There's nothing I can say about the Bellagio that other reviewers haven't covered except to confirm that this really is a great hotel.
However, I wanted to offer a quick word about our experience with the hotel reception staff regarding room allocation.
We'd booked a non-smoking Bellagio Suite (directly with the hotel) for 5 nights at the end of September to celebrate my wife's 60th birthday. When we checked in we asked for a Fountain View and were willing to pay for it:
Room 1 Mountain View: Very straight faced, unsmiling young lady receptionist told us that no fountain view was available but told we could try again in the morning. We were given a suite at the back of the hotel overlooking Las Vegas towards the Palms hotel and the mountains in the distance. Not a bad view at all and a lovely sunset. But this side of the hotel also overlooks a very busy road junction. My wife is a very light sleeper and as Las Vegas traffic never stops she had a very disturbed night and it wasn't the Fountain View we'd hoped for.
Room 2 Pool View: Phoned reception next morning to see if a Fountain view room had become available. Spoke to a young man with a very arrogant attitude and was told, very bluntly, that the Fountain View Bellagio Suites were under the control of the casino and were not available to us (we're not gamblers). He reluctantly offered us a Pool View room instead. We accepted it and moved. The Bellagio pool does indeed look beautiful viewed from above but be warned, it can only been seen if you press your nose up against the window and look down. Move back into the room and the whole window is filled with the blank face of a half finished concrete block opposite. Ummm...Lovely! It was also a smoking room (we'd booked a non-smoking) but the traffic noise was a bit better so we decided to make the most of it.
The room didn't seem to smell too badly of smoke at first but by that afternoon my wife's eyes were streaming and it was affecting her breathing. You really don't want to be in a Bellagio smoking room if you're a non-smoker, the smell just seemed to get more and more acrid.
Room 3 Fountain View: I phoned reception again that afternoon and asked to move again and by this time I didn't care about the view as long as it was non-smoking. This time I spoke to a very pleasant young man who couldn't have been more polite or helpful. He phoned back 10 minutes later and "Would a non-smoking suite with a Fountain View be acceptable?" We've never packed so fast. We moved, were not charged any extra and the rest of our stay was fantastic.
There's no doubt that some of the reception staff we encountered at the Bellagio were rude, less than helpful and it would seem less than truthful (what was all that nonsense about the casino controlling the fountain view Bellagio suites?)
Bad service shouldn't happen or be acceptable but from the experience of recent reviewers on Tripadvisor if you don't get the room you want, making a fuss and getting the management involved doesn't seem to get you anywhere except angry and frustrated and still stuck in a room you don't like.
This is a big hotel (over 3000 rooms) and people are checking in and out all hours of the day and night. Rooms are becoming available all the time. Reception staff come and go. If you don't get offered what you want.....wait for some more rooms to become available....try again later until you find a "nice guy" with just the room for you. Make a fuss if you feel the need (maybe we were lucky) but persistence worked for us.
And finally there's something about being in Vegas, listening to "The King" belting out "Viva Las Vegas" on the Fountain Channel on the TV and standing at a floor-to-ceiling window watching the fountains dance to every note, framed against the Eiffel Tower ablaze in lights. I can still hear the boom of the explosion as the fountains shoot higher than the building.
Despite the problem with changing rooms, our stay at the Bellagio was pretty amazing and we would definately stay there again. We moved to the Wynn for the last 4 days of our trip (just to try it out) and while we prefered the atmosphere and the restaurants of the Wynn, the Bellagio won hands down for comfort of the room, House-keeping, Room service........and those fountains!













