Open letter to the Aria Management

Dear Team Aria,
I very much do hope you are scouting the internet for crumbs of suggestions, even if unwanted. So here are mine. Mind you, I like you place and wish you all the best.

1. Make coffee accessible for all your guests in morning. The current constraints lead me to bring my own instant brew, creamer and water heater. You lose out on breakfast and other incidentals. I end up carrying a low of camping equipment.
2. Barcode every seat at the pool, gambling area, slots etc (every place a customer can possibly sit, except the private areas) and allow us to call servers using the location via an app or such. It is frustrating to see how often your poor (way to few) servers roam aimlessly and are no where to be found when we need them.
3. Keep the barcode menus, but add tablets etc at every restaurant so that some of us who want to unwind can leave the phone in the room and use the tablets as needed. Please don’t place them on each table as this is annoying (EWR).
4. Enhance your MGM app to allow food ordering.
5. Allow us to use Apple Pay etc to pay on your app or any other non-gambling related expenses.
6. Make sure your app based keys also works in the elevators. Most of your checkin clerks seem to know that they often don’t. And they are right.
7. I am sure some of my sisters and brothers in the VMB Family will chime in with more unsolicited feedback below.

 

Simple logic would assume any company that cares about their business might monitor boards like this. Gonna guess it does not happen at MGM.

Good comments overall.

They could make life much easier by automating more things. Many businesses now allow you to pay your check from your table, reducing manpower and server errors.

BUT - this all assumes MGM has a decent IT back office. Based on watching how much typing their staff does into their computers, and waiting for the next screen - they have totally ignored how much money they toss out the window with wasted manpower not getting anything done.

But - good list.

 

I would guess MGM does and uses it to find out what people like so they can find a way to charge for it.

 

I'm sure those things are important to you but I couldn't care less about any of them.

 

5 dollar "convenience fee" tacked onto using any of those above..

 

#2 isn't a thing at Aria? I thought all MGM pools rolled this out this past year.

 

Dear Aria,

Open the buffet.

 

Coffee….why?

 

My only suggestion would be the rooms are due for a refresh and get bedskirts to hide the boxspring.

 

Different strokes for different folks. I'm one of those crazy coffee addicts, and these are my people:

https://www.vegasmessageboard.com/forums/index.php?threads/traveling-with-your-coffee-maker.183613/

 

I agree with Catzilla. Open the buffet.

 

Just as an aside, there are many coffee options beyond Starbucks. Lift Bar and Bardot both have excellent, fresh-roasted and fresh-ground, coffee beans. Right at the bottom of the elevators.

 

Yeah, too much app this and app that.

I want to stay at a resort where drink service is prompt because of a proper number of attentive servers on the floor, not because I pound a button like trained gerbil.

I know it's convenient to defer everything to an app but it just moves service further and further away from being personal and friendly. Staying at a "resort" is supposed to be an experience, not an efficient and automated process of jamming yourself full of food and drinks at the lowest cost.

Good service, good games, good food, and happy staff who are happy because they have a nice place to work and are adequately compensated.

 

I see that, but having used the drink service feature they had at some of the Caesars joints in AC...it can be done well

 

I'll add one... stop charging resort fees on any offer that advertises a complimentary room.

 

I get your point.

BUT - the issue is not enough staffing. If they can not, or will not pay for more staffing, the app is a solution. We would all prefer having EXCELLENT service, but reality is another thing.

 

Oh I'm not saying it can't be done well and it isn't a convenient feature.

I just prefer the good old days when server coverage was broad enough that nobody would have even considered the utility of pressing a button to service.

My first "serious" trip to Vegas was in 2009 and I still remember playing at Casino Royale, of all places, and the drink service was so frequent at the craps table that it was nearly impossible to finish a drink before the server was tapping you on the shoulder to hand you another one. The underside ledge of the craps table hand scores of bottles and glasses on it. The servers themselves had tips in the form of chips overflowing the glass on their tray where they were storing them as they went from player to player.

That was the standout in my mind but is was a similar story all around town on that trip. That's my kind of Vegas.

I had a trip more recently where I didn't get service even ONE time at MGM properties for the first two days of the trip. Caesars was doing a better job but still not like a decade ago. Off the top of my head, Cromwell has been the only strip casino (that I've visited) that has maintained anything even close to that level of service but I haven't been in 2 years.

 

Sure, I understand it's one of the problems. I'm just making the case that I would prefer the other approach of paying what it takes to attract the necessary staff to achieve excellent service.

I understand that this approach has effects on the other end in terms of what I pay as the customer at some point. On the hand, it's a competitive market and they have to decide if my budget that I bring to town is worth going after or not. I'm going to gravitate towards the places that achieve higher levels of service in areas that matter to me. If the majority of people are happy to hit a button or use an app, then the market has spoken.

 

By all means, discuss on here, but if you want the suggestions heard I'd be going the comments/customer service/host if you have one route.

There could be employees monitoring boards on occasion for things they ought to be worried about, but that is way more likely to get their attention with a more viral "big deal" complaint, but for suggestions like these to improve service I would not count on them to take notice.

 

I don’t think we will ever see the “good old days” where CWs were plentiful. The closest to normal I’ve seen is Cosmo. The worst I saw last trip was Park MGM , where the CW literally told me to wait for the next one and walked away. (And I’m a generous tipper). If you want a drink there, go to the bar and sit down at a VP machine. Bartender there very attentive.