Things to LOVE at Mandalay Bay

The point of TrustedVegas.com is to provide some specific ‘top’ bits of advice on where to stay.  The hotel blogs are designed to delve a little deeper if you are looking for more nuance.  For first time trips in need of the absolute ‘musts’ check out the website.

You probably know about the pool, and the clue is in the title, but there are lots of ways the Mandalay Bay helps you feel like you’re on holiday.

Firstly it smells of vanilla.  I think it’s vanilla.  It might be white orchid or something a fragrance person would correct me on, but I’m pretty sure it’s Vanilla.

Many of the hotels in Vegas have air conditioning with slightly different smells.  Side note:  I don’t actually know for a fact that it is in the air con, it may be a choice of cleaning fluid, or some other way of diffusing the air with lovely smells, but the Mandalay Bay Professional Stank is my absolute favourite.  It’s classy, smells lovely, and I’d recognise it in a blindfold hotel-sniffing test with a 100% success rate.

Similar to the smell, the décor of Mandalay Bay is also quite vanilla/white/cream.  The point is, it's bright.  It is bright and golden and has a luxury feel that isn’t as extreme as the opulent displays of The Wynn and Encore, opting to be a little more understated.

Wandering the casino, things feel spacious and the grounds of the hotel are huge. With the convention centre, as with many of the hotels, there are some long walks involved, but particularly the walk to the Aquarium which took me about 30 minutes from ‘room to shark’.

So the light colours, the space, the sharks, and relaxing smells all add up to being much closer to Hawaii in feel than the hectic areas of The Strip, and that’s all of course before we get to the actual beach.

The Mandalay Bay pool is set out as a beach, there are waves in the water, and rocks surrounding.  Your feet can rest in the sand and you’re only five minutes walk to the elevator to take you and your flip flops up to the room.  It really is the closest thing to a beach holiday in Vegas.  The beach isn’t as completely convincing as you’d hope – it’s great, I’m not doing it down, I just want to point out that the pool is only one part of why the Mandalay Bay works.

So yes, it sits at the end of the strip by the airport and we don’t place it as the centre of the action on trustedvegas.com but you really should consider it as a great place to stay, and if you chose it you won’t regret it.  Especially if this is your second or third trip to Vegas, the new perspective will please you.  Oh and speaking of perspectives, the views of The Strip from the rooms and the cocktail bar on the roof are the best of their kind in Vegas.

Prices at Mandalay Bay vary depending on the time of year, due to convention centre events and also the huge acts they have playing there, it's fun to search dates and see what price you could get a room for.  Click here if you, like me, find that kind of thing 'fun!.