What the best resource for reliable reviews of Vegas casino hotels? A Google search gives me 9,000,000 hits for sites that want to book my stay, not tell me where to stay.
Since you’re looking for informed opinions, let’s move this to IMHO.
samclem
Trip Advisor is great, actually.
What are you going for and what are you looking for? I go once a month or so for work (sometimes twice), so I’ve stayed at my fair share of hotels. I can suggest some stuff if I know what you’re lookin’ for.
It really depends what you’re looking for, Rick. We recently stayed at Mandalay Bay (on the company) and were put up in a high roller suite. I could heartily recommend it - if someone else were paying for it. Excellent service, immaculate housekeeping, but sort of out of the way down at the end of the strip. There’s a tram which runs from Mandalay Bay to Excalibur, which is right on the strip.
Have fun!
I’ll echo tripadvisor.com but caution you to read more than a few reviews. Some people have a need to complain about something and find the site as a place to bitch.
Cheapovegas is also good. Pretty good reviews of buffets and casinos. I don;t know how dated the reviews are though.
Actually, it’s for my wedding. We’re planning to go in January and we’re having a hell of a time with Expedia. Every time I try to book a flight package for my parents, my grandmother, myself and my fiance, things go wrong. Most notably, I can choose okay flights there and back, but as soon as I choose “three rooms” for the five of us, my return flight is replaced by an 8-hour long red-eye, for no reason I can discern.
And I thought “eloping” in Vegas would make things easier!
Perhaps you should use other online booking services. I’ve used Vegas.com as well as the individual airline sites to book travel and accommodation.
You also might want to split up your booking into separate transactions to see if you can get a better deal. In this case, sometimes talking to a real live person can help here.
I stayed at the Mandalay Bay once and it was terrible. The closet was like a refrigerator, the light came on whenever the door was opened; but the door wouldn’t stay shut unless I leaned my suitcase against it. And water gurgled up from the sink drains in the middle of the night.
I’m sorry to hear it. I’ve never had a better hotel experience.
Can you lay us down some price ranges? I mean, if you’d like us to give some suggestions, I mean. You’re of course more than welcome to use Trip Advisor. 
“The Unofficial Guide to Las Vegas” Bob Sehlinger. Make sure you get the most recent edition.
Regarding the disparate experiences at Mandalay - like any new Vegas hotel / resort, the place is huge with over 4700 rooms, so if even one percent of the guests are unhappy about something, that’s still 47 people that will go home every day and say how terrible the place was on every website they can find.
It’s not like I registered here just to complain about it. Someone asked for opinions about hotels in Las Vegas, and I gave mine.
Well, we’d like to have a good time, but we’re not going to stay at the Bellagio unless we get some wild, unbelievable discount that makes it as affordable as the nicer 4-star hotels.
We know of all the major 4-star places, and we’ve looked at tripadvisor and other such review sites, but it seems that 90% of the people on there can’t spell, and, as others have mentioned, often those who review online are those who had a terrible experience. We’re more looking for unbiased information on the major hotels. (By the way, Cheapovegas was pretty good.)
Basically, at the moment we’re looking at package deals. We’re thinking the following:
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Nice hotel, on the Strip, for four nights in January. Rated 4 stars (or above, if we can afford it… which we likely can’t)
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Direct flight from Toronto to Vegas and back (Two family members have health problems that would make stopovers difficult)
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We need three rooms: two adults, one adult, and one adult + 1 senior.
The best deal we’ve found so far with these things in mind was at the Luxor in mid-January, for about $5400, (give or take a hundred or two, I can’t remember the exact price) found via creating a package on expedia.
I have a feeling that we’ll have a good time regardless of where we stay, but any personal experience fellow Dopers can share will be more welcome than angry, misspelled Tripadvisor reviews. 
The Luxor is right next to Mandalay Bay, off the strip a bit - still, there is the tram. It’s also garish, if that matters to you.
Let me clarify, it’s not OFF the strip, but at the end, and it’s beyond Excalibur. That does not sound like it’s far, but the hotels there are massive.
I actually really like the Luxor! I’m an Egyptology dork, so that’s probably why. That said, the Luxor has a nice location and a pretty good buffet (that they’ll give you free passes to most of the time).
As far as rooms at the Luxor, I really, really suggest upgrading to tower rooms. The pyramid rooms are cool, but cramped because of the slanty ceilings. The tower rooms are HUGE with a shower and a big, sunken in soaking bath.
I was actually shocked when I walked into my tower room last time (after staying in pyramid rooms). I even called my friends to tell them about my surprise :).
Oh, the Luxor has great pools, too. Probably only half will be open in January, but it might be warm enough to pop in during the day.
May I also suggest the Monte Carlo (if you can get a good deal)? A bit pricier than the Luxor and the rooms are a bit smaller than the Luxor tower rooms, but the hotel itself is less kitchy.
If you are on a budget I would reccomend the Sahara. I stayed there at the old “starting” end of the strip for a week. It’s one of the older Hotels/Casinos in Vegas. Not nearly as lavish and extravagent as some of the new Casinos, but the rooms were nice and the service was very good and definitely adequate for the price.
Even though it is a cheaper hotel, it was by no means “cheap”. The pool and facilities are great and the gambling is moderately loose. They still have $3 minimum Blackjack and the pokerroom is nothing special but it’s intimate and old school Vegas gritty. They also have a pretty cool rollercoaster and Nascar simulators if that is your thing. You can also drive a real Hummer, Corvette, or Cadillac on a performance test course with their new attraction, The Drive. Admittedly, the shows they have there were not my cup of tea. Definitely D list for Vegas production standards.
Three of us got a helluva deal for a double room at the Sahara for right around $35-$50 a night dependant on day of the week and occupancy. We got the best deal through Travelworm.com. I guartantee some of the best deals in Vegas are available through this one site. Believe me, I spent hours sifting through all of the booking and travel sites and this one has the best deals in Vegas, consistently. They are also very efficient, easy to book, and had very good customer service.
However, I spent some time gambling at the Rio and caught the Penn and Teller show there, and although it’s off the strip, I enjoyed the energy and experience of this casino the best. If I were to go to Vegas with no budgetary restrictions I would probably choose to stay at this Casino.