Recently completed a stay for Thanksgiving at Delano, Bellagio, Delano. This was my first FHR experience and I was beyond satisfied with all the perks. I'm going to include some info below that I wish I had known beforehand for all those first-timers. We planned to hotel hop, and experience no issues at all with receiving our perks. All rooms were listed in my name, and the lady at the front desk acknowledged I would be returning to Delano just one day later. She had a smirk, as if she knew what I was up to, but had no issue with it.
Our room at Delano was ready at around 12pm. We requested connecting rooms and were not really concerned with a high floor or upgraded view (we much rather preferred being in the room sooner over the view). As such, we were placed on the 4th floor, as that was all that was available at noon. Credits were explained and I was sure to clarify that the daily breakfast credits were in fact daily (i.e. you could use them for check-in as well as check-out day if you were staying for one night), which they are. The breakfast credit is not limited to breakfast, however, at Delano the restaurant options are fairly limited, with Della's Kitchen typically closing at 11am (weekdays) or 1pm (weekends) and 3940 Coffee & Tea closing at around 1pm. Room service is allowed for the breakfast credit, however there is a delivery charge of $5 per person. Due to the way the comps are applied, I'm not sure if that can be pulled from the $30/person breakfast credit, though I'm inclined to say it can't be.
As for the $100 resort food and beverage credit, this can be used at any of the restaurants in Delano, Delano's spa, or
ANY Mandalay Bay restaurant (as well as some other venues), which I think is a new-ish feature, as all the previous posts I had seen mentioned only specific restaurants in MB being allowed:
Delano FHR as of 11/24/17
None of the perks apply to any restaurant or venue in the Four Seasons, which the guest rep made very clear. All in all I really loved Delano, and you can't beat the Thanksgiving prices of around $80/night our first night there. There's so much value in FHR on its own, but when you couple it with such a cheap room rate, it's practically incomparable! The hotel lobby is beautiful and quiet, and the walk to the Mandalay Bay Casino was much, much shorter than I was expecting (literally 2 minutes max). I have to also add that the beds here are AMAZING. The most comfortable bed in Vegas I've experienced so far. This is also a great option for those traveling with dogs, and we saw many throughout the stay.
Our second night (Thanksgiving day) we were booked to stay at Bellagio. I called Guest Services at Bellagio bright and early around 7am to get an estimate of when our room would be done. She was able to let me know what rooms they had pre-blocked, which the Delano front desk attendant told me they typically do for FHR to make sure the rooms are available near Noon. She told me the rooms weren't connecting, which was a necessity, so she worked on finding me what was available and connecting. I was surprised how accommodating they were, as we booked accessible suites via FHR since that was the cheapest option. I let them know that wasn't necessarily a requirement and they had no issues providing us with non-accessible rooms, even though our reservation technically was for accessible (this was the same case for Delano). Had we been okay with non-connecting, we could have checked in at that time (7am), however the connecting rooms we wanted were vacant but not clean, and housekeeping was not in until 930am. We ended up checking in to Bellagio around 1pm, just to be safe, and the room was ready. Like with Delano, I was told the daily breakfast credit could be applied any time of the day, and is valid for both check-in and check-out day. We opted to use the $100 credit ($200 in our case since we had connecting rooms) at LAGO, and had a great experience. The website says dressy, so we dressed up (especially since it was Thanksgiving), but there were people in shorts, sandals, work-out gear, etc. I've seen previous posts about Bellagio using vouchers, however this appears to no longer be the case - which is great! This allows any left-over credit to be used at other places. I kept a running log in my notepad about how much I was spending and how much tax/tip would be included on my folio. At both Delano and Bellagio, the amount I calculated I should have paid was higher than what they actually charged me, which makes me think if you get a nice attendant when checking out they will remove a few overages here and there.
Bellagio FHR as of 11/23/17
Our third and final night was back to Delano and, unfortunately, our room was not ready until a little after 4pm! We checked out of Bellagio that morning around 245pm, and only ended up waiting about half an hour for our rooms to be ready. We used our resort credit at Border Grill, which was FANTASTIC. I highly recommend checking this place out. The service was absolutely impeccable, and the food was very good as well. We used up our breakfast credits and leftover resort credit at Starbucks, 3940 coffee, Della's Kitchen, etc. It was hard making use of all the credit they give you (especially if you booked two rooms), however you can use the money for things like Fiji water bottles from the coffee shops, etc.
In regards to both hotels, a $5 dollar credit was deducted from the resort fee for WiFi without asking.
- Delano Resort Fee: $35
- Bellagio Resort Fee: $39
For those who have two rooms, I would highly recommend splitting your expenses evenly between each room. Since you get double the perks (one set for each room), try to avoid charging everything to just one of those rooms. We didn't do this our first night as best as we could, and it made it more confusing during checkout, though it was eventually worked out. There was a woman with FHR who apparently didn't attempt to split the credits evenly, and she was having such a hard time getting it worked out (I'm talking 20-30 mins plus at the counter and speaking with managers, etc.). If you do your best to just split everything down the middle (or evenly amongst however many rooms you have), you'll be grateful. All the restaurants/buffets we visited had no problem just splitting each bill down the middle between the two rooms.
Also, if you're like me and just book the cheapest room available on the FHR website, I would give them a call if you have any particular preference that's not what you booked (i.e. booking accessible when you just want standard). Since there is no designation to type in notes on FHR, I called the hotels directly a couple days after booking to put in my requests, and then followed up again the day before and the morning of to double and triple confirm. It's an extra step and can be timely depending on how long the phone hold is, but if it's something important it's definitely worth the hassle.
Lastly, I can't really speak to whether or not FHR qualifies for the invited guests line, as I have the M life credit card and gold status, however the attendants didn't really care or check either way, with the exception of one person at Bellagio. Her name was Maggia, and she told me once I got to the counter of the invited guests line that FHR was supposed to go through the regular line, though she would "help me this once." I showed her my gold card and she was unaffected, saying that the gold card only applied for casino rate guests. To he honest, I don't think she really knew what she was talking about, because there was a stack of FHR letters right next to her, and none of the other attendants had them. Maybe she was just having a bad day? Either way, I would use the invited guests line and then if they give you a hassle just "play dumb," as during check-out at Bellagio I got a different attendant in the IG line and she couldn't have been more willing to help!
Great first FHR experience and looking forward to many more to come!