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| Luxury King, MGM Grand Detroit |
As a MGM Rewards Gold member, with free/comped nights available at such iconic properties like the Bellagio, Aria, MGM Grand in Las Vegas, I asked myself this exact question: What other properties are there besides Las Vegas that I visit?
That question sent me on a quest to explore other MGM Properties elsewhere including Beau Rivage (Biloxi, Mississippi), Borgata (Atlantic City, New Jersey), MGM Grand Springfield (Springfield, Massachusetts), and so on. I’m sort of like an avid baseball fan who travels to various ballparks around the country, trying to see how many ballparks he can actually visit.
That, is one of the main reasons why I travel the way I do, trying to visit as many national parks and monuments (and other awesome state and local parks as well), along with different cities and states. Why not have a goal, a bucket list to complete, before I can no longer travel, say due to old age or a debilitating illness.
I’m always one to tell everyone who would listen that life we have on this planet is not infinite. Everyone dies. It’s what we do while we’re alive, that matters. Live your life, don’t wait for that perfect moment to retire, as that day may never come…
Ok, that’s enough of me philosophizing…
In my quest to visit as many MGM Properties around the country, MGM Grand Detroit, has always been on my radar. I knew I eventually wanted to visit there, but that long distance from the east coast, always gave me a pause.
When the opportunity came during March to finally do a week long trip to the Midwest, visiting Ohio for Cuyahoga Valley National Park, then heading over to the “Motor City” (Detroit ), I couldn’t wait to finally cross off this hotel from my bucket list!
After visiting Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio during our two nights/three days stopover, we left our hotel heading west towards Detroit, Michigan. The trip would take us via the popular I-90, and at a driving distance of roughly 210 miles, it would take us little over 4 hours to complete this trip.
As we packed up our luggage, the snow began to fall, lightly blanketing our car, and the road. My wife and I were hoping the snow wouldn’t get any heavier heading towards Detroit, and we lucked out.
Although the snow was still falling, it was just a light dusting of it. Not enough to hamper our travels. I have to admit that it was incredibly beautiful to see everything covered in the white stuff, able to cover vast farmlands of Ohio, and making it a jolly winter wonderland.
As we got on the I-90 toll plaza, we were surprised there was a toll. The last time we traveled that way on our way to the west coast (some 20+ years ago), we didn’t pay a toll. Oh, well…
We passed famous cities like Cleveland and Toledo, before making our way north to Detroit. The weather was starting to clear up (at least no more snow), by the time we arrived near the suburbs of Detroit.
We were getting hungry, we so stopped at a Chick-Fil-A for lunch. On the way over, we saw the biggest Ford manufacturing plant we ever saw. It literally took up entire city sized blocks. We understood why Detroit was called the “Motor City”.
After lunch, we drove about 15 minutes towards MGM Grand Detroit. One of the first things we noticed was the road condition. Due to a combination of lots of snow then rock salt to melt them, and lack of funding to repair them, the roads were in dire need of repairs.
There were plenty of potholes to give us a jolt each time we hit one, and after hitting my first, then second, I was trying my best not to hit them anymore. It was just like back home in New York City with its own problem with road disrepair…
We began to see the outline of the downtown Detroit, a welcoming sight to behold after driving in the suburbs all morning. We pulled into the self park garage, then looked for the entrance to the hotel.
As we walked inside, we noticed a security checkpoint with security guards checking for any weapons. We passed the checkpoint in a breeze, then headed towards the hotel’s front desk.
Unfortunately, the room was not available when we arrived, around 2 p.m. We waited, and waited some more, near the front desk area. There weren’t any comfortable couches around, so we sat on rock hard surfaces of the mini water fountain near the front desk.
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| Near the hotel lobby/front desk |
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| Where we hung out… |
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| Look back at the casino area |
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| Water fountain near the lobby |
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| Front desk |
We waited patiently, passing the time on our tablets and smartphones. When we didn’t hear back from anyone past 4 p.m., I walked over to the front desk to inquire about my check in.
They finally checked us in at that time. Strange. The hotel didn’t look that busy. I was a bit surprised they didn’t check in one of their semi-VIP clients (me, with my MGM Gold status) ahead of others, but fine. It is what it is…No point in arguing over it. Better to let things go…
We took the super fast elevator to our hotel room and was impressed by its immense size. Even with a king sized bed, there was still plenty of space for a decent sized couch. The bathroom, was even more impressive with a beautiful shower/water closet, and huge sink.
The nice views of the Ambassador Bridge in the distance, made for a nice view. Totally dig the room!
The room was one of the best MGM Grand hotel rooms I’ve stayed in, and that includes MGM Grand Las Vegas, MGM Grand Springfield, and MGM Grand National Harbor. Bathroom almost felt like we were at even higher class hotels like the Aria Hotel or the Bellagio. It was that nice and upscale.
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| Upscale bathroom and huge! |
Here are our thoughts and observations about this hotel and our pros and cons:
Pros
- Luxury king room’s size and luxury touches
The room is really spacious at 510 square feet, and that makes it the biggest standard king room among all the MGM Grand hotels mentioned above. We loved the super comfy mattress, which is a staple of MGM Resort properties (at least 4 stars and above).
The room was perfect for our 4 night stay, and we never felt cramped.
Luxury touches were everywhere including the high end decorations, furnishings, and the bathroom amenities. We knew we were in a 4.5 star rated hotel, if not a 5 star rated one. It felt almost like staying at the higher rated Bellagio for example.
Shower head was one of beauty with awesome water flow, and it was one of those fancy overhead showers, which seem to be the standard among high end hotels. We definitely didn’t mind that, and we definitely didn’t mind the spaciousness of the bathroom.
Nice views of downtown with that beautiful Ambassador Bridge view, really helped in our appraisal of the property. I would rate this hotel room a solid 4.5 stars!
- New, clean, and well maintained resort
Although this resort was built in 1999, latest renovations done in the year 2022, really makes it almost a new hotel. Everything looks great, with upscale touches everywhere you look.
Even places that are often overlooked, like the parking garage, casino bathroom, casino floor, etc., are well maintained. I didn’t smell urine in the parking garage like I typically do, even in upscale places like the Bellagio, and the casino floor/bathrooms were both clean.
I saw an army of cleaning staff roaming around the resort, which is a good sign.
- No smoking in the casino area makes everything smell nicer compared to resorts in Las Vegas or in Atlantic City
If you’re a non-smoker like me, you’ll really appreciate this non-smoking resort. Thanks to non-smoking (there is a designated smoking area for gamblers by the way), the casino area looks and smells great: there isn’t the usual yellowed out stains on some older casinos in Las Vegas or that harsh smoke and smell on almost every nook and cranny of the casino area. What a sigh of relief!
- Really reasonable food court prices
We’ve eaten at at least 10 different MGM Resorts properties throughout the United States, and we can safely say MGM Grand Detroit had the lowest prices among all of them. We did takeouts of tacos, chicken sandwiches, and more from various restaurants at the Detroit Central Market, and we usually paid around $20-$25 for two items.
If you think this is not that reasonable, try getting the same type of items at any of the other MGM Resorts properties elsewhere. You will pay much more!
For example, at the Bellagio, a harmless, normal, nothing fancy or excellent chicken sandwich cost $20, and that was all the way back in January of 2023. Who knows how expensive it is these days…
- Close proximity to Canada
We took a quick trip over to Canada to check out the excellent Point Pelee National Park in Leamington, Ontario, a drive of around hour and a half (47 miles). It was so close from the hotel that we had to visit it. *I’ll do a separate post about this visit next.
The town of Windsor, the city just across the Detroit River, is another popular destination. We saw lots of interesting shops selling stuff like the ubiquitous maple syrup, Canada’s own (largest brewer in Canada) LaBatt Beer, and red colored maple leafs. If I was still in my consumption stage of my life, I’d stop by some of those shops to browse and to mindlessly buy stuff.
Stay at the hotel opens up potential opportunities to visit some of the attractions in nearby Canada. That is really neat!
- Slot machines were paying better than Las Vegas MGM Resorts properties
We got killed both times we visited Las Vegas on the slots. Although we didn’t win any money (we lost, but that’s no surprise), MGM Grand Detroit did let us play much longer than at any other properties in Las Vegas.
For example, my wife got to play close to 3 hours on one machine on just $20(!) on one particular gaming session. I also had nice hits towards the end of the session. Not great, but better than Las Vegas.
- Awesome neighborhood foods near the hotel
We got really hooked on Middle Eastern food during our winter trip, specifically to Knoxville, Tennessee, where we tasted perhaps the tastiest chicken shawarma sandwich ever at Yassin’s! Ever since then, we’ve been searching for good chicken shawarma sandwiches and falafel platters wherever we travel to.
We found one in Detroit, at Boostan Restaurants in Hamtramck about 5 miles from the hotel. We traveled through some rough looking areas of downtown Detroit, but arrived at this small, unassuming spot in a Middle Eastern neighborhood.
One of the best signs that a restaurant is any good, is to see if locals like it. The small restaurant was packed with people ordering, waiting, and eating. That was good to see.
We bought two portions each so we can eat 2 meals, then ate at our hotel. Both dishes were heavenly…Just the perfect spices, with tender flavorful chicken (or tasty falafels) and that awesome garlic sauce! We highly recommend this place on your trip to Detroit.
Although we only tried this neighborhood restaurant on our trip, we saw many restaurants near the hotel. As good as foods inside the hotel are, it’s good to get some foods outside the hotel, just to get some fresh air.
Cons
- Front desk staff is not friendly
I’ve visited many MGM Resorts Properties throughout the country including Bellagio, Vdara, Aria, the Delano, MGM Grand (Las Vegas, National Harbor, Springfield), Beau Rivage, and New York New York, and with the exception of Gold Strike (no longer MGM Resorts property) in Memphis, the front desk at the MGM Grand Detroit was the worst in terms of nonchalant, detached, don’t-want-to-be-there attitude displayed towards customers. A VIP customer like myself for example.
I don’t expect a warm welcoming ceremony. I just want to be acknowledged with a simple greeting like “welcome to MGM Grand Detroit “, “how are you doing?”, or even a simple “good afternoon” would really suffice. I got none of that. That makes it one of the two worst experiences at MGM Resorts Properties while checking in.
They didn’t show any effort in trying to accommodate one of their good customers. I felt like I was at a DMV office, getting the usual super duper service (just kidding of course) from the DMV’s always friendly, smiling staff (kidding again).
When the staff said the room won’t ready until after 4 p.m., I was ok with that. When they didn’t text me past 4 o’clock like they said they would once the room is ready, I walked over to inquire about the room again, at which time they begrudgingly got me the keys to the room.
Service can surely be better for a 4 Diamond rated hotel like this hotel.
- They charged me a resort fee which is exempt for MGM Gold status members
Had I not checked my bill when checking out, I would’ve had to pay this resort fee. Usually, most MGM Resorts Properties automatically deduct the resort fee from the bill, but not at this hotel.
It goes to show how nonchalant the staff is. It takes a second to check my status!
I mean it was no harm, no foul, but it’s these little things, little details that matter to make it one of the top hotels/resorts. MGM Grand Detroit’s front desk staff (or whoever did the billing) needs to do better…
Be sure to double check your bill when checking out, especially if you’re a Gold status member or higher.
I knew when planning this trip to Detroit that the city is not one of the safest cities out there. I was expecting the worst, thinking back to some of the roughest places in New York City where I grew up.
I was, for the most part, correct in this assessment. The area surrounding the hotel is not an area I would walk around in. There are the usual things found in a city: homeless people, beggars, garbage, and boarded-up homes/businesses.
I know not everywhere in the city is bad, but the area near the hotel is a work in progress. There are signs of gentrification with some newer buildings starting to replace decrepit buildings. Even with that, I wouldn’t recommend anyone to walk around the neighborhood.
- Some of the scenic areas near Lake St. Clair are off limits to almost everyone except the rich folks living in that neighborhood
We decided to see the area, especially near the lake, but we were surprised that there were no real public parks with parking, facing the lake. We passed towns like Grosse Pointe (affluent area), then headed further north, with the lake on our right.
We pulled into what looked like a park facing the lake, but we found out it was a park for residents only, which was a bummer. We offered to pay an entrance fee, but that didn’t work.
We left the park wondering if there are any public parks along the lake, but gave up on that idea, clearly discouraged by what just transpired…Oh, well…
In conclusion:
MGM Grand Detroit is worth of its name, as the resort, especially the standard hotel room, is definitely grand. The resort has lots going for it including a world class hotel, casino, plenty of restaurants, and activities right inside the resort.
We’re glad we got to check off this box on our bucket list, but we’re fairly certain that we will revisit it again in the future. Loved the resort, just not everything outside the resort though.
There are some things that can be improved upon, such as the aforementioned bit decrepit surrounding neighborhood, and the lack of public parks facing the lake, but otherwise, we had a great time.
If you’re a fan of discovering different high end casino hotels/resorts, this should definitely be on your list. We think you’ll like it.
Thank you for reading and happy trails!
Jake
Wandering Money Pig
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