Vegas 2024

 

Saturday, November 16th

Once again, our annual trip fell in the fall. This time around, I decided to split my ticket between airlines and ended up flying out at 7 AM on Southwest out of the former International Terminal at O’Hare. Things started out well - between the time I dropped off my car, checked in, and got through security it took less than 20 minutes. I walked around the airport for a little bit and then it was time to line up, Southwest style. Two guys ran up as we were boarding and told us that they accidentally went to Midway rather than O’Hare. I can’t imagine a more stressful situation.  Good fortunes continued as I got my favorite seat in the exit row.

After an uneventful flight, I landed a few minutes behind Greg in Vegas. Well, some things change and some things I notice as if it was the first time. As I was walking to the baggage claim, I was presented with the option of diverting to a liquor store.  The bags arrived and it was time to go pick up our car. As we left the building, we saw a sea of humanity waiting to catch a shuttle to the rental place. We came to the conclusion that the shuttles must’ve just started because pretty soon three or four of them arrived and got us all over to the rental car facility.  Surprisingly, not many people got in line for Enterprise and when we lined up, one of the employees directed us to the members line (which I may or may not be a part of).  Check-in was done rapidly and we went upstairs to pick the car.  We headed to the nearest Nisan and after fumbling with the trunk and other issues, I sat in the driver seat and decided there was no way we would fit in the car for the week. We got out and realized we had jumped into a Nissan Versa. Hardly a full-size car.  Next-door was a Chevy Malibu, so we transferred our bags and were on the way back to the airport to pick up Doug.

Welcome to Las Vegas!

Logistics out of the way, our first stop was the brand-new Durango Casino (a Station property). We parked and wandered through the casino, picked up a chip at the table (I forgot in Vegas you can just go to the cashier and avoid disturbing the table games) and lamented how many of the newest casinos all seem the same on the inside.

By the way, this is my first year of dictating the trip report while waiting in the airport…we’ll see how many fun things happen once it’s all done. I just learned that there’s a slot machine emoji.

One casino down and it was already lunchtime. There was a little bit of a debate this year, but we ended up being creatures of habit and stopped at Habit Burger. Burgers and green beans are still great; however, they are now a Pepsi place, which is sad.

Moved on to hit a couple more casinos out on the west side of the valley.  We stopped in the Rampart, but really only picked up a slot card and moved on. Next was a stop next-door at the Suncoast.  This time we decided to sit down for a few minutes and run some dollars through the machines. Got a drink for the trouble and ended up winning $3.  After that, it was a quick diversion to Target, Total Wine and More, and ultimately Smiths in order to pick up some necessary supplies for the rest of the trip.

Before we made it to more gambling, it was time to insert a brewery into the mix.  Based on the geography, it only made sense to try out one of the few we hadn’t been to before, North 5^th (in North Las Vegas).  The bartender was friendly and patient as we each had a flight.  Sadly, they were out of the pumpkin coffee beer, so I settled on their Oktoberfest, Hazy Sunset, Yippie Pie Yay (fruited sour) and Pumpkin Boy, a standard pumpkin beer.  All were decent, though I’m not sure there was a standout.

North 5th Flight

From there, it was time to head downtown for the first night. We were staying at the fabulous Main Street Station (my fourth overnight to the property!) We considered a number of other options, but by the time the trip rolled around our reservations at MSS were pretty reasonably priced compared to the other offerings.  We did make the rookie mistake of lugging all the luggage into the hotel only to find out the rooms weren’t ready yet…so we lugged back to the car. And while we waited for the rooms, we wandered around downtown.  For the most part at this point it was cutting in and out of the various casinos. We looked for silver strikes, but didn’t really see as many this time around; those that we did find were in use.

Having killed enough time, we headed back to MSS and checked in. Then we went and got our bags, (learning from our earlier mistake.) At this point, we secured our boarding passes from earlier in the day and hopped in the car to find dinner. We decided to drive off to Big Dog’s Draft House, a place that we haven’t been in a number of years.  We were seated quickly and then thoroughly confused about how their flight system worked after being told several different things by two different people. We became a relative pain in the rear end to our waitress. However, she got what we wanted and to make it up for her, we all ordered the same dinner - walleye with fries and coleslaw. The food was relatively expensive, but the beer was pretty solid: Bee-aches Forever (a honey beer), Dogtoberfest, What the Puck (a hazy), Dubbel Dog Dare, and A Willy Big Dog (BA Porter).  Willy Big Dog was the clear winner. Or maybe I was?

Dinner at Big Dog's

To finish off day one, we took our boarding pass to El Cortez. They have a promotion where if you show your boarding pass within 24 hours you get free play ($15 for me) and a $25 match play. I turned the $15 of free play into seven dollars real money. Then we went to the blackjack table, where I drew a pair of eights versus an eight showing. Not wanting to split my bet, I hit and drew a five for the win.  I was thrilled enough to tip the dealer five dollars and we moved onto the D who had a similar promotion. Because it was late and busy we just got the chips to do the match play and decided to return the next day.

Finished off the night by heading home to the MSS where I dropped a six-dollar loss and called it a night.

Day 1 in the books: one free drink, 9 new beers, won $49, 23,207 steps

Sunday, November 17th

I’ll hand it to MSS, the bed was really comfortable and I slept pretty well.  I got up on the early side of things and decided to run up and down the streets of Downtown.  Temperatures were in the low 40s, so I didn’t run into as many characters as I usually do.  

The Running Route (part of it anyway)

Made it back to the room and it was still early enough that I had time to shower and then go check out another local church…St. Joan of Arc, which was right behind the Golden Nugget.  No choir – so the mass sailed along a little faster, and soon I was heading back to the sin.

Joan Burning at the Stake

Returned to the room to put things together and then we roamed a little of downtown to find a little sustenance, and knock out a few more gambling activities.  Turned out, very little sustenance, but that meant more room for lunch.  First, we made it back to the D with our $50 in match play.  The first hand didn’t go our way and we all lost.  On the second, we all drew garbage, but at least the dealer had a four showing. So, we cheered for a bust, and luck came through one more time.

That was pretty much the extent of downtown, so we loaded the car and hoofed it down to the Rio.  While the Rio has been around seemingly forever, they have recently been divested from Caesars, so we were able to join the new slot club and get a little free play.  First, we parked in the East garage, so we cut through the back half of the casino, which is very, very bare (formerly the home of a “show” where a parade float went along the ceiling and they tossed beads to the crowd…now nothing).  Eventually found some (definitely older) machines, and I got lucky and pulled out a pretty solid win on the free play.

Feeling good from the morning, the middle half of the day involved roaming the Arts District and visiting some old and new watering holes.  Right out of the gate, we got to grapple with a parking meter that didn’t like any of my credit cards.  Once that victory was secured, by Doug, the first real stop was Able Baker, still the very best brewery in town.  They had yet another set of new beers to try, and the kitchen they share a space with also had some tempting new offerings.  On the beer side, my flight comprised of Redundant Duck Duck (NE IPA), The Autumn Wind (a fantastic maple porter), 5ive (BA Stout) and Five Reserve (an even better BA stout).  I stayed healthy-ish on the food with a teriyaki chicken bowl. 

Lunch at Able Baker

Feeling both full, and a little happy for some reason, we moved to one of the new locations, Voodoo Brewing.  Voodoo has a number of locations in the US, but their space in Vegas is new and eclectic.  Not a lot of their own stuff on tap, and I stretched to find enough to choose for the flight. I wanted to stay with as many of their beers as I could, but it was tough.  Did Empty Calories (light lager), Voodoo Love Child (Tripel), Strawberry Fields (a blonde by Crooked Stave) and Lacto-Kooler, a fruited Berliner.  The Tripel was the winner, but it turns out the one I was least keen on picking was the one I liked the next best (Lacto-Kooler!)

Voodoo Flight

We had it in us for one more stop, and chose Crafthaus, which started the craft beer revolution in Henderson and built their second outlet in the district.  Their flight was a five pack, which kind of sent me to a very happy place.  I had the Sugoi! (Milkshake IPA), Tropical Forrest (Hazy), Cuckoo (Dunkel), G.O.A.T. (BA Doppelbock) and Time and Oak (BA Barleywine).  G.O.A.T. was the clear standout among a lot of good offerings, but all that Barrel Aging was leaving me a bit woozy.

And, the Crafthaus flight...

Greg took control of the car and guided us to the Strip.  Doug had gotten a free offer at Paris, but since we had free parking at MGM properties, we left our car at Bellagio (bags safely in the trunk until we had rooms secured) and wandered the local strip area.  We landed at Paris eventually to find the check in line was unbelievable.  I quickly wandered the area and found if you were checked in online, there were kiosks with no wait (so long, suckers!).  

With the rooms locked down, we headed north.  Doug signed up for the Caesars credit card, which gave him Platinum status (sounds much better than Pearl at MGM).  By the way, there’s a credit card emoji too.  Doug and Greg got a frozen Baileys at O’Sheas.  I couldn’t get much into the gullet yet, but they let me sample and it was solid.  We reactivated our Casino Royale cards, which gives you $20 of free play after you lose $20, and so I was able to generate a few $ of profit.  We then went through the Venetian and Palazzo.  Got the new cards there, then landed on the Grand Lux Cafe for dinner (Palazzo edition).  I went with the turkey burger and sweet potato fries…and still reeling from the Arts District, just a Coke Zero (or two) to drink.

Dinner at the Grand Lux

Tried a tiny bit at Paris where I was able to break even, and that was all we could handle for one day.

Day 2 down, two to go: no free drinks (boo), 13 new beers (hooray, beer!), won $105, 24,106 steps

 

Monday, November 18th

Plans aplenty for day 3. Sleeping Beauty slowed us down a little bit – Doug was already off getting coffee and made his way back.  Being next to Planet Ho and the Miracle Mile shops afforded us a few cheap offerings for breakfast.  For the first time in our many visits, we gave Blondies, a nice little sports bar, the chance with their $5.99 breakfast special (two eggs, potatoes, and a choice of meat.)  The waitress threw me when she asked if I wanted toast (“Here come the add-ons”) – I didn’t want to risk that it would be another $5, so I settled for one of their drink specials instead…a $2 Bud Light.  Figured it was close to drinking water.  Service was fast – the food was good for the price, but not as good as some of the other breakfast deals we have had.  Bud Light is still gross.

Breakfast at Blondies, with Bud Light

We hopped next door to the Cosmo where I got a reprint of my MGM card and tried some of my MGM free play.  Like magic, I turned $25 into $16.  With that behind us, we escorted the car out of the Bellagio parking lot and headed up to the north end of the strip (with a pit stop to check out the Bellagio Conservatory, of course).

Bellagio

The destination was another new casino, Fontainebleau.  This is a beautiful property that has been waiting to be opened for over 15 years – after several sales and lawsuits, it’s finally here.  We parked (4 hours of free parking) It’s a very clean and impressive place.  For joining the slot club, you get $15 of free play and a $15 food and beverage credit.  I burned through the free play relatively quickly, and decided to follow up with my own cash.  I hit a nice bonus game on a slot, got a drink, and ended up winning about $40.  Greg and I went over to the Blue Bar to use the drink credit.  He went with a hit of Blantons, while I stayed on the cheap side (rum and coke) and still had a $7 tab after my credit.  At least it was on the stiff side.

I'm so fancy...

Time keeps on slipping, and it was close enough to lunch to start heading to our goal – Tacos El Gordo.  This is a rather assuming place near where Silver City used to be.  You go in and line up based on what sort of taco you want.  You can stick with the standards (pork and beef) or get adventurous…beef tongue, pork stomach, tripe, etc.  I’ll try many things once, but pork and beef seemed just fine to me.  Gotta say, I would never have picked this place on my own, but Doug’s choice was a home run.  Some of the best tacos I’ve ever had.  Maybe next time I’ll get outside the comfort zone…but maybe not.

Tacos El Gordo

Still plenty of time on the parking meter so we walked over to Resorts World, where I lost $10 post haste.  We then cut through Slots ‘o Fun and Circus Circus (reprint on the slot card), but didn’t play anything.  Decided to head back to the center strip.  A logistical nightmare.

For you see, Vegas is once again hosting the F1 race – it was to be the Saturday after we left, and everything was about ready.  That meant horrific traffic patterns, blocked views on the pedestrian bridge, temporary roads, and just a general mess.  We have parked behind Paris and Horseshoe many times, but the road was blocked off this year.  We got to learn how to cut through the Miracle Mile parking garage instead, and felt that worked since Doug was now Caesars Platinum.

Prepping for F1

After a quick room stop, it was off to Ellis Island.  They had their Holiday egg nog available.  So, we sat at the bar and ordered a round.  Frankly, it was slightly pricey but very good and went down a wee too easily.  Doug and I realized we probably would have been financially better off buying a bottle and splitting it, but we went with just the single round and then hopped over to the beer menu.  While they no longer brew onsite, they had a fairly wide variety to choose from.  I went with the Belgian Tripel, which was fabulous. All the while, we played VP on the bar top…lost just a few bucks for the trouble. 

'Tis the Season

For the evening, we made our way down south.  We started at the Bellagio, where I cashed in my first MyKonami free play reward of $25.  And promptly turned that into about $11.  I chased it with another $25 of free play and eked out $15 more.  That stung a little, so we hoofed it for a bit.  At the Hershey store in NYNY, the new flavor candy was a Pink Lemonade Kit Kat.  Doug bought one to split, and got a little feisty that I bought a dark chocolate one to cleanse my palate.  Turns out the Pink Lemonade wasn’t quite as bad as expected, but I’ll stick with the dark.

We hopped on the monorail at Excalibur and went down to Mandalay Bay.  Another MyKonami reward, that didn’t produce much.  I added $10 of my own and finished with $18 of real money.  Sat around enough this time to get a drink at least!  After that, final reward was at Luxor.  I played it safe and went with the hundred play VP.  My $25 free play held, and I pulled it all back out of the machine.  And scored another drink.

For the final meal of the day, we picked a standby, Wolfgang Puck Bar and Grill at the MGM.  The MyKonami game has an excellent reward there.  Greg went with pasta while Doug and I did pizzas and a beer.  It’s been a bit of a go to place for us over the years and never disappoints.  At dinner, they mentioned I had not had any ice cream, and so I checked and sure enough, Blizz frozen yogurt was still open at the MGM.  They had two awesome flavors, Pistachio and Dulce de Leche, so I had to indulge.  Couple of things – a fairly small bowl now runs $10 (yikes) and they ask if you want to leave a tip…even though its self-serve.  I decided to forgo the latter here.

Wolfgang Pizza

Tactical error on my part because I went from mildly full to stuffed, and then as we were walking home, we stopped at Brewdog “just to see what they had”.  What they had was the Winter Staycation, a pecan/toffee stout with hints of amaretto.  Delicious beer, but took me from stuffed to gross.  We waddled home…I downed some water, and fell into a food coma.

Brewdog Seasonal

Day 3 (only one left…sniff): four free(ish) drinks, 2 new beers (and 2 old ones), won $85, 27,223 steps

Tuesday, November 19th

With a groan, I decided to get up and get that second run in.  Cutting out of Paris, I headed north on the Strip, over the bridge to Cromwell and along the casinos all the way to the turnaround at Palazzo, and then trekked home.  Foot traffic was light (quiet, mid-week November), but it didn’t help at the end with all of the cattle alleys from F1 being taken up by people walking 3 abreast. 

Running Route two (the last half mile)

Once again, Doug was searching for coffee while the engines came to life in my room.  But soon, we were once again in the Miracle Mile shops looking for cheap breakfast.  We went with an old standby – La Salsa Cantina.  Price is now $6.99 for 2 eggs, a meat and potatoes, but the toast is only $1 more.  It may have taken a few more minutes, but we all agreed they still do it better there.

La Salsa Breakfast, sans a Bud Light

The march to use some free play commenced over at Bellagio, and it landed with a thud.  I dropped in $50 in a slot and made just $11 back, so followed that up with some VP and video BJ that didn’t help much ($50 turned into $37, which is terrible for those two games).  I’d love to say we started low and it could only get better, but that would be a lie. Of course, as soon as we got up and left, the drink lady came by.  Next, we tried again at Cosmo for some reason.  That was a $50 buy in that netted $17.  Ouch.  And again, the moment we left, drink orders were taken.

We decided to cool the jets a little at Planet Ho – found a VP bank in the back where things were quiet, a drink order was entered quickly, and it was time to relax.  A long time it turns out, as apparently our waitress got hit up for a bottle of champagne after she left us and had to sort that out.  In the end, the drink was fine and I ended up recovering $6 on my own buy in.  Surely things were going to be turned around now.

Original plan was to possibly stop in at Tuscany and then maybe head out to Henderson.  First, getting into Tuscany was interesting – as we parked, we were asked if we were coming for the casino.  Fortunately, we answered correctly because apparently the F1 f-ed up their parking lot.  Signed up for the slot club (first time back in well over 10 years).  I spun for $25 of free play and a free drink.  I turned the $25 into $35 and got my drink, so all seemed well again.

Obligatory VP win picture

Unfortunately, the breweries in Henderson didn’t open until 4pm, and it was about noon, and the thought of messing with the F1 mess in the late day didn’t appeal at all, so we decided to just spend the rest of the day back on the strip.  For lunch, the brothers humored me and we went to the brand-new Whataburger/Parry’s pizza.  I got my Whataburger fix (favorite fast food I can’t get in Chicago).  There was a bar attached that I looked at once, twice, three times…but there wasn’t anything that exciting to make us pull the trigger.

Hooray!

And so began perhaps my greatest gambling moment ever.  Oh, wait…that’s not the right word.  We cut through Aria, and even though none of us were super happy with Aria luck over the years, we sat down anyway.  I dropped a $50 free play in and after running through it, I netted a cool $5.  I think a cherry showed up along the way.  Brothers didn’t fare much better.  I hate Aria so much at this point.

To drown our sorrows, we cut through Park on the way to Beerhaus.  I played it safe and did some VP: $25 of free play became $20, which isn’t great, but felt so much better than $3.  At Beerhaus, I found the beer Greg had mentioned – a NE IPA called “Vegas as F@%k!”, which was decent.  Doug tried the Kelce Brothers beer, which looked weaker than Bud Light, but that followed a Breakfast Stout at least.

The page just became R-rated

Further south, we tried a round at Excalibur.  There, the drink lady would look over and run away (she did it twice!)  I was able to keep my head above water though and pulled $23 of my $25 free play back in.  Finally, we gave it another go at the “Crystals” and “Gold Bar” slot machines at Luxor.  It was another rough landing ($60 of free play to $35).  The waitress made it by, so that was a bonus.

So the bleeding came to a bit of a stop as we headed back to Paris and muddled over what to do for dinner.  While waiting, Doug gave me a pour of a Chelada Negra (don’t worry, I think he was trying to be nice.) Eventually, we landed on a burger place, the Black Tap, up in Venetian.  So, we wandered down and got seated quickly.  We considered the Black Tap for lunch last year, but eventually went elsewhere.  I went with the Cali chicken sandwich and sweet potato fries.  Beer menu was just OK – I found a hazy I hadn’t had before that was serviceable. 

Black Tap Dinner

And that was it – pretty much burned out on the gambling and stuffed again (and facing a 3:45am alarm), we headed back to Paris.  I let the city kick me in the jimmy one more time, as I needed a water and we stopped at the Horseshoe Essentials store.  $8.45 later, I was quenching my thirst.

Day 4 (the fat lady is warming up): three free drinks, 2 new beers, “won” $187 on $350 of free play, 25,800 steps

Wednesday, November 20th

All good things come to an end, and that includes sleep on the last day.  Doug and I had 7 am flights, so we left around 4:15 and F1 got to mess with us one last time as we got directed along a back road behind the strip along with everyone else trying to get home.  We eventually popped out by the Coke store, and even though it felt like it took forever, we dropped the car off on time and soon I was on my United flight.  We landed in Chicago less just under three hours later…one of my fastest flights home ever!

Day 5: 3,841 steps

Trip totals: 8 free drinks (I remember doing that in one night at the Gold Coast when I was 21.  I say that every year now), 26 new beers, won $426, 104,177 steps (46.5 miles!)

Not cold...just holding my face.

P.S.  Here’s how I ended my commentary last year: “Remember kids, slots are not your friend.  Video Poker is.”  I’m going to really, really, really follow that next year.