way, 1.3 miles round trip) or shave off .02 miles one way if you walk outside. (Inside’s nicer.)
It’s also kind of crazy that you have to walk through what seems to be the most non-direct way through the MGM casino to get to the stop… gee I wonder why. However, the mall that’s attached to Mandalay bay (that connects it with the Luxor) is actually pretty nice.
Overall:
It’s a very nice hotel, though my main gripe is the location. It’s awful far south to get the full strip “experience” easily. I’d say there’s less of a plethora of those jerks sitting there bugging you with “GET A GIRL TO YOUR ROOM” cards in the area, which is nice, but if it means that I don’t have to take a taxi to get to the monorail or walk for over a mile (round trip), then it’s not the best location.