Reviewing the Bellagio Hotel – Las Vegas
I love writing reviews where I can hand on heart recommend other travel related services and help promote other businesses. With accommodation reviews it’s even more important for me to be able to write a glowing review because I know my own money has been well spent!
With the Bellagio, I have very mixed opinions. Virtually every hotel along The Strip in Vegas is like a mini city within itself, they are all enormous venues with numerous restaurants, bars, casinos, broadway style theatres, ballrooms, conference venues, and in most at least one Wedding Chapel (the Bellagio has two)!
There is no doubt whatsoever that the Bellagio is aesthetically pleasing, especially the large lobby with a magnificent glass display on the ceiling, stunning floral arrangements and the spectacular garden conservatory. Not forgetting of course the famous water fountains at the front of the hotel which are definitely worth seeing.
What is important to be aware of however when you are looking to book accommodation in Vegas is that you can walk into ANY hotel on The Strip to view displays, to eat, to shop, to gamble, to see a show….What you want at the end of the day is somewhere to lay your head which has home comforts and and a friendly welcome – this is sadly where the Bellagio falls down. It is part of the huge multi billion dollar corporate giant which is MGM and is purely a cash cow to make as much out of every guest as possible.
We had to wait in a very long line and queue for over 30 mins just to check in. The guy on the front desk engaged us in a little conversation when booking us in, but on discovering my daughter was there to celebrate her 21st birthday in two days time he didn’t wish her a happy birthday, instead said “well for the next 48hrs do not go anywhere near our casinos and after that make sure you have your I.D with you at all times because you are short and look like a child” – She is 5’4″ but not exactly child looking!!!
Our room was fairly spacious, clean and we had a great view of the strip from the 24th floor, however whilst the bathroom looked very nice there was a constant small of sewage and even when we ran a bath the water smelt like rotten eggs!
There was no tea & coffee making facilities in the room, I know this is not uncommon in American hotels, but for the standard of hotel and the price we paid it is the least you can expect. Of course the next best thing is to go downstairs and buy a cup of coffee…for which they charge you almost $10 a cup!
At a recent stay in an equivalent class hotel in Dubai we were re-stocked with at least 8 complimentary bottles of water a day – we had one bottle of water from the mini bar of the Bellagio on arrival and were charged $9.75 for it. After that we did not purchase any further items from such.
My biggest gripe with the Bellagio however was the fact that on checking out I discovered I had been charged FIFTY DOLLARS for placing a couple of very small food items in the mini-bar fridge. This cost the hotel absolutely nothing and is levied purely to unfairly extort money from their guests. The lady I queried it with on the front desk and the front desk manager were both extremely rude and unhelpful and acted more like pre-programmed, brain washed robots than human beings, they couldn’t have cared less. The lady said there was a sign in the room explaining such, I do not have any problem with my eyesight and nor does my daughter, however neither of us saw the said sign, so if this is their policy then they need to make it much clearer. I have spent years travelling all over the world, I have stayed in hotels of many differing qualities, but never in my life have I come across a policy or a charge such as this. Customer service and care of guests was absolutely non-existent in my experience of our 6 night stay at the Bellagio. This hotel is ONLY interested in making money, not in care of guests and certainly not in guest retention because I shall certainly never return there or put another penny into any MGM establishment. I subsequently discovered whilst out in Vegas that MGM tried to aggressively sue 100’s of VICTIMS of a the Mandalay Bay shooting, seeking to avoid liability. Had I known that in advance there is no way in the world would I have booked into any of their hotels. I would swap opulence and grandeur for customer care, morality & ethics any day.
Does Mums Travel Blog recommend the Bellagio or any MGM owned hotel?? NO, NO, NO.
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