FREE Trip to Vegas – Feb 1 – 3, 2013

I'd like to warn you all that this is a very long and detailed TR. Possibly longer and more detailed than what some of you are use to. Why is it so long and detailed? Mainly because I can, and secondly, if I'm lucky enough, one day my kids will be reading this to me while I'm sitting in an old folks home suffering from Alzheimers.

Let me just start off by explaining what I had won. I won a 2 night trip for 2 to Las Vegas that included flight, hotel, $500 spending money and a Richard Petty driving experience, collectively valued at $5,000.

Upon hearing this, a lot of people will ask me how I won such a prize, simple, I entered a contest. Their immediate response usually is – “I never win anything”. To which I reply with “Well, do you ever enter contests?” Most of the time they’ll say no, go figure!

I told myself that the next time I get a WynnCore room comp; I’m going to invite my parents, so that they can experience it firsthand. Well this wasn’t quit it, but close enough! I chose my Mom as my guest for this prize. Then once the flight details were finalized, I simply purchased an additional ticket for my Dad. His ticket was close to $800, but I had a $150 travel voucher that I won from a different contest in the past, so that softened the blow.
After many months of waiting, the day finally arrived, and we were headed to the airport, at first, we were gonna ask my sister to drop us off and then pick us up, but then decided against it, since it was only for a few days and it’d be more convenient if we just parked the car there.

11:30AM Westjet direct flight to Las Vegas, we get there with plenty of time, park in the Value Park Garage, ride the tram over to the outbound terminal, check in and wait. The average speed of the plane was about 450MPH. Uneventful flight, so I had to observe stuff to keep myself occupied, what I did observe was that the 3 ladies sitting in the row in front of me were French, they chatted quite a bit, from the information that I gathered, they were talking about the Spice Girls and Posh Spice. How do I know this? Because they said Spice Girls and Posh Spice.

I must have been sitting around some guys that were on a business trip or they were just simply ballers! When the flight attendants walked around asking if they wanted to buy ear buds and blankets, a lot of ear buds and blankets were sold. Then they bought sandwiches and several cans of booze, one guy even had 3 “bottles” of red wine.

I don’t get it. Why spend five bucks on ear buds and five bucks on a blanket when you can bring your own. Why spend $6 on a CAN of Molson Canadian when you can just wait a few hours and get a Corona for a dollar, and these guys just didn’t stop at one can, they bought several cans each. I guess they wanted to start the party early!

*Side Note: One other thing I don’t get is the whole online check-in process, they have you check in online, print your boarding pass, but when you get to the airport, you still have to check-in again using the kiosk, scan your boarding pass, scan your passport, and they issue you a luggage tag and a new boarding pass. So what was the point of me checking in online? I just had to do everything over again, minus a few buttons.

I feel that pretty much every trip report I read on here has a reference to BeeeJay or NateDogg, well now it’s my turn. You guys will never guess which gate and row I sat in! I kid you not! Gate 20, Row 17. So I’m sitting on the plane thinking this has to be a sign right? These are VMB Numbers, I’m meant to play some roulette on this trip and I’m to play these numbers! Oh boy, this ought to be good. I could already picture myself helping some single mothers pay their bills and putting some poor girl through college with the money that I will win from Roulette.

Even though I only got around 5 hours of sleep the night before, I didn’t sleep much on the plane ride. To kill time, I watched the entire Step Up Revolution movie from my phone. I was planning to just watch a bit of it, then doze off. After that, I practiced some BlackJack on my phone, practiced counting cards, practiced JacksOrBetter, I was preparing for a big haul!

We arrive on time, depart the plane, as we’re leaving the flight attendant says “baggage claim to your left” but as soon as you walk out a sign in the sky says “baggage claim” and points right. A lot of people followed the sign, but I figured she must have been saying it for a reason and she works here, so I’ll take her word for it. Turns out she didn’t disappoint. What probably happened if you took the right was that it would have brought you to an escalator to take you down, and then make you walk in the ‘left’ direction anyway.

We collect our bags, make our way over to the shuttle. We’re taking the shuttle because our package includes round-trip shuttle transfer, hey why not, saves us an extra $40-$50 on cab fares. Since my package was meant only for two people, we had to pay an additional $7 each time for the third person.

Took us a while to find the correct bus, since most of the shuttles we saw were for car rentals, but we finally found it, I get on the bus, turn on my phone, look at the time 2PM not bad, uh-oh, missed call from my uncle. My dad’s brother, lives in San Jose, so him and his wife drove down from there to meet us in Vegas, the missed call was probably just them telling us that they’ve arrived. They wanted to pick us up at the airport, but I told them that meeting at the hotel lobby would have been much easier.

The shuttle would be making several different stops dropping people off at various hotels, luckily, our hotel, the Monte Carlo was the very first stop! We get to the lobby, I prepare my $20 sandwich and I line up to check in, not a very long line, there were about 4 people working the counters. I’m next in line, I spot a rather cute looking girl who was working the counters, so I’m secretly chanting under my breath “cute girl, cute girl” hoping that I get her. She looks up and calls me over, yes, secret chanting does work!
I hand her my $20 sandwich, she sets everything down and pretends not to see the $20 bill, she punches some stuff into her computer and says “I can get you a higher floor strip view, it’s usually $20 extra a night, but I can waive that for you, and how does that sound?” I said sure, I’ll take it! (Even though, on my reservation it already said higher floor strip view. I didn’t care, I was just happy that I finally got the $20 trick to “work”. The last time I tried doing this at Excalibur, it didn’t work, the lady said I was already upgraded, and gave me back my 20, so much for that experience). So I’m on the 29th floor, she’s handing me back my driver’s license, my new MLIFE card (I had the old MGM card, she changed it out for me), and goes “oh, thank you” and pockets the 20 (she did that in a very cute fashion) and finally the credit card.

So while she’s processing, I ask her for an extra room key card, for my dad. She probably thought I wanted it for the hooker, but who could blame her, I’m so attractive that hookers just throw themselves at me. We make small talk and I ask her “what’s good around here” and she tells me Haze (that’s a club) and I say I’ve never been and ask her what else is good, then she tells me that Marquee is pretty good too (that’s another night club), so I’m guessing this girl like to snort her paychecks and party!
By the time we get up to room, it’s already 3PM. 30 minutes behind schedule, but no worries. I call my uncle and he says he got there around 1PM; they’ve checked in at the LVH and will be right over! Perfect. We’re hungry so we’re gonna go get some McDonald’s at the food court, meet us there! Before heading over to the food court, I make a quick detour to the MLife desk to redeem my MyVegas reward, I had a $50 Food Comp at the Monte Carlo, and everything went smooth and easy. Over at the food court, we easily locate the renowned golden arches, 20 nuggets for five bucks, how can you go wrong?

We meet up with them, sit around for 10 minutes talking, look at some maps, then we’re off to the Hoover Dam. He wanted to show up the new concrete bridge they built connecting Nevada to Arizona? Cool beans with me bro! It’s suppose to be a quick 25 minute drive, but we get a little lost and have to double back, so it took us almost an hour to get there. We get there, there’s still some light out, but not much, we park, get out, walk the bridge. Walk from Nevada all the way to Arizona, and then back again. Not bad. Hop back in the car, this time we drive around the underpass so that we can see the bridge from the side view.

It’s a concrete bridge built in the middle of a dry dam that connects two states. Iono, I still think the Confederation Bridge is more impressive. That shit was built on water!

Alright it’s getting late now and we haven’t really eaten anything since this morning, so off to find food. Where to? The Rio’s All You Can Eat Seafood Buffet of course! $45 per person, BUT! With the Total Rewards card, it’s only $40 per person, plus! I had $85 in TR credits to spend ($55 from a TR contest win, and $30 from SocialRewards) so we use that, and it worked out to about $25 per person with tax, not bad!

I think it was pretty delectable, I ate two plates of the lobster tails, piled with shrimp and crab legs, a plate of oysters, and a plate of sashimi, as well as various other seafood choices. It was noted that the lobster didn’t seem the freshest, but it’ll do. Yes, I would eat there again.

After that, we headed back to the Monte Carlo to park the car and then walk the strip. First stop, the M&M store. My aunt wanted to go there to look for something for her daughter who they would be visiting in San Diego tomorrow (we would have gone too, but we were pressed for time, since our trip was so short). While they were in the store, I saw a commotion gathering outside, naturally I had to look, turns out this guy had a sign up where it said you could kick / punch him in the nuts for $20, no cup, and no trick! Some girl did pay him to do it, and either he’s a really good method actor or it genuinely hurt. I guess one demonstration is enough for the crowd, since after that no one else paid him to do it again, so we all moved on.

After the M&M store, we drop by the Coca-Cola store, since it’s right next door, do some more perusing, then begin to make our way to the North end of the strip. My uncle wanted to show my parents the Venetian. We get to a traffic light, we stop and wait for the light to change, duh! While we’re waiting, I get approached by a guy in a suit. He’s handing out wristbands for a club over at the Monte Carlo, all I had to do was take the wrist band, put it around my wrist, duh! Show up, and I would be taken to the front of the “line”, pay a $20 cover and I would be in. Ladies get in free and get free drinks. Ugh! What’s the opposite of penis envy? I looked at him with skeptical eyes, and asked what’s the catch, he said no catch, you don’t pay me for anything, he’s just out there trying to create a buzz, creating awareness for the club, and trying to draw customers away from the competition, that’s all. So I take the wristband and tell him that I’ll check it out. I would have gone, but I didn’t want to pay a $20 cover just to “check out” a club and hang around by myself. I would have rather taken the $20 over to the high limit room and done one slot pull.
As we’re making our way North, I tell them to get a good look at Bill’s, ‘cause next time they’re around, it won’t be there, they’ll be tearing it down on Monday for renovations. Then as we pass O Shea’s I tell them about the LINQ project and the world’s tallest observation wheel. We walk by Carnival Court, I tell them about flare bar tending. Maybe it’s due to the construction going on around it now, but it seems really closed off, whereas I remember it use to be pretty open. It also seemed like they were checking ID and charging cover in order to get in.

We finally make it to the Venetian, snap a few pics of the outside, head in to use the washroom, then cross the street to begin our journey back to the hotel. We walk by the Mirage and just as I feared, the Volcano is “closed due to maintenance”. I wonder how long it’s been closed for. Continue walking and continue to ignore the porn slappers, man that’s a long walk, lots of overpasses and bridges to cross. We finally make it back to the hotel, decide that we’ll meet back up at 8:30AM tomorrow morning.
You would think that this would be the end of Day 1, but it’s not! As soon as we hit the lobby, I turn to my parents and say, you guys go get ready for bed, I’ll be up in a bit! Head straight for the blackjack tables, $15 limits, not bad, I was expecting $25 tables since it was Super Bowl weekend, but I make my rounds and I find a somewhat empty table, two guys are playing, I see that the shoe is almost done, so I pull out my $200 and say i’ll wait till the next shoe, in case they’re on some sort of heater. One of the guys turns to me and says, feel free to jump in, she’s killing us, we could use the help. I tell him, naw, I’ll just wait till the next shoe, then the dealer turns to me and says, they might not last that long. I reply with: What? Then why would I jump in?

She cleans one guy out, so he leaves, then the other guys starts betting big, $100 a hand, he wins, presses his bet, he wins, bets $200, he wins, he won four or five hands in a row. Enough to color up to a purple. He loses one hand, but then he would win the next four five hands. He loses another hand, and he says he’s done.

So now there’s no one left at the table, and the shoe is still not finished. He seemed to be on some sort of a hot streak, but he didn’t want to continue it, and without anyone else playing, there’s no chance for a new shoe, so I sit down with my buy-in of $200, $100 in nickels, $100 in quarters. I’m thinking alright, one on one with the dealer is the way to go, I’m going to ride his hot streak then, if he doesn’t want it. As soon as I place my bet, he places his bet, F****ER, so now we’re back to 2v1. I would lose 2 hands, win 1, lose 2 hands, push 1, lose 2 hands, win 1. You don’t need to be a mathematician to figure out that at this rate, I won’t last very long. My drink hasn’t even arrived yet, and I’m already down $100 playing $15 a hand. My drink finally arrives, and I quickly leave the table with $50 left. That 1 Corona cost me $151.

I take my two $25 chips and head for the cage, thinking this isn’t my night. On my way to the cage, I pass by a roulette table, alright, I’ve got some “lucky” numbers, time to try some roulette. Once again $15 min, I change my $50 into chips and start betting. Start out “heavy” with $5 on #20, and $5 on 17, then placing the remaining of my chips on numbers surrounding it. I have one chip on the corner of #26 and I hit that, hmm, payout is not that much on 1 chip with a corner bet. I place a couple more chips on #20 and #17, then the remainder of the chips on various other surrounding numbers. I don’t hit my “lucky numbers” but I do hit 1 of the other ones, okay, better payout, but still not enough. Let’s try it again, spread some more chips around, this time 1 chip in each number, still covering 20 and 17 and it’s surrounding, Single zero? Why not. I hit it! Hmm, these winnings are climbing but very slow, this is going to take forever, so I color up, before I end up giving it all back. I make my way to the cage and leave with $69 in cash.

Maybe I lost that $150 because it was karma coming back to haunt me, because I didn’t want to sit down and “rescue” those two guys who were playing blackjack when they asked, and that I was trying to ride the end of that guys heater. Then maybe the small roulette win was the good deed I did while I was at the MLife desk getting my comp, I helped an elderly lady attach her players card to her lanyard.

I head back up to my room, only to find that my dad was missing from the room, turns out he also went back down to gamble. He later comes back up to tell us that he lost $20 playing slots. By the time I make my way to my bed it’s already 3AM.

Okay, end of Day 1, finally. I know! Tell me about it, I’m the one doing all the writing.

 

Nice TR! Even nicer when it's free, congratulations. Can't wait to read your Richard Petty experience.

 

Sounds like a great start so far, especially for $free.

 

I'm looking forward to the next update on your trip report. First one had me cracking up in spots.

 

Great start, love the detail and your observations.

 

Day 2

For some reason I never sleep well while in Vegas, but I always wake up feeling refreshed. This trip was no different, I would wake up every hour on the hour only to check the time, but every time I woke up, I felt refreshed already, even though I only slept for a few hours.

I set my alarm clock for 7:30, but woke up at 7, ah screw it. I’m waking up now! We were to meet my Uncle down at the lobby at 8:30. I had 2 comped tickets to go see Zarkana over at Aria, courtesy of MyVegas. Since these were comped tickets, I had to pick them up before 4PM; otherwise they would be released and given to others. I purchased an additional ticket for myself, but if I wanted to sit where my parents were sitting, the ticket would cost $150, I didn’t want to pay so much for the ticket since we would all be watching the same show, so the cheapest ticket I could find was $95. Sold!

While my parents are still getting ready, I quickly solo it over to Aria, which is right next door, make my way over to the Zarkana box office, I knew that they wouldn’t be open this early, but I just wanted to go there to find out what time they would be open. (The concierge at my hotel didn’t open till 8). I was hoping that the sign would say they’d be open at 9, that way I could just tell my folks, let’s hang around here for another 30 minutes while I go pick up the tickets, but when I got there, the sign said 10AM.

So that’s wasting too much time, so I’ll just have to cab it all the way back to Aria from the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, then make my way back to Freemont. It’ll be costly this way, but I don’t want to lose out on $300 worth of free show tickets.

We wait outside in front of the hotel, where all the taxi and limo’s are coming and going for my uncle, it’s almost 9:30, where could he be? Maybe they over slept? Not likely, but who knows, let’s give them a quick call. Turns out he stopped for gas, which I found odd, since he just got gas yesterday before coming to pick us up again, and we didn’t drive all that much. He says he gets charged for incoming long distance minutes, so that one quick phone call probably negated all the cost savings he endured at the pump.

When he finally gets here, we all hop into the car. We’re headed to Chinatown, I don’t think I’ve ever been there before, Google tells us that its one mile west of Treasure Island. After a short ride, we get there, and I must admit, Chinatown Las Vegas was a lot bigger than what any one of us had expected. We were expecting a small two way street with shops lined up on both sides, where you could see the end of it from one end to the other. It was much larger than that, it spanned about two great plazas, with one of the plazas holding a mini-mall in it.

We were all pressed for time, so we didn’t explore the mini-mall. We walked around the plaza trying to decide on what to eat and waiting for 10AM to arrive, since that’s when most of the shops and restaurants were open. 10AM finally rolls around and we decide on Dim Sum.

The restaurant was pretty big for a Las Vegas Dim Sum restaurant, there was only one other table there at the time, so we were instantly greeted and offered a great selection of food. They had their food on the old fashioned push carts, that way you could see exactly what it is you’re ordering. They practically brought out 3 carts worth of food for us to choose from, and for a moment I thought that all the servers there were on commission and trying to sell congee, ‘cause every single one of them asked if we wanted congee.

The food there wasn’t bad, it came out to about $60 for all 5 of us, but we were all pretty full. By the time we settled up the bill, the restaurant was pretty full, guess we were just too early. During brunch I told my uncle about the tickets and he said he’d drop us off back at Aria so that I could pick up the tickets. So after lunch we quickly zip back down the strip to Aria, self-park, walk quickly to the second floor, and I pick up my tickets. Then as we’re passing by the downstairs ticket booth, I decide to ask one of the guys working there if they knew where the Motor Speedway was since I had to be there for 11:30 to partake in my Nascar driving experience. I knew the general direction and which freeway to take, but I wasn’t sure which exit to get off at. The guy at the counter didn’t know, but he said he would look it up, and after looking it up, he told me exit 48.
So we thanked him and made our way to the car. We hop in the car, hop back onto the I-15N find exit 48, pull off. Uhhh, this doesn’t seem right, the Motor Speedway is a major attraction, and for sure they would have plenty of signs directing you to it, but we didn’t see any as we were driving. While my uncle is driving, we’re headed to the nearest gas station to ask for directions, I pull out the map and I locate it, the map says take exit 54. Since we’re already at the gas station, I hop out and ask for directions; both the attendant and the patron inside gave the same instructions, take exit 54. I thanked them and was on my way.

About 2 exits before 54, we start seeing signs for the Motor Speedway; ah this is more like it! After we take the exit and follow the signs, it was still a good 5 minute drive in order to find the correct entrance, since there were other exotic car racing locations there was well, we had to find the Richard Petty one.

We finally make it there and its noon, I was suppose to be there for 11:30. Yikes! I thank my Uncle and Aunt for their time, they’re headed to San Diego to visit their daughter then back off to San Jose. I go inside, inform them that we’re here, and pass them our paper work. Basically the paper work said that whatever happens to us during our time there, we’re not gonna sue. The things people will sign just to get what they want! Prenup anyone?

If you’re a little lost, let me back track a bit. This was a driving experience that was included in the prize package that I had won, myself and my guest would get to drive a Nascar car around the big oval track, the car has the potential to go up to 165MPH. They purchased what they called a King’s Experience, which meant that we would get to do 18 laps and the entire experience would cost about $900+TAX per person! We were suppose to be there for 11:30 for orientation and training to be followed, the whole experience would last a few hours and should be out of there by 3. (If I didn’t pick up my tickets this morning, I would have had to Amazing Race style it back over to Aria to pick up my tickets or risk out on losing them, see the stress?).

My mom was my guest on this trip, but she didn’t want to do it, so I registered it under my dad. We were the last two people to arrive; it was a group of 7 participants in total. After filing in the forms, they gave us track suits to wear, which to my surprise were pretty comfy. After that’s done, we head into a smaller room where they give us a brief intro, and have us watch a safety video, after the safety video, they recap and re-explain what’s going to happen. Once that’s all said and done, they bring you to the back of the room, have you put on some headphones and watch another instructional video. Once that is over with, they give you a 5 minute washroom break (WTF?) I don’t know, but I utilized it!

Once that quick break is over, we all head on over to the Nascar and take our picture with it. Then we head on over to the pit area, where we are seated and they go over more safety stuff and introduce us to the instructors that will be riding shot gun with us. They explain to us that the instructors won’t have control of the wheel, but they will have control of the speed panel, which the instructor will unlock certain speeds depending on how well they feel we’re doing.

We get to hop in the car “Nascar style”,meaning there is no door and you have to enter through the window. They connect a microphone to your helmet so that you can communicate with your instructor, plug in a usb so that they can record your performance, ask you to smile while they take a picture and they go over some last minute instructions with you.

Basically when you’re driving, the wheel will tilt to the left, since this is Nascar, so when you’re on the straightaway you need to adjust this by steering to the right a bit. Throughout various parts of the track you’ll see painted white lines that are a few feet apart, basically these are “gates” and you want to drive your car through them every time. When you’re rounding a corner there will be an orange pylon on your right hand side, once you reach there, you take your foot off the gas pedal and just coast the corner, as soon as you’re done the corner, there will be another pylon on your left hand side, that is when you can once again put your foot on the pedal and pick up speed once again. The distance between each pylon is about 1.5 seconds.

They have 4 cars on the track, 3 of those cars were reserved for people doing the King’s Experience, which was everybody in our group of 7. The other car was reserved for people who simply purchased an 8 lap right along, which cost them about $99.

I was in the second group, so I got to watch others go first and see what it was all about. You do 1 practice lap, to let you get the feel of it, then you do 7 more laps to get the hang of it, then you come back to the pit stop for a “break” and you talk to your instructor for a brief minute to see what you did wrong and what you could improve on, then you head on back out again for the remaining 10 laps. Then there you have it, that’s a thousand dollars.

I’m not that familiar with stick shift, so the instructor guided me through and switched gears for me. I wasn’t as tall as the other drivers so I needed two “back cushions” in order for me to reach the clutch, but what that did was it shifted me a little too forward so the steering wheel was practically right in my face, so I had to do a chicken wing motion with my arms out to the side in order to drive. Picture an old Asian lady driving the car with her face up against the steering wheel. Who knows you may even have an aunt who drives like that.

There was a “gate” that I kept missing, the reflection of the sun on the ground hid the white paint, but if you knew what you were looking for then you would have seen it. I kept passing through that gate but incorrectly, until I guess the instructor got fed up with it and said “okay, there’s the gate right there” As soon as he said that, I saw it, it was one of those “oohhhh, stupid me” moments.

I think I did alright, I did get to pass somebody, he was just driving too slow. Once your turn is over, you head over to a food truck looking vehicle and you can pick up your time sheet, certificate, with options to purchase the video that they recorded of you for $99, as well as some of the photos that they had you pose for before. I guess they assume you’re a baller since they already had two of my pictures up on this nice looking plaque for another hundred bucks. I wanted to purchase a smaller plaque that was about half the size, but then thought about the weight of it all and how I would have to lug it around all day. So we just ended up purchasing four photos, for $20 each, each with those “fancy” covers.

It doesn’t seem all that fast when you’re only 1 of 4 cars out on the track and it seems like you’re all alone out there since they space you out pretty nicely, which makes perfect sense in case you crash. Looking at my score sheet, I completed laps in about 50 secs and topped out at 129MPH. I was a little disappointed with my top speed, had I had known I was only going that fast I would have gunned it a bit more. Everyone said that was a pretty good speed, but I wanted to go FAST, I guess you could say I was FURIOUS.

The cheque that I got as part of my prize money was actually for $550, they included an extra $50 in there because according to the documents, they’re suppose to collect a $25 fee per person at the end of your ride, but I didn’t see them collect it from anyone else and I for sure as hell wasn’t going to ask them who I give this $50 to. So instead, I took that money and used it to buy some souvenir photos, so the company still made their money.

My dad was in the third group, and if you’ve been doing your math, this meant that he would be out on the track all by himself, so yes, he was an even bigger baller than everyone else, and he had the whole track to himself. His top speed was about 109MPH.

My thoughts on the driving experience? It wasn't worth the thousand bucks, I didn't get the RUSH! that I was expecting and hoping for when you drop a grand to experience something. I mean, if somebody was to pay for it again in the future, yes i'd definately do it again.

As soon as he was done the first half of his session, I went back inside and asked them to call me a cab, they said they had a guy named “Eddie” who’s their go to guy and always come out here. According to the staff there he’s pretty much the only cabby that’s familiar with this place and who will come out here when called. So it was safe to say that he gets the majority of the fares, which is pretty smart on his move, since this is out in the middle of nowhere and no one else knows where this is.

As I was running back inside, I see this guy in suit standing next to this nice black looking SUV, I knew that he was a chauffeur, and someone probably hired him for the day. As I come out, he asks me if it’s over, I explain to him that I was in the 12PM time slot and that I was pretty much last. He said his fare asked him to be here for 2PM, but it was almost 2:30 and he hasn’t seen them yet. He asked where I was going, I told him back to Freemont, he says he’s gotta stick around and wait for his fare, but he’s only picking up 3 people, and his vehicle sits 7, so he could probably fit us in and drop us off as well and that he wouldn’t charge me full price. I asked him how much, and he didn’t know, so he asked me how much I paid to get here, I told him forty, he seemed skeptical, so I said it again to reassure him, “yeah, it was forty including tip” He’s like alright, I gotta check with the others, but it shouldn’t be a problem.

I’m thinking, sweet, gonna get to ride in a fancy car. By now my dad is done his race, and his other fare still hasn’t shown up yet. So I run back inside and ask them if they could call the cabby and see where he is, since it’s been almost 30 minutes since we called. They said he was a minute away and that he was picking up someone from Exotic Racing, which is literally just across the parking lot. Wait a minute, I just saw a cab leave, does that mean, he picked up someone first, gonna drop them off and then come back to pick us up? Cabbies will lie in terms of time in order to get the fare, by the time he doubles back for us it could be over an hour. That will be an extra hour that I just wasted sitting in the Nevada desert with no food and water. So I tell the staff that I just saw a cab leave from Exotic Racing (which was true), so is he sending someone else? Or is he coming back? ‘Cause if he was gonna come back for us, I was gonna hitch a ride with SUV dude. That’s when the other staff member chimed in and said their understanding of the situation was that there would be another cab on the way.

Alright, I go back out side, and the SUV’s original fare is here, so they all pile into the car, they’ve must have been talking in the car, ‘cause they roll down the window and open the door telling us to hop in. I tell them one sec, I’ma go tell my parents. My parents didn’t want to go; they said we’ve already got a cab coming. Fine, I run back and tell them, thanks for the offer, but we’ll wait for our cab.

Ten more minutes pass by and our cabbie finally arrives, it’s not Eddie, but one of his friends that was “nearby” so he picked up the fare, he said he was just dropping someone off around the corner from here when he got the call, so he swung by. Bro, you were “nearby” and it still took you 15 minutes to get here? He said he couldn’t find the place. “Sureeee!”
I tell him Freemont, and he’s like Freemont….repeating it like he doesn’t really know where it is, and I’m like yeah, Downtown. Golden Nugget area? Yeah, that’s the one bro. So off we go, man this guy is slow, his cab speed, not mentally. We’re in the middle of nowhere, there are no cars around, and you can over 10 over the limit yano. I make small talk with the guy and say “You’re a strip guy aren’t you?” He admits it and says yeah, that he usually just drops people off from one hotel to the other, but he’s been a cabbie in Vegas for a few years now. After about 20 minutes, we’re almost there, OMG. You’re kidding me right? You just missed the exit. How do I know he missed the exit? He said “Shit, I think I just missed the exit”. Finally we get to the Golden Nugget and the fare is 42 and change, I give him 45 and we all pile out. He’s like 45? I’m like, yeah 45, he takes the money and as he’s walking away, he’s mumbling to himself: “I drove all the way out there for a 2.50 tip?”

Yeah, I know he wasn’t happy, but I wasn’t happy either, you and your cabby friend had me waiting almost 40 minutes for a cab, when it should have only taken about half that, you didn’t know where it was, you were slow and to top it off, you missed the exit. The way I see it, more of that 45 would have been for you, if you got off on the right exit.

Regardless, we’re here now. We walk around a bit absorbing the new culture and new sights, then when we finally make it to Binions, I head inside, march straight to the Player’s Club desk to read what promo’s they have going on. $10 for new sign ups once you earn 10 points on your new players card, $10 match play coupon, Coupon for your first card being an ‘Ace’, as well as you get to swipe your card to spin the wheel once you get 5 points.

Okay, this promo seems decent enough, so I get my parents to sign up and I get a new card issued to me. I sit them down at the machine and tell them that they have to earn 10 points on their card and I’ll help them figure out the rest later. So they’re working hard on earning their points, and I go work my magic to earn my 10 points. I break even doing that, once I’m done that, I go see where they are at, they’ve only managed to get a couple points playing penny slots, okay this could take a while. So I take my dad’s card and go work my magic doing that, I lost $23 getting him those 10 points. Then I go back, switch out my dad’s card for my mom’s card and finish up the 10 points on her card.

We head on over to a ‘Promo slot area’ where we give in our coupons and play the slot machine, of course none of us walked away with real money, but instead we got a voucher to take a picture with $1 Million dollars, you can do this once a day. We were just going to take one photo, but the guy operating the camera ended up taking 3 photos of us, so we walked away with 3 free pictures.

Head on over to the Player’s Desk to redeem out points, match plays and the free ace coupons redeem both of theirs, then I hand them mine, and she says, the system says you’re a member since 2010. Yeah? So? This is only for new members? Oh shoot! I forgot, got caught up in the moment.
So we head on over to the machine to swipe our cards since we each earned the 5 points, My dad walked away with $10 in free slot play, my mom walked away with a free key chain, and I got $10 in table chips.
So we head on over to the tables to redeem their match plays and Ace coupons, my dad wins both of his coupons and my mom loses both of hers, I lose my $10 bet just as quick as well.

Finish up, the rest of the free slot play, and we’re about to leave, but just as I’m about to leave, I put my hands in my pocket and feel something, what’s this? A TITO for $17, OMG. I almost forgot to cash that out, I quickly cash that out.

My dad wanted something to eat so we headed over to Dunkin Donuts, bought a couple doughnuts and a cup of coffee, by the time we stepped back outside, daylight was gone and all the Freemont lights had come on. Snapped a quick pick of the D and saw someone Zipline, even though the lineup for ziplining was rather long, we only saw one person go through.
We continue our trek, not really stopping inside anymore casinos to check out their player’s card promos, since we were a bit pressed for time. We finally make it to the “end” of Freemont, head into a neighboring hotel, one with valet and hail a cab.

We hop in and I tell the cabbie: to the Wynn please. This is the second time I’ve hailed a cab from Freemont down to the Wynn, and I still hated doing it. I’m always thinking that they think I’m living at the Wynn and will long haul me and then expect a big tip. Sure enough the cabbie takes the freeway, I don’t say anything, but I’m thinking, isn’t it just down the street and to the right to get to the Wynn? But the way he was driving didn’t make it seem like he was trying to long haul us, only to avoid all the street lights and make it quick, ‘cause he was driving so fast that I swear we almost crashed twice. He gets off at Spring Mountain and we’re at the Wynn. The fare was $22 and change, I gave him $25 and stepped out, he didn’t mumble any complaints.

We walk inside, and are immediately greeted by majestic Chinese New Year displays, so we start snapping away, once that is out of the way, we start walking towards the Encore, until I spot the Player’s Card booth. So we head there, inquire about their promo’s, still the same for new members and still as shitty for existing members. Once new members hit 300 points, they can spin a wheel, where they can get $10 in free play, free show tickets, room comp, or 2 free buffet passes. Once they hit 750 points, they could redeem for 2 free buffet passes. Not gonna lie, that was my plan, to get the 2 free buffet passes, ‘cause I didn’t have anything else planned for dinner. Like I said, still crap for existing members 1,000 points will get you $10 in free play.

So we sign them both up, load them up with $10 in free play to start it off. I direct them over to the Encore, I like that place much better than Wynn, although they’re technically the same, they’re not! I like Encore much better, every time I walk through those doors, it feels like home, although it looks a lot nicer, smells a lot nicer and the décor is definitely nicer, it still feels like home. This place is much better lit and it’s not as crowded as Wynn, which I like. So, once again, same situation, they park themselves in front of a penny slot machine grinding through their free play, meanwhile I take my mom’s card and quickly rack up 350 points. I then walk her over to spin the wheel to see if my work is done for the night and if we get those buffet passes, but no, she only wins $10 in free play, of which she still has the original $10 she hasn’t used yet.

300 points to spin the wheel? Oh sorry, I thought it was 350, oh well, that means I’m already 50 points closer to the 750 milestone. So I go back, increase my bet and grind some more. Within the hour of signing up for the card, I hit the 748 mark. I figured I’d leave the 2 points for her to use her freeplay on.

I cash out $118 up from those points. Let her play through her freeplay until she has the 750, then head on back over to the desk and redeem for the 2 buffet passes. I ask the person behind the desk if this comp could be used at the Society Café and they said no, but if I reach 1300 points, then that comp could be used there. Ugh! Why didn’t you tell me in the first place? Had I had known, I would have worked for that 1300 points since we just had a buffet dinner last night and Society Café would have been a nice change, but I was tired and we were pressed for time.

We still had to do dinner and our Zarkana show over at the Aria was at 9:30. By now, my dad has racked up about 44 points on his card playing penny slots, with his original $10 free play, which wasn’t bad, if we weren’t so pressed for time I would have gotten him the 300 points required in order to do the free spin. Wasted opportunity, I know.

*Side note: If the Wynn/Encore had Platinum or Diamond in a Day, I probably would have tried to do that. I think next time I’m out, I’ll book a whole day off just to spend at Encore and try to earn 10K worth of free points, hopefully that will catch Steve Wynn’s attention and throw some more free nights my way.

Okay, so back over to Wynn, I know, I know, you’d much rather be in Encore for longer, but hey, that’s where the buffet is. I was slightly worried that being Saturday night, the lineup would be really long and it would be packed, but the line was short, we only waited a few minutes to be seated. I knew that charging people $40 a head would not deter people from eating here. Heck, this is Vegas, we pay thousands of dollars per bottle.
The food was a nice change from the Rio, not to mention the lighting, the scenery and the cutlery. They had several different choices of lamb and beef, pasta station, salad bars, and various different choices of Chinese food. We tried the Chinese food and it did not disappoint!

Let me just go on the record here by stating that I absolutely love the Encore and that Steve Wynn is a genius! Charging $40 a head to eat at his buffet, then serving them white rice. Jean-Yus!

Every time I go to a buffet, I always like to try their prime rib, that night was no different than any other night, I saved room for it, and OMG, the prime rib was so soft and flavourful, it felt like I was eating butter. I remembered that they had a better dessert selection than the Rio buffet, so I saved some room for that too.

Once dinner was over and done with, we hailed a cab and headed back over to Aria, got there at 9:15PM, since we were sitting at different sections of the theatre, we agreed to a meeting spot once the show was over, where else would we choose but the buffet.

I’ve read some reviews about this show and people complained about the pacing of this show that they didn’t like. After seeing the show for myself I still have no idea what they meant. I felt that the show was alright, that it was just any other circus show and not up to the level of Cirque show that I was use to (I’ve seen Mystere, KA and Zumanity). I must agree with some of the reviews that I’ve read that said the best part of the show was the very beginning, the girl who juggled tennis balls. Everything else, I’ve either seen or I could just easily YouTube it, so I wasn’t impressed.
Once the show was we met outside the Aria buffet and walked around the hotel to admire their CNY decorations then we proceeded to head on over to the Miracle Mile Shops, my mom wanted to check it out, ‘cause her mom told her about it. So that’s what we did. Boy, was it hot in there. I don’t know, I guess they just had the heat cranked up in there, to accommodate all the girls wearing short skirts or something.

Once that was done, we went over to the Bellagio foundations. I knew that the Bellagio had a nice CNY setup over in the observatory; I mean how could they not, when all the other hotels had one. When we finally got there, I must say, I was impressed with their design, after having looked at the Venetian’s, Wynn, Aria and Bellagio’s design, I would say Bellagio, gets my vote for best decorations hands down. They had lively decorations, music, firecracker sounds, it just felt….real.

When we finished snapping enough pictures of the decorations, I made my way over to the casino floor, I was looking for a slot game that I could just grind on, get a couple of free drinks and a couple of bottles of water, since we had all run out. I finally find a game that’s suitable to my needs $0.25 a hand, insert a twenty, order myself a Red Bull Vodka and a bottle of water. Down it, cash out at $22, go find my parents, give them the bottle of water, see that they’re once again playing penny slots, order another Red Bull Vodka, bottle of water and a Pina Colada for my parents from the CW.
Once we’re all hydrated, I informed them that this was the end of the tour, they were free to head back to the hotel, roam the strip some more or simply go gamble. They said that they wanted to head back to the hotel, so that they could go gamble in the hotel. So we did that, we started walking back towards the Monte Carlo, walking past right by Cosmo, cutting through the shopping mall connected to Aria and cutting our way across to the Monte Carlo. Once we got back to the hotel, the same regimen happened, we went up to the room, I changed, and we split ways for a bit.

So as soon as I’m done changing, put on a dash of cologne, I head downstairs to the lobby and hail a cab. I hop in and immediately ask the cabbie what’s a good strip club to go to? He says he’s not sure, Sapphires is pretty good, then there’s Treasures and of course Spearmint Rhino’s. He seemed pretty indecisive so I said to Olympic Garden. Truth is, that’s where I wanted to go, but I just wanted to see if he had any hookups for any of the clubs, yano, to see if he could get me in for free and get him a kickback of some sort.

After a $20 cab ride, I’m finally there, I thought it was closer, I walk in and the lady says $30. $30 for cover? OMG. If I had known that cover was going to be $30, I would have gone to Spearmint Rhino’s instead. I just spent $50 getting here, this place better be worth it! So I pay my cover, walk in, order myself a drink, brrrr, it’s cold in here. Get approached a couple of times, nothing fancy. These girls aren’t even 6’s, this place blows, I’m falling asleep here, not even the two Red Bull Vodka’s I had before are keeping me awake, if I didn’t just pay $30 cover to get in here, I would have walked right back out and headed over to Rhino’s.

I decide to check out the other side of the club, no not the male stripper venue, although, I’ll admit, I was curious as to how that looked and worked. I’ve always wondered what Channing Tatum had to do for a twenty. The other side was better, the place was more quiet. I get approached, I say yes, she dances, I pay her she leaves, then I get another dance by a different girl, song over, I pay her she leaves. I’m on my third dance now, and mid way through it, she’s trying to up sell me, asking me if I’ve been in the VIP lounge before and knew what it was all about. I didn’t so, she’s explaining to me the prices and what could be going on back there, and asks me if I want a tour. Once our dance is done, we go in for a quick tour, she takes me to the booth, we sit down and once again she’s going over price. $400 for 30 minutes seems extremely high. I tell her no, she drops the price and of course the time, I tell her no again, finally we’re down to $100, and I tell her no thanks, I’d much rather spend my money outside getting dances from different girls and she says okay, and leads me back outside. As soon as we get back outside, she walks away and moves on to her next customer.

Wait, a minute, I still haven’t paid her for that ‘half’ dance. Well if she’s not looking to collect, I for sure as hell ain’t gonna chase her down to pay her. I find my seat again and sit back down, I mean if she was to come back saying that I didn’t pay her, I would have paid her, but she never came back. I then get another dance from another girl, so in the end I got 4 dances for the price of 3.

Okay, that’s enough for now; I still need cab money to get back to the hotel, so I hail a cab. I still much prefer Spearmint Rhino’s, that’s still my fav place to go, I probably would have dropped even more money there easily, and it’s a lot closer than OG. I’m once again making small talk with the cabbie asking him that if he was coming from Freemont and headed to the Wynn, which route he would take, he said he would take the Freeway and get off at Spring Mountain since taking the local route, the traffic lights kill you. So I guess the other driver wasn’t hustling me. Or it could just be a common lie, all cabbies tell to tourists. Pay the cabbie his $20 and I’m back at the hotel.

I’m not calling it a night just yet, this is my last night. I pull out $200, find a blackjack table and sit down with a bunch of “quarters”. Once again, no luck, either I push my hand or I lose the hand. My seats not even warm yet and I’m already once again down $125. So I get up, try my luck at a different table, sit down with my $75, proceed to lose 3 hands straight, that’s it, there goes another $200.

Now I’m calling it a night, since the Monte Carlo doesn’t seem to be the place to gamble for me. By the time I find my bed it’s already 5AM. We’re waking up at 7:30 AM again tomorrow aren’t we?

 

Cool report. Love the details.

FYI You can call Spearmint Rhino from hotel and they will send a limo for you and give you free admission.

 

Thanks for the tip. I did that last trip, it felt weird having them send a limo for just two guys, although last time I stayed at the Wynn and having a limo pick me up in front of the Wynn was kinda nice.

We still had to tip the driver and grease the palm of the attendant who let us in and showed us our seats, so it still ran us about $50 each per person.

 

Love the report!!

I agree with you that the race experience isnt worth the money, I love cars and motorcycles but I think you get more thrills from higher G's rather than higher velocity.

 

but its so much better of an experience to get picked up in a limo and have them take you to your seat like a king rather than cab it over and then pay cover and make your way like a lost child.

 

Fun Report! Thanks for sharing.

 

Day 3 - Final Day

Of course we’re gonna get up at 7:30AM, it’s our final day in Vegas, got to make the most of it! It’s also Super Bowl Sunday.

Once I’m ready I look for our bus vouchers and take them out to read to find out which number we have to call to have the shuttle here. Oh shit! It says as soon you check into your hotel, call the shuttle company to arrange your return bus. Whoops.

So I grab the vouchers and head on down to the concierge and I ask them to make the arrangements for me. Perfect, the shuttle is arranged for 11:30. As I’m doing that, another guest working with the concierge beside me is asking them to print their boarding passes; I didn’t know you could do that! Damn, I don’t have my paperwork. Oh well, it’s time for breakfast, back up to the room I go.

If you recall I have a $50 food comp to use at the Monto Carlo when I redeemed it on Day 1, but haven’t gotten the chance to use it yet, breakfast seems like a good idea! Before we head on into the Cafe, I make sure that the food comp can be used here, we ask the cashier, she looks it over and says “well, this isn’t any of the restaurants listed on here, but then again, they do have ‘other’ checked off, so I guess this is ‘other’ and I will accept it! Excellent.

So we head on inside, sit down and start off with 2 coffees and a glass of milk. We each order our breakfast, I opt for the most expensive thing on their breakfast menu, which I think was about $14, pancakes, sausage, bacon, eggs, hash brown and toast! Surprisingly enough, I finished everything except one piece of toast. Once breakfast was ordered, I headed back over to the concierge’s desk and asked them to print my boarding passes, this time I came prepared! I had 2 reservation codes, since they were 2 separate bookings, I didn’t bother asking them to choose seats so that we could all sit together, it didn’t seem important now, since I planned to just sleep all of the way. When I get back to the restaurant, the food hasn’t even arrived yet, but shortly after it arrives. Had I had known that they would be charging us $3 each for a cup of coffee, I would have passed and chosen some freshly squeezed juice instead and just drank the coffee that the CW hands out, it probably the same stuff anyways.

Our bill comes and it’s $46 and change, with tax it comes out to $50.77. Wow, talk about coincidence, we didn’t bother doing rough calculations, we figured we’d have gone over the $50 comp and would pay a little extra out of it, I wasn’t expecting $0.77 extra.

So I go up and present my voucher along with a $1 bill, expecting to pay for the additional $0.77, but by my wording you probably already guessed it, she said I didn’t have to pay. Apparently, or at least that’s what the cashier did, they calculate your food comp before tax, so we were good to go. If I had known I had $4 left to spend, I would have spent it on an over priced glass of orange juice. Oh well. Since we had already left a tip for our server back at the table, I just pocketed the $1. Even though my meal was comped, I was still able to earn about 1,500 tier credits, which I think is a significant amount for 1 meal.

Checkout isn’t till 11AM, so we’ve still got some time. I have another $75 food comp over at the Sporting House in NYNY, which thankfully is just right “next door”. We also haven’t explored anything South of the Monte Carlo, so today with the final few hours remaining would be a good start.
So we head on over to NYNY, walk up to the Sporting House, it says that they’re not open till 11 on Sundays, so we’ve got some time left. We read the menu to decide what we’re gonna order. The plan is to get it to go and eat it at the airport, since our flight is at 2:15 and our shuttle to the airport is getting here at 11:30. My parents will go back to the hotel to finish packing and checkout, while I stay at NYNY and place the orders.
We just ended up spending the remainder of our time at NYNY, exploring the hotel, taking in the sights, playing the giant slot machine. When the time finally arrived, my parents went back to the hotel as planned and I stuck around waiting for them to open. 10:58, 10:59, 11:00, 11:01, 11:02, 11:03.

Okay, this is weird, they’re not open yet. I need to quickly place my order, have it to go and be on the shuttle by 11:30. So I go read their TV screen again, the one where I saw that they’re open at 11 on Sundays, then a couple of slides after that I noticed the message read: SOLD OUT for Superbowl Sunday. No Standing Room. Doors will open at 2:30PM for Ticket Holders. Ohhhh, FML! I just wasted the remainder of my morning waiting for a restaurant that wasn’t going to open.

(Originally, I was going redeem for the $75 NYNY food credit, but just as I was camping out for their reload times, my dad asked me to go help him with something, and I obliged, and when I came back, all those food credits were gone and I was leaving the next day, so I couldn’t try again)
So I quickly trek it back to the lobby of the Monte Carlo and deliver the news to my parents. We just sit around and wait till 11:30 arrives. We board the shuttle along with other guests who are also headed to the hotel. At the beginning of the trip, the Monte Carlo was the very first stop of the bus, so I wondered if we were also the very last stop headed to the airport. Turns out, I was wrong, it was just that on the way there, there was no one staying at NYNY so we bypassed it, but on the way back to the airport, we had to pick up someone. Why am I telling you all this? Because there were soooo many speed bumps! So many in fact that the girl sitting across from me looked like she was about to hurl because of the bumpy ride.
The bus ride was only a quick 15 minute ride and by the time we’re at the airport it’s not even noon yet. Once again, we go through the kiosk to get our luggage tags and have our boarding passes reprinted, even though we already did online check-in. Once that is done, we line up to have our bags stowed, after we hand over our bags, the lady at the check in counter says: Toronto….you guys know that your flights been delayed right? What? By how long? Ummm 3 hours. So you’ll now be flying at 5:15 instead of 2:15. What? Why? Because the plane from Calgary was late departing.
Since our bags have been checked, and we haven’t gone past security yet, we could technically still leave the airport for probably a good 4 hours and then come back before 5:15 and still make it on the plane. Issues: It’s a $20 cab ride back out to the strip, and then another $20 cab ride back to the airport, for just a few quick hours, with our minds constantly on our flight. Another issue would also be our tickets says 2:15, will security still let us in if we show up after 4? Or will we have a lot of explaining to do?
We decided not to gamble with a chance of being put on the no fly list so we just proceeded to go through security and wait it out at our gate. For whatever the reason, it took them almost 2 hours before they updated their screens and informed everyone else waiting at the gate that their flight would be delayed by 3 hours.

So, to pass the time, I slept, while my parents went shopping at the DFS. Then at around 3PM, we had an early dinner, late lunch at Carl Jr’s. After that, it was finally time to board. Flying back from the West coast is always my favourite, because it seems that you’re flying with the wind, which makes it a shorter plane ride, and since I’m running on very little sleep, that as soon as I hit my seat, I’m knocked out, and by the time I wake up, we’re almost there.

I’m not sure if it was because we were flying with the wind, or if the Pilot got the okay to fly faster to make up for lost time, ‘cause our top speed was about 600MPH. We got there in a little over 4 hours, which is usually a 5hr+ flight.

Beginning Bankroll: $1019
Ending Bankroll: $593

So I spent about $426 while I was there, then if you factor in the $100 for the additional Zarkana ticket and about $45 worth of resort fees that were billed to my credit card, I spent almost exactly the $550 cheque they gave me before my trip. Talk about perfect execution!

I didn't get to gamble as much as I wanted to but that will leave me something to do in Vegas next time.

Missed Connections:

• I was busy cycling my parents newly acquired Red WynnCore card that I think I forgot to put my own in to let Steve know that I was there
• I didn't get the opportunity to talk to some working girls. I didn't even get approached by any of them! I guess working girls do draw the line somewhere!
• I didn't get a chance to play JoB

 

good report. I thought you were jewish at first but you must be asian!

 

Very enjoyable report!

I am going to agree on the freeway for downtown to Wynn myself. I have been stuck in stop & go traffic WAY too many times going from downtown back to the strip. Even on the northern end.

 

Why did you think I was Jewish before?
Why do you think i'm Asian now?

 

great report with good detail

 

Thanks for sharing

 

Great report! This inspired me to start doing reports. I'm taking notes on how you did yours.

 

Thanks for your TR one of the best I've read ..