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Sam Morris / Las Vegas Sun
MGM Mirage CEO Jim Murren speaks at the grand opening of the Mandarin Oriental at CityCenter, Friday, Dec. 4, 2009.
Published Friday, Dec. 4, 2009 | 8:47 a.m.
Updated Friday, Dec. 4, 2009 | 3:34 p.m.
Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas
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CityCenter's Mandarin Oriental makes it's Las Vegas debut.
Sun Archives
- CityCenter unveils Crystals retail district (12-3-09)
- Vdara exec predicts strong sales at new hotel (12-3-09)
- Vdara hotel marks opening of CityCenter (12-1-09)
Sun Coverage
One of the world’s most prestigious hotel brands made its Las Vegas debut today when the 47-story Mandarin Oriental opened at the $8.5 billion CityCenter.
It was the third building of this week’s phased opening at MGM Mirage’s Strip resort campus and sets the stage for the Dec. 16 launch of Aria, the 4,000-room hotel-casino centerpiece of CityCenter.
The property is positioned to be a magnet to the international guest familiar with the high standards the company holds.
How good is the service? Left-handed MGM Mirage Chairman Jim Murren joked about struggling with his oversized scissors made for right-handers at the ribbon cutting at Vdara Tuesday. When Murren participated in today’s ribbon-cutting, he was given left-handed oversized scissors by the hotel staff for the ceremony.
Today’s opening included presentations by Murren, Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas general manager Rajesh Jhingon and Rep. Dean Heller, R-Nev.
“This is a stimulus package I can support,” Heller said of CityCenter in brief welcoming remarks.
Murren said MGM Mirage executives had to make many difficult decisions about partners when designing CityCenter.
“But one of the easiest choices was to reach out to Mandarin Oriental” as a high-end resort hotel on the CityCenter campus.
With the hotel staff circling around the nearly 200 VIPs and media representatives on a brisk morning, guests were welcomed by drummers and Tibetan chime players in a feng shui harmonizing ceremony that included a traditional lion dance.
Top-hatted doormen then escorted guests to the 23rd floor to the hotel’s Sky Lobby, a public area that separates the hotel rooms below from the residential units above it.
The Sky Lobby also is the home of world-renowned chef Pierre Gagnaire’s Twist restaurant – his first in the United States – and a tea lounge.
The Sky Lobby offers views through panoramic windows up and down the Las Vegas Strip.
The Las Vegas Mandarin Oriental has 392 rooms and suites as well as 227 apartments and condominiums with a separate entrance from the hotel.
A two-level, 27,000-square-foot spa includes 17 treatment rooms, including seven suites for couples. The property also has 12,000 square feet of meeting space, including a 7,650-square-foot configurable ballroom with high-tech audiovisual and lighting systems.
The Mandarin Oriental is connected by a pedestrian bridge to Crystals, CityCenter’s luxury retail and entertainment district that opened Thursday. It’s the second nongaming hotel of the complex to open, with MGM Mirage executives cutting the ribbon for Vdara on Tuesday.
The Hong Kong-based Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, which is incorporated in Bermuda, has 41 hotels open or under development in 25 countries worldwide, including properties in New York, San Francisco, Miami, Boston and Washington, D.C.
The group opened its flagship Mandarin Oriental Hong Kong in 1963 when it was known as The Mandarin. With a plan to expand throughout Asia with a high level of service associated with its Hong Kong property, the company in 1974 acquired an interest in the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok built in 1876. The holding companies of the Mandarin and the Oriental merged in 1985 and two years later was listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
In addition to expanding in Asia, the group grew worldwide, building in London, Munich, Geneva and Prague. Its newest hotel in Barcelona opened last month.
The group’s 17 properties in Asia include developments in Tokyo, Singapore, Macau and Hainan, its first on mainland China.
This message brought to you by MGM Mirage.
Full disclosure: I went to the Mandarin Oriental's reservation site to check it out. They're not sold out for a single night into 2011. Picking some random midweek off-season days, the minimum rate was $375 a night. I don't see how that is going to fly.
There's no doubt this is a fabulous hotel brand with an international reputation but this isn't the time or the place.
2011? You mean, people aren't booking a year and a half in advance?
Wow, so much luxury and classy shopping. I used to come to Vegas for fun and great deals. Bring back the Stripper Mobile!
Whine, whine... cry, cry. Get over yourselves. It's here and you can't do anything about it. If you don't like it, move away because we don't want your negativity here in Vegas. Goodbye.
Get a life docholliday.
This comment section is supposed to be for all the readers.
Does this mean the 12,000 construction workers in town have to move?
Uh let's see, 2010 starts in, to be precise, 27 days. How do you get a year and a half out of that. Now if there's only 392 rooms and this thing was so highly anticipated and is going to be such a big draw, I would have expected to see at least ONE sold out night in the coming twelve months. So yeah. Welcome back to reality.
I don't know if I see the point in ripping CityCenter any more. It is just too easy. I will be looking to book a room in 2010 - when the rates drop even further.
Looks like Vegas is all in on this one. Hoping for the best!
Copied from one of my casino blogs.
CityCenter's owners now find themselves fighting for returns on a resort valued at roughly $4.88 billion as of Sept. 30, less than 60 percent of its construction cost, according to estimates MGM Mirage released last month after it reduced CityCenter's condo prices. The company told regulators Nov. 13 that 1,443 of the 2,440 condo and condo-hotel units were under contract.
Competitors, meanwhile, will see if CityCenter brings more visitors to Las Vegas, then fight to get them in their casinos.
"It's going to be a scramble about customers," Ruffin said. "No doubt about that."
Murren said even though MGM Mirage would probably be better off financially if CityCenter were never built, its finish represents a catalyst that couldn't come at a better time.
"We're at the eve of opening up something that was unimaginable this year, that will have a profoundly positive impact on our cash flows, our cross-marketing opportunities for our other properties, and on visitation and revenue to all of Las Vegas," Murren said. "I believe that it couldn't happen at a better time now that we've survived the first six rounds of the fight."
Alamo said that despite its troubles, CityCenter has a good chance to succeed - but needs a little luck.
"Let's just ring the seventh-round bell," he said.
Priceline had mid-week rates for bid at $99 a night. Ok, the rooms don't have windows, but luxury is luxury, right?
Do they have those jelly beans for 24 dollars a pound. Yummmmmmmo
So, did anyond check out the egg foo yung at Peirre's Twist?
The Oriental will do fine..it isnt the HOTEL for anyone that posts on here..
Here Here Docholliday nicely said and so true...
I think it will take a helluva lot more marketing and unique attractions for CityCenter to lure in the upscale businessman and international clientele as you have the same choices of luxury at many properties in Las Vegas....
It's going to take a lot more than just some luxurious Crystals Retail District and one casino to constantly pack all them condos and hotel rooms to full capacity.....and to make their return investment of 8.5 billion to 11.0 billion dollars of the total cost....which might take say 25 years if the facilities are near full capacity.
I take it that Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, Luxor, Bellagio, Excalibur, and Circus Circus are on collateral status as well as a few other MGM properties abroad in case lender payments are not met.
World class destination continues for Las Vegas regardless......but of course the majority of Las Vegas visitors prefer bargains and good fun.
I remember those Mr. Sy's coupon books that used to be the gimmick of bringing people back to Las Vegas, those days are gone.
A two-level, 27,000-square-foot spa includes 17 treatment rooms, including seven suites for couples. The property also has 12,000 square feet of meeting space, including a 7,650-square-foot configurable ballroom with high-tech audiovisual and lighting systems.
The Mandarin Oriental is connected by a pedestrian bridge to Crystals, CityCenter's luxury retail and entertainment district that opened Thursday. It's the second nongaming hotel of the complex to open, with MGM Mirage executives cutting the ribbon for Vdara on Tuesday.
*******
Nice, but let's get real here: what does the pool area look like? How many pools are there? Is there a nice bar in the area? Any topless areas? (I hope not not unless there is a "females only area" with 6 pack ab men waiting on all the ladies). Is there a kids' only pool?
How can they not talk about the pool area when the pool area at all the hotels IS THE PLACE most people care about when they come between May and September.
the place looks GREAT!......wish it opened a week ago when I was there...oh well, next year
Words are failing me. I'm so impressed with those shiny glass hotels at City Center that I'll drive to Rockford to catch an Allegiant flight to Vegas. Then I can go shopping at those impressive new Crystal stores and pay $10 extra to get a seat with overhead bin space on the way back. Oops, I just remembered that Michigan Avenue is in Chicago and is lined with luxurious hotels and overprice luxury stores. Maybe I can wait a little while to see City Center and avoid the "crowds". When the rates at Vdara and Aria (by the way, where did these names come from) are competitive with Imperial Palace, I will even stay there.
This guy Ruffin needs to get his head out of the sand. This couldn't have come at a WORSE time!!
The third car derailing of a huge train wreck coming down the line. Good luck filling all these rooms at city center! This project stinks of too much borrowed money thrown at a horrible idea. I'd hate to be a shareholder holding from the 80's and 90's watching this unfold. Management seems to be in total denial of the current reality.
How about letting the place open before taking shots that it's not full?
CityCenter's structures will last
many, many years
--glass and steel die? Never.
The "internal workings" of these properties
well, may change, ever.
Crystals are transforming creatures.
High-end trinket shops
for milionaires today,
tomorrow, facets of a fantastic, futuristist's attractions mall
for all,
a universal fun palace.
Yes, Dorothy! Holographic theater pods, virtual reality games of chance and adventure, slot olympics, whatever the human imaginatiion can conceive along the wandering pathways of--EMERALD CITY, OZ 2020!.
MGMM didn't forget you,Wizzard. Just took awhile to find its way back to the Yellow Brick Road,to remember that fun and imagination are the root of entertainment, and there is "No place like OZ."
In2wishin : You forgetting? they already tried that motif on the corner of Trop and LV Blvd, didn't make it back to Kansas..
Ok, how about Twitter City?
In2wishin : I actually like that one, kinda like a modern day "Century City" kind of name.
So does this mean the lines at the Imperial Palace will be shorter, or that the rooms there will get cheaper to compete with the new place? I think I'll still stay at the I.P. when we go to Vegas. L.O.L.
Bakersfield
When I go to Vegas I stay at the IP.
People laugh but I tell them about
old Red Roof Inn commercials Martin Mull
use to do when you turn out the light
it's just as dark as the Ritz.
I go to Vegas to gamble shop meet people
buy things. Not hang out in a over priced
room.
Some of the comments on here are in my view, extremely short sited. For Vegas to be a well rounded desintation that attracts a broader base of people the town needs broader base of hotels. There's a lot of low-medium end hotels but few high end.
Personally, I think the development is great and will be success in drawing in a different type of clientele.
Not everyone wants to sit in the Imperial Palace surrounded by 300Ib badly dressed people feeding the slots. The Encore was a step in the right direction and now the Mandarin offer a new upscale venue, for locals and tourists alike.