First (live) TR: Sam's Town, Laughlin, Plaza, Luxor, feb 14-21

Hi there!

You probably don't know me, I don't know many of you... but I still wanted to write a trip report.
Let me introduce myself: My name is Lin(dy) and I'm 31 years old. I live in The Netherlands and I am married to my lovely wife E. We have no kids and two dogs (of course... lol)
Because I live in The Netherlands, English obviously isn't my first language, so you might come across some grammar or spelling mistakes in this upcoming TR, I apologize in advance.

This will be our fourth trip to Vegas. When we got married in 2013 our honeymoon was our first trip to Vegas: june/july 2013. We stayed at the Golden Nugget and Vdara that trip and it was AWESOME! When we got home, we couldn't wait to go back again. We made our second trip in december 2013 and went on a bit of a budget. We stayed at Monte Carlo and Palms and again, we LOVED it. Our third trip was in july 2014 and we stayed at Sam's Town (comped) en Plaza. We always go for a full week, since it's a 24 hour trip from door to door to get from our home to the hotel in Vegas.

Since Vegas isn't the most cheap destination for us Dutchies (plane tickets alone cost about 800 dollars...) we don't stay in the fancy hotels much. We sleep cheap and save our budget for gambling and all the rest. Plus: I'm not a cheapskate, but I love some good deals! Oh, and I must add: I'm not great with crowds all day long, so that's why we love to stay off strip. Don't get me wrong: I really love the strip and all the lights and everything, but not 24 hours a day. It drives me crazy

On our last 3 three trips, we switched hotels once every trip, but this trip will be a little different. Our plan:
- We start easy with two comped nights at Sam's Town (sat-sun)
- On monday we will drive to Laughlin and stay at the Golden Nugget one night (I have to check out Laughlin once).
- On tuesday we will drive back to Vegas and check in at the Plaza.
- On friday we will move to Luxor for our last night in Vegas.
- Going home on saturday morning.
- Arriving home: sunday morning.

The last night at Luxor wasn't planned, but when I saw my Mlife spring offer this week with $75,- FP and $50,- RC, I couldn't resist... I had to take it! I've never had FP and RC before (did I already mention we're the lowest of low rollers?), so yeah, I needed to make that final hotel switch. Just for the FP and RC!

Okay, so we're on a bit of a budget. Our daily budget it about $400,- between the both of us (could have been more, damn you, dropping €!!!). We will spend that money on shopping, gambling and food. Our breakfasts will mostly be (free) buffets (hello, MyVegas!). Dinners won't be too fancy, we're not foodies or big eaters at all. We can easily eat a sandwich for dinner, or share a pizza or something.
We love ourselves some drinks, but we will have a car all week and I'm driving, so unless we're in or around our 'home'casino I won't drink during the days.
Does this already sound boring??

We do have a lot of fun. We like to play slots together most of the time. I also like blackjack, 3 card poker and Pai Gow poker a LOT, but the wife not so much.. She doesn't mind watching me though, she really enjoys that. She's just too insecure to sit down at a table herself. When we find a cheap blackjack table she might play some hands though, that's about the only game she knows how to play properly.

We have 3 things planned:
1. Shopping at the outlet malls (Primm and probably north outlet)
2. Zarkana on friday night
3. Laughlin on monday/tuesday.

That's it! We will probably visit some off strip casino's, have a full day downtown (no driving that day, just drinking!!), walk the strip one full day: we'll see.

Don't get too excited for the first few days of this TR :') First day is a whole day of travelling, and on sunday we'll probably have a MAJOR jetlag. Last summer on our first night we were done and in bed by 10.30 pm... thehehehe. And of course awake by 4 am, and tired again at 1pm. That first day is usually a little weird.

Okay, so here goes: my first TR!

We will leave on saturday morning and I will try to update every day from now on!

 

Good luck on your travels and look forward to your report.

 

You're doing great so far! I'm riding with you and you haven't even got on the plane yet. I see we do Vegas simular. I love having a car and changing properties. Good luck to you and your wife. Take pics to post.

 

Thank you!!

 

Thanks! I will bring my compact camera, so I can take a lot of pics for this TR.
I love having a car too. We might not use it every day, but I like to have it, so we can hop in the car and drive where ever we want, at any time.

 

Looking forward to following along.. good luck!

 

Thank you!

 

Whoohoo, less than 23 hours until our plane takes off!!

I planned to pack today, pick up some last things I need for Vegas (laptop sleeve, meds...), check in online for the flight and print the tickets and vouchers.
Packing and picking up the final things isn't going to be a problem at all.

But:
Checking in online: fail. Our passports need to be scanned at the airport?? Well, okay. No checking in online.
Printing: fail. I wanted to print the MyVegas vouchers, my car rental voucher and those kind of things: printer won't print.
For the love of jesus :')

I guess my wife will have to print them at work. I emailed all those things to her, so she will print them for us.
And we will have to check in at the airport tomorrow morning. If everything goes as planned tomorrow morning, we will arrive 2.5 hours before the plane takes off, so I think we will be fine!

Okay, I will go pack now and run some errands and in 17 hours we will leave home for Vegas!!!!

 

I like your itinerary. You are different! It great that you can like Sam's Town when you are not an American over 70, like 90% of their customers. You will probably be the only Europeans in the entire hotel! But, your second stop should make Sam's seem like a young hip place, as Laughlin customers are probably 90% over 75 years old, especially in the winter! That being said, I still enjoy going to those places.

If it's warm, drive up to Harrah's Laughlin and spend some time on the beach there. There are signs saying that only hotel guests are allowed, but they are too cheap to hire someone to enforce it. The Golden Nugget is a nice property, but the smokey, low ceiling casino can be an issue if smoke bothers you. You are right on the riverwalk, so other casinos are just a short walk away (except for Harrrahs).

Obey the crazy speed limits when you drive through Searchlight Nevada. It goes from 75 to 20 in just a mile, and they enforce it.

If you want to say you went to California, stay on 95 past the route 163 turn. California is about 2 miles south past the turn. You can take a picture at the border sign and turn around and turn back on 163 towards Laughlin.

For cheap gasoline, drive across from Laughlin to Arizona (the little bridge is right at the intersection of 163 and Casino Drive). Make your first right and drive about 3 miles to the "Fastrip" gas station on your right, and save 40 cents or so a gallon compared to Nevada.

 

Thank you so much for all your tips!!

We really do like Sam's. It's nice and easy going, not too much people around and we can hop in the car and drive to where ever we want any time, so for us it's perfect. Oh, and of course it's cheap (comped, even), that always helps

On the day we arrive in Laughlin it will be 82 degrees, so we will definitely check the beach at Harrah's, sounds pretty cool!
Thanks for the heads up on the speed limits, I will obey them.
On the way back we will drive through California, because we want to visit the Primm outlet on the way back to Vegas. So we will take the 163, 95, 164 and 15 back to Vegas. Good idea to take a picture at the border sign!

Thanks again, I really appreciate your reply!

 

The 164 route takes longer but is VERY scenic with many, many Joshua Trees along the road.



A very unique landscape. That road though is one lane each way (and no divider). Hopefully you don't get behind a slow truck. We took it once and lucked out, with hardly anyone in front of us.

As far as the Harrah's Laughlin beach, if you want some nice sun, try to get there between 11am and 1pm, as this time of year, the shadows get pretty long by 2:30 even, because the beach faces east.

There is a river taxi that you can take between any 2 casinos on the Colorado River there. I think its about $4/per person, each way.

 

Looking forward to it, good luck!

As for the grammar, don't worry, some people born here do not get it! If I see loose when people mean lose one more time... That one drives me crazy![emoji35]

 

Hahaha! I hope I don't have to use that word at all

 

We're at the airport, all checked in and waiting at the gate.
The plane is already here, so no delays so far.
Our first flight will be 9 hours long (Amsterdam to Washington). We will change planes in Chicago and have to fly for another 5.5 hours... It's a long time in planes and on airports, but it's so worth it, because: Vegas!!!!!

I hope I will be able to get some sleep on the plane.
I'll check in again when we arrive in Vegas tonight.

Moderator, can this thread be moved to the TR section please? Thanks!!

 

We arrived in Washington!
Now we have to wait two more hours for our flight to Vegas... the waiting is hard. I want to be in Vegas NOW!

 

Read you have to stop in Chicago.... it is windy as all hell here, hope that does not cause you issues

 

Good luck Lin!

Hookt on foniks woorkt 4 me! See how I threw that "oo" in there? :Þ

 

Chicago is on the way back... I made a mistake there. It was windy as hell in Washington too. Take off was a bitch, I am never scared on planes, but this time I really was.
The plane was tilting from right to left... going up and down, I thought we were going to crash. E. was thinking she was going throw up

 

We made it!!
It took us exactly 24 hours to get from door to door! We're in Sam's Town now.

Going to take a quick shower now, after being in the same clothes for 25 hours... Nasty.
And than... get a drink and gamble!!

 

We're $200 lighter (slots), 5 drinks each richer and too tired to do anything else right now...
So: time to sleep!!

Note: we really liked the new Willy Wonka slot with the eggs bonus. Lost $30 on it, but it was still fun!