The MGM Grand Las Vegas

The MGM Grand Las Vegas

The MGM Grand Las Vegas is a hotel casino located on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. The MGM Grand is the second largest hotel in the world by number of rooms and the largest hotel resort complex in the United States, ahead of The Venetian. When it opened in 1993, the MGM Grand was the largest hotel in the world. 

Located on the Tropicana - Las Vegas Boulevard intersection, pedestrians are not allowed to cross at street level. Instead, the MGM Grand is linked by overhead pedestrian bridges to its neighboring casinos: to the south across Tropicana Avenue, the Tropicana, and to the west across the Strip, the New York-New York.

When the MGM Grand opened, the intention was to create the first true destination hotel in the Las Vegas area by including the MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park behind the casino. The plan was to make the Las Vegas Strip more family friendly by providing activities for children who were too young to be allowed to linger inside the casino. The theme park performed poorly, and did not reopen for the 2001 season. On December 5, 2002, MGM Mirage announced that the former theme park would be developed as a luxury condominium and hotel complex called The Signature Hotels in Las Vegas. A monorail was built to connect the MGM Grand to Bally's in 1995. 

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The coming out party for the monorail on behalf of Bally's consisted of showgirls and guys from Jubilee helping the groups to the monorail. Characters from the Wizard of Oz greeted the groups on the MGM side. The track was later updated to became the southernmost section of the Las Vegas Monorail. The station was refurbished, the trains were replaced with Bombardier M-VI's, and the track was extended beyond the southern station to provide for track switching for the  trains as well as a starting point for a potential future southern extension to the monorail line. 

The City of Entertainment 

In 2000, in an attempt to appeal to a more "mature" clientele, the hotel underwent a major renovation and almost all traces of the "Oz" theme were removed. The theme is now more of the Art Deco era of classic Hollywood and the hotel started billing itself as The City of Entertainment. More recently, the resort has used the phrase, "Maximum Vegas" referring to the vast amount of activities MGM Grand offers its guest. 

On April 26, 2000, MGM opened a new satellite registration/hotel check-in center at the McCarran International Airport. This is the first of its kind opened by a hotel company at any United States airport.

In 2005, MGM opened the "West Wing," a renovation of the original Marina Hotel rooms. 

Beginning in October 2011, MGM began its "Grand Renovation" in which all of its rooms and suites in the main tower were fully renovated, along with the casino floor and other public areas. This has provided the hotel with a more modern appeal with its contemporary room design. The work was completed in  September 2012.

Attractions

The Lion Habitat in the MGM Grand

MGM Grand featured a glass-sided lion habitat inside the casino area, in which up to six lions were shown daily since 1999. A see-through tunnel ran through the habitat for close-up viewing where the lions would frequently lounge on top of the glass allowing visitors to walk under them. The lions were owned by Keith Evans, a trainer of exotic animals, and did not live at the habitat, but at his ranch 12 miles (19 km) outside Las Vegas. The lion habitat closed permanently in February 2012 as part of MGM's Grand Renovation.
CSI: The Experience opened in the Studio Walk in September 2009. Here, guests try to solve one of three murder cases interactively, guided by touch screen stations, cast member videos, and realistic recreated evidence. The first stop is a debriefing room where Gil Grissom introduces the "new recruits" to their assigned cases. After observing the evidence at the crime scene, visitors go to lab areas where they analyze the gathered evidence. They then present their findings in Grissom's office, answering a test based on their analysis of the evidence. Finally, visitors receive a case summary and a CSI diploma.

MGM Gaming and Casino

The MGM Grand has one of the largest gaming floors in all of Las Vegas, measuring 171,500 square feet (15,930 m2). There are more than 2,500 machines for gaming as well as 139 poker and table games.

The slot machines at the MGM Grand range from 1¢ to $1,000, and include progressive slots, video poker, and multi-game machines. There is a special High Limit Slots area that feature slot machines with payouts up to $500,000.

The race and sports book is a state-of-the-art betting area that features 36 60-inch plasma tvs along with 24 42-inch plasmas. Bets are offered on a range of sports including soccer, football, boxing, MMA and more. They are also the first room to offer what they call "SkyBoxes". These boxes can hold up to 10 guests and come with beverage servers and complimentary food.

Show venues:

• Crazy Horse Paris Theatre
• Hollywood Theatre
• Kà Theatre
• MGM Grand Garden Arena