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Delayed TR 6/9-6/14 (Shenanigans were had)

Discussion in 'Vegas Trip Reports' started by valleyman0505, Jun 15, 2016.

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  1. valleyman0505

    valleyman0505 Tourist

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    My Trip Report

    Coming soon...I will start writing this up tomorrow. Shenanigans were had. We met Elvis at the chapel (my wife said yes again!). We corrupted my Vegas virgin cousins...and more.
     
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  2. valleyman0505

    valleyman0505 Tourist

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    And, damn, it's depressing not seeing my countdown timer in my signature anymore now that the trip is over.
     
  3. valleyman0505

    valleyman0505 Tourist

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    Well, the long awaited 5 Year Anniversary Vow Renewal trip finally came....and went (boo). Before getting into the details of this trip, here is some background. My wife and I booked this trip last fall already. We were able to get 5 nights comped at Flamingo and I used Delta frequent flyer miles to book our two tickets from Appleton, WI to Vegas with a brief layover in Minneapolis. We had some family and friends book trips as well to come out and celebrate with us. Well, unfortunately, after booking the trip, a series of unfortunate life events had us watching our bankroll dwindling in the months leading up to the trip. In fact, if it weren’t for the family and friends that had also committed to coming, we probably would have cancelled. But, we were determined to make it work one way or another. In the end, through vigorous plasma donation and some creative accounting (don’t ask), we were able to come up with about a $1500 bankroll. This also had to cover the remaining $100 balance of the ceremony, limo driver tip, photographer tip, and Elvis tip. And of course those pesky Resort Fees. Maybe even food and some point. And drinks. Even “free” drinks add up when there are two of you going through about 20-30 each per day and tipping $1 per drink (yes, my wife can hold her liquor—it’s impressive, really). And then there are those times where have no choice but to find a gift shop to buy a couple of those $6 silos because the waitress just isn’t coming around fast enough. But, I digress. On to the trip.


    Day 1

    After spending Wednesday night dropping the kids off in one part of the state and the dog in another part of the state and then wrapping up our packing, Thursday morning finally arrived. We left the house at 5:30 am to get to the airport for our 7 am flight. We were scheduled to arrive in Vegas already at 10:40 am. Everything started out fine and our flight even left a little early (which was good, because our layover in Minneapolis was only about an hour which is a little tight since it always seems that the Appleton arrival gate and the Vegas departure gate are always about as far apart as possible). Well, then about 30 minutes into an hour long flight, we go this dreaded announcement: “This is the captain speaking. Unfortunately, one of our wing flaps is stuck and it is creating too much drag, so we will not have enough fuel to make it to Minneapolis at this rate. We will be turning back to Appleton.” And.....there goes our chance of making our connection. Oh, and did I mention that my wife is terrified of flying? And, now we are on a plane that said the words “wing flap stuck” and “not enough fuel”. Let the fun begin.

    Anyway, we made it back to Appleton and even had to circle to burn off extra fuel before landing (ironic, isn’t it?). They claimed our flight would leave again at about 9:30 and we got rebooked on the next option from Minneapolis to Vegas which would get us there at 4:30. Six hours of vacation time lost already. We didn’t want to take a chance of our original Appleton flight having additional delays, so I also got us rebooked on an 11:20 flight that would still get us to Minneapolis in time (good thing I did because our original flight still hadn’t left when the rescheduled one did). And I also raised enough of a stink to get the miles for one of our free tickets credited back, so I guess it wasn’t so bad.

    We finally arrived in Vegas, lost our ride sharing virginity by signing up for Lyft and getting the $20 new customer credit, which turned out to be only $15 when we signed up for some reason (the luck just keeps coming). Checkin took all of about 2 minutes and my parents were already waiting in the lobby for us to take us to the Diamond Club for some free drinks and a little food. Then, off we went to TAG to watch the rest of the Stanley Cup game 5 and play some VP. We normally focus on slots, but decided to give some VP a shot to stretch our bankroll. Well, it didn’t take long for my wife to get a 4OAK, but it was only 7’s. Still, not a bad start. Except that I was losing much quicker than she was winning. Oh well, “free” drinks! About 3 hands after her 4OAK, she got what I like to call a “fools Royal”. She was dealt a J, K, A of hearts. On the draw, she got a 10 of hearts and...(drumroll)....Q...of diamonds. We had that brief moment of seeing an all red 10-A straight before realizing one was a diamond. Oh well, at least she got the straight. Well, the hockey game ended (Sharks won...yay), so we went Ballys to play some VP with my parents and wait for my aunt, uncle, and cousins to arrive at 9:30 that night. Drinks. Drinks. Lose. Lose.

    By the time the rest of the family got there and got checked in, we (okay, “I”) had already caused us to be down $400 out of our $1500 bankroll and the first night wasn’t even over. My wife was bored out of her mind with VP and wanted to play slots. You see, the reason we come to Vegas for vacation is we both get bored VERY easily. We could never survive a beach trip. We need bells and whistles and shiny objects. So, she wanted to play slots after watching me play more VP (she was already so bored with it that she didn’t even want to play herself anymore). I told her we were so far down on our first night already that we couldn’t afford for her to play slots right now. And that’s where the argument began.

    At that point, I suggested going to bed. It had been a long day and we both took full advantage of the ample alcohol. After arguing for a while (cuz, you know, alcohol) we decided to eat and go to bed. Except that I didn’t want to eat. And she did. So the argument continued in the room (alcohol is a wonderful drug). Back down to Johnny Rockets we went, and, finally to bed around 1 am.

    Now, especially since this is a vow renewal trip, I feel that I should point out that we are not one of those couples that fights all the time. We were fine by the time we finally fell asleep and that was the only disagreement we had the whole trip. Between the flight issues and losing, losing, losing, losing, and drinks, drinks, drinks, it was just one of those days for both of us.

    I didn't get many pictures on this first night, but I did get an awesome sunset picture from the pedestrian bridge between Cromwell and Ballys...and now I can't find it. I wonder whose phone I actually used to take that picture in my drunken state? I will keep searching. (Sidenote, the up and down escalators in both directions as well as the escalator into Ballys were ALL working for our entire trip...flight delays and first day losses be damned, this was our lucky trip after all).
     
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2016
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  4. valleyman0505

    valleyman0505 Tourist

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    Found it! On my wife's phone.

    IMG956660.jpg
     
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  5. weluvvegas

    weluvvegas Casino Countess

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    That is an amazing picture!
     
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  6. Big dan

    Big dan High-Roller

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    Stunning sunset
     
  7. Niteshade

    Niteshade VIP Whale

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    Beautiful picture. Thanks for sharing.
    Looking forward to more of your trip.
     
  8. casinokid68

    casinokid68 Caesars Diamond Member

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    This sounds like the makings of a fun report. My fiancee is also terrified of flying. I could just imagine if she heard a message like that from the cockpit. She would have a fit!! And we also get bored on all the beach vacations. Never again!! We both agree, as many on this board, that Vegas is the best vacation. That's why we keep coming back multiple times per year!! Looking forward to the rest of your trip report.:beer:
     
  9. westie

    westie VIP Whale

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    Keep it coming!
     
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2016
  10. valleyman0505

    valleyman0505 Tourist

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    Ok, I think I found some time for:

    Day 2
    Somehow, we managed to wake up at 7:30 this morning, got showered up, and headed down for "breakfast" (my wife chose a Mike's while I went with a Bloody Mary, so, you know...fruits and vegetables make a healthy breakfast). Got to have a healthy start today since this is the day of renewal ceremony!
    13346932_10153643017822197_6347597949667014971_n.jpg

    After a couple of helpings of breakfast, we played around for a while at Margaritaville and then went over to Ballys to meet up with the family. On our way to Ballys, we stopped into Cromwell to find the full-pay VP machines. Well, we found them, and every one was out of service. To the Craps table, then. Managed to get up around $300 at the Craps table, then it went cold and I jumped out $100 ahead. Once we got to Ballys and met up with my aunt and uncle, they shared this view of their hallway at 1:30 am the night before (no, we don't know who this guy is and, no, I don't think he knows who he is either).
    13335983_1352921061391187_7470057977519860713_n.jpg

    Don't worry, he was fine. Okay, maybe not "fine", but he will be after a good sleep (and lots of water, I assume). Security was apparently very quick to get up there to help once notified.

    Anyway, we decided to eat lunch to make sure we were functional for our 5 pm renewal ceremony, so we went to Nosh at Ballys to use a Groupon we had. We had never been there before, but the Groupon gave us $20 of food for $2 (deal was originally $12, but we had a $10 code to reduce it to $2). It was surprisingly good. We will definitely go back again sometime. After eating, we decided to get some champagne for the room for before our ceremony, so we went to that dumpy liquor store behind Cromwell. I don't remember the name, but it's the land of $3 hot dog and PBR meal deals, so it obviously has the right level of class to find the level of champagne we were looking for (i.e. as cheap as possible). While there we figured we'd get a six-pack of Bud Lite for the room as well. Well, despite the attempt to allow Nosh to soak up some of my multiple "breakfasts", my dexterity apparently wasn't as good as I had hoped and the second I grabbed the beer from the cooler, I proceeded to immediately drop the entire thing on the floor and watched in horror as all six bottles shattered (and watched my wife turn a new color of red I have never seen before as everyone turned to stare at us). Well, you've all heard of 2 for the price of 1 deals, but I was able to find a 1 for the price of 2 deal (those deals are surprisingly easy to come by if you work hard enough).

    Eventually, we got the family up to the room at Flamingo for some champagne and to wait for the Graceland Chapel limo to pick us up, and off we went. The Elvis ceremony was delightfully cheesy just like we had planned (us Wisconsinites like our cheese however we can get it after all) and then we had the limo drop us off on Fremont street. We hung with some friends of ours that were also coincidentally in town and came to our ceremony. After about 4 or 5 beers while standing outside watching the street performers (our friends had their 19 year old son and 14 year old daughter along and they wanted them to see what happens if you don't stay in school and get a college degree), we finally went into The D.

    At The D, my friend and I hit the Craps table while my wife and his girlfriend stood behind us and watched. My wife had a bag with her to carry all of her stuff for the night (extra shoes and whatever else women need to carry to a vow renewal). She turned her back on it to come take a picture of us, and, when she turned around it was gone. She seriously turned her back for like 10 seconds and was 2 feet away from it. So, off to security she went. Of course, I kept playing Craps. Amazingly, she came back a couple minutes later with the bag. Security said they saw an unattended bag, so they picked up. Seriously, 2 feet away for like 10 seconds. Oh well, better safe than sorry I guess and we got it back in the end.

    After a couple hours at The D, we went to Golden Nugget for our annual picture by the shark tank at the pool (after we found a couple beers, anyway). We finally arranged our ride back to Flamingo around 11 am. For some reason, we took a taxi rather than Uber or Lyft like we planned. To be honest, I don't remember why because this is the point in the night where things start getting fuzzy, but I think it was because we couldn't figure out the apps (again, fuzzy times). The ride came to close to $30 (argghh!).

    After that, we gambled (probably) and I vaguely remember Johnny Rockets again (as confirmed in the morning by the presence of Johnny Rockets bags on the nightstand and crumbs in the bed). I don't remember when we went to bed, but our Johnny Rockets receipt said 1 am.
     
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2016
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  11. Flowers

    Flowers VIP Whale

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    Beautiful photo! You should frame it or make it a screen saver at home!
     
  12. calway55

    calway55 Low-Roller

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    The sky in your awesome photo reminds me of Ghost Busters movie.
     
  13. mrjvegas

    mrjvegas VIP Whale

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    fantastic pic
     
  14. mrjvegas

    mrjvegas VIP Whale

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    and great read so far
     
  15. valleyman0505

    valleyman0505 Tourist

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    Thanks for the all the love on the pic. I'm really surprised myself on how cool it turned out after seeing on a full computer instead of just my phone.

    Fyi...hoping to get days 3 and 4 done tomorrow
     
  16. Wobnobdog

    Wobnobdog Tourist

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    Loving the report. Congrats on the anniversary
     
  17. pd54

    pd54 High-Roller

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    So far so good. Really enjoying your report. The right level of detail to feel like we are there with you! Looking forward to days 3 and 4
     
  18. bshowell

    bshowell VIP Whale

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    Awesome sunset picture. Lol @ your friends showing their kids what happens if you don't stay in school and get a college degree. And that guy in the hallway - if that doesn't say "Vegas"...
     
  19. valleyman0505

    valleyman0505 Tourist

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    Day 3 (Saturday)
    We actually made it up at a decent time again this morning (around 8:30). While my wife was getting ready for the day, I did my morning routine of sorting/consolidating the money in my pockets and analyzing the damage. I knew this one was not going to be pretty. I mean, so far, I have been losing at pretty much anything that allows me to put money into it (although I did find this game called ATM that allows you to put in your debit card and I won big both times I played that one). My wife has been doing a little better, but my losses are outpacing her wins, and it hasn't been pretty. In fact, when looking in the closet to find something to wear for the day, I realized that this scene pretty well sums up my accomplishments so far this trip (hey, at least she said yes again!):
    20160612_115603.jpg

    Well, the final tally came to (gulp) roughly $350 remaining...for 3 more days. Uh oh. Luckily, I do have more money in my bank account that I COULD take out if necessary, it's just that I SHOULDN'T (Ramen for weeks, anyone?). Well, I'll cross that bridge when/if I get there.

    Anyway, by the time we made our way downstairs to attack the day, it was late morning, so we decided on brunch.
    20160612_133130.jpg

    As I mentioned earlier, the friends of ours that were out here had their 14 year old daughter and 19 year old son with them. They mentioned that they have not had a chance to do anything without the kids, so we promised them we would take the kids to the Secret Garden today so they could venture off on their own for a while. They were going to meet us around 11:00 at Flamingo, so we started to work our way back there after our McD brunch. They were going to meet us by the Flamingo entrance near the Cromwell, so we sat down at VP bank right along the wall by the entrance to wait, and, lo and behold, this happened:
    20160611_105825.jpg

    Finally, some luck! Well, the kids showed up right after that, so off we went to the Secret Garden. After watching one of the dolphin training sessions and waiting for a second one to start, I pulled my money out of my pocket...and panic sets in. "Umm, honey, do you have the voucher you cashed out at Flamingo?" "No, I thought you cashed it out". Well, needless to say, our Secret Garden visit got cut short while we hightailed it back to Flamingo hoping for a miracle. We rarely see anyone play that bank of games, so maybe there's hope. Or, maybe security noticed it and grabbed it (my TR card was still in the machine too, so it would be pretty easy to figure out whose it was).

    Well, of course it was gone when we got there. We found one of the slot attendants and told him what happened and he called it in. He went over to the machine and was able to bring up a list of every voucher that was cashed out, and there was ours...the last one cashed out...6 minutes after we left. Well, he called in the ticket number to see if it was still live and said that they could de-activate it if no one had cashed it in yet. Well, of course, it was cashed in at the main cashiers' cage one minute after it was cashed out of the machine. Our luck was short lived. The sad thing is that we had each only had one beer thus far. Maybe that was the problem, we aren't used to sober gambling and it completely threw our system off. Well, obviously that meant it was time to go off to the gift shop to buy a couple Bud Lite silos and start planning our comeback.

    Our first attempt was the Goldfish 2 slot in Margaritaville. We usually at least get a decent amount of playing on that game, so we figured we'd try it. Lost a little there and moved to one of the Monopoly games along the wall right where Margaritaville joins the main casino. We were getting bonus after bonus after bonus. Not winning much on them, but still fun. Moved to the next one same thing. Moved to the next one and suddenly got a bonus good for almost $200. Well, by this time, we had to go up to the room to get ready for the pool since my cousins were coming over from Ballys to try our pool (Flamingo pool is a little better than Ballys for a 21 and 25 old girl who want to party).

    Once ready, we were waiting and waiting for them in Margaritaville, when they finally texted to say sorry they were late, but they wanted to do a couple shots before coming over. Oh boy. They finally made it over, beers in hand, had a beer with us and told us they each had 4 shots before coming over. Down to the pool we went and there was a huge line. Turns out they had one of their Daybeats events with a special DJ and guest Christina Milan. Once we got near the front, we saw a sign that said one active key per guest was required in order to say you were a Flamingo guest. Crap. We only had 2 keys figuring that would be enough to get the 4 of us in. Well, we just gave our keys to my cousins since we are too old for that shoulder to shoulder booming music stuff anyway (and all that urine!). In the meantime, back to the casino we go.

    Walking through the casino, we saw this barrel of dog getting walked through and my wife thought he was adorable and wanted a picture. The owner said sure, and it turns this was our first celebrity encounter--it was Dozer the Surfing Dog (yeah, we had look it up too). She told us (the owner, not the dog--we weren't drunk enough for talking dogs...yet) to go to DozerSurfs.com and sure enough, there he was.
    20160611_155503.jpg
    And, no, I did not bet my eyeballs at the Craps table and lose. Haven't reached that level of desperation yet. I just have an uncanny ability to blink at precisely the wrong time in every picture.

    Well, not going to the pool turned out be a good choice. We headed to Cromwell and my wife found her favorite game: Pompeii. For those of you not familiar with Pompeii, when you get the bonus spins, there is a 3X wild on reel 2 and a 5X Wild on reel 4 that come out once in while. If you're really lucky, you'll get both at once for a potential 15X win and if you get that with a 5 of a kind, the whole screen shakes and big wins usually follow (my wife won $1500 on a 75 cent spin once this way a couple years ago). Well, wouldn't you know, we ACTUALLY got the bonus and even got the 15X screen shake....our excitement level rose....and then we realized the 5 of a kind were 10's, the lowest symbol, for something like $60. Oh well, a win is a win and we ultimately won $150 in that Pompeii session. Then, we noticed that the full pay VP bank was back in service, so we had to try that. Amazingly, again in only a 5-10 hands, this happened:
    20160611_165011.jpg
    And we even remembered to cash out the voucher this time! Go us! Well, not going to the pool resulted in a $350 profitable decision (we make good decisions every once in a while).

    An hour or so later, we ran into my aunt and uncle and they asked us what we did to their girls (jokingly). We asked what they were talking about and they were both apparently passed out cold in the room after returning from the pool...at 5:00 in the afternoon. Woops. Guess they had fun (they never did leave the room again that night either).

    Well, as usual, the day way went on. Drinks, drinks, drinks. Had a Groupon to use at Jimmy's Seaside Fries in the shops by Ballys, so we went to use that for supper (French fries are such a fulfilling supper after all). Eventually, I was nearly falling asleep drunk by around midnight, but we decided to push through and go to Caesars. We walked past the Numb bar, and, I saw the "Up All Night" drink (or whatever it was called). Well, if I ever needed one of those, it was now (maybe? probably not). That was my line of thinking anyway. I can't go to bed at like 1 am on a Saturday night in Vegas, right? Well, it did its job and I got my second wind. No luck at Caesars, though (I think we won $20), so back to the Strip we go. And then we remembered, hey, cheap beer at Casino Royale, so off we go down the Strip and my wife finds these fine gentlemen around 2 am:
    20160612_040726.jpg
    I just can't take her anywhere...lol.

    Well, we managed to make it until 4 am that night. Did a LOT of gambling, and still came out about $500 ahead for the day even after all the drinks and leaving $200 in a machine (arrggghh!). Our trip has been saved (I hope)!
     
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  20. Geogran

    Geogran VIP Whale

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    Keeping us in suspense - fun trip report!
    But I must ask - what happened to the kids you took to the Secret Garden when you discovered your missing voucher? Are they still there waiting for you to come back?? Or did I miss that part where you returned them to their parents?

     
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