One Character Decides What People Think of Mystère
Travel Analysts
We read 500 reviews of Mystère, collected without filtering by rating. One recurring character — a grown man dressed as a baby — appears in 39.2% of the one- and two-star reviews, 39.0% of the three-star ones and 14.0% of the good ones. The performers are not the argument: 19 of the 51 low-rated reviewers praise them by name while giving one or two stars.
Explore the full guide & expert tips ➜The same character, at both ends of the scale
Most shows are disliked for something vague. This one is disliked for something you can name in advance, and the numbers say so clearly.
| Reviews that mention the baby character | Share |
|---|---|
| 🔴 One and two stars | 39.2% (20 of 51) |
| 🟡 Three stars | 39.0% (16 of 41) |
| 🟢 Four and five stars | 14.0% (57 of 408) |
Thirty-nine per cent of the low-rated reviews mention the baby. So do thirty-nine per cent of the three-star ones. In the four- and five-star reviews the share drops to fourteen.
“The acrobatics and stunts were great, not sure what the baby had to do with any type of story... Just didn't flow, no real story.” — TripAdvisor, 2 stars, April 2026
“The acrobats were excellent, but the comedy acts were awful. Get rid of the clown and the creepy man-baby, and add more acrobatics.” — TripAdvisor, 3 stars, May 2024
A second character does the same job at a smaller scale: a performer who moves through the audience before and during the show throwing popcorn. He appears in 29.4% of the bad reviews and 6.1% of the good ones.
The trade-off: a show with a signature character is memorable, and memorable cuts both ways. What this means for a buyer is unusually practical: you can find out what the comedy is before you book, which is not true of most shows.
It starts before the show starts
Six reviewers in our sample describe something that is not in any listing: the baby is audible in the theater while the audience is still being seated. Six is too few for a percentage and we are not calculating one — but they describe the same thing, and one of them gives the workaround.
“The show is fine but I suggest showing up at the very last minute, otherwise you'll have to listen to audio of a grunting and rooting baby on loop before the show begins.” — TripAdvisor, 3 stars, August 2024
“We took to our seats 25 minutes before the 7pm start and the wail and irritating noise of a crying baby on the stage was soul-destroying.” — TripAdvisor, 3 stars, August 2024
“Weird storyline with a sound track of a baby crying and gurgling for 30 minutes before the show even started.” — TripAdvisor, 4 stars, June 2022
The trade-off: arriving late to avoid the pre-show costs you the unhurried seating that is half the point of an assigned seat. Whether the pre-show still runs this way is set by the production and can change; what our reviews describe is what they found.
The unhappy reviewers are not complaining about the acrobatics
This is what separates Mystère's bad reviews from a show that is simply not good. Of the 51 low-rated reviews, 19 use a word of praise about the performers or the acts in the same review that awards one or two stars.
“Performers were talented and good, but I expected more from Vegas..” — TripAdvisor, 1 star, December 2024
“The acrobatics were good. 90 minutes of watching a bunch of jumping around was too long. The mystery is what was it about?!?” — TripAdvisor, 2 stars, August 2023
Two of the 51 mention the acrobatic acts as a fault. Twenty mention the baby.
| In the 51 one- and two-star reviews | Count |
|---|---|
| 👶 The baby character | 20 |
| 👏 Praise the performers anyway | 19 |
| 🍿 The popcorn character | 15 |
| 🏛️ The production or theater is dated | 10 |
| 🤸 Fault the acrobatic acts | 2 |
The trade-off: a show whose critics concede the skill is one where the disagreement is about taste, not quality. That is good news if you know your taste and useless if you were hoping the rating would decide for you.
The people who loved it name the same character
This is the honest other half, and it is why nothing here says the character is a flaw. Fifty-seven positive reviewers mention the baby, and some of them are describing the best part of their evening.
“A Timeless Classic; The Original Vegas Cirque Show Still Delivers Perfection. Watch out for the Hilarious Giant Baby!” — TripAdvisor, 5 stars, July 2026
“They have a grown man as a baby as part of the performance and we sat front row and he kept calling my husband "Papa", kidnapped him on a golf cart and he got to be on stage with the performers.” — TripAdvisor, 5 stars, March 2026
“he also loved the 'big baby' who was looking for 'papa' and drove a car. so its safe to say this show has something for everyone in the family.” — TripAdvisor, 5 stars, January 2026
That last one is a parent describing a five-year-old, which is the pattern: the reviewers who enjoy the character most often describe watching a child enjoy it.
The trade-off: the same bit that some adults call creepy is the one children in these reviews respond to. If you are bringing a child, that is an argument for the show. If you are not, it is the thing to check first.
The oldest show on the Strip, and the reviews notice
Ten of the 51 low-rated reviews — 19.6% — describe the production or the theater as old or dated, against 6.4% of the good ones.
“We have enjoyed every Circ show we have been to- except this one. It was the originial and it is showing its age.” — TripAdvisor, 2 stars, March 2026
Age cuts the other way in the positive reviews, where longevity is the selling point rather than the complaint. Both groups are describing the same fact and reaching opposite conclusions, which is the pattern of this whole article.
The trade-off: a long-running production is the one with the most polished acts and the least recent staging. Reviewers who have seen several Cirque shows are the ones most likely to notice; reviewers seeing their first are the ones least likely to care.
Common questions
❓ What is the baby in Mystère?
A recurring comic character: a grown performer dressed as an infant, who appears through the show and interacts with the audience. Reviewers describe being called "Papa" and being taken on stage. It is mentioned in 39.2% of the show's low-rated reviews and 14.0% of the good ones.
❓ Is Mystère good for children?
The positive reviews that mention children are consistently warm about the comedy, including the baby character. Minimum ages are set by the theater and change, so confirm before booking.
❓ Are the acrobatics in Mystère worth it?
By the reviews, that is not where the disagreement is. Two of the 51 low-rated reviews fault the acrobatic acts; 19 of them praise the performers while giving one or two stars.
Method and Limits
This article measures one show — the 500 reviews of Mystère in our corpus, collected in 2026 without filtering by rating. Of those, 408 are at four or five stars, 41 at three and 51 at one or two. A further 108 reviews collected from low ratings only were read for patterns and are never counted; nothing in the percentages above comes from them.
Themes are found by pattern and then read. The baby figure counts reviews mentioning a baby, an infant or a stroller, checked by reading; in this show those words describe the character rather than a real child in the audience. The count of low-rated reviews that praise the performers requires both a word for the performers and a word of praise in the same review, and each was read.
The pre-show description in H2.2 rests on six reviews and is reported as six reviews, not as a rate. What the production includes, how long the pre-show runs, minimum ages and seating are set by the theater and change; confirm them before booking.
Percentages measure what reviewers chose to write about, not what happened on any night. Quotes are reproduced exactly as written, including the writers' spelling, and each was checked word for word against the stored review. Figures describe reviews published up to September 2026.
About the Author
Intercoper Curator Team
Travel Analysts
Our team researches and curates tour experiences. We combine local knowledge with rigorous verification to recommend only tours worth your time.
