Much Belated Trip Report (February 22nd 2010 - February 27th 2010) Caesars Palace

I believe I saw the site in my trip research prior to my first Vegas trip, however I didn't join at the time, and I didn't really start lurking until after I came back. So I thought I would go ahead and give a late trip report. Please forgive me as I did stay pretty lit up for the majority of the trip and days blended together. I live in Greenville, SC, and our closest casino is Harrah's Cherokee in Cherokee, NC. It is a beautiful area, but the casino has been blue collar since it opened (which some like, others don't like). They are undergoing a massive remodel/expansion right now, it is the biggest construction project in the southeast, or at least was when they started. The casino is always packed as it draws people from Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia as there next closest options are in Alabama/Missippi/Florida/West Virginia. I started going up there in 2007, and had hit platinum status in 2008/2009. I had my rooms there comped for the longest time, along with freeplay coupons, etc. I watched The Hangover around Thanksgiving of 2009 and it gave me the Vegas bug. I logged into Harrahs to see what a room would cost for Vegas not really planning on going, and to my surprise I had comped rooms for 5 nights at all of Harrahs properties for their cheapest rooms. L had walked by and saw that I was looking at Vegas rooms and asked half joking if he could go to. We go out after work all the time, and I wanted to have a friend around so I said sure which shocked him. I decided on Caesars for its rating and also due to the history and The Hangover. The plans were set.

I normally work closing shift and at the time I was working on Sundays. So the day before my flight I had already packed out of sheer excitement for going to Vegas. I worked 3:15PM to 12:15AM. I didn't sleep much the night before, and I took perhaps a 2 hour nap before my friend (whom I will call L from here on out) came over as we planned on leaving from my house to get to the airport for the 7:00AM flight out of Charlotte. Once he came over, we played Tiger Woods for about an hour or so and loaded up the car and then took off for Charlotte, it is about an hour and 15 minute drive from Greenville, SC to Charlotte, NC. When we got to the airport we went through baggage and such and boarded our flight. The first leg of our flight was from Charlotte, NC to Atlanta, Ga, and it was about a 50 minute flight due to how busy Atlanta is you have to get in line to land. The kicker was that it is only an extra 50 minute drive to Atlanta from Greenville SC, however if we had left directly out of Atlanta they would have charged an extra $125 for a non-stop flight. Is it really cheaper for an airline to force two flights over one, but I digress. We landed in Atlanta, and went through a couple of terminals to get to our much larger flight from ATL to LAS. That flight was about 5 hours but was uneventful.

Once we landed we made our way to get our luggage, and I had already researched transportation options and we had opted for the shuttle bus. We bought the tickets for the two way (get your return trip paid in advance and save like $1). They pretty much wait until they fill the bus or the next bus gets back. We were waiting for the next bus to get back. L and I are both originally from further up north, he is from Pittsburgh, PA and I am from Charleston, WV. I knew the desert would get cold at night, but I was surprised to see snowcapped mountains, and how cool it was in late February. We finally arrived at Caesars Palace and went to check in. My room was a Palace Tower Deluxe room. I knew I wanted an Augustus room, so I tried the $20 sandwich. My attempt was unsuccessful, I asked if there was any complimentary upgrades and the lady looked at me kind of puzzled, she either didn't understand me, or didn't hear me. Oh well. The room we had was large and the bathroom was huge. Our view was poor, we just had a view of another caesars tower, and if you pressed your head to the glass you could see the surrounding mountains and below us empty pools (Did I mention how cold it was). The beds was very comfortable.

We ate at the buffet in Caesars (Lago). It was much smaller than we had invisioned, the food was ok, but not worth the price of the buffet. Even though I was on less than 8 hours of sleep over the past 48 hours I was too excited to go up and take a nap so I went and played some slots. I know casinos make their money on the slots, but I enjoy them emmensely. I lose the majority of my trips but a couple of times a year I will hit relatively big for my bankroll, which that excitement for waiting for a handpay is great and keeps me coming back to give it back to them. Caesars casino is spread out all over the place. The hotel and connected shops is a huge complex with lots of walking. Their sports book was impressive, but for the duration of our stay Caesars didn't give me a lot of play. I rarely went up on my bankroll and at times I lost quickly. We didn't do a lot of exploring on Monday and once I got tired I went to sleep for a good 10-12 hours.

Tuesday,
I woke up early, and went down to the casino to play at around 4 or 5 in the monrning. I had the casino almost to myself so drink service was fast and I was drinking Bloody Marys. L woke up a couple of hours later (we were still on eastern time standard). We had coupons from ACG and decided to go eat breakfast at Flavors buffet in Harrahs. We walked over and really liked the look of O'Sheas. The food was pretty good for breakfast and better than what I had expected from the reviews. After eating we played some slots in Harrah's. L had never played much before, and he sat down at a Lets make a deal slot and hit a bonus round and got decent money out of the machine. He was much tighter with his bankroll than I was, but that loosened him up a bit. We drank a few in Harrah's and played a little while and then went over to O'Sheas and sat at the bar and played video poker. There we drank quite a bit while playing, and then went back over to Caesars. I took a nap. When I got back up, we decided to go to south strip, use some more ACG coupons, and go eat. We wanted to eat at the tropicana buffet and took a cab down there. We used our coupons, signed up for the slot club and found out the buffet was closed due to remodel. We went ahead and played our freeplay, and then left and walked across the skyway over to Excalibur. We had coupons for that buffet and went in and grabbed our MGM cards and then went up to eat. It was a large buffet, but the food was pretty basic for a dinner buffet, definitely not impressive. We didn't get much in the way of freebies from MGM so we didn't play any there. We had coupons for $100 slot plot at Hooters. As most people who have used the coupons know, many of the free slot play coupons are for a set aside group of machines with low payouts and high bets. Neither of us won, L went through his freeplay quicker than I did. We went over to a VP bar and sat and drank and played VP. The Lakers was on TV and a couple from California came in and was watching the game. Hooters was the quietest place I had been in, and somewhat depressing and empty for a casino in the evening. The man from California was a bit lit up and started buying shots for us. He was loud in his cheering, but I mean it is Vegas and it did not bother me or L one bit. However other customers appeared annoyed and the bartender was very annoyed. She finally cut him off and asked him to leave. I would have never thought that Hooters Casino would feel like a library, but there you have it. I did hit a slot before we left and won a bit of cash. We grabbed a cab and stopped by some stores to get some snacks for the room before we headed back to the hotel.

We decided to go back out and hit the strip some. It was dark, we hit O'sheas for a little bit then walked on down to the Flamingo. We went in and sat at a VP bar. The casino was busy and we started to play. The bartender promptly told us we had to place full bets to get drinks and was a bit rude. We played full bets, drank our beer and left. We walked on down and stopped by Bill's. The atmosphere was much better, drink service was good and we got a shot of jaeger and drank a few beers, played some vp, looked around, and then went on down to Ballys. Ballys was a bit emptier and we went to a nice VP bar and started playing. We drank more shots, more beers, I hit something for about $300 and we did more shots, drank more beer and was pretty lit up. The Bartender hooked us up with a limo and passes to Saphire, we went out and got in a nice stretch SUV and was off. We made a huge mistake, the driver talked us into go to a place called the Diamond Cabaret instead of Sapphire. We got there, the cover was $50 a piece, we went in and there was only 3 other guys there. Two girls came up we went to the back in separate rooms. I am no stranger to strip clubs as I lived a few blocks from one in college that had great beer deals, and was more of a gogo club than the hustle all the people club. But I made some friends and know how the hustles work. My girl tried to talk me into expensive sessions, which I didn't want, then told me my friend bought 30 minutes and I should to. I said good for him, Im not getting anything (I was heavily buzzed but still a bit peeved at the $100 cover, and I know there is no sex in the champagne room). I went back out and waited for about 3 songs and decided to get a cab back to the place. The cabbie asked what brought me there and I told him the story of the limo driver and I had bailed on my friend, he said we got to go back now, they will take all of his money. Well we go back and he was outside and pretty pissed, they got him for about $300 for a pretty lame show. Well that ruined the night, we went back to Caesars, I stayed in the room and slept, he went back out to get drunker. He comes back at about 5:30AM sloshed and very loud. It woke me up so I went down and gambled. When I come back up about 5 hours later I crash out again, and we pretty much spend Wednesday in the room sleeping and recovering.

Wedneday,
I slept probably 8 hours and got up, L slept off a large buzz, and we just mulled about the room. I ordered room service. I got two cheezeburgers and fries. They were great, service was good. For the two burgers and fries at caesars it was $75. The fries was like $8 an order, they were good, but it wasn't that good. Another lesson learned. We slept more, and then went back out to O'Sheas for awhile, Wednesday was pretty much a recovery and sleep catch up day.

Thursday,
I again got up early and played in Caesars and drank bloody marys. L came down and met me in the casino I sat at the Land of Time $750,000 progressive while he was there beside me. I hit wild-wild-wild-wild-jackpot on the event when the machine shakes. It made me sick to my stomach since I was betting .90 instead of the full 3.00. DONT PLAY PROGRESSIVES UNLESS YOU BET MAX. I won about $280 on the spin but that still hit me with the what could have beens. We went back to O'Sheas after L got up and drank and gambled again, hit Flamingo a little to look around. We went over to Rio for lunch at their buffet. It was great. Best buffet we had on the trip. We hung around Rio and gambled more there. I was pretty low on the bankroll. When we got back L went to take a nap and I hit the slots more and ended up going close to broke. I saved back about $120 for the last day. I had paid deposit so I had a little cash coming back when we left, and shuttle was already paid, so I gambled it down. When he got up We walked around the Mall attached to Caesars. It was very nice. We walked out and over to O'Sheas and played a little there as well. I ended up going back up early a bit upset that I had let my bankroll get so low before Friday.

Friday,
I got up early and went down to Caesars Casino again determined to win back some extra spending money for Friday. Instead I played my bankroll down to about $50, but I got buzzed. Since my bankroll was so low, I decided to use my reward points over at Jimmy Buffet's restuarant. It was good. I got the nachos which is the biggest nachos I ever saw. We had planned on catching the Deuce to Freemont Street and wanted the Seafood Buffet at night and use our Freemont street coupons out of the American Casino Guide. We had some coupons for Casino Royale so we hat that, and walked up the strip waiting to catch a bus, made up to Venetian but didn't go in. It was pretty fun. I waas able to drink and play most of the night on my remainding money, but I was very tight with my play. The seafood buffet was really good. Great for the price. Freemont Street experience was cool, there was a band playing, but I didn't like the big crowd and my feet was tired, and I decided to just go back early, which was about 10. I was still a bit peeved at losing the bankroll and being broke. He hung out on the strip, got some video of the volcano at Mirage and Billagio Fountains, he was kind of peeved that I was a party pooper but oh well. I'm a degenerate gambler and he isn't.

Saturday,
Got up, checked out, got shuttle to Airport, took long flight home. Pretty standard experience. I had about $40 left over after my deposit came back and I had paid for the room service. I played a bit in the airport, and actually came home with $25 in my pocket, what kind of degenerate doesn't go for broke? Overall I lost about $2k and cycled a little over $13k on the trip. It keeps the comps coming and my free room in Caesars makes the 2k loss not near as bad in my mind at least.

All in all for a first trip it was fun, and I learned a lot. My next trip I am planning for March 30th to April 6th. Final Four, and Finals. 7 nights, 2 at Planet Hollywood on L's discounted rate, 5 at the Flamingo in a Go Room luxury with view for free on my comp. The rooms definitely help me feel not as bad for being a degenerate. I plan on maybe even doing some live TR next time so I don't miss as much details.

 

Great TR , sounds like you both had a wonderful first time in Vegas trip
even tho the visit to the Strip Club was dissapointing, to say the least

Glad that didn't put you and L off and you are returning in the spring , looking forward to the next report

 

Haha, looks like you had a pretty eventful tuesday. Glad to see you found the joy of O'Sheas before the trip ended. I only went there my last day.

 

Yeah we had a blast. I am a gambling degenerate so it was like the mecca for me. My trips up to Cherokee are just a poor substitute now for the joys of Vegas. The Vegas experience isn't complete without a little off strip adventure. Hopefully my next trip wont have me worn out halfway through. The excitement for the several days before the trip kept my sleep to a minimum so I slept a lot more than I wanted that trip. The beds in Caesars was perfect for my tastes. I have heard good things about the beds in the Go Rooms in Flamingo. After reading Bee Jays report I may have to plan a late year trip next year too, to the Cosmo.

We had actually found O'sheas by doing the street view in Google Maps a month before the trip and knew we had to go. I know the big casinos like to suck you into their resort and keep you there, but there is something to be said about having a VP bar sitting that close to the open strip. I tend to keep my play at CET properties just for the comps, but I plan on hitting Freemont twice this upcoming strip.

The buffets kept me over stuffed, so I am going to try and hit a bit more restaurants. I am wanting to hit Earl of Sandwich, Hash House, Ellis Island Steak special, and places like that this trip along with more site seeing/resort touring, especially earlier on to keep the bankroll healthy throughout the trip.

For people planning their first trip, I highly recommend getting the American Casino Guide for coupons and using those to help you get out and see a wide variety of Vegas. The google street view up and down the strip is nice way to pre-plan and see all those little places that get overshadowed by the mega resorts and to give you a little idea of what is walking distance and what is bus/taxi distance.

 

Oh I almost forgot, L said we have to get to Sapphire this time. It is now a mission.

 

Olympic Gardens (OGs) over Sapphires, in my opinion

 

Feb trip report, posted yesterday. Hats off to you, because you are a true procrastinator and make me feel so much better about putting off projects.

 

Ha. Yeah I didn't really join till I started planning my next trip and even then put it off. Everything gets a little fuzzy after 2 and a half days in for me. I might try the live tr next time, but ill probably be too buzzed to pull that one off.

 

That is what I have been reading in the club rankings. I would suggest visitors to check out reviews of clubs like that before going. It is worth it to save yourself from the drunk man hustle.