My wife and I just returned from four days in Las Vegas, where we spent the first two nights (Friday and Saturday) at Wynn in a Parlor Suite and the second two at the Skylofts in a 1BR. I wanted to give a quick review, but the bottom line is that we are already planning our next trip to the Skylofts. The Wynn won't be on the agenda.

But first, I have to apologize that I have no photos. We still haven't figured out how to use the digital camera.

Wynn, 12/15-12/17

I should preface this by saying that some of the problems that we experienced at Wynn were of our own doing, although the hotel could have handled them better. In other words, I hope our mistakes will serve as a cautionary tale.

We arrived at Wynn at about 1:30 pm, with our bags still at the Westin, where we had stayed the night before. We were staying on an Amex FHR rate, which included lunch, so we figured we'd check in, grab the free lunch amenity and then head back and pick up our bags (We had started the day on the north end of the strip.). Not realizing that there was a separate entrance for the Tower Suites, we went to the main check-in area. The desk employee mentioned that there was a suite on a lower floor available or we could go to a higher floor if we wanted to wait. We chose to check-in now. She also spent a few minutes trying to upsell us to a Salon Suite for another $100 per night. We declined.

We asked for the details of the FHR benefits, and she told us that we weren't booked under FHR. Unfortunately, the confirmation was back at the Westin, so we asked her to call a manager while we called Amex. She called her manager, who kept transferring her to different departments. Meanwhile, we called Amex to get it sorted out on our end. Then Wynn and Amex got into it, and finally we got back to our Amex person, who had talked to one of the people at the Wynn sales desk. Apparently, Wynn had been having problems with its computer system that wasn't booking the FHR packages correctly, and that someone was coming to help us. Problem solved, we thought.

Meanwhile, the front desk worker with whom we were working had stepped away while helping another customer. While she was gone, we noticed that she had left another customer's folio wide open on the counter, with his full credit card imprint (entire number and expiration) lying out. We pointed this out to her when she returned, and she said, "Oh, he's right over there," pointing to a guy halfway across the lobby.

We asked her to check us in with the updated info, and she brought over an assistant manager. We had to re-explain the situation to him, and after several minutes, he agreed to give us a F&B credit for the value of one lunch and two breakfasts. None of the other FHR benefits were extended, and he was quite condescending. We weren't thrilled, but we had been there almost an hour and were tired of arguing. He said that he would "look into" the problem and call the person at the sales desk that Amex had talked to. He also said that he would call us back that night or the next day with an answer. We never heard from him, and when we questioned it later, the manager with whom we spoke told us that he claimed to have left a message in the room. Which means that the message light on every phone in the room was broken, or he, um, forgot. Sorry to go so long on just the check in, but we were surprised at the level of service at a hotel that claims to be the nicest in Las Vegas.

The suite itself was nice, although we felt that it lacked amenities. The bathroom amenities were the same as in the regular rooms and that it lacked basics such as complimentary bottles of water. The bathroom was huge, with two sinks (which was good, because the drain on one of them would not open) and we had a view of both the pool and the golf course. The suite was surprisingly plain, although certainly nice.

We felt like the best assets at the hotel were the restaurants. We did not eat at any of the upscale restaurants, but we did go the the Terrace Pointe Cafe a couple of times, which had excellent service and very good food. We also tried the buffet, which had the best food of any of the buffets in Vegas. We found out later that the room key to the Tower Suites served as a line pass for the buffet.

We did very little gambling at the Wynn, which is clearly not designed for the low-rollers. The room key serves as your Players Card, which means that the hotel opens a new account for you every time you go, unless you request the accounts to be linked. It's easier just to get a completely separate Players Card.

The people at the front desk at the Tower Suites were wonderful, and it was unfortunate that when we checked in, nobody told us that we could check in right at the Tower. We explained the check-in situation to the manager, and emphasized that we were less upset about the FHR mistakes and more concerned about the attitude that the assistant manager had. The woman at the Tower Suites was quite sympathetic, and noted that we were not upgraded for free to the Salon Suite as we should have been under FHR, so she gave us the $100 per night difference as a credit. She also promised to check with the asst. mgr. and call us back, which is when we found out about the mysterious non-message. We also found out that there is free continental breakfast for Tower Suite guests, a little too late.

MGM Skylofts, 12/17-12/19

Wow. I mean, wow.

We checked in at the Skylofts in the afternoon, and the woman at the front asked us to have a seat in the lobby. Two couples wandered in after us, and the front desk employee helped both of them before getting to us (Admittedly, they looked a lot more like high rollers than we do.). My first thought was, "Here we go again," but after I pointed out that we had been waiting, she was very apologetic and offered to get us drinks while they checked us in. We chatted about the original Nechita on the wall and she took us up to the lofts section to complete the check-in.

Note: There is a pre-arrival concierge named Erica who takes care of you ahead of time. We requested Danny Gans tickets (She got us dead center, about 25 rows back.), green Bulgari amenities instead of the white (done) and only Diet Cokes and water in the fridge (There was some alcohol still there, but plenty of what we asked for.). All the non-alcoholic beverages in your fridge are free.

The check-in is actually done in your loft. We were met with a large box of berries, several chocolate displays and glasses of fresh juice (cantaloupe, with coconut and vanilla extract). We were also introduced to our butler, who showed us around the loft. Normally, that process takes about 30 seconds. In this case, it took 15 minutes. They had everything, and I mean everything. covered. Need to recharge your I-Pod? There were two I-Pod chargers/speakers. Need to tell people where you were? You got personalized business cards. There was an office space, dining area, etc. in the downstairs portion of the loft. We ended up with Unit 91, which is the biggest of the 1-bedrooms (We did not book through FHR, which was more expensive.). One word of caution: the living room is sunken, and I tripped over the step about a thousand times.

Upstairs was also incredible. The bed was quite comfortable and the butler noted that there were 13 different types of pillows, in case the first twelve weren't right. The bathroom was huge, with an infinity soaking tub (Think infinity pool.) and a shower about the size of a steam room (five shower heads). There were two televsions in the bathroom alone, one over the sink and the other over the bathtub.

One of the benefits was being able to get room service from any of the MGM restaurants. At one point, we had four people in our room, two doing turndown, two delivering and setting up the room service (Okay, one was the butler, who was there to show me how to work the coffee maker.). Come to think of it, it was a touch uncomfortable, although I'm not used to living like a king. Overall, we saw far more employees than we did other guests.

At times, we felt like we never needed to leave the room. My wife got the flu one night and we ended up staying in the room. Fortunately, all the "pay per view" movies were free, so we had a chance to lie back, order room service and watch movies.

Bottom line is, it was a few hundred dollars more to stay at the Skylofts. But it was worth infinitely more. It's not necessarily a fair comparison, given that the Skylofts is really a hotel within a hotel and the Towers are a part of a larger hotel. Feel free to PM with more detailed questions.

Mike