I’ve been to Vegas many times before, but I have yet to pick a favorite hotel. To be honest, they’ve all left me feeling disappointed in some way. I was excited to try out the Waldorf Astoria, a former Mandarin Oriental property in the heart of the Strip with no casino, but it too ultimately left me feeling underwhelmed.
Booking
I booked the Waldorf Astoria Las Vegas through Amex Fine Hotels and Resorts, which I have access to through my Business Platinum Card. The advantages of booking through FHR included early check-in and room upgrade upon availability (it was not available to me), $125 resort credit (more on this below), free breakfast daily for 2 people, and guaranteed 4 pm late checkout. FHR was running a promotion for a complimentary third night, and I paid roughly $170 for each of the first two nights, inclusive of taxes and the $45 resort fee, making this an excellent stay.
In addition, while it isn’t guaranteed that FHR and elite status stack, in this case my Hilton Diamond status was recognized by the hotel and granted additional benefits as well as full stay credit.
FHR benefits vary slightly between various hotels. At this particular hotel, the breakfast benefit includes $60 in food resort credit per day. This stacked with my Hilton Honors Diamond credit of $50 in food resort credit per day, giving me a total of $110 per day.
The $125 resort credit was granted once per stay and could be used on anything that could be charged to my room. Prior to the pandemic, this hotel offered a spa credit instead, so having the ability to use it on anything in the resort was an upgrade.
As a result, I spent a total of $384.36 (including 3 full resort fees and one complimentary night). For that spend, I enjoyed three nights and earned 1,920 Membership Rewards points (5x points for booking through FHR) plus 21,386 Hilton Honors points (9,193 points for the stay, a 100% Diamond bonus, 1,000 points for accepting Honors points rather than airline miles, and 2,000 bonus points for a promotion.) I value Membership Rewards points at 1.9 cents, giving me a return of $36; and Honors points at .4 cents, giving me an additional return of $85. That means that all in I value my out-of-pocket spend at $263. Considering the $110 daily breakfast credit and $125 resort credit, this stay was net profitable.
Location
One of my favorite features of this Waldorf Astoria is its location in the heart of the Strip. One of my friends stayed at Aria, which is less than a five minute walk from the Waldorf. My other travel companions stayed at the Bellagio, just 10-15 minutes away. The Cosmopolitan is also just across a sky bridge.
The Waldorf was originally built as part of the City Center development which includes the Aria resort as well as the Crystals shopping center. Unlike those destinations, however, the Waldorf is off to the side with a private driveway entrance and no through streets. I often saw the valets retrieving and parking expensive cars in the private turnaround, which was a fun bonus.
Check-in and Lobby
Since the Waldorf originally opened as a Mandarin Oriental, it has a number of features that make it feel more like an Asian hotel than an American one. Perhaps most noticeably is the lobby, which is located on the 23rd floor. As a result, upon entering the building, you will walk past an empty lobby desk and take an express elevator to the Sky Lobby to complete check-in.
Also on the 23rd floor are a SkyBar, tea lounge, and high-end restaurant in Chef Pierre Gagnaire’s name, the latter of which was still closed from the pandemic during my visit.
The check-in experience was an interesting hybrid of many different hotels. On the one hand, there was a champagne vending machine between the elevators and the check-in counters, a holdover from the building’s days as a Mandarin Oriental. On the other hand, five-star service here was nowhere to be found as check-in consisted of several lines segmented by elite status in front of a desk. There was certainly no personalization or comfortable place to sit during check-in here, as you might find as a true luxury hotel in Asia. On the other hand, lines were quick, unlike at the many mega-resort casinos on the Strip.
Although the official check-in time at the Waldorf is 3:00, the FHR rate I booked includes check-in as early as noon “upon availability.” We checked in around 2:00. My friend, who is also a Hilton Diamond member but who booked direct, was able to get access to his room immediately, but my room wasn’t ready until about 4:00. I found it odd that that FHR rate which advertises noon check-in was deprioritized relative to my friend.
The other issue that I had when checking in was a symptom of the pandemic. The plexiglass shields installed on the check-in desk made the experience even less personal and made it very difficult to hear what the associate was saying. I couldn’t believe that my FHR benefits and Diamond benefits were going to stack and assumed that I had misheard her until I checked back later in my stay.
Room
My base level Strip-view room was comfortable, though not large and certainly not a suite. As I was working from the room for a day during my stay, I was thankful for the true desk, which is increasingly hard to find, particularly in leisure-focused destinations.
While not a dealbreaker to me, it’s worth noting that the CleanStay sticker was broken before I entered my room.
The entrance to the room featured an empty miniature hallway with a mirror at the end. One of those doors opened to the room’s dumbwaiter, while the rest were empty. Or, they were intended to be empty; I found a used dirty towel.
The bed was comfortable and hit an excellent Goldilocks point of being neither too soft nor too firm for my tastes. The pillows on the other hand were low quality and deflated quickly, so I certainly needed all four of them.
The most impressive part of the room by far was the bathroom. It featured an especially large and deep standalone tub, which I used several times during my stay. It filled quickly and was very comfortable. Inside of the bathroom there were partitioned mini-rooms for the toilet and shower, another Asian touch. The shower featured a rainfall showerhead as well as an accessible shower hose and they could be operated at the same time, making for a particularly relaxing shower experience as well. The amenities by Salvatore Ferragamo were high quality and smelled excellent.
As you may notice, the walls to the bathroom are transparent glass. They do not fully shut off from the larger guest room. This wasn’t a problem when I was staying in the room by myself, but may be a bit awkward if, for example, friends were trying to share this room.
One of my biggest issues with this hotel was the lack of attention to detail. In addition to the aforementioned used towel, I noticed there was no apron on the bed, creating an empty visual void relative to the patterns in the rest of the room.
Aside from housekeeping, the design of the room also left something to be desired. There were only outlets on one side of the bed. The closest outlets to the other side of the bed were halfway between the bed and the window, not conducive to charging a phone while sleeping; and furthermore they were both already occupied. Also, while some lamps were fully integrated to the room’s lighting others were operated with an in-cord switch, like what you might find on a lamp from Target and certainly don’t expect to see at a five-star hotel. The issue was that these lights didn’t work with the integrated controls for the rest of the room. That meant that the control panel that could close the window drapes and turn the lights off didn’t actually turn all the lights off despite being labeled “All Off”.
Amenities
The first amenity I missed was a coffeemaker. This is actually very normal for Vegas, as guests are expected to purchase their coffee or order it from a casino floor waitress while playing slots. However, the Waldorf specifically advertises it. When I inquired at the front desk, they informed me that the coffeemakers were by request only and they would send one to my room. Fair enough, and a few minutes later an Asian style kettle and coffee supplies arrived in my dumbwaiter.
However, they didn’t actually ring my bell or knock on my door to tell me it arrived. Rather, I heard banging as they placed the tray into the dumbwaiter and went to check. (As you can see, it barely fits, so there was plenty of banging.) Coincidentally, I received several items through the dumbwaiter during my stay and the bell was never used, so perhaps mine was broken.
Bottled water is also notoriously expensive in Vegas hotels. Besides my two bottles at check-in as a result of being a Diamond guest, in addition to one I found with the iron, there was no other bottled water in sight. I therefore filled the coffee carafe with water from the bathroom sink, but it looked like milk and I nearly vomited. Either this water was extremely hard or the carafe was extremely dirty. When I asked, the front desk sent me plenty of bottled water and it stayed clear so I think the carafe was fine and Vegas city water wasn’t great.
Coffee catastrophes aside, the amenities that were open during my stay were fantastic. Although the hotel was fully booked during my stay, the spa was closed and breakfast was only available through room service or a grab and go cafe. In fact, with all the closures I struggled to use my resort credits.
One highlight of the hotel, however, was certainly its pool deck. It wasn’t large like the Bellagio’s, but the vibe was relaxed and quiet, which was perfect. (Except for one morning when maintenance was running a leaf blower while we were sitting there.)
There were several pools, long and narrow in shape, and perfect for wading or doing laps. There were cabanas for rent but I sat in them without reserving or paying and no one seemed to care. In spite of the full resort, the pool deck remained very empty.
Food and beverage
One evening we ate at the sit-down hotel restaurant, which was open for dinner. We were the only ones in the restaurant. We had asked for a reservation through the front desk at check-in, but it turns out that online reservations were broken so many guests who may have been there simply weren’t able to get in. I had Thai green curry, which was excellent. My friends had the sirloin steak and the New York Strip, which they reported as also very good. Service was top notch.
For breakfast, one day I ordered room service. My Japanese pancakes arrived thick and fluffy and were quite delicious. The meal cost $30 after required taxes and fees, which wouldn’t have been worth paying for out of pocket, but in my case were fully covered by my credits.
On another day, we had breakfast from the grab-and-go cafe. For a grab-and-go concept, service was quite slow and we found ourselves waiting in a hallway while our bagels were cooked for about 20 minutes. Still, the food, once we received it, was high quality and quite tasty. We ate by the pool.
Service
The most concise way I can describe the service at the Waldorf is average, perhaps a few notches below average for a five-star resort.
Check-in agents were friendly but inefficient and difficult to understand. Housekeeping was clearly significantly below average. On the other hand, food and beverage service was great, warm and personalized at all venues if a bit slow.
I found it odd that the maintenance teams on the pool deck continued to run their leaf blowers in close proximity to guests (who were clearly trying to have a conversation) rather than coming back to that task later when the pool emptied out.
Generally, service here was reactive rather than proactive. Although I did have one of my night’s resort fees waived, it was only after the checkout agent asked how my stay was and I commented on the poor housekeeping.
Overall Impression
The Waldorf Astoria Las Vegas is a former Mandarin Oriental property that aspires to bring a touch of the latter’s luxurious Asian hospitality to this American resort. While there were certainly some bright spots, in general I would say that in that endeavor, this hotel failed.
Check-in was slow and impersonal, feeling closer to the Vegas mega-resorts across the street than to the luxurious Asian hotels it tries to emulate. The room was poorly designed and housekeeping was poorly executed, though the bathroom was top-notch with the standalone bathtub and rainfall shower being particularly standout features. Although the pandemic rages on, the hotel was booked to capacity while I stayed, yet many of the resort’s amenities remained closed and it became a real challenge to use my property credit.
The location was excellent, yet the hotel remained quiet since it doesn’t have its own casino. The rooms were comfortable, but only questionably clean, which is particularly worrisome in the age of covid. Overall, I would be unlikely to stay at this property again, but it certainly isn’t a bad place to stay if you’re able to stack promotions as I was.
