Luxor Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas

...wanted to stay at the Luxor for our honeymoon and it was sadly booked out, so we stayed at the Aladdin (now Planet Hollywood) and never made it up even to visit the Luxor, so when we found a deal on Lastminute.com, we were chuffed and booked it in January 2007.

Cost: £1400, 5 nights, room only basis including Virgin Atlantic flights (economy) for 2 people.

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My review of the Luxor will ...
...to The Excalibur too. The Luxor is about 10-15 minutes from McCarran International Airport and a taxi cost us $16.

First Impressions & Experiences:
We arrived at the North Entrance, which seemed to be lesser used, there was no porter on duty and the automatic doors were out of order. None the less, the Egyptian theme was evident, the striking pyramid flanked by 2 towers. Upon entering the hotel, we noticed the water features, ... more

Having been to Las Vegas last year for our Honeymoon, it became obvious where we'd go for our first wedding anniversary!

We had wanted to stay at the Luxor for our honeymoon and it was sadly booked out, so we stayed at the Aladdin (now Planet Hollywood) and never made it up even to visit the Luxor, so when we found a deal on Lastminute.com, we were chuffed and booked it in January 2007.

Cost: £1400, 5 nights, room only basis including Virgin Atlantic flights (economy) for 2 people.

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My review of the Luxor will be split into the main areas of interest in the hotel that I experienced, I realise that this may not cover all areas of the hotel, sorry but with so much to see and do in Vegas it would have been a shame just to stay in the hotel!

Location:
On the strip, between MGM Grand & Mandalay Bay, a little bit out from the main attractions of the strip but served by a Monorail link between Mandalay Bay and The Excalibur, which runs every few minutes. There is also an airport style moving walkway to The Excalibur too. The Luxor is about 10-15 minutes from McCarran International Airport and a taxi cost us $16.

First Impressions & Experiences:
We arrived at the North Entrance, which seemed to be lesser used, there was no porter on duty and the automatic doors were out of order. None the less, the Egyptian theme was evident, the striking pyramid flanked by 2 towers. Upon entering the hotel, we noticed the water features, which had no water in them, it looked like they were being cleaned but in fact they weren't on for the entire holiday, indeed this was the case for all the other water features in the hotel. There were clear signs to 2 reception areas, we had booked into the Pyramid, and there is a 'Pyramid' reception and a 'Tower' Reception, for guests staying in the towers. The decor was clearly Egyptian, obviously, with hieroglyphics’ moulded into the wall, artificial greenery surrounded the walls. It all looked presentable but the floor had some fast food litter on the floor which hadn't been cleared up yet.

As you enter up an escalator or stairs, you go past the walkway to/from The Excalibur and head past some of the Luxor souvenir and clothing shops, they were never packed when we pasted but had a steady flow of customers throughout the holiday and the window displays showed a nice selection of goods that could be bought.

You enter to try to find reception through the casino, a common theme in Las Vegas, the signage for receptions also stop outside the casino entrance! We were approached by a man asking if we were staying at the Luxor and offering us free show tickets...GREAT! but no, we immediately clocked they were trying to get us to spend a day looking at their Condo's (apartments) so we tried to make a swift exit but the staff were very pushy and it was obvious we had just arrived, we had our suitcases with us and we must have looked awful. In the end, we did just walk away and the man started following us, so we almost broke into a run through the maze of the slot machines!

Check In:
After finding our way through the maze of tables and slots, we found the reception and immediately found ourselves in a HUGE queue of about 100 guests and 4 check in desks open, which really wasn't sufficient. The queue took us about 45 minutes to get through.
Upon arriving at the check in desk, we were served by a man called Lloyd, who was obviously overworked, and was very stand offish with us, there was no welcome from him whatsoever, just a look of eternal annoyance on his face! We gave him our booking confirmation and we were told that the room we had booked was not available, they had overbooked, but we could upgrade from a basic room to a Spa room (basically a room without a bath in the bathroom but has a spa tub under the window) at a cost of $150 per night! We weren't keen and he started trying to haggle us to a figure where we would pay, but to be honest, we weren't that interested, in Vegas, a room is just a place to lay your head, so we declined and left it at him offering us the upgrade for $100 per night.

It then transpired that the hotel apparently had no double rooms available but did have a twin room, with 2 single beds and that was the only rooms available. We started to get frustrated by this point as Lloyd was saying there really was nothing he could do, twin room or upgrade. So we offered him $50 per night for the upgrade, which he accepted but we felt bullied into taking the upgrade as he was quite difficult, we had asked if there were any doubles in the Towers but the answer was no.

He then asked us for a credit card and they would charge $500 to it for security and hotel charging purposes, we said we didn't have a credit card with us and we wouldn't want it charged anyway (we did this at the Aladdin and we had a tough time getting the excess refunded) but we did offer to pay $500 in cash for the same. Lloyd refused and said there was 'no way' we could stay in the hotel now, after we'd just parted with $250 for an upgrade! So we said what could we do, informing him this was our wedding anniversary and he was really spoiling it and we were tired and wanted to go to bed! After much deliberation with Lloyd, he said we could stay as we'd actually pre-paid for our stay, he made us feel like he was doing us a big favour but we felt he had just been difficult and as such, we had a first impression of the service being poor.

We got through this process in about half an hour and we were directed to our Spa room on the 25th floor. We had to use a lift which wasn't actually a lift, it was an 'inclinator', as the pyramid is well, a pyramid, the lifts go up on an angle, it's a funny feeling no obviously but you can you are not going completely upwards! You need your room card to swipe in the lifts going up before it will allow you to press the button. There were 4 lifts in the 'Inclinator 1' area.

The lifts were quite slow to reach the ground floor but the journey up was fast.

Rooms:
We stayed in room 25040, a spa room overlooking Mandalay Bay at the Spa tub end of the room and McCarran airport at the dining area of the room, not many of the rooms have dual aspect, only those on a corner like were were (or so we were told by Lloyd!).

The room was of adequate size, there was a king-sized bed, 2 bedside cabinets, TV, Wardrobe, dressing table, chaise lounge and table and 2 chairs and of course the spa tub. The bathroom had a double shower 1 sink and toilet. There was a hairdryer in the bathroom and additionally an iron and ironing board in the wardrobe, the iron didn't work, however.

The decor in all areas of the room were slightly tired, in addition the inside handle of the bathroom was broken. The carpet was grubby but generally clean. The room has 2 huge wall mounted air conditioning units which were like having 2 drills in the room, but they were effective but there was no way you could sleep with them on, which wasn't great because we had temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius most days.

Housekeeping:
Our room was made up most days, but the sheets were not changed throughout our stay and on 2 occasions our room was not made up at all and a call to housekeeping on both occasions was answered with a 'our room housekeepers have left for the day' and the room didn't get cleaned or towels replenished, which was disappointing considering this was meant to be a 4 star hotel. Overall the standard of housekeeping was fair throughout, we did feel that we could have had clean sheets at least once in the holiday and the room could have been vacuumed, as it wasn't or at least wasn't noticeable so throughout the holiday. What we were slightly miffed at was we accidentally left a $10 note out meant for a taxi later on one day and it was take by the maid! it was our fault and this happened on the first day, you'd have thought for $10 tip on the first day we'd have a clean room throughout!!

The public areas were always clean at the start of the day but by evening, bins were overflowing and ashtrays at the slots and tables quite full and dirty.

Eating & Drinking:
The Luxor has a food court on level 2, which has the following establishments:

Ice Cream Bar
Nathans Famous Hot Dogs
McDonalds
Little Caesars (Pizza Bar)
Quinzo's Subs (Sandwich Bar)
Starbucks Coffee.

McDonalds and Nathans served breakfast until 11am and McDonalds is the only fast food eatery open 24 hours.

Prices seemed reasonable at all establishments here and the Nathan's hot dogs were delicious and always fresh.

Also, The Luxor has an 'All you can eat' buffet- Pharaohs’ Pheast, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with prices varying in the day.
Breakfast was $12.99 + tax at 7.5%
Lunch was £17.99 + tax
Dinner was $19.99 + tax

The food here was good although it was slightly confusing which way you had to go round the buffet but it was all copable. There was a good variety for all meals and it was good value for money for us as we eat A LOT on holiday! Drinks are unlimited and the staff very good at refilling your glass or cup. Alcohol incurred an extra charge and were non refillable.

The Luxor has 2 deluxe restaurants, the steak house, which we couldn't get a reservation for as we hadn't put our credit card on file, and Fusia, which was fully booked for the week we were there, due to a conference. Both of these restaurants seemed pricey but as I did not sample the food, I cannot make a judgement whether the food was priced according to quality.

The Pyramid cafe is located in the Casino and is also open 24 hours serving breakfast, lunches, sandwiches, basically anything you could want and prices were good too. The food was excellent and service impeccable.

The Casino:
An absolute essential for any Vegas holiday! The Luxor casino is huge, like many others and it has miles of slots ranging from 1cent slots to $100 a go slots, there are electronic slots and the normal one armed bandit slots of various games. We did notice that throughout, slots seemed to be out or order for a day or so, there was no quick repair like other casinos seem to have. Tables were aplenty, plenty of roulette wheels and poker tables with blackjack and casino war thrown in. There is also a separate, non smoking, poker room in the Luxor.

Cash machines with have functions to break your notes into smaller notes and cash in any tickets with money you may have won from the slot machines are readily available around the casino, these were generally around the casino edges so you have to walk through the slots and table games before you can get your winnings, obviously they are hoping that before you get to the machine, you will put the money back into another machine!

The cleanliness of the casino was OK. During the morning, it was immaculate and very clean, going towards the afternoon and evening the casino became littered with cigarette ends and food packaging and there didn't appear to be much housekeeping going on here, almost as if it happened overnight and nothing in-between.

When you are playing in the Casino, a hostess will offer you complimentary drinks, well in return for a tip. However, the men are generally the ones who get offered the drinks, I was playing on a slot and so was Andrew, he got offered a drink and before I could say 'a coke please' the hostess was gone, we did see this as a pattern in a few of the casinos, it was annoying but they obviously feel the men are more likely to tip generously than us women!

There is also a sports betting area with a bar near the pool at the Luxor, this was generally always empty when we walked past.

Overall, the casino isn't the best in Vegas, my holiday award on that goes to the MGM Grand, but it takes your money and you can play your games, but you don't get anything special here, there are no specialist games, the tables are generally packed out after 8pm but with some still closed.

I don't know if this was a reflection that the Luxor appeared to be understaffed but there was definitely room for improvement in the cleanliness and the amount of tables open at peak gambling times.

Leisure & Entertainment:
The Luxor has a few attractions for it's guests. They are 2 outdoor swimming pools, although one was closed for refurbishment whilst we were there and the other pool was very overcrowded and it was almost impossible to get a sun bed or get in the pool in the afternoon, which was disappointing as this was a regular occurrence over the 5 days we were there and we had been looking forward to an afternoon of relaxation by the pool. You have to have your room card in order toy access the pool area.

The pool area is OK, it's nothing spectacular and in our opinion, it would have done with some matting as a walkway across the concrete, it was 38 degrees Celsius and walking barefoot on concrete HURT!

There is also no lifeguard on duty so important to stay within your depth and to supervise children if you are taking them there.

On level 2 there are a number of attractions, firstly and most obviously, the iMax theatre, which runs from 10am to 10pm, it shows a choice of three films, Lions, Underwater Lagoon and Fighter Pilot. Tickets cost $19.99 each. We didn't go to this as we wanted to go to see the Fighter Pilot film but it was only showing at 10pm every other day.

Next to the iMax, you have King Tuts Museum, a museum which has 'genuine replicas' of artefacts found in Cairo and London, this costs $5 to get in per person, however it was constantly closed when we tried to go and there was no answer to when or if it would be open again during our stay, obviously I would rather see the originals but as this was the sort of thing the hotel described as being available before our trip, we had hoped to see it, I wonder if this was another indication of the understaffing?

The iMax ride was a ride we did manage to experience, at a cost of $11.99 each, we were asked to choose which film we'd like to see, ReBoot (a computer film), Dracula and In Search of The Obelisk, which we opted for. In Search of the Obelisk comprised 4 elements, one was a 'briefing' via very bad acting on a TV screen, walking into a broken lift whilst watching an equally bad film, them we had to be briefed again by a member of Luxor staff who was so monotone about the impending ride, I honestly thought I might fall asleep. Upon entering the ride, we couldn't help noticing it was very shabby, seats were taped up, safety handrails the same and food packaging on the floor (common theme in Luxor so far!). The ride was OK, no better or worse than a normal simulator and it passed the time but we felt it was expensive for a 9 minute experience as we had paid nearly $40 for the 'experience'.

There is also a ride come selling experience called 'Magic Carpet', it is a magic carpet ride which is free but you are expected to by the DVD of your ride. You ride this magic carpet and they put various backgrounds onto DVD, such as underwater or over the Las Vegas strip. The DVD's were being advertised at $40 but there seemed to be bartering power, although we did decline the option to go on this ride, it seemed like good fun.

Also on Level 2 are several gift shops, a Pearl In The Oyster shop, specialising in pearl jewellery and a Margarita’s by the yard bar, which was open 11am-11pm and did a steady trade during our stay.

There are 2 shows on at the Luxor currently one is a comedian, who has apparently won 'Comedian of the Year', although it doesn't say what year, called 'Carrot Top' and tickets start from $40, we didn't see this as he wasn't someone that appealed to us.

There is also a topless show called 'Fantasy' which is obviously for adults only and tickets start at $45. The show is choreographed by Cris Judd, J-Lo's former husband and this is made a big deal of, although I wasn't quite sure who he was when we were asked if we would like to see it, we opted not to, preferring to see 'Jubilee' at Bally's instead, although I believe it was quite popular.

Shopping:
The Luxor doesn't have a great selection of shops, on the ground floor there were 2 Luxor souvenir shops, selling T-Shirts, Mugs, Shot Glasses, Posters etc, both seemed to be very similar. There was a sundries and newspaper shop, which is open 24 hours call Soebeks Sundries, this was quite good, you could get all your snacks, toiletries and small souvenirs here.

Also on the ground floor were the Luxor Outlet shop, selling items from past shows, a Las Vegas gift shop and a Corona gift shop, of which there is another on Level 2, most of these shops were open 10am-10pm and were generally quite quiet most of the time but the staff were always polite and ready to help you.

OVERALL OPINION OF LUXOR:
Initially our opinion was tarnished by Lloyd at check in and I think were had a sense of almost being bullied into upgrading our room, something we hadn't budgeted for but we weren't willing to sleep in separate beds on our anniversary trip and probably our only holiday of the year.

Although the rooms were adequate for our stay, we did feel cleanliness was lacking throughout the stay, for instance, we had to wash out the hot tub before using it as it was grimy and neither of us wanted to soak in a grimy tub. In addition the room and communal areas looked tired and in dire need of being refreshed. The hot tub was also very noisy, our neighbours had theirs own a lot and once at 3am, just after we went to bed, which then kept us awake.

Walls were marked and carpets stained and if you had been luck enough to indulge in room service and leave your finished trolley outside your door, it stayed there for a few days before being removed. This was something we experienced with our neighbour who had room service on Wednesday pm but the same trolley was still there on Saturday morning- yuk!

Although there was a lot of staff at the Luxor, they appeared to all be on the hospitality side of the hotel and no-one was really on the practical side, ensuring things were kept clean and tidy. We noticed this especially when we went to our hotels for shows and gambling and they were all a lot cleaner than ours.

We met people who had stayed at Luxor before and even they commented on how it had seemed to have gone downhill since their previous stay.

Overall, it was comfortable place to stay, maybe not as convenient as we had hoped for as it was right at the top of the strip and it was a walk everywhere. Also, if you wanted a taxi anywhere, you always had to join a mile long, slow queue which, if you were in a hurry, wasn't always ideal, however, if you were prepared and there was a queue and you did have enough time to spare, walk to Mandalay Bay or The Excalibur for a taxi, which is what we had to do on a few occasions.

I am recommending the Luxor but I would advise that it's probably a hotel best for adults as there are very few facilities for children, I'd advise shopping around for the best rate before going as I think it is important that you don't pay an extortionate price for the Luxor as I think if you pay top whack, you're going to be a bit disappointed, especially if things stay the way they are currently.

I personally wouldn't stay here again, not because it was awful, it did disappoint us slightly but the location was further out of the main strip than we had anticipated and it was a bit too close to the airport for our liking too.

Information:

Address:
3900 Las Vegas Blvd South
Las Vegas
Nevada 89119-1000

Reservations: 1-800-288-1000
Guest Info: 1-702-262-4000

Web: www.luxor.com

Check In: 2pm
Check Out: 11am

Owning Company: MGM Mirage Resorts 

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