Though the interaction may be brief, the guest experience begins in Valet with our Guest Services team. They make it their job to know your name, especially if you frequent our resort. They will assist you with your luggage and perhaps offer you a bottle of water should it be another hot day in Las Vegas. They will even escort you inside to the Front Desk or at minimum, will direct you there.

A special touch from our Front Desk to one of our guests celebrating their wedding.

Once you arrive at the Front Desk, you’ll be greeted with a smile by one of our fantastic front desk agents. What you may not know, is the night before our front desk team scanned reservations arriving the next day to find out if anyone was celebrating anything special. If availability permits, we’ll pre-assign your room. It isn’t unheard of to receive a card with cupcakes for your birthday or chocolate covered strawberries for your anniversary from the front desk agent who checked you in.

Those little touches might even extend to your dinner. Maybe you are here celebrating your anniversary and our Concierge recommended Anthony’s Prime Steak & Seafood, our award-winning fine dining restaurant. Because our Concierge noted on your reservation that you are here celebrating your wedding anniversary, the hostess might seat you near the window so you can indulge in a view of our main pool deck, Villaggio Del Sole and the Las Vegas Strip. Once you reach the end of your meal, the waiter may bring out a special dessert tasting with “Happy Anniversary” written out in chocolate ganache for you to enjoy.

These are a few of the little things we like to do at our resort to create the ultimate four-star guest experience. From beginning to end we take care to make you feel special because as one of our guests, you are special! Let us know if you’ve experienced the little things while here at our resort.

For the third consecutive year in a row, our resort has been honored with the Forbes Four-Star Award and for the second consecutive year our spa has also been recognized with the Forbes Four-Star Award. The M continues to take its place as one of only 177 hotels and 104 spas in the world to receive the awards. But, what do all those stars mean for our guests?

With a reputation for defining the extraordinary, Forbes Travel Guide conducts regular inspections of hotels, restaurants and spas across the nation and issues an annual guidebook listing the destinations on a ratings scale of One to Five Stars. The ratings reflect specific, strict standards regarding the facilities themselves and more importantly the service that the rated resorts, eateries and spas offer to their guests.

Forbes inspectors spend two nights and three days assessing each hotel in numerous different categories. They visit hotel properties unannounced and rate them as One, Two of Three Star hotels. If the inspector believes the hotel is a potential candidate for a Four or Five Star rating, another Forbes inspector is sent back to the hotel undercover to evaluate the hotel's service with a checklist of over 500 items.

Properties must score in the 80^th percentile on the Forbes' ratings scale to earnFour-Stars. The score itself is weightedheavily on service. A portion of the rating is measured by the experience that the inspector has while the facility itself is also factored into the score. Forbes rates about 8,000 of the approximately 50,000 hotels in North America. Of the 8,000 that they do rate, only a few earn a coveted Four and Five Star Ratings.

Dine with Dad

We know how much you love our buffet, you did vote it "Best in Las Vegas" after all. We also know that Dad deserves the best! So, taking Dad to our buffet is pretty much a no-brainer. Treat him to a seafood brunch on Saturday or Sunday featuring heaps of crab legs, shrimp and oysters plus many more dishes of all-you-can-eat goodness. It doesn't stop there either, there's also all-you-can-drink beer, wine and hard cider. So grab a plate (or three or four) and feast with your father on his special day.

If your Dad's a little more formal might we suggest a steak dinner? As we recently mentioned, our steakhouse, Anthony's will be debuting this Friday. If there's one thing we know Dad likes it's a good steak and Anthony's got them ready to serve up.

Gifts Galore

Let's be honest, who doesn't get excited about a little M swag (we know we do). Our gift shop is your one-stop-shop for everything M-related.

Does Dad love to hit the golf course? We've got plenty of M-logoed golf balls. We've also got plenty of polo t-shirts so he'll be stylin' on the course.

How about drinking? M shot glasses are perfect for when Dad wants to kick-back.

If your Dad's more of a card shark you can stack his deck with actual decks of M playing cards or chips so he feels like a true high roller for the day.

And if all else fails, you can't go wrong with the gift of an M Girl Calendar. It's the gift that just keeps giving…after all, you still have six months left to enjoy before we ring in 2012!

M Experience

What's manlier than a man-icure? Mom's not the only one who likes to get pampered. Send Dad off to a day at our four-star rated Spa Mio. There's even a special package available just for him, which includes a 50-minute Therapeutic Massage (perfect if he's been a little tense lately) and a Men's Haircut or Master Shave. Speaking of Master Shaves, check out what our talented barber Vinnie can do for Dad in this demonstration of his 'master' skills.

For those with Dads who don't call Vegas home, we think a trip is in order. Send Pops to the city of sin and have him stay at M for the ultimate Vegas experience. We promise to show him the four-star treatment. Even better you can book him our 2^nd Anniversary Package for a great deal!

There's no doubt you have an almost endless supply of choices when it comes to picking the hotel for your vacation, especially in "tourist destinations." Many people (in fact most these days) begin their search for their vacation hotel online. The Internet is home to a bevy of travel rating websites. These can certainly be helpful, but they can also be a bit confusing. Why is it that Joe S. from Boston said "the room was amazing with a spectacular view and comfortable bed" and Donna G. from Sacramento said "mediocre view and the bed was stiff as a board"?

On these sites, you'll find answers to pretty much every one of those questions you ask yourself before making a choice - a LOT of answers. The problem is there are so many conflicting opinions, experiences and points-of-view. How do you know when a source is credible? Do you trust Joe or Donna? Were they having a bad day? Were they having an amazing day? Did Joe get a freebie or comp from that hotel? Does that hotel actually advertise or have a partnership with the travel website and everyone's getting a cut when you book your room?

What if there was a completely objective, independent, trusted source with more than 50 years of rating hotels for travelers? There is of course and it's the Forbes Travel Guide, formerly the Mobil Travel Guide. Here's what they have to say:

"Sorting through the scores of travel ratings in the marketplace today takes effort?many are biased and the source of information is a mystery. There is a proven, time-tested gold standard for hospitality ratings, and we invented it. Forbes Travel Guide provides travelers with the most objective, most disciplined ratings for hotels, restaurants and spas in the world. The hospitality industry respects and reveres the Five Star rating system, and consumers have put their faith in it for 50 years as they decide where to stay, dine or play." http://www.forbestravelguide.com/

There are about 50,000 hotels in the United States and Forbes Travel Guide recommends just 3,000. That's just six percent. The standards are incredibly high and the anonymous inspectors have hundreds of criteria to consider when it comes to rating a property. What that means to you as a consumer, is that when you choose a Forbes Travel Guide star-rated property, you know what you're getting and you know it's high-quality. It means the guest service is exceptional. It means the hotel is squeaky clean. It means the amenities are abundant and top-notch.

Bottom line? Star ratings DO matter and you should absolutely consider them when choosing your hotel. Here at M Resort, we've got four and we're looking for more. And don't forget, when it comes to spas, Forbes Travel rates those too and Spa Mio just so happens to have four stars as well.