So, I'm learning Italian, and one of the few things I've gotten mostly down is days of the week and months. Hooray me.
Lunedi, Novembre 18th
For the first time in many a while, my early morning flight was cancelled and I had to get moved a little later. That meant a reasonable 8:30 start, and not getting up before the cows came home. That also meant several hours of Vegas time lost, but I would try to make due. Mitchell was a little weird. First, I felt I was lucky enough to get a parking spot on the terminal level floor as the signage said 100 spots available. me and about a dozen of my fellow travelers searched in vain for them - eventually I threw in the towel and headed to the ground floor (where there were plenty of places.) Then, the TSA line was packed (about 10 ahead of me) with nobody in the "regular" line. The guy in front of me asked security if he could jump to the other line, and they said "Sure - but you'll have to take off your shoes."
My flight was rather uneventful, and soon I was on
my way to picking up my rental car at McCarran. You can generally figure out
which car company I have by glancing through the rental facility and finding
the longest line. This year it was Budget. They tried to talk me into an
upgrade, but I declined. When they learned I had a second driver (and kudos to
them for accepting Greg's license via text) they went ahead and bumped us to a
small SUV for an extra $1 a day. I was directed to D19, and as I walked up, I
watched in horror as someone climbed into the car and drove off. Apparently
they double booked that car and that meant trudging back to line to fill out
new paperwork and get a new car. While not the best of starts, soon I was
behind the wheel of a shiny new Santa Fe, and on my way to Luxor. Greg had been
given two free nights there through MGM, and had arrived the previous day.
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| Trying to improve my luck...any way I can |
Lunedi, Novembre 18th
For the first time in many a while, my early morning flight was cancelled and I had to get moved a little later. That meant a reasonable 8:30 start, and not getting up before the cows came home. That also meant several hours of Vegas time lost, but I would try to make due. Mitchell was a little weird. First, I felt I was lucky enough to get a parking spot on the terminal level floor as the signage said 100 spots available. me and about a dozen of my fellow travelers searched in vain for them - eventually I threw in the towel and headed to the ground floor (where there were plenty of places.) Then, the TSA line was packed (about 10 ahead of me) with nobody in the "regular" line. The guy in front of me asked security if he could jump to the other line, and they said "Sure - but you'll have to take off your shoes."
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| BINGO! |
We’ve
stayed at Luxor a few times, though it has been about 20 years since we were in
the pyramid. The rooms are a little older, but still decent enough, once you
get past the fact that you crash your head into the window every time you try
to look outside since it’s on an angle. Even better, we were on the then the
floor, so the feeling of vertigo was fairly minimal. I dumped my bags in the
room, got my MGM card reprinted to get us out of the garage, and we hopped in
the car for a ride down to the Miracle Mile shops.
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| Luxor - home base for Day #1 |
The
first meal of the trip was lunch at Nacho Daddy. While generally a fan of
Mexican food, the side benefit is ND has their own beer, which is brewed by Bad
Beat locally (a solid brewery we had visited last year.) 3 of the four beers
were good, with the Hefe being the standout. For food, I went with a Baja
shrimp burrito. It was loaded with Spanish rice, fried shrimp and a tasty
sauce. Both halves fell apart on me by the end, so I had to finish with a fork
and knife. Service was great, but it was pretty loud and on the pricey
side...yet the good beer made it all worthwhile.
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| Nacho Daddy beer... |
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| ...and Burrito! |
After lunch, since it was still early, we headed over to the Gold Coast and took a walk around the property. Not finding too much that caught our eye, we sauntered across the street to The Palms. The main goal here was to score a new players card, which was pretty fancy. We sat down at a ‘Lucky 8’ Video poker machine, and a while into playing, I hit a few three of a kinds that were 8, which led to some decent bonus wins...$55 worth of pennies. It was a nice start. We went back through the Gold Coast, but didn’t find much to write home about, so we returned to the Luxor.
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| 4 Deuces at max pay (nickles version) |
One
of the newly branded casinos is Oyo, formerly Hooters, formerly San Remo. There
doesn’t appear to be much done in the way of internal renovations yet, but we
did get the new players card, a chip, and a little play time in...I lost $4,
but scored one drinks for the effort. We then went across the street to MGM. I
had accumulated roughly $225 in free play on my credit card for the year, and
took my first $20 crack at building on it. Unfortunately, I got blasted at the
Heidi beer fest slots as well as another slot machine and walked away with a
pathetic 20% return on my investment (i.e. $20 of free play became $4 real
dollars.).
To
cool the jets a little, we reviewed our dinner options. Greg pulled a buy one
entree and two drinks, get the second entree free at Wolfgang Pucks Bar and
Grill in the MGM. I settled on the pork chop, which came with roasted sweet
potatoes and was enormous and delicious. Our only mistake (from a calorie
perspective) was ordering a bread plate...but the fresh bread was phenomenal
and worth the extra space in the gut. Service was great, and we could people
watch those going to see The Cirque show.
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| Thank you, Mr. Puck! And MyVegas! |
We
walked a little bit over to the tram to the Mandalay Bay. We found one of our
prime spots to flag down waitresses, but luck wasn’t huge this night for that
activity. I pumped another $50 of free play into the machine, and this time at
least got back $37. We got one drink before the shift change, then headed back
to Luxor. I pulled a few $ from the VP machine and got one more drink for good
measure. Then it was time to call it a night.
Day
1 stats: 4 new beers, 4 free drinks, 19,344 (8.6 miles) steps, won $97.
Martedi, Novembre 19th
The
weather was only going to hold one more day, so I got up at the crack of dawn,
though not on purpose. Started with a quick run down to Mandalay, then back up
through the Excalibur valet area and back to Luxor. I was ready to go!
We
were going to make our way downtown, but started with a few stops. First was a
stop at the local Total Wine and More, just to see what they had. I could have
gone crazy, but limited myself to just two single beers for later in the trip
if needed. We then went to Westgate, formerly LVH, formerly the Hilton, to get
a new players card. Wandered a little, but didn’t find anything that caught our
eye, so we cut across the street to the Sahara, formerly SLS, formerly Sahara.
The old Sahara was a dive, the new one is very fancy. We got a new chip, had to
wait for the slot club to open, then got a new card and broke them in via a
slot machine called Clinko. The fates were not with me and my $20 evaporated.
Next,
we went up to the newly rebranded Strat, formerly Stratosphere. Once again, I
questioned whether or not they understand their audience (then again...who am I
to do that?)...but they seem to be going more upscale. Greg and I looked at
where we we heading for lunch, and realized we still had another hour to kill,
and it wasn’t happening at the Strat. I couldn’t convince him to visit the
Aztec Inn next door, so we landed on a short ride over to Palace Station. We
sat down and I did score a drink, but dropped another $15 in the process. It
was enough to carry us to noon.
Perhaps
the most exciting stop on the trip for me was lunch to Able Baker. This is a
new brewery that opened up about a half mile north of the Strat. We walked in
and were greeted warmly and with a monster tap list. About 25 total taps
running, with most of it being their own. I landed on a pre chosen flight of
four dark, strong beers. They also have a kitchen onsite, and I ordered the
fish po-boy and fries...something to soak up the booze. The beers were amazing.
An imperial brown, a honey chocolate stout, and two barrel aged beers. I went
up to grab a coffee version of the brown as well. All five were top notch, and
I totally hope we get to go back here again on a future trip. Needless to say,
Greg took over driving duties to Fremont.
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| 4 of 5 from Able Baker...amazing |
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| Go - you won't be sorry! |
Our next stop was the Main Street Station. We had been interested in staying downtown and as I was checking place out, was offered a free night there. We went in and they confirmed our room was ready, so we dumped our bags and took a walk through Fremont street. Our first main stop was El Cortez. We wanted to take a shot at the Silver Strike machines. Greg went first and got his strike, I followed and was also successful and won $5 on top of it.
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| Home base, night #2 - Main Street Station |
Feeling
good, we stopped in at another favorite establishment, Bangers Brewing, I originally
was just going to order a glass of something, but in perusing the list, they
had a number of new and interesting things, so I ended up with a flight. And
much like past visits, was very pleased with everything I tried. Still feeling
good, we took a shot at the strike machines in 4 Queens next. This was not as
good a result. $30 got wiped out quickly, with one drink to show for the
trouble.
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| A return to Bangers - always a welcome stop. |
We
walked across to Binions, and while getting our slot cards reprinted, we got
entered in a drawing for $2500 that was to be held about 45 minutes later. In
the meantime, I dropped a few dollars at the machines, but got one drink out of
it. The drawing was fun...even if we didn’t win.
Next
up, we headed up to the Plaza, where I finally righted the ship for the day and
won $20 of the days losses back. And yes, saw the waitress. From there, we
landed on dinner at the Triple 7 brewery in the MSS. We’ve eaten here a few
times, and it’s never a bad choice. I even got to try their Hefe, which I
hadn’t had before. To wrap things up, we walked over to the Fremont ABC store
to buy a jug of water to replenish the fluids. A great day two.
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| Triple 7 Dinner |
Day
two stats: 10 new beers!!!, 4 free drinks, 19,261 steps (8.5 miles), lost $45
Mercoledi, Novembre 20th
The
one downfall of a late fall trip is the unpredictable weather, and this year we
rolled the dice and lost on the last two days. The day was only going to get
into the low 50s, but to top that off, it was raining in a town that doesn’t
get a lot of rain. So we had slick, wet, and chilly conditions. Still on
Midwest time, I was awake and raring to go by 7:00.
I
read about a donut shop called the Donut Bar, and we decided to give that a go
for breakfast. As advertised, they had a huge selection of huge donuts. It took
a lot of thinking but I landed on trying their salted caramel raised donut and
red velvet cake donut. My first mistake was that one huge donut would have been
plenty and my second was that cake donuts are particularly heavy. The salted
caramel was amazing, and I would go back given the opportunity to try more of
their raised offerings.
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| Yeah - one really would have been plenty 😳 |
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| Shitty weather, good food! |
On the way back, I wanted redemption at the 4 Queens, and this time I did get the silver strike and won $2 to boot. We then went back to MSS to check out and start the adventure over to the west side of the city. We stopped off first at Suncoast. Played for a little and held my own...breaking even for the session. Next up was Red Rock, where things didn’t go as well, and I dropped my $20 buy in.
For
lunch, it was time to try another new brewery, Scenic Brewing. We perused the
tap list, but learned a few of the offerings had already kicked...replaced with
some new and exciting things. I took the flight of four...all quite decent. On
the food side, I had a lunch special of pork tacos and a Caesar salad. Filling
and tasty, good service, but a little empty (even if it was a Wednesday
afternoon).
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| Keep 'em coming... |
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| Tacos at Scenic Brewing |
From there, we decided on one more stop at the Orleans. We found a VP machine and milked it for an hour. Drink service was a little off...she only showed up once and then gave me the wrong drink (but at least went back and got me a new one.). Only lost $8 over the long stretch before it was time to move one.
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| 4 deuces (penny version) - kept me alive |
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| Park MGM - home base for 2 nights |
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| Merry Christmas from the Wynn! |
Day
3 stats: 5 new beers, 4 free drinks, 23,979 steps (10.6 miles), lost $56
Giovedi, Novembre 21st
Giovedi, Novembre 21st
Much like last year, we had packed a lot into a little time, so I knew that entering the last day, no matter what, I'd be wanting more. Despite the drizzle and 45 degree temps, I went for a run to burn some of the buffet off. It was fairly invigorating, though also a little scary as I worried about my footing a lot. I made it for 2.7 miles and returned to the room raring to go. Rather than go for too much, we simply headed next door to CVS for a candy bar and Coke Zero (and by "we", I mean "me".) Then it was onto the car and the day's adventures.
We decided to head south for the day. It's been a while since we made it to Silverton, so that was our first stop. After watching several people in the preferred slot club lane claim their prizes (as set of wooden kitchen utensils) we finally got to go refresh our cards. After walking around a little, we parked ourselves at a VP machine and I was able to kill an hour on $15...all the while getting serviced with screwdrivers (3 to be exact.) Speaking of things getting screwed - we were playing a Super Times Pay VP machine, which supposedly gives the bonus on average every 15 hands. Whoever is getting it every hand - you're welcome (I was counting several stretches into the 30's between bonuses.) After that, it was on to M - a resort we also hadn't seen in a while. The guy at the slot club window was also from Illinois, so we bonded about the weather, but he didn't tell me to run while there was still time to save myself. I tried a VP machine with a bonus game, but got pummeled and lost my $20 buy in very quickly. So much for that.
At that point, I consulted my phone and alerted Greg that we were only 15 minutes away from Jean. He had never been, and I hadn't been to Terribles, formerly Gold Strike, since the rebrand. We hopped into the car and made it down there. There were just a scant number of cars in the parking lot, so we carefully walked inside. The place was relatively dead...but we stopped in at the gift shop for a deck of cards (yes, I still do that), then learned that joining the slot club was done at the hotel registration desk. The lady must have been blown away to have someone joining the club, as it took her a while to get my card. But she got it down pat in time for Greg. We bought a few chips, then hightailed it out of there.
Heading back, we decided to find a Habit Burger for lunch. We've been there the last few years - they have a very flavorful burger and great fries - I had them both for the first time after a few years of Turkey burgers and tempura green beans. Now if they would only get Coke Zero...
Our final stop of the afternoon was to see the Hard Rock Hotel. HRH is about to become a formerly HRH, so they are celebrating their run. We got a refreshed card, then checked out all the memorabilia one more time (including a little room in the back they are using as a going away display.) There wasn't much in the way of attractive gambling, so we hit up a gas station to refuel the car and parked it at the hotel for the night.
Our room hadn't been done yet, so we did a circle of souvenir stores. We started at M&M - nothing really jumped out at me, so we backtracked to the Coke store. I debated on a shirt for Katie, but seeing it wasn't Vegas branded, I passed. I did try a small can of the cinnamon Coke, which wasn't too bad. Many moons ago, this was a full fledged World of Coke where you could taste products from around the world. Now, you can buy a taster tray of samples for $15 :( Instead, we finished up at the Hershey store. I grabbed several of the new duo Kit Kats (mint/dark chocolate.) They were priced along the lines of something from a highway robbery, but I knew the family would be happy to try them.
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| Coming soon to a store near you...hopefully for less than $1.95 a pop. |
I decided to try another round of free play while at NYNY, and much like the others thus far, it was a nasty bloodbath. My $25 buy turned into a mere $2. While not proud, I admit I lost it in a rant to Greg. I don't expect to win...or even do that well...but a 10% return is far, far, far from being fun. I vowed to him that I was done with the slots. At least I felt I had a sporting chance on the VP and Blackjack. (It got so bad as to me pontificating on the casinos changing the odds if free play was involved.) We went back to the room to drop off the candy and for me to catch my breath.
We moved up north. The first stop was to check out the skating rink at Cosmo. Apparently at this time of year, they convert a pool to an ice rink. It's a neat sight, and the weather was accommodating. They also have a neat tree with the strip in the background, but the official lighting wasn't to happen until the next day. Up next, we headed over to Planet Hollywood. We again had a spot which historically had been a great spot for catching a waitress, but it wasn't meant to be. My $20 dwindled to nearly nothing before the drink, and disappeared once she came back. I was hoping for a second round, so I bought back in with another $20 and did recover a little, but we saw the shift change and threw in the towel.
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| Cosmo Ice Rink |
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| Merry Christmas, Vegas style! |
We headed back outside and roamed up to Casino Royale. There we found a few Monopoly slots, and gave them a whirl. My luck was on the rebound as I hit a few bonus games and finished up in positive territory. We decided to start heading back south towards dinner - but stopped again at Bellagio. If you catch the drinks here, it's generally a good thing...but they have changed up the gambling floor, leaving our standby area of many years devoid of anything worth doing. We ended up in a new place, and despite my earlier rant...I tried the slots one more time. $25 of free play...$4 of winnings. Yes, I'm sure those who would have seen it would have said I lost it.
Rather than push it anymore, we went to Aria to cash in the last of the MyVegas rewards - a two for one buffet pass. Aria is one of those buffets that seems to have gotten better each time I've gone. It was a tiny wait to get in, but it wasn't crowded at all. The highlights of the night were stone crab claws and some of the other seafood dishes. I ate enough that I could barely look at the dessert section (though I did grab a small piece of cheesecake.) I did see a guy pile a stack of cookies onto a plate...then leave a few minutes later. I won't judge too much. Maybe he needs the food.
For last call, I sat down at a VP/BJ machine at Park and played out my last $80 of free play. I scored two drinks, but more importantly, turned the free play into a $73 winning session. No more free play at slots for me! The win flipped me positive for the day and the trip. Stunningly - 2019 was going into the books. We went back to the room so I could get my five hours sleep before returning to reality.
Day 4 stats: 0 beers in total (WTF?!?), 6 free drinks, 25,390 steps (11.2 miles), won $51
Epilogue - Venerdi, Novembre 22nd
No problems dropping off the car (though I believe I left my M players card in it...and I now realize I think I left my Cosmo card in the machine after taking the beat down there.) Unlike MKE, LAS proved TSA pre-check is worth every penny. I had three people in front of me in line, while there were easily over 100 in the standard line. I grabbed a few candy bars from Ethel M's to appeal to the family. For the flight, I drew A26, which got me an aisle exit row seat. I wrote about 3/4 of this on the plane, then got Wendy's and went home.
Two parting thoughts:
1) Is it a sign of the downfall of our civilization when a person is staring at a broken moving walkway in the airport and loudly complaining that they can't believe that's happening?
2) Is there a bigger a-hole than one who gets on around A15 on Southwest and holds a seat for their significant other, who came in at C59? At the moment...I think not.
Final tally: 19 new beers, 18 free drinks, 87,974 steps (38.9 miles), won $47.
See you in 2020!
