Adding my Super Bowl experience to the mix...1/30 to 2/3 trip

Hello sports fans...this will be as detailed as I remember (as usual it does get a little fuzzy at times). Trip was 2 nights comp'd at Cosmo and 3 nights comp'd at Palazzo. We double booked Saturday at both to take advantage of the offers, so it made getting to the room Sunday morning a breeze. We have myself (D) and my long-time girlfriend (S)...non stop out of STL. Flight was fine and on time. Most importantly, it landed in one piece. We eached grabbed a few free drinks- nothing like getting a little tipsy before heading to the rental car facility. Grab a car and proceed to Cosmo- we saw this sign on the way (airport side of the road, kind of across from MB and Luxor). Anyone have a spare $8M per acre laying around?

We get checked in and a room with a 'premium view' is $30 extra a night. Seems to be a no-brainer, so we opt for it. Nice fountain view. The bathroom was back toward the door- we've had other rooms where the tub kinda overlooked the fountains and such. I'm not going to complain for $30 per night.

Even though we had the peanuts and pretzels on the plane 3 hours ago, we were still hungry (starving). I had eaten at Wicked Spoon several years ago (she had not), so we decided to give it a try. We got off the elevator and went in search...probably walked a half a mile in the wrong direction. It was literally 'RIGHT THERE' to the left as you get off the elevators. Oh well. We arrived just in time for the start of dinner (around 5pm) and it was very empty. Sushi was just 'eh', but everything else we sampled was very, very good. Desserts were good, not great. In honor of those that have come before me, I give this 3.5 forks (out of 5). Service was great, value was okay ($42 per person including tax). We did not drink alcohol during this dinner---I believe that's $10 per person more.

S is a queen napper. I can't sleep as it is. Get me in Vegas, and it's even worse. After dinner we decided she better get some winks if we were going to stay up at all tonight. So, I finally hit the tables. I'm mainly a BJ (double deck) player, so I found an open table. $50 minimum, deal is face up, double deck. Even though I stayed and played at Cosmo last time, I forgot how horrible their BJ rules are. I bought in for $500 and had bumped my bet to $100 per (two hands) and got my first blackjack. Upon receiving $120, I realized what a dumbass I had been. However, my options were limited as I was not ready to take on the HL room and I didn't want to play a shoe. So, I just shut up and pissingly (it's a word) played on. I was give and take for the better part of 1.5 hours and then I got a pleasant surprise. S joined me all fresh and ready to roll. Then I got the hand we all want and fear at the same time...$150...split 7's vs. the 4. Get another 7, plus a double. $600 out there and thankfully the dealer busted. After that it was clearly time to go. I was now up $1,000 and we had some music to go listen to.

I'm going to stop here and continue on later. More to follow.

 

Great report so far! Thanks for sharing.

 

Nice start ! Do that 8,000 more times and you can buy 1 acre of prime real estate.

 

Nice, cant wait for the rest of the TR. That split on the 7's tho. LOL how dreadful.

 

dreadful? he won the hand...

Crappy that cosmo doesn't offer 3:2 DD for $50...that would make me lovingly embrace a shoe game.

- - - Updated - - -

dreadful? he won the hand...

Crappy that cosmo doesn't offer 3:2 DD for $50...that would make me lovingly embrace a shoe game.

 

So anywho...we wander over toward the Chandelier bar as we can hear some music. It's not the typical 'chuga chuga thump thump' music you're used to hearing there. Instead it was band music....kind of a mix between Ragtime and Jazz, and it was freakin' amazing. We got very lucky and found a couple leaving the bartops right as we walked up, so we grabbed the seats and were front and center. There were a ton of folks dressed in fashion of the band, dancing to their music. I can't tell you what a treat it was to watch these guys perform. It's like nothing I've ever seen and I know I sat there with a huge smile on my face for well over an hour. Here's a few pics from our seats. I believe I saw somewhere these guys were / are nominated for a Grammy. Highly recommended in every way.

Service bar-side was very good, but man, paying for drinks floored me. I was drinking Red Bull and Goose tonight and of course they were free at the tables. $17.50 bar-side....plus S's drink...was $32 something for 2 drinks. Now I realize I could have played VP...but here's a little trivia about me. I play VP sporadically. Good to kill some time and good enough to understand what to hold, etc. I once put $20 in one at Luxor and got dealt a .25 Royal. But...I've NEVER had a Quad. Never. I just think that's weird. So, I passed on VP and paid for drinks instead. Several...

So after listening to the band, we decided to walk across the street to check out more modern music at P Ho. S grabbed a Limarita for $5 and was very proud of her purchase It was very crowded, so we just walked around the casino and then some shops, and then S found the car she really wanted to rent. Or not so much. We walked back to the Cosmo and headed to the room, as at this point it was well after 1am (3am body clock time). A nice bubble bath in the jacuzzi and a decent slumber took us to Saturday morning, which will be posted in another reply.

 

Saturday morning found us taking a stroll down the strip after grabbing some coffee and a danish inside the Cosmo. Our goal was check-in at Palazzo and start our 3 day comp (Sat-Mon) which would allow us to simply crash in that room Sunday after checking out of Cosmo. We took a leisurely stroll, taking time to mess with the most obnoxious hawkers time to time. These folks really need to get a life.
The walk took a while, and we noticed every darn escalator was not working because of the rain the night prior. We finally made our way to Palazzo around 11:30 and we were able to get our room. Like Cosmo, it was an upcharge for a strip view, so we opted to do so. Standard room... always very nice and comfortable.

We then made the trek over to Wynn, as S had never been there. She was blown away, not by the fact Steve would pay $xxxx million for a Popeye art, but that they would have someone on guard near it 24/7. I guess it proves if you can afford the art, you can best be sure you can afford a guard 24/7 for it. We took the requisite pictures of the flowers and such and decided to head back up the strip, eyes pointed toward a big sammich at Carnegie Deli.


Made it to Carnegie and waited in line about 10 minutes before ordering our massive reuben sandwich, fries and a bowl of noodle soup. Throw in two sodas and let's call it $45.00 for lunch. This gets 4 forks out of 5. Great service, outstanding food....just can't give the 5th star for a $25 sammich (even with the huge amount of food).

We had to boogie back to the Cosmo because S had a 1:30 spa appointment...so of course that meant more playing time for me. I once again found a DBL deck and bought in for my customary $500. I didn't gain any traction and I knew I had time, so bought in for another $500 and lost it in short order too. Decided to try to be a hero and try a quick hit at roulette and not one number hit. Ok....down $1500 for the session, so time to cut bait. S had a wonderful time at the spa ($400 worth...). The next few hours will be edited due to time constraints (assume very good things) and we'll jump ahead to dinner....

Dinner was spur of the moment and we tried China Poblano in Cosmo. We tried about 6 different things since they have small tapas-like servings. We started with some grilled brussel sprouts (very good), samples some tacos (I've had better) and enjoyed some medium spice guac (very good). S got the wings and they were just too hot to enjoy (spicy) and I got some noodle dish that was horrible. Service was very good. The bill was about $120.00 (no alcohol)- not a great value for the food. A generous 2.5 forks out of 5.

After dinner we grabbed a cab to head to Blvd Cocktail down within the Linq. I've been here twice prior and love the atmosphere and the live music. Once again, we weren't let down. We managed to grab two seats dead center of stage and the band playing was quite good. I didn't catch their name, but they were lead by a skinny latino lady, and man, she could sing. They had a gal on keyboard and a drummer. Very, very good band. There was a large group of folks there celebrating a birthday and they were having a great time dancing and doing Vegas right. One guy danced just like Beavis (from Beavis and Butthead), so that entertained the hell out of me. After the band, a solo artist performed. Holy hell was he talented. He was of Asian decent (last name Park, I believe) and he played guitar and fiddle (violin).... at the same time. His first song was ' Sweet Child O Mine'....so he starts by doing a chord on the guitar and he'd somehow loop it (recording device at his feet apparently). Then he picked up the fiddle and played a few chords, put it down. He combo'd the two for the beat / background and would start singing. Truly incredible to keep all that together and moving and sounding amazing. His voice wasn't spectacular, but his talent was. He played back to back to back songs- all stuff you'd know. Really fun to watch and hear.

As we left, we grabbed the restroom and one of the gals from the party was clearly lost and drunk, walking around looking for her party. S took her back, avoiding a bad situation for all involved. We were hoping for some good karma after that...... at this point we're both down with pretty nasty colds, so we cabbed back and turned in around 1am again.

Super Bowl Sunday up next.

 

Nice report but WE getting typsy before the rental car facility? Been there done that myself but not a rental car and only a few blocks from home base.back when.

 

I don't want to even imagine how many quads I had before my first royal...lol But yeah, with the prices at the bar...much better to play VP slow, imo.

Nice report so far!

And $5 for a 24 oz lime-a-rita on the strip? That's actually not a bad deal! They are $2.50 at wal-mart here...

 

Nice report.

Arrrg - 6:5 BJ!

 

Thanks for the replies. Yes, I admit wholeheartedly the 6:5 is just a jackass move on my part. I'm just feeding the monster by playing, I know. Hate that.
So with that said, of course I wake up early to go play some more exciting 6:5 while S slept in. I wanted to get some happy coffee (coffee with bailey's) so I headed down...got a few of those to start the day. It was choppy at best and I wanted to give the Cosmo some play to keep the offers in, so I re-bought twice to no success. Now pissed, I head upstairs and shower and decide no more 6:5 for this guy (except for later in the trip at very low limits just for fun with S). So we grab the car and head down the strip to Palazzo. Security stopped us from bombing the place on the way in and eventually we dropped the car and went right to the room. This was awesome to bypass hoping our room was ready, etc. Since this was around 11:30, we decided we better get our bets in for the big game, so we headed to the sports 'book' at the Palazzo. The line was about 20 minutes long. S is not a gambler at all. She loves football and decided to make 3 bets. She took the Over (47), Gronk catching more than 6 passes and Gronk over 87 yards. She put $90 down and eventually ended up getting back $115. She was very happy.

I couldn't decide who was going to win, so rather than possibly ruin the experience, I went with 12 fun props bets for a total of $350.00. You all know what happened in the game, but what made it most exciting for me was I got 8-1 on the Pats to win by 4-6 points. I put $50 on that, so that was a nice little win. I also had Brady going over in all the passing yards, TD's, attempts, etc. In all, I netted $400 from the game. If a longer FG would have been kicked it would have been close to $1,000. More on the game later.

After the exhausting experience of placing bets, the Queen Napper had to double down and rest up before the afternoon festivities. She ran up to the room so I ran to the nearest BJ table. Finally 3:2. I'm home. I bought in for $700 this time (getting crazy I know)...great table mates. I was on 1st playing 2 hands ($50 min table), guy in the middle, guy to his left playing 2 and a nice lady on the end. All knew basic strategy and played correctly...nice chatty folks too. Always more fun when you have a table (for me) of chatty folks all rooting for one another. So anyway, the hero (me...) isn't doing so well. I'm literally down to my last two bets...$75 on each spot- at this point I'm not buying back in, as I'd be down damn near $2,500 on the day. I won the two hands and then the table caught some fire. I wish you realized it more at the time, but I started bumping bets to $150 to $200+ per spot per hand...making some progress. Then, out of nowhere, the pit boss comes over and makes it a $100 table. Mind you, I'm playing at least that, as is most of the table. We have all been there a few hours now and they didn't grandfather us in. Just rubbed me the wrong way. I wanted to stand up right then (it was getting close to time to leave for the SB anyway), but I played on. I had $100 on one spot and $200 on another. The $100 showed me a solid 19 and the $200 was 11 vs. dealer 10. I doubled and got 19...dealer made 20, so a quick $500 loss. That was it for me. Down to my last bet, I cashed out with this . Almost $3k profit- from where I was I'll take it. With expenses and such, I'm down a few hundy. So very worth it.

I raced to the room and cleaned up (smell of cigar smoke was awful this trip) and we ran down to cab it to Twin Peaks, above Planet Hollywood. They had what I thought (and was) a great deal. $100 per person guaranteed us a seat. You could order anything off the menu and it would chip away at the $100. Order less than $100 and you're still getting charged the $100. Over and of course you pay for that too. We had bar seats and that was fine. We had two couples to our right- one couple from Ireland and one from Colorado. Both great folks. To my left were two guys from Compton...so you got me (a hick from the country) and an inner-city latino... and we became fast friends. Loved meeting everyone. Behind us were some chaps from Bah-ston and since my biggest bet was on Pats 4-6, I jumped on their bandwagon. Here are various pics from the day. I will say Twin Peaks staff did a GREAT job. 5 forks all around. It's typical bar food (and that's just fine for us). It was hot, tasty and took no time to get food, in spite of it being packed. Beers were always tended to and COLD and the staff just as pleasant as they could be. Highly recommend this place for big functions like this. First pic is S in her Steelers shirt...."If you can't handle this tight end, you need a better D". that's my girl!

Here's one of us and Colorado folks And then various shots of the eye candy. Really nice gals
And me and my buddy, Edgar

Lastly, a few pics from a Vegas website that was there taking pics. We're near the near end of the bar. I'm in black high fiving Aaron Hernandez boston guy and his buddies behind us.

In total we consumed 96 ounces of beer each and downed 3 shots (paid for one round), got 3 appetizers and the total bill was $225. They added a service fee and it came to about $280- left $300 and was happy to do so. We said goodbye to our friends after not really believing what just happened and we decided to walk back to P. It was a great night out and we needed to walk off the booze. S of course decided to nap (pass out) again and I played on, unsuccessfully this time, losing $1k. So I headed up around midnight, after collecting my winnings (here's my one big ticket) . Apparently she just needed a long nap and she decided we needed to go walk around some more. I already popped an Ambien, but I powered through it somehow (red bull and vodka) and we played some BJ at the Venetian for a few hours. We walked down $200 for the session, but it was a lot of fun to sit with her and the table and just enjoy watching all the drunks and play spot the hooker. S killed me at that game. I found one that was playing BJ. No thanks....

Final day to come...

 

Does S know youre posting pictures of her? LOL Love that sweater she has on tho.! Great TR Bud

 

Time to put a bow on this trip. To answer the question, yes she knows she's on here. Nothing incriminating or otherwise...heck, she's in my profile pic. It's all good!
We wake up Monday and had some coffee and such and decided to eat at Sushi Samba- it was the meal highlight of the trip. We split 3 rolls (soft shell crab, spicy tuna a shrimp one), both had miso soup and the highlight was the sea bass- not sure how it's prepared, but holy cats.... amazing stuff. It was $90 with tip...well worth the money.

After lunch we grabbed the car and headed downtown. I had played briefly at Golden Gate last trip and received some free play / free food offers, so we headed there. As I said earlier, S doesn't gamble, but today she was going to give it a try. We played the FBBJ at $5 per hand and true to her word, S played $5 per hand, religiously for about 4 hours. I really like this game. Most of the Free Bets didn't work out though. For instance, I split 7's against a 4. With $50 out there, I split, got another 7, double, double...so $250 out there on my initial $50 bet. I ended losing each bet when the dealer made 21...would have been a nice swing for the good guy. That happened two more times. The game was double deck and paid 6:5...truly didn't mind since I got to play with S and she was comfortable playing there. Drink service was fast and furious, so I got a little silly at the end chasing and ended up losing $300. I was up $200 at one point.

We decided we needed food, so we hit up Dupar's and S had the cheeseburger and I got the turkey dinner. With a $25 voucher, dinner cost us $15 with a very generous tip. On the way out, I had the $100 chip I had to 'get rid of', so of course rather than cashing we sit down at roulette. Split $50 between us and S played the $5 minimum. I usually play nickels and spread out $175 across several numbers (17, 20, 21, 23 all big and then 4, 5, 7, 9, 32, 33, 35 small). Nothing hit, so I bought in for $400 in nickels. Again, not a damn thing hit. Now on tilt, I decide to just stick around because S is still having fun and I gave them an extra $100 and asked for singles. Of course, #23 hits. If it's the previous spin, I win $1750. This spin...$175. Of course the table goes nuts and I'm the dickhead that's pissed he just 'won' $175.00. Realizing the trip is coming to an end and the fact I just donked off a bunch of money, we decide to head back to Palazzo.

We get back and pack up and hit the floors for a few more hours- nothing terrible or great to report. It was pretty dead since most folks had bugged out earlier in the day after the SB. We tried to listen to a lounge act over near the back of the floor (back by the theater) and they were just terrible so we called it a night. Flight out next morning uneventful.

I checked with Palazzo and they said my play didn't warrant further comp ($170 avg for 12 hrs. total) so we had about a $250 bill. When all was said and done with expenses I was down about $2k for the trip...but it was so much fun I 'almost' don't care! I'm lucky to have a great gal that loves Vegas as much as I do. We went after it around the clock and we're both paying for it now, but while there it was a hoot, as evidenced by S humping some sculpture in the Cosmo. I don't really remember this one, but I'm thinking fun was had. Thanks for reading!

 

That comment hits home. It's all about having fun while winning money in Vegas... until you realize that it's really NOT at all about the money. The loss doesn't matter when you with a great girl. The win doesn't matter when your not.

 

Sounds like you 2 had a blast. And, make sure to hold onto that girl. We all should be so lucky.