Las Vegas - MGM SkySuites

Anyone stayed in one; thoughts? I think the MGM Grand is anything but grand, but I am intrigued with the SkyLoft concept - and they are a member of Small Luxury Hotels group.

As an aside, I stayed in one of the cave-like West Wing rooms and thought it was someone's idea of a cruel hoax - a good idea gone haywire. These rooms are dark, depressing and no fun.

Anyone stayed in one; thoughts? I think the MGM Grand is anything but grand, but I am intrigued with the SkySuite concept - and they are a member of Small Luxury Hotels group.

As an aside, I stayed in one of the cave-like West Wing rooms and thought it was someone's idea of a cruel hoax - a good idea gone haywire. These rooms are dark, depressing and no fun.

OK. Its called Skylofts. Yes the MGM can be a bit "Un-Grand" in spots.
But the Skylofts are a gem. Stayed a few times now. Just did 3 days
for the CES show. Now keep in mind. This is not going to be a budget stay.

The service that you will receive from the staff is the best available.
Maybach to and from the airport. Limo araound town. Dinner and shows
all VIP seating. The room is just way too much. Suggest a strip view.
The 29th floor is the only place to stay at MGM. Go to the Skylofts website.
They have a video of the room that is well done. Personal butler rocks.
The shower is the best shower I have ever had. The tub is not bad either.
Love the infinity tub and the plasma overhead. All I can tell you is my girlfriend
lights up like a xmas tree when I mention we are planning another trip to the lofts. Its worth the money if you have it. Been going to Vegas for a long time. This place kicks .... Try it !

The 29th floor is the only place to stay at MGM.

In a pinch, the Mansion doesn't suck too bad.

QL

More info here on this thread

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=408561

I had refused to go back to the MGM Grand after my first stay there about 8 years ago. It took the Skyloft to get me interested at looking at the Skyloft again and I must say it blew me away. Fantastic and the level of service is equivalent to that I received at the Burj-Al-Arab in Dubai.

You get pick up at the airport in a classy stretched limo, get met at limo door on arrival by a receptionist in person when the limo drives up to the front door who will whisk you direct up to your loft suite where you go through the check-in formalities at the dining table; i.e. you see very little of the MGM Grand hotel at this stage. The butler then goes through a 10/15 min tour of the electronics available and there is a bath all ready and waiting for you.

It is truely a fab hotel on the top floor of an OK hotel. But having said that this fab hotel does not have any hotel facilities (pool/restaurants) and for that you get direct access to the MGM Grand. We did get great seat from the Sky Loft conceirge for both the Tom Jones show as well as for Ka. In short, you get treated like a high roller by paying for it (i.e. without the comps) except for the queue jump line for the buffets!

I stayed in one of the cave-like West Wing rooms and thought it was someone's idea of a cruel hoax - a good idea gone haywire. These rooms are dark, depressing and no fun.

The renovated West Wing rooms remind me of those foofy boutique $300 Manhattan hotel rooms where the rooms are really tiny but designed by some 1970s disco impresario. If you are single and you are going to spend most of your time in the casino it isn't that bad. Some things about it are weird, like the bathroom TV that can only be viewed if you are standing at the bathroom sink. They have DVD players, reasonably comfortable beds, and Bose Wave clock radios. If you bring your SO insist on at least a regular room if not a Spa Suite.

We just returned home last night from a 5 day stay in Vegas. We debated between Bellagio Penthouse and Skylofts. Skylofts won. Upon arrival service was excellent. Was almost over-done to walk through the halls and have each member of our suite's staff awaiting our arrival. But once we were checked in it wasn't so grand. Several errors were made. Special orders - things we wanted in our room when we arrived were incorrect, and we weren't warned that when we requested a specific brand of beer (another brand of beer is already provided - just pay for what you take) that it would cost over $120/12 Pack for Bud Ice. Also, they provided an extra refrigerator to store "our selections" as opposed, I guess, to storing them in the room refrigerator. This looked tacky and seemed like overkill since they put the beer in an ice bucket and the soda on the cabinet. It took away from the style of the room. The result was the soda exploded upon freezing, causing a mess, which was not cleaned up prior to our departure, the next day. The worst thing about the room though, had to be the smell. I can't say it's just the Skylofts because the whole of the MGM Grand has that locker-room-chlorine-stinky-feet-chemical-ish smell that I cannot define. Frankly, it was repulsive to get out of the shower, clean, and put one of those towels that had this strong odor to my face.
My husband said the "dream Butler" service was an expensive extra, though I didn’t see the price myself. I looked at the website and thought it looked like something included in the room. I don't mind so much getting nickel and dimed in a cheaper room - it's to be expected. But in a room of this price range, I'd expect a little more clarity if advertised items are not included in the package. Also, upon review of our bill our concierge had to leave the desk three times to go ask her manager questions in order to settle our bill. Some charges ended up being removed, but I felt she should have been better prepared to explain the bill so checking out took way too long. She was polite, but it detracted from the expected excellence in service that she was not able to answer my questions.

But the worst thing of all to us is that when we both awoke stuffed up and headachy on morning #1, we decided we'd have to check out. So we reserved the only suite available in Vegas on no notice, at the Mirage. We'd have gone to the Wynn, but they had no single rooms available that night and we had our 18 year old son with us, as well as his friend. (They were in another room at the MGM. So we ended up at the Mirage Penthouse - 2 bedroom suite. The room, although showing some wear was very comfortably and stylishly decorated. The bathrooms, while lacking the phenomenal shower at the Skylofts was extremely large and suited our needs well. But several things malfunctioned - a chair had to be replaced, the bathtub wouldn't drain and none of the three TV remotes worked consistently.

Our problem at the Mirage was that the Skylofts held over $4000 in holds on our credit card - even though we stayed only one night and paid our bill at checkout. So the Mirage called wanting cash for our entire bill prior to our third nights stay. When I called over to the Skylofts in the morning as soon as I heard there was a problem getting our bill to go through on our credit card at the Mirage, I was assured that it would be taken care of that day, and I explained my concern that we would be asked to check out or be prevented from dining. It was told "That would never happen" But it did. Not only did the Mirage demand cash before completion of our three night stay, but they disconnected our telephone service in the midst of my husband talking to our bank trying to sort the matter out. The Mirage spoke with the people over at MGM and saw that while the MGM was holding over $4000 on our credit cards, they had cut us off over a matter of just over $500.00. We had my parents in from out of state - the one night we were to have a family meal together, in our suite, the meal was denied us, and all this mess made for a stressful stay.

I do, in fact understand how credit card transactions work. But I disagree with the hotel in the practice of apply both credit holds (Pre-authorizations) and charges (which are seemingly not applied to those holds) thus devouring about double the credit on my card. Moreover, I was upset that the hotel manager, while agreeing that the problem was with credit holds which would "Disappear" could cover the $500 in charges he was demanding payment for, still cut off all services to us and demanded another credit card. We felt better customer service could have remedied the problem. We felt that a once in ten year vacation was ruined by the stress and we'll not again stay at an MGM-not so grand/Mirage property.

Moral: a credit card with over $7000 available credit should cover a $1900+ one night stay at the MGM Skylofts plus a three night, approx. $1700+ stay at the Mirage. But it won't. And that's enough to ruin a vacation. Even if the smell of the MGM doesn't.

Elania

Some comments on post #7, above.
(1) Using an amex (or similar brand) travel and ent. card, which has no "fixed" spending limits can help when hotels, car rental companies etc. put "holds" on your credit line; these can take several days to "automatically" disappear. There is supposed to be a way for the hold to be removed on an accelerated basis.
(2) I've stayed at mgm many times, never in a skyloft suite though; checking in an out is generally a pain--some of the agents seem to be poorly trained in how to handle routine operations. I once noticed a couple checking in and some problem with id took over 15 minutes to resolve (my problem also took as long...)

Elania,

I'm sorry you had a bad experience at SkyLofts. When I stayed there this past July, I didn't notice any smell, and my nose is extremely sensitive. I was a little worried that the room might smell like smoke, since they don't have separate non-smoking rooms -- but they assured me it wouldn't, and I couldn't detect any smoke smell. I, too, was a little surprised by the pricing for spa and dream butler services, as the web site does kind of imply that those are included with the normal butler service, which is free. But my visit was excellent and I can't find many things to complain about.

Because of credit card fun, I now always travel with two separate credit cards. On some past trips, my credit card company's fraud algorithms have gone off and they've temporarily frozen my card until they were able to contact me and verify that the card hadn't been stolen. That has happened to me on multiple past vacations. (I'm not always taking a vacation, so I guess my periodic vacations are enough to cause their computer concern! :) ) This happened once on a weekend while I was in Las Vegas, and the bank wasn't open to get things straightened out. Luckily I had a second credit card. Now I always call the bank before a vacation to let them know where I'm going. If you had a second credit card available, it sounds like you might have been able to avoid the problem? Of course, if you have a favorite card that pays cash back or provides other benefits, it's always nice to get the big charges there.

There were 4 of you in vegas with only one credit card with a $7000 limit?? thats pretty optimistic!!!

Anyway, whats the difference between the regular butler and the dream butler? and how much does it cost?? I've suggested that some friends stay there so better find out!

Our problem at the Mirage was that the Skylofts held over $4000 in holds on our credit card - even though we stayed only one night and paid our bill at checkout. So the Mirage called wanting cash for our entire bill prior to our third nights stay. When I called over to the Skylofts in the morning as soon as I heard there was a problem getting our bill to go through on our credit card at the Mirage, I was assured that it would be taken care of that day, and I explained my concern that we would be asked to check out or be prevented from dining. It was told "That would never happen" But it did. Not only did the Mirage demand cash before completion of our three night stay, but they disconnected our telephone service in the midst of my husband talking to our bank trying to sort the matter out. The Mirage spoke with the people over at MGM and saw that while the MGM was holding over $4000 on our credit cards, they had cut us off over a matter of just over $500.00. We had my parents in from out of state - the one night we were to have a family meal together, in our suite, the meal was denied us, and all this mess made for a stressful stay.

Moral: a credit card with over $7000 available credit should cover a $1900+ one night stay at the MGM Skylofts plus a three night, approx. $1700+ stay at the Mirage. But it won't. And that's enough to ruin a vacation. Even if the smell of the MGM doesn't.

Elania

If you can afford to stay at the SKYLOFTS/Bellagio Penthouse and are used to certain things, why do have a credit card available with credit of $7000 only?

You should seriously consider getting one without a limit...such as Amex Platinum/Citi Chairman...

I have stayed at the SKYLOFTS and found it to be AWESOME !!!! I also have a Chairman Card with a credit limit of $XX,XXX which is a soft limit and then I can go over it by an X amount since I pay in full and have not been late on one pmt in the last 3 yrs...This takes care of headaches that you were talking about...

In a pinch, the Mansion doesn't suck too bad.

QL


I thought you cannot book at the MANSION...it is INVITE ONLY

There were 4 of you in vegas with only one credit card with a $7000 limit?? thats pretty optimistic!!!

Anyway, whats the difference between the regular butler and the dream butler? and how much does it cost?? I've suggested that some friends stay there so better find out!

I don't think the butler changes -- it's probably the same person, but they have a menu of items available from the "dream butler" and "spa butler." For example, on the spa butler menu, you can get your bath drawn with various types of oils and hot tea, probably with flower petals, etc. I forget all the options. But the prices for those were pretty extreme -- close to $100 I believe. You can draw the bath yourself, of course, and they have a Bvlgari "bath tea" next to the bath which is free and replenished daily. You can pick out what pillow type you want (they have a dozen or so choices) from the "dream butler," and there's no charge for that.

In terms of regular butler service, you can call the butler to do various things; if you ask the butler to bring something (like, say, toothpaste from the newstand downstairs), then you're charged for the toothpaste plus a service fee (around 15 or 18%?) I think you can have the butler unpack and iron your clothes -- those types of services are included with the SkyLofts price. During my stay I never called the butler. Throughout your stay the butler will sneak in to refresh your complimentary waters and sodas, etc.

I thought you cannot book at the MANSION...it is INVITE ONLY

It used to be this way, but this is no longer the case - now the "rooms" (if you can call them that) at the Mansion can be booked, starting from ~ $5,000 USD/night.

Note to fellow travellers - if you are staying at the SkyLofts, ask for a tour of the Mansion ... it's an interesting place to see and if you're staying at the SkyLofts and are nice to the concierges, they will arrange this (indicate that you're considering staying there next time around). :)

Phil

If you can afford to stay at the SKYLOFTS/Bellagio Penthouse and are used to certain things, why do have a credit card available with credit of $7000 only? - I guess I'm funny that way, I have certain cards I like to use for certain things. Am I the only one who is this selective on where to use which card? Perhaps I am.. never really thought about it before. I just don't know why $7K in credit can't cover a combined hotel bill under $4K.

You should seriously consider getting one without a limit...such as Amex Platinum/Citi Chairman...

I have stayed at the SKYLOFTS and found it to be AWESOME !!!! I also have a Chairman Card with a credit limit of $XX,XXX which is a soft limit and then I can go over it by an X amount since I pay in full and have not been late on one pmt in the last 3 yrs...This takes care of headaches that you were talking about...


I did, in fact have my Amex with me, and ended up using it. The point was one of principal, not economics. We did infact, spend less than $4K on this vacation (hotel) and the card I WANTED the charges on had over $7K available, should have had no problems handling it. I got out of the mess by using the Amex, but stronlgy felt this should NOT have been required had there been any real customer service available. If this were a matter of not being able to afford the trip, I'd not be posting my concerns here, I'd be rather embarrassed to complain publicly, don't ya think? ;-D

no its not that i was thinking you didnt have enough money for it!

I know lots of people that after their first visit to vegas, go with one low limit credit card and cash only! -since on eht efirst visit they've gone home with every card maxed out!!

Moral: a credit card with over $7000 available credit should cover a $1900+ one night stay at the MGM Skylofts plus a three night, approx. $1700+ stay at the Mirage. But it won't. And that's enough to ruin a vacation. Even if the smell of the MGM doesn't.
Elania

3x $ 1700 and $ 1900 is $ 7000.00 thats cutting it close on even a card
with a $10K limit. I know the Sklofts will usually "tag" my card for an extra
$ 1000.00 for a weekend stay. The system usually takes a day or 2
to catch up. This is real normal type credit card "Cover" for Las Vegas
in a high end room. Getting those reversed on a weekend is almost
impossible. Thats just our banking system. Not the Hotel`s system.

I always use 1 card for the room and reservations
and another for anything else. As someone else suggested. Call your bank
if you do not do this on a regular basis. I have had a card "Frozen"
because my bank wanted to make sure it was me going nuts in Vegas.
Even an Amex will do this if its not "normal behavior".

I work on a online credit card processing system and we can automatically process everything to your heart's desire -- except removing an authorization. In order to do that we have to get the authorization code, pick up a phone and call the cardholder's bank, try to talk to the right person, and get them to manually release the authorization. That works about half the time. The other half we just have to wait on the auth to expire (usually 3-7 days).

They probably did an auth for the entire amount of the stay plus a $1000 buffer for incidentals ($5100 + $1000) when you checked in. When you checked out they charged (technically it's called capture) the $1700 against that auth, but they have no way to realistically release the rest of the authorized money. Few people even realize that if they don't work really close to the credit card processing systems and process a lot of auth/capture transactions. Unfortunately, the people at fault in that case are really the banking systems for not letting the auth be released by the holder.

Personally, I travel with at least two cards that have credit limits well in excess of what I'll actually spend so I have options if something like that happens. I try to make sure I'll never actually use more than 50% of the card limit (or have a "no-official-limit" card as mentioned previously) to make sure there is room for various auths that might go on it. Fortunately I've never gotten stuck, but there have been a few times there has been some kind of card processing issue and I've been glad to have an alternate.

wow ! I have never heard of anyone leaving Skylofts early...I could have stayed for a month ! The only sticking point I had with them was that I had to insist strongly that they honour my upgrade to the 2BR through Leading Hotels which they really didn't want to do...I was told that the Amex PTS gets the upgrade but LHW doesn't...Whatever ! I have both so it really doesn't matter to me who I book through... I am glad I persisted because the 2BR was outstanding...will have to try for the 3 BR next time ! :)

Had dinner at the Mansion...too bad I don't like the MGM casino otherwise I would always stay at Skylofts... back to Wynn !

Argh. Just back from a stay at SkyLofts... Great room as usual, but this time the service, all the way around, was TERRIBLE.

Incompetent, excuse-ridden, under-trained people are now working the concierge desk up there. I was dissapointed many times during my stay and thanks to a real lack of concern on SkyLoft's part, i won't be returning anytime soon.

I expressed my concerns to them. They ignored me. Because of this, I will take my $10k/night business elsewhere.


BN

Unfortunately this is nothing new with MGM-Mirage. They remind me of United Airlines: they have some of the best and some of the worst service employees.

QL

Thought I would keep this thread going some more.

We are going again just before Xmas. The son is turning 21 and want
him to enjoy his first real Vegas trip so will Skyloft him and a friend.
So going to splurge a little. Let him suck up some of my FF Miles and
Fly "F" and show him a great 3 days 2 nights. Will fly my G-friend in for a night too. Might as well with the extra bedroom.
Booked the 2 Bedroom. Not a bad deal midweek and I should get some love from my host if I spend some serious table time.

So looks like a couple mentions of the service/smell falling off in this thread.
So far the booking concierge has been good on communication.
Only drawback so far is "cant guarantee the Maybach transfer".
Will book a show and dinner thru the concierge too. Lets see how they do.
The Concierge Manager is still a girl I know from my first trip in April 05.
So I can make a call if things get silly with the staff.

Like Lion said. Sometimes you get great service. And once in a while not.

I will report back how it went before Xmas and grab some pics/video
with the new 8 Meg camera of the 2 bedroom loft.