text: MGM Grand Hotel & Casino is one of the more \"affordable\" casinos on the strip and there's a reason why. It's pretty trashy. Or at least, the people who frequent it.\n\nThe outside aesthetic of the hotel makes little sense and has no continuity with the inside of the hotel (which at least is nicer). The first thing you notice upon walking in is an over-powering scent of roses, a very large lobby with no place to sit and a near-deafening noise of casino games and crowds to your left as you try to check in.\n\nTRY to check in - that's my point to make here. My sister and I arrived at around 2:30pm, the rooms we reserved were booked via our Mother who was flying in later that evening with my Dad to meet us for our weekend Birthday vacation.\n\nWe all share the same last name, all our names were booked for the reservations - and the INCREDIBLY RUDE woman behind the desk refused to let us check in!!\n\nWhen asked why, she explained it was a hotel policy the cardholder who paid for the rooms be present at check in. As frequent travelers, we've NEVER heard of such a ridiculous \"security measure\" - especially since she had our names listed, and we had I.D.s\n\nAs it turns out, our parents flights were delayed and the baggage check-in fee was ridiculously high (not to mention we didn't trust our bags to strangers handling thousands of bags a day - an easy mixup or theft and our trip would be ruined!)\n\nSo with no place to sit, and the refusal to be flexible (mind you, rooms are usually good to check in after 12pm at any other place in the world) - our room, which had the first night PRE-PAID, sat empty... while my Sister and I had to KILL NINE HOURS lugging our bags for a place to sit that wasn't in front of a slot machine where we'd be losing our lungs to horrible cigars.\n\nWe assumed Vegas would be more competitively priced regarding food, thinking a sit-down meal or two would kill time... such was not the case. The prices of places to eat are higher than ever. The nearest \"affordable\" place we found was a SUBWAY shop. In Vegas terms, the cost of your predictable run-of-the-mill fast food was twice as much as you'd normally pay anywhere outside of NYC.\n\nSo now we're tired, hungry, and have 8 hours to go.\n\nGetting back to the MGM - this is where we really lost our marbles. Turns out, there's a place within the casino by the pools called 'Television City' - You sign up to be part of a focus group and are PAID to watch horrible TV Pilot episodes, rate them and in less than an hour, it's an easy 20.00 plus some pretty good coupons for the over-priced Starbucks and Hagaan Daz nearby.\n\nSure you lose some brain cells watching mindless TV, but you have a place to sit, you get paid, you get discounts at other shops in the casino - and for us, it would have been a great time-killer as we waited for our Parents all day. \n\nBut did the lady behind the check-in desk apologetically mention this to us? Not at all. Nope. We didn't discover it until the next day. When our parents arrived, it was well after midnight before we really checked-in and yes, MGM still charged us for the whole night with no apology. They have a strict policy against Customer satisfaction. No wonder the company is going under and owes a ton of money to Dubai World Properties.\n\nThe hotel rooms have NO AIR. You can blast that thermostat all you want but the room will not get any cooler. You can crack open a window too but that's all they allow you to do... is crack it. The windows do not open. It's not a jam, it's seriously how they're designed. You can only open a quarter centimeter contraption on the windowsill for fresh air. Our view was of the airport. Whatever.\n\nThe next day we decided to look for the pool. That was one thing we were looking forward to the most - it was a vacation, so let's relax by the pool and catch some sun yes? \n\nNO.\n\nThe distance from the hotel room, to the elevators, to the casino floor, to the pool line (yes, you wait in a turnstyle line to get to the pools) is ridiculous. Not to mention, you have to parade THROUGH the casino, past the nice restaurants that only have views of the hallway... in your swimsuit??? Hell no!\n\nLuckily, we have the sense to not gross out other guests with our non-super model bodies in swimwear... but that common courtesy is not mutual. Almost every girl at the MGM Grand dresses like a trashy hooker minus the trashy hooker body. The best word to describe some of the more.. \"rednecked\" guests would be... Trailor Trash Spring Break.\n\nFinally arriving at the pool(s), we realized that our hotel was the Wal-Mart of Las Vegas hotels. The more beautiful pools were closed off, and two were open and CROWDED. The hours were 9-8pm or something ridiculous and there was no room to swim. Not to mention they were blasting the most horrible college-rock.\n\nDrunk girls throwing up in the water, Frat Boys acting like animals, children pee'ing in the pool, old people in bikinis...total nightmare.\n\nCirque Du Soleil's 'Ka' was AMAZING.