Shell Yeah! Oyster Insider’s App Makes Finding $2 Oysters Ridiculously Easy

Oyster Insider’s editorial database + AI = the smartest $2 oyster finder on the Internet.

Let’s be honest — oysters have a reputation problem. People assume they’re expensive, precious, and reserved for special occasions. But here’s the thing: if you know where to look, you can find world-class oysters for $1 or $2 a shell at happy hours across the country, every single day of the week.

The problem has never been the deals. The problem has been finding them.

That’s exactly why we built The Shucker.

What Is The Shucker?

The Shucker is Oyster Insider’s AI-powered app that does one thing exceptionally well — it finds you $2 oysters (or cheaper) wherever you happen to be. Type in your city or destination, and The Shucker surfaces the best oyster happy hour deals near you: the price, the place, the days, the hours, and everything else you need to walk in the door and order with confidence.

No more Googling. No more scrolling through Yelp reviews hoping someone mentioned the happy hour price in a comment three years ago. No more showing up at 4:02pm to find happy hour ended at 4.

How It Works

The Shucker pulls from two sources. First it searches Oyster Insider’s own curated database — the same restaurants, oyster bars, and hidden gems our writers have been covering and verifying for years. When our own coverage doesn’t have what you need, The Shucker’s AI fills the gaps, searching beyond our database to surface deals we haven’t covered yet.

The result is the most comprehensive, up-to-date $2 oyster finder on the internet — and it only gets smarter over time.

Built for Oyster Lovers, Travelers, and Happy Hour Regulars

Whether you’re a local who wants to know which spot in your city has the best Monday oyster deal, or a traveler landing in Charleston, Nashville, or San Diego who wants to find $2 oysters before you even check into your hotel — The Shucker has you covered.

It’s the app we always wished existed. So we built it.

Try The Shucker now and find your next $2 oyster. The world is your oyster — and apparently it costs about two bucks.

The Resort Fee Fiasco

The Wynn Las Vegas is my favorite hotel in Vegas. In fact, it’s one of my favorite hotels, period. But it also happens to be one of the worst offenders when it comes to that most dreaded of charges: the resort fee. Wynn, like most of the Strip, where many of the iconic hotels lie, including some highlighted in [Las Vegas Old and New](https://www.goodlifereport.com/travel/best-las-vegas-old-new/), introduced me to this nebulous, nefarious little surcharge years ago.

What is a Resort Fee?

Often called amenity, facility, or destination fees— resort fees are mandatory daily charges tacked onto your hotel bill, usually not included in the initially advertised price. While some hotels offer genuine amenities for these fees, many guests experience them as surprise junk fees, sometimes even exceeding the nightly room rate itself. Below are some of the worst offenders in the hotel industry, with specific egregious examples.

A Brief History

I still remember seeing that $50-per-night “resort fee” for the first time. At the time, I was confused but brushed it off as just another Vegas quirk. That was about 15 years ago. Today, it’s no longer a Vegas-only problem—it has become a nationwide epidemic. And ironically, it was supercharged by another epidemic: COVID-19.

Before the pandemic, resort fees were mostly contained to Las Vegas and a handful of destinations. They popped up primarily at upscale resorts—places with sprawling pools, hot tubs, fitness centers, and other actual amenities. I never agreed with the fees, but at least you could see the (flimsy) logic: you were paying for access to facilities you might actually use.

COVID’s role

Then came COVID. Hotels and resorts were shuttered for months, and when they reopened, they were desperate to make up lost revenue. Enter the “creative” revenue officers. Resort fees started spreading like wildfire—not just at luxury properties, but at everyday hotels, urban boutiques, and even places with zero resort amenities. No pools, no spas, no lazy rivers—just a fee for nothing.

What was once an egregious surcharge tied to actual facilities has now morphed into a vague, all-purpose money grab. A fee that offers nothing tangible in return, except a reminder that hotel transparency is increasingly hard to come by.

The New GLR Resort Fee “Justicator”

GLR has officially released a beta version of our new web-based calculator that tells you if your resort fee is justified.  This tool is super easy to use and gives you realtime perspective on whether a hotel’s “resort fee” is justified. You simply fill in some quick “input” criteria (shouldn’t take more than 30 seconds – a minute) and the calculator spits out data on whether your resort fee is warranted, including a rating from 1-10. If the rating is very low, meaning the fee is completely unjustified (the hotel has no amenities like a pool or exercise room), then our tool will generate an ai-generated email response that you can send to the resort explaining exactly why your fee should be waved.

 

Who are the biggest offenders right now? Here are some notorious resort fee offenders:

Las Vegas Strip Hotels

Las Vegas is infamous for high resort fees, with almost every major Strip hotel charging $50–$60 per night on top of the room rate. Specific examples include:

The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas: $56.69/night resort fee.

Bellagio, Aria, Wynn/Encore: $56–$57 per night.

MGM Grand: $50 daily resort fee.

Circus Circus & Excalibur: Have advertised rooms for less than the resort fee itself, such as a $28 room paired with a $36.28 resort fee.

 

Miami Beach

Fisher Island Club and Resort: The most expensive resort fee in the U.S., at $160.60 per night, besides a $1,052 room rate. This fee stands out nationwide for its sheer scale.

 

“Hidden” Resort Fees Disguised as Taxes

Some hotels disguise resort fees as taxes or “mandatory government charges.”

The Life Hotel, New York City: Lists a “NYC Mandatory City Hotel Fee,” which is actually a hidden resort fee.

 

Budget and Non-Resort Hotels Charging Resort Fees

Super 8 (Las Vegas), Hotel Pennsylvania (NYC), Best Western (Orlando): While not typical resorts, these budget properties levy daily resort fees, often with minimal amenities justifying the charge.

 

Five-Star Hotels With High Fees

Even luxury travelers aren’t immune.

Andaz Maui (Hawaii): Sizable resort fee atop $500+/night rooms.

Ritz-Carlton Tucson, Waldorf Astoria Orlando, Moana Surfrider Waikiki: All levy resort fees despite premium nightly rates, sometimes exceeding $1,500 for the room itself.

Hotel Chains With the Highest Resort Fees (By Brand)

A 2025 analysis by NerdWallet shows:

Hilton: Resorts average a 4.6% upcharge via resort fees, with a typical fee of $40 per night. Properties like Hilton Phoenix Resort charge $35/night for water park access, among other amenities.

IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group): Resort fees average 3% of room rate; most Intercontinental hotels charge a “facility fee” around $40 per night.

Wyndham: Lowest average among mainstream brands but still applies fees averaging 6.4% of the room rate at some properties.

Other major chains implicated in either high fees or controversial practices include Hyatt, Omni Hotels, Choice Hotels, and Four Seasons. And outside the U.S., these practices are rare—most European hotels include all fees in the listed price.

Special Mentions

Detroit (MGM Detroit): Detroit, not a resort city, features hotel properties charging “resort fees” for basic in-room amenities like a Keurig coffee maker.

TWA Hotel, JFK Airport (NYC): Uses fees to reduce the portion of total charges taxed at the higher hotel room tax rate, leading to lower tax revenue for the city.

Geographic Hotspots for Resort Fees

New York City: Often charges $30–$50/night labeled as “urban” or “facility” fees, even at non-resort properties.

Hawaii, Orlando, Caribbean: Popular tourist hot spots commonly add mandatory fees on top of the nightly rate.

While the intent behind some resort fees is to bundle amenities, many fees serve mainly as a profit center for hotels, frustrating guests with hidden and often unavoidable costs. Las Vegas and Miami are notorious, but the problem extends to budget hotels, non-resorts, and even luxury properties nationwide. Knowing which brands and locations have the worst offenders can help travelers plan and avoid unnecessary overcharges.

The Localizer: Go Where the Locals Go

 

Every city has two dining and entertainment scenes: the one the tourists see, and the one the locals favor. The GLR Localizer is your ticket to the second one.

Powered by AI and built on over a decade of GoodLife Report’s on-the-ground dining and travel coverage, the Localizer works differently than a generic recommendation engine — it draws on GLR’s own curated content first, then supplements with AI to fill in the gaps, so every suggestion reflects the same taste level and editorial standards you’ve come to expect from this site.

Just type in your destination and the Localizer surfaces the restaurants, bars, and neighborhood gems that real locals swear by — not the spots with the biggest marketing budgets or the most aggressive TripAdvisor campaigns. Think of it as having a well-traveled friend in every city who always knows exactly where to go.