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Auggie's June 29-July 4 Trip Report

Discussion in 'Vegas Trip Reports' started by Auggie, Jul 9, 2010.

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  1. Auggie

    Auggie Dovahkiin

    Joined:
    Jan 8, 2009
    Messages:
    5,820
    Location:
    Burnaby, BC
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    17

    My Trip Report

    Las Vegas: June 29 - July 4, 2010


    This is my usual long winded trip report going in to probably more detail than anybody needs to read :)

    But there is a link to some photos at the end to ease the pain a little!




    PRE TRIP:

    I normally like to do a lot of planning and budgeting for trips but for this trip there was nothing but financial issues leading up to the trip from unexpected expenses and bills coming up to clients not wanting to pay up their invoices. Things worked out in the end, but it was just days before our trip that we finally had our finances in order.

    The other issue leading up to this trip was me coming down with a bad cold just two days before the trip and then my wife getting it the day before. The night before the trip we were both coughing and hacking all night long and when it was finally time to get up and get ready neither of us was able to get any sleep.


    TUESDAY:

    On our way to the airport and then throughout the flight wife and I were having some pretty bad coughing and sneezing attacks. The flight was delayed by a little over an hour and we didn't get in to Las Vegas until a little after 2pm.

    We took a taxi to Harrah's and there was no line so we were able to check in quickly and then went up to the room where we had to take a nap for an hour.

    Because of my IBS I just don't eat anything the day before flying so after we got up we went to Casino Royale where I we had some Subway and then played in the casino for a little bit.

    For Casino Royale they have changed things around a little with a new food court at the back (Noble Romans, Subway and a hot dog place) and where these places used to be up front they were putting in a high limit slots area.

    Looks like overall they have a bunch of new games since the last time we were here and we got to play some of the Ruby Slippers Wizard of Oz game where I had some pretty good luck but wife didn't.

    After about an hour and a half we went over to TI. We waited in line to sign up for slot club cards because they have some decent signup bonuses but when we got our cards they said we don't qualify for the bonuses because we previously had MGM/Mirage Players Club cards so we weren't considered "new signups".

    We played for about an hour here where I wasn't having much luck and wife was going downhill faster - we left the room about two and a half hours earlier with about $150 each for gambling and she was already on her last $20 while I had only $80 left.

    Our goal in coming over here was to actually get to Fashion Show Mall to keep up our tradition of wife getting her Build a Bear teddybear on each trip. We left TI for the mall where we got the bear, bought wife a nice little necklace and then stopped at the Guess store.

    Wife collects Guess purses and accessories and the selection here was quite different than what we have at the Guess and Marciano stores back home... but she didn't find anything she wanted so we went back to TI.

    Second time around TI wife finally had a spot of luck and was able to turn her last $20 to $50, which was a coincidence as I was able to turn my last $80 to $50 too!

    We left TI and then went over to the Walgreens at Palazzo/Venetian. The prices aren't that great here, I think they are better at the Walgreens down at the south end of The Strip, but then that one has a CVS and ABC store in the immediate area to compete with.

    Back at Harrah's I dropped the stuff off up at our room and then met wife in the casino. We played for a few more hours and then stopped to have a late dinner at the cafe before turning in for the night.



    WEDNESDAY:

    I woke up at 8AM from a coughing fit and couldn't get back to sleep. I decided to let wife sleep and went down to the casino.

    The Goldfish Race for the Gold machines were open and I was able to play a little there. I hit a $30 progressive and a few of the fish bonuses and was able to turn my $20 into $60.

    I then went and played some video poker for a bit during which I was able to get a Royal Flush twice - thats the good news... the bad news is I did it on Spin Poker playing on a 2 cent machine and not at max bet, so the first one was only good for $5 and the second was good for $10.

    A little after 9AM I walked down to the Walgreens to get me some gingerale and then brought McDonalds up to the room for breakfast.

    After breakfast we lounged in the room for a little while watching some TV and then decided to go down and gamble some.

    We started with a fresh $150 each in gambling money plus what little we had leftover from the previous day and did a little machine hopping taking the wins where we could. I wound up doing pretty good on a Tiki Torch, Cleopatra and a Mr. Cashman game coming out up $70 and wife played some Penguin Pays and got the penguin bonus three times, each time paying her more $30 (not bad for 20 cents a spin).

    So finally with a little luck under our belt we decided to head out and went next door to Imperial Palace.

    There didn't seem to be as many new games here but we were happy playing some of the old classics and we were again doing pretty good. Decided to try out the Sex and the City machines and the bonuses were coming up pretty frequent for us. I wound up cashing out at $90 and wife at $70, so we were still doing pretty good for the day.

    We walked next door to O'Shea's to see whats new there and grab some wings from the food court. Game-wise there wasn't anything too exciting here but we could see they were installing the new Lord of the Rings machine.

    Otherwise we didn't stay here too long and walked back to Harrah's. We went up to the room and took another afternoon nap.

    After waking up I was finally starting to feel pretty good. I still had a bit of a stuffy nose and the occasional cough, but overall was definitly feeling better.

    We decided to go over to Mirage and do a little gambling. We were there for about three hours and overall lost a few dollars - I had a great run at roulette but lost on the slots while wife lost a little at the slots.

    After playing we went to the Players Club booth and I was able to get a free buffet out of them so we went to the buffet for dinner. First time eating here and I thought the food and selection was pretty good.

    After dinner we went back to Harrah's and played for about another hour and a half and then called it another early night.


    THURSDAY:

    I woke up at 6AM this morning and couldn't get back to sleep so I went back down to the casino again. I saw the WMS technicians were working with the Harrah's technicians and a few people in suits to set up the Lord of the Rings slot machines.

    This time I didn't have much luck playing anything and in the end had just enough money to cover another breakfast at McDonalds and took that up to the room.

    After breakfast we went down and took the monorail to MGM Grand. Wife doesn't like playing here but there were a few new games here so we decided to play for a little while.

    On wife's first spin at Stargate she managed to get a whole bunch of stacked symbols and that was good for a $90 win. We tried the Queen: We Will Rock You and that game just seems so lame to me - just seems like there was so much more they could have done with the game, instead they just put in some crappy graphics and a few tiny music clips and that was it.

    I played some IGT TableMaster roulette at MGM and wound up losing that pretty fast - 9 spins in a row where I was covering 43% of the layout and I didn't get a single hit. Sheesh.

    I did play some Multiplay Cleopatra and wound up getting two progressives so I was still coming out ahead.

    We went next door to Tropicana after that and... what can you say? The parts that they have changed looked good but they had at least two thirds of their slot floor closed off so the selection of games was pretty meagre.

    Despite the poor selection of games I was able to lose $100 in about the first 15 minutes of being in here. I sort of slow played a little after that trying to not go totally bust and found some of the cheaper games to play in the casino. Wife was doing OK however, up about $20 since we got there.

    My luck continued to go bad for the next half hour and I soon found myself down to my last $40 for the day. I puttered around a little and tried a few different machines. I finally had a little bit of luck hitting a $30 win on a Mystical Fortunes machine and then a $110 win on a game themed around Amazons by Atronic.

    So that was good for me as I wasn't really to call it a day at 4PM.

    We decided we'd played about as much as we could play here and went to the Winner's Club to score some comps and they gave us a free lunch at the cafe, after which we went back to MGM Grand and took the monorail to Harrah's.

    We decided to take another afternoon nap, this cold was doing better for both of us, but still left us feeling run down pretty easy and these naps were helping.

    We got up at 7PM and went down to the casino. We were going to do the Harrah's buffet for dinner tonight but going to wait until 8:30PM since the lines are so long at 7PM (they run back atleast to the Diamond buffet entrance and sometimes beyond).

    When we did go up there the line went pretty quickly and we had a very good dinner overall. The selection is pretty good and I should have done a scouting mission first as every station I was passing I kept finding a few more items to put on my plate and was running out of room fast.

    After dinner we walked around the casino a little and played a few different games. Around midnight they finally had the Lord of the Rings machines all setup and ready and opened the game up to the public (they had one Diamond member and two Harrah's staff playing the machines for about two hours).

    Wife loved the new game and played for about an hour and a half while I played a little and then went and tried the new Monopoly machines they set up and then put more time in on Spin Poker where overall I was doing very good this trip.


    FRIDAY:

    We started the day off at the Cafe for breakfast and then more Lord of the Rings slots. Wife was making some pretty good progress in the game and it was getting hard to pull her away from the thing.

    I was able to get her to leave the game when I finally said we should go to Caesar's Palace and check what they have for purses at the Guess store there.

    We went around the forum shops and eventually ended up at the Guess store. The selection here was actually quite different than the wierder stuff we saw at Fashion Show Mall and wife wound up finding a purse to her liking.

    A little more shopping, though we didn't buy anything more, and we went to the casino. Wife looked around for the Lord of the Rings slots there, yeesh, but we couldn't find any so I guess they weren't set up there yet.

    Play here was a lot of WE WIN! Oh... we lost! WE WIN! Oh... we lost! over and over again. Finally when we were both down about $30 for the day we left and went to Bill's.

    The game selection at Bill's hasn't changed much since we were here last for New Years Eve. I did see the Rapid Craps game and many have said it plays slow because nobody understands the interface, but it seemed to be going at a pretty good pace.

    We played a few games here and then hit the little sundries counter at the back - its the only place we can find the strawberry Hall's Defense that my wife likes (can't get them back in Canada and didn't see them anywhere else on this trip) so she bought a whole box.

    After this we went next door to Flamingo. Outside of MGM Grand they have some stars on the ground from famous people from Las Vegas' past like singers, showgirls, comedians, etc. Outside of the door to Flamingo there was one for Gloria Estefan and her husband... I thought that was strange because I can't think of her ever doing anything in Las Vegas, not even a show that I can recall.

    We poked around Flamingo for a little while. I was having some pretty good luck playing some video poker, 50 play poker and Spin Poker while wife was losing pretty badly.

    I wanted to stay and play some more but wife wanted to go so we left and went to O'Sheas where we split a drink and fries at Burger King and then played a little more.

    It was getting long in the day so we went back to Harrah's and played for about another 30 minutes where I was down to about $80 left on the day and wife finally went busto...

    We went up to the room at this point and took an hour long nap, we were feeling better from our colds but still had a worn down feeling. After the nap we did something we hadn't done before on any of our past Vegas trips: we dipped in to the budget for the next day...

    We didn't really want to spend Friday night sitting in the room watching TV so we took $200 out of our Saturday money and divvied up my $80 so we both had $140 for the night.

    At this point wife pretty much figured she would just hang around Harrah's and play Lord of the Rings for a while and I decided to go to Venetian for some gambling and give them a little play.

    Walking to Venetian when I was coming across the bridge out front towards the casino I was still about thirty feet away from the doors and could actually smell the perfumed air at The Venetian it was that strong.

    At Venetian they were running their deepstacks poker tournament. I checked the poker room out and was able to find a couple of poker pros I know from back in Vancouver playing so I chatted with them for a bit to see how they were doing and see what was new, etc.

    Around the casino I played some slots and VP and was doing overall pretty good I thought. Played some Spin Poker for about an hour and then when the poker tournament was going on break I met up with a couple of the guys and we hit the food court for some dinner.

    After they had dinner and went back to the game I went back to play some poker and again thought I was doing pretty good but after another hour I stopped to check my money and turns out I wasn't doing as good as I thought.

    But two things of note at The Venetian:

    1) Drink service really sucked. I'm in an area where the cheapest multi-line poker and spin poker is 5c and there are lots of $1-5 slots and VP in my area but I only once had a server ask me for a drink. I really would have expected better than that but then as I was wandering around the casino I noticed a definite lack of cocktail waitresses everywhere.

    2) Because of my cold and the air in the casino I had a little bit of a coughing spell while sitting at my Spin Poker machine. One of the slot attendants was about 15-20 machines away and came running over, opened a cabinet and brought me a box of kleenex and a bottle of water and asked me if there was anything more I needed. That was nice I can say.

    But one thing with The Venetian that I always have to wonder is: where do the people come from?

    I was playing a couple of games on the main walkways and there is always this non-stop flow of people walking, usually three to four wide and in groups of as many as fifteen to twenty. You sit there for 5-10 minutes and its like hundreds of people walk past... where are they all coming from? Where are they all going? Are they just walking in one continuous circuit around the casino floor?

    At around 11:30PM my throat was really burning from the air and I was starting to cough more so I figured I'd go and try and find wife who was supposed to be showing at Casino Royale around midnight to 12:30. She was there and we grabbed some Subway for dinner and then went back to the room.

    Taking a tally of our money situation it was kind of grim looking...


    SATURDAY:

    I woke up with my lungs burning and a horrible cough in my throat. I had been pretty good the last few days so I am thinking its because of the perfumed air at Venetian.

    We had McDonalds again for breakfast today. Money was so bad right now that we definitly had to keep it on the cheap.

    I took the breakfast up to the room and after we counted up our money we realised we didn't have much for the day at all since we took $200 out of the budget the day before and didn't bring back that much after a night of gambling.

    We had been socking a few bucks away each day that we were saving for Sunday since our flight home is at 7:30 and we need something to do that day, but it was at the point where if we used that money and lost it all we would either have nothing for Sunday or would have to hit the bank machine (last time we used a bank machine in Las Vegas was 2004).

    We decided to take the full $300 we had left in the Saturday budget and money put aside for Sunday and combined with our money from the night before we had about $200 each to make it through the day.

    We hit the Harrah's casino around 1PM after watching a bit of TV in the room and things started off OK where we weren't winning, but we weren't losing either.

    Wife wanted to visit Venetian this trip and we had nothing planned for today so we went over there and gambled a little more.

    It didn't take too long before the air was really burning in my throat and wife's as well. We actually both wound up hitting a couple of decent little wins and figured we'd just take the money and run at this point. We stopped at the food court for some chicken sandwiches and then went next door to Casino Royale.

    So far on this trip I haven't had much to drink - with the cold I didn't want to feel worse and I was taking some cold medication and aspirin at night so I didn't want some unknown alcohol effects. But it was the last day so I figured I'd tie one on a little and hit the bar for three $1 Michelobs that I chugged one back, drank the second in a quick pace and then slowly drank the third.

    I mostly just watched wife play a few games here and then decided I would head back to Harrah's and rest in the room for an hour before having a shower, shave and getting dressed to go out for the night. Wife figured that was a good plan and came along, we stopped at the bar again and I grabbed two more Michelobs and two strawberry drinks for wife.

    After a bit of a rest up it was still only about 6PM and we were ready to head out again. We usually go and do our own thing on the final night so at this point wife decided she would mostly just hang out at Harrah's and probably play some more Lord of the Rings and I didn't really know where I was going to go.

    We hit the casino for an hour together and then I figured I'd go my own way. I wasn't sure if I wanted to do Mirage or maybe Imperial Palace or Flamingo. I decided I'd just go next door to Imperial Palace and then see what happened there.

    At IP I played some poker, some Goldfish: Race for the Gold and a few old time classic games that you don't see much of anymore. I was doing pretty good and was soon up $80.

    I walked around the casino looking at the games and the only thing that was really calling out to me was a "50 Lions" machine. I sat and played for a little bit and turned another $20 into $100.

    I played the amount down to exactly $100 and decided to cash the voucher in. As I was walking around looking for a TITO machine I found one next to Rapid Roulette and cashed that in and then sat down to play with a $60 buy in.

    Michael Jackson was dealing the Rapid Roulette and he was going really slow. It was actually pissing off quite a few of the players and a few were calling for the pit boss to come over so they could complain. Then as if things weren't bad enough some armed guards showed up with cases of chips and the whole game stopped for 15 minutes as they were counting chips in.

    When the game started up again it was just going downhill for me. I was playing my 7+7 system that normally does OK for me but tonight I was just missing everything. Celine Dion soon relieved Michael Jackson but any hope that my luck would change with the dealers quickly evaporated as I lost every spin.

    I was down to $3 left in the terminal and I was just thinking I could bet it on one spin or just cash out and leave it as a tip. At this point I could use any good karma I could get my hands on so I tipped Celine my last $3 and took my Total Rewards card and left.

    I was still up overall and figured maybe I would go back to that "50 Lions" machine and give it another try. On the way there I stopped to play "Open the Vault" and quickly lost another $20 there getting maybe only two or three spins that actually paid me more than I bet.

    I finally went to the "50 Lions" machine and was playing at 50 cents per spin. Things were going pretty good with some decent wins and then I hit the bonus game where I won $65.

    At the end of the bonus game all the buttons were flashing and the game was showing my credits and my credits won, but the credits won weren't added yet to my total credits. These games with the "TAKE WIN" button, whenever I push them to take the credits they always seem to spit out the voucher and do the full cashout so I went to push the START FEATURE button but hit the button below it by mistake which started a $1.50 bet.

    I don't normally play a game like this at that level but hit a fluke $12 win so I decided to play a few more spins at $1.50. The next spin won $10 and had two to the bonus, the third spin won $30 and had two to the bonus...

    Things seemed to be going pretty good and in the next spin I got the bonus game and that was a pretty big win.

    At this point I had about $430 in the machine and figured I play it down to $400 or up to $500 and then cash out. The next spin I am watching as I see five lion symbols on the first reel... five lion symbols on the second reel... four lion symbols on the third reel... four lion symbols on the fourth reel... five lion symbols on the fifth reel.

    So I am sitting there watching the game and seeing it count up "Line 1 wins 3000... Line 2 wins 3000... Line 3 wins 2000... Line 4 wins 3000..."

    I just sat there and let the machine count and then when it was done I expected the bell to go off: I was looking at the credits and it said I had $1606 in the machine... but then I realised that I had some of those credits before and that this one win was $12 short of being a hand pay (which is big being from Canada - they would take off 30% on a hand pay).

    I was going to play down to $1600 but wound up playing up to $1630 and then decided that I'd had enough and sheesh what a relief this was. I cashed out and went to the main cage and cashed in the voucher there.

    So I was pretty elated and after getting my money from the cashier I sat down and played some 100 play VP and then some Goldfish Race for the Gold where I was able to cash out up $10 more.

    At this point I had about $1900 in my pocket and didn't feel comfortable carrying that around with me so I figured Harrah's was just next door so I would go back and drop off a good chunk of the money in the room.

    I stopped at the liquor store at Carnival Court and paid $4.25 for a big can of beer (I thought they were cheaper than that there back in January) and then went to the room. When I got there I realised it was about 11:30 and wife said she'd probably come up to the room around midnight so I just turned on the TV and sat and drank my beer and ate the last of my bag of pretzels.

    When wife showed up she had some McDonalds that we shared and when we compared money she had played Lord of the Rings all night and was up to about $450 and when I added my money to the heap things were just such a relief - the trip was fun, but just we couldn't get anything going for gambling and getting ahead here.

    At this point we socked most of the money away as to go back home and then decided to go back down and do some more gambling.

    Wife played more Lord of the Rings and I did some Spin Poker and 50 Play poker until about 3AM when we finally turned in for the night.


    SUNDAY:

    I woke up at 9AM and went down and grabbed wife some McDonalds for breakfast. We were flying out tonight at 7:30PM so I wasn't going to eat until we got back to Vancouver.

    She was still sleeping when I brought the food up and so I just sat there and watched some shows on my media player until she finally got up and had her breakfast.

    We had a late checkout at 1PM so around 11:30AM wife went down to the casino to play a litle more after we were all packed and double and triple checked we weren't going to forget anything and then I just used the restroom in the room until 1PM.

    We checked our bags with the bell desk and then did a little gambling and some shopping. We had a fair number of rewards credits to use up and bought a few items from the stores with them.

    Around 2:30PM I was getting to the point where I was actually feeling burned out on gambling so I mostly just followed wife around and watched her play this and that until about 4PM where we went and got our bags from the bell desk and decided it was time to head to the airport.

    We were getting to the airport pretty early for a 7:30 flight, especially since the Phillipines Airlines counter doesn't open until 90 minutes before the flight. But there is normally a huge line here and we thought maybe we could get there ahead of the crowd.

    But no... its not even 4:30 and the line is already long. However the ticket windows are open so they are already processing people.

    It takes us an hour to get through the line which is much much slower than usual for this number of people and when we finally get up there we find out why: for every person they check in they also have to fill out a food voucher. Why? Because it turns out the flight is delayed 4 hours.

    So its now 5:30PM and our flight doesn't leave until 11:30PM. We decided instead of just sitting around the airport for five hours we'd just hop a cab to Hard Rock since we've never been there and its about the closest casino.

    Not too much I can say about Hard Rock Hotel: its not a place I would stay in the future. I don't really like the idea of staying off strip but also just seems like the wrong crowd for me. I guess the Rehab pool part thing was going on and hence why there were so many women walking around the casino in bikinis but overall the place just felt like the people there weren't interested in doing any gambling or anything else other than just hanging out in the walkways and hitting on members of the opposite sex like the place was a giant meat market.

    But we were here and had a few hours to kill. Wife mostly just sat at an "Invaders from the Planet Moolah" machine and wound up winning $100 off it over three hours while I played some "Star Trek" mostly and a few other games and was able to win $50 out of that.

    At 9PM we decided to finally head back to the airport. We used our food vouchers at Burger King. Buying a Whopper each and then spending the rest on packs of Famous Amos cookies. We found a spot to sit in the terminal and then I went and bought a bottle of raspberry flavored Absolut vodka from the duty free store and then there wasn't anything else to do but wait.

    The plane wound up boarding at 10:30 but we didn't take off until 11:40. It was an uneventful flight as I watched the movie "Ninja Assassin" on my media player while wife listened to music and slept. We landed in Vancouver and got off the plane at 2:30AM and of course our luggage was the second to last to come off the plane. We finally left the airport and caught a taxi where we got home at 3:15AM.



    And so ended our first ever winning trip to Las Vegas :) :) :)


    LINK TO PHOTOS:

    I took lots of random photos this trip, for those that might miss that feeling of being there :)

    http://ethor.com/clintccc/index.htm
     
  2. MNHornet09

    MNHornet09 Low-Roller

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    Nicely done. On the TR and the big comeback.
     
  3. thecarve

    thecarve Misanthrope

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    Good stuff, Auggie.

    Nice hit at IP!:thumbsup:

    I know what you mean about the steady stream of people down the aisles at Venetian. Stayed there in May and I noticed it big time. You would think that with all those people walking down the aisles, The Sands might be able to actually make a few bucks off them. :confused2:Evidently not.

    Thanks for the report.
     
  4. VegasBJ

    VegasBJ VIP Whale

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    Re: Stream of people - was there a convention going on in the back at the Conv. Center?

    Good job on the comeback!
     
  5. sb_039

    sb_039 Tourist

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    Great trip report. Thanks for sharing!
     
  6. Auggie

    Auggie Dovahkiin

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    This wasn't really a particular to this trip occurrence - there just always seems to be this big constant mob at Venetian walking around up and down the main walkways of the casino.

    This time it just got to me because one of the games I was playing had me sitting right on the edge of the walkway and I had my chair bumped a good dozen or so times.
     
  7. jgates8

    jgates8 VIP Whale

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    Auggie where was that Stargate/McGyver machine at? (I'm assuming from the haircut on Richard Dean Anderson it was Stargate?)
     
    Easter again..:
  8. Auggie

    Auggie Dovahkiin

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    It is Stargate :)

    They are in the casino area next to the lobby, right on the main walkway. Was a small bank of these where one side was the Stargate slots and then the other side was the Three Stooges slot machines (the Queen: We Will Rock You slots were right behind these as well).
     
  9. JSR1968

    JSR1968 Low-Roller

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    A good trip report after starting out with TMI!!!
     
  10. VegasDiva

    VegasDiva VIP Whale

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    Loved the report
    Sorry you both started your trip off with a bad cold UGH , but you paced yourselves and enjoyed anyway :)

    got to try different machines, and new ones too

    I didn't realize Phillipine Airlines flys from Canada in to LV lol
     
  11. Auggie

    Auggie Dovahkiin

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    Its usually one of the cheapest options for flying home and the departure time is 6:45PM or 7:45PM so its like you get an extra day. They fly from Las Vegas to Vancouver and then on to Manila.
     
  12. raraavis

    raraavis VIP Whale

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    there are lord of the rings slot machines?!?!?! :faint: you said they were just installed? i missed them by like a week! darn it! :cry:

    nice report, thanks for the pics.:wave:
     
  13. Auggie

    Auggie Dovahkiin

    Joined:
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    Location:
    Burnaby, BC
    Trips to Las Vegas:
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    Thank You!

    Yes the Lord of the Rings slots were being installed in the Harrah's casinos (looks like they have some kind of exclusive deal on them for now) on June 30th and July 1st.

    I wrote up a pretty detailed review and explanation of the game and the bonuses on another site at:
    http://blonde4ever.yuku.com/topic/16042
     
  14. technolight

    technolight Low-Roller

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2010
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    aberdeen scotland
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    4
    Once again another masterpiece from Auggie , Great TR.
     
  15. raraavis

    raraavis VIP Whale

    Joined:
    Jan 31, 2010
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    NJ
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    i became addicted to the star trek slots on my last trip, which ended on june 26th (missed the lotr slots by only a few days). i think i would love this game. too bad i won't be back for about a year. maybe by then, they'll have more machines in more casinos.

    thanks for the write up about how it works; it sounds awesome!
     
  16. bshowell

    bshowell VIP Whale

    Joined:
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    Great read. Lots of detail, too. What camera do you use? Pics are nice.
     
  17. VegasDiva

    VegasDiva VIP Whale

    Joined:
    Apr 23, 2009
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    Calgary , Alberta , Canada
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    nice!!
    we have direct flights from Calgary with either
    WestJet .... 2 flights leave LV at 7pm or 9pm
    Air Canada....1 flight at 6pm

    usually try to get those! as its a short flight about 2.5 or so hrs
     
  18. Auggie

    Auggie Dovahkiin

    Joined:
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    Thanks!

    The camera I use is a Sony Cyber-shot 12.1 megapixel camera

    I believe my wife paid about $200 CAD back in November but it goes for about $140 CAD now at our local big electronics retailer.

    What I like about it is it has an "Intelligent Auto" mode (I+ Mode) which is how I take most of my pictures.

    What this I+ mode does is almost every time I take a picture it actually takes two pictures using different settings for each. So if I take a photo the first picture might use flash and set certain light settings to some level and then the second picture might use no flash and lighting settings to a different level.

    For the double shots the memory card I have holds something like 550 12 megapixel photos so its not like I am going to run low on space and you can also turn that mode off so you can set all the settings yourself and use them (IE: if in a museum you might want 'museum mode /w no flash' for taking your pictures).

    The two downsides I think of for this camera are:

    1) It uses a special Sony USB cable. I don't know how hard it will be to replace this thing. I am thinking if I ever lost it I would have to order a replacement from Sony directly as I don't think my local electronics store would have these in stock.

    2) It uses Sony memory sticks. Not a big deal, but for my old camera I had two 8GB memory cards and with this camera I had to buy a whole new memory card and now the old ones just sit around doing nothing. This is more of a complaint of "why couldn't they have just made the camera so it uses the same memory cards that almost every other camera uses?" but then I guess they wouldn't be able to sell their own memory cards... :)
     
  19. bshowell

    bshowell VIP Whale

    Joined:
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    DMV
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    oh i like the sound of the intelligent auto mode. very nice.
     
  20. ilvegaslover

    ilvegaslover Tourist

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2008
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    Location:
    Chicago area
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    78
    Enjoyed your report and pictures. I learned something about my new camera from your reply. Maybe I should read my user's manual :wink2: Too bad you were sick but you seemed to manage despite that.

    Way to go coming back with that great win on the last evening and no taxes too!
     
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