On November 8, Swingers adults-only golf club and high-end entertainment venue opened its flagship location at Mandalay Bay. It was the latest in a line — Atomic Golf next to STRAT and Pop Stroke extreme mini-golf at Town Square — of golf attractions arriving in Las Vegas.
Swingers is the first thing you encounter when you enter MBay on the ground level from the parking garage. It’s on the left and occupies the entire wall that stretches into the casino’s dining area.
The 40,000-square-foot two-story venue encompasses two bars, a street-food eatery, an arcade, and four “crazy-golf” courses; founded in London, Swingers claims to have pioneered the “competitive-socializing” mini-golf experience. Swingers debuted in 2014 and currently operates six locations: two in London, one in Washington, D.C., one in New York City, one in Dubai, and the Vegas venue, with a location coming to Boston.
From the main lobby, you walk up to the first level and immediately encounter a very long bar.
From there, you descend half a floor to the lower two nine-hole golf courses: Balloon on the left, Clocktower on the right. At the far end of the bar is Emmy’s Squared, the restaurant. At the near end is a selfie room.
You go up a flight of stairs to the second floor for another long bar and two more nine-holes. Carnival, the arcade, is at the near end of the second floor.
If you’re used to expansive outdoor miniature-golf courses, like PopStroke’s, you’ll be surprised by how small these are, being indoors; they can get pretty crowded at prime times. Still, the courses are imaginative and challenging, with lots of neon and such obstacles as windmills, waterwheels, and carousels, jumps, and loops.
Swingers is an attraction that proves an evolving rule in Vegas: LOUD IS THE NEW FUN! Fronting the otherwise uninhabited two-story English country house is a DJ spinning relentless monotonous electronic dance music, every track in four-four time: BOOM boom boom boom BOOM boom boom boom BOOM boom boom boom BOOM boom boom boom. Forget trying to have a conversation; forget even hearing the specials recited by a waiter at Emmy’s.
As for the Carnival, the arcade collects 6-10 credits per game and you pay $10 for 48 credits (20.5 cents) or roughly $1.20-$2 per game. Higher spend lowers the price per credit (12.5 cents per $100). Examples: Wack n Win is 6 credits, Wack a Hole 8 credits, Bowler Roller 10. The games dispense tickets that you redeem for logo merch.
On our visit a week or so after it opened, Swingers had an unbelievable number of people working: waiters, bartenders, cocktail runners, security, suits, and at least 12 people in the kitchen. We wouldn’t be surprised to hear that, like Atomic Golf, they lay off people soon. In the meantime, you can sit anywhere and you’ll be immediately approached for service.
At the bars, bottled and draft Heineken, Coors Light, Budweiser, Michelob and the like are $10, craft beers $14. Wine by the glass starts at $15 and goes up to $26. Proseco by the glass is $18, with bottles up to $990 for Krug Vintage. Sangria is $17, espresso $23, cocktails start at $12 go to $26, or splurge on eight-year-old scotch for $142. Nightclub prices, almost.
Emmy’s Squared is a Brooklyn-born Detroit-style pizza and burger place. You can get three kinds of pizza by the slice: cheese, pepperoni, and pepperoni-pineapple ($10). A chicken sandwich, meatballs, chicken parm, burgers, and double burgers are $16-$23. Waffle fries are $10 and Caesars salad $19. We tried a slice of pepperoni. The frico crust was marginal and it’s baked with honey as a topping. We don’t know about you, but we don’t want honey on our pepperoni pizza and we didn’t finish the lone slice ($10.84 with tax).
A round of crazy golf starts at $35 per person and ticket packages are available for purchase that include cocktails, street food, crazy golf, and reserved seating. And whatever you do, don’t forget that you’ll pay $20-$23 to park at Mandalay Bay. If you go, make sure Swingers is open and not closed for a private party, which happened to a member when he went, so you don’t pay to park for nothing.