From RayCl111: You've heard all the hype about the MGM Grand. Now let me tell you what it's REALLY like to stay there. My family and I stayed there last July 13 and we will never return again.
They have about 5 or 6 pools that are actually quite small for such a large hotel. The pools are always very crowded and unpleasant. We chose not to go in the pools around noon when we saw how crowded they were and also the temperature was about 110 degrees. So we planned to go out to the pools around 7 p.m. when the sun was lower and hopefully the crowds had decreased.
Well, we got out there about 7 and were told that all but one small pool was "closed". They packed hundreds of people into the one pool that remained open and that one pool was scheduled to close at 7:45 p.m. So after 7:45 p.m. NO pools are open!
I asked an attendant why they closed the pools so early and he said "the hotel doesn't want people spending time in the free pools when they can be spending money at the casinos and in the shows". So apparently the MGM Grand sees their guests as "cattle" to herd toward money making activities for themselves. This is insulting considering I paid over $200 for a room there.
Seeing the hundreds of people in this one small pool packed almost shoulder to shoulder I decided not to go in but my young son really wanted to swim so I let him go in the pool. When he got out he said "You know, the water tasted salty, not like chlorine." I didn't want to tell him that the reason for that was all the sweat of the thousands of people who have been in that small pool all day. It would have made him sick. It made me sick to even think about it.
So there you are. That's what it means to stay at the MGM Grand hotel. That's what you get for your $200 to $300 per night. Have a great trip!
