Free Parking Near the MGM Grand Hotel/Casino
Between high prices, made-up restaurant surcharges, resort fees, and parking fees, even just a quick visit to the MGM Grand can get expensive. And that’s not even counting gambling losses!
Fortunately, there are a couple of nearby casinos across the street that at least allow you to avoid the MGM Grand parking fee.
Like most casino resorts up and down the Strip, the MGM Grand charges customers (both hotel guests and non-guests alike), for the privilege of storing your car on a little rectangular piece of dirty concrete. Rates range from $15 for a short visit, to $18 for all day.
There’s also valet parking fees of course.
And while there is plenty of self-parking available at the MGM Grand, courtesy of their massive multi-story structure east of the resort, you can avoid the parking fees if you don’t mind walking a bit. Here I’m talking about a five minute walk.
The Tropicana and OYO Hotel, both directly across the street from the MGM Grand, are two of the few remaining casinos with free parking on the Las Vegas Strip and offer the budget-minded visitor a way to escape parking charges.
Map of Free Parking Near the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino
The blue route on the left is the walk from Tropicana’s parking garage over to the MGM Grand. The route on the right is the short walk from the OYO Hotel & Casino to the MGM Grand.
According to Google Maps, the walk from the Tropicana’s parking garage up the pedestrian overpass on over to the MGM Grand is .2 miles, or a five minute walk.
And although it looks a lot shorter on the map, Google Maps says the walk from the OYO Hotel & Casino to inside the MGM Grand is also just 1/5th of a mile, or a five minute walk, (not counting time spent waiting for the stoplight to change).
Both casinos have multi-story parking garages that are pretty dated, and not always the cleanest, but hey, it’s free. One should note also that there are a few outdoor parking spaces close to the front of the Tropicana that are NOT free.
Park and Walk From the Tropicana
You can park and leave right out of the Tropicana Las Vegas parking garage, or alternatively, go through the casino, where you’ll eventually exit out at the busy intersection of The Las Vegas Strip (Las Vegas Boulevard), and Tropicana Avenue.
You’ll go up the escalator to the pedestrian overpass that connects to the MGM Grand, then down to the resort’s southwest entrance.
Please note that during concerts or events at the nearby T-Mobile Arena, (including Golden Knight hockey games), the Tropicana has been known to charge non-hotel guests for parking. Rates aren’t posted, but they have been a flat $10 in the past.
Park and Walk From the OYO Hotel & Casino
Situated just east of the Tropicana, the OYO isn’t technically on the Strip, but close enough. There is no fee to park at the OYO.
The former Hooters Hotel & Casino has a multi-level garage attached to the west side of the casino. After parking here, you take the elevator down through the casino, then out front, walking a little towards your right (east). There isn’t an easy pedestrian overpass here, but you won’t have to dodge traffic as there is a pedestrian crosswalk just before the street to the east of OYO, Duke Ellington Way.
From there the sidewalk and signage leads you to the MGM Grand’s spacious porte-cochère out front.
Just a warning: when I created the map above, Google originally had me crossing the street at another walkway to the west (left) of OYO, closer to the Tropicana Hotel. This is fool’s gold however, as once you cross the street over to MGM, you have to backtrack to the porte-cochere anyway. All of which is to say, the cross walk by Duke Ellington Way is a faster way to get out of the Las Vegas sun and into MGM Grand’s air conditioning.
Conclusion
A 4 hour (or more) stay at the MGM Grand will set you back $18 dollars in self-parking fees. But for a ten minute roundtrip walk, you can save that charge. Will you walk ten minutes to save $18? That comes out to $108 per hour in my cheap warped mind. I will work for $108 per hour.
And yes, there’s a lot of walking already in Las Vegas, and an outside jaunt in 102 degree heat to save a few bucks may not appeal to all of you, but for us cheapskates, a little exercise, even in the heat, is a better alternative than handing over more of our money to MGM Resorts for something that always used to be free.
(By Steve Beauregard. Top photo courtesy of Eduard Marmet via Flickr. MGM Grand parking garage courtesy of Dave Taylor. Tropicana courtesy of Daniel Orth.)