Flamingo/Supercross/Diamond May 3-6

I almost didn’t write this report since I don’t have any pictures and our debauchery level is pretty low, but there are some things that are worth sharing with my fellow Vegas travelers. First, I will say that I was fighting a head cold all weekend, so that put an additional damper on the debauchery.

We left LA around 0700 on Friday, May 3 after our usual stop at Starbucks before the freeway. The drive was clear sailing all the way. Around 0900, I called ahead to the Flamingo VIP check-in to see if we could block a room. We had a GO Luxury with view comped, but we’ve stayed so many times, we had a very particular request for our room. We prefer to be on the south side, on a higher floor with a room where the bed itself faces in the direction of the Bellagio fountains, these are rooms ending in 050, 054 or 058. The very nice lady said she could hold 23050 for us, but it wasn’t yet clean. We made it into town around 1100, amazingly, found a parking space in the garage rather easily and off we went to VIP check-in. Calling ahead is the ticket. Sure enough, 23050 was ready for us and we went straight to the room. A lot of people are down on the benefits of being Diamond, but I count this as one of the major perks. There are several worthy things about it, in fact, that I will try to call out in this report.

After reading all the great reports here, we had worked up the courage to drop $100 on roullette as our first bet. We found an empty table in the Margarittaville casino and told the guy we had never played before. He was very friendly and we took our $100 in ten $10 chips. I chose numbers sort of randomly, although the obligatory 17 and 20 were included in tribute to our feloow VMBers. Unfortunately, that was a quick $100 down the drain. Oh well, maybe I'll work up the courage to try again in a few years. After that we picked up our $300 in free play from the offer we booked and jumped right into the slots and our luck was holding pretty well. We walked up to see the new Quad space. There is no way to tell at this point what it is going to be like when it’s done. There is still just way too much construction going on. We did like the iPad drink service, though, and the big windows looking out in the gaming area. I can’t think of anyplace else where we can sit and play and still see outside. We tried the Cheers slots here and found them to be pretty stingy and not all that fun, except for the music and clips of voices that brought us back to the show. We also played Clue for quite a while for the first time. It was pretty fun. There are a lot of cool bonus games, but it’s hard to follow what’s going on in the game, it all seems pretty random. I think we’ll try it again in the future though.

Another great thing about being Diamond, of course, is the Diamond lounges. We stopped in at Flamingo for a few drinks before dinner. We were trying to decide if we wanted to use our $100 Diamond dinner, but we decided to save that for another trip instead. We ended up going to the Flamingo buffet. Again, I know this is not one of the better buffets, but we really just wanted crab legs and shrimp. We went around 1600, which I thought was after lunch, but we were only charged $20.00 each, which I think was the lunch price. We got a seat by the windows looking out on the Flamingo habitat and a Diamond placard to put on our table which said that Diamond receives a complimentary glass of wine and all you can eat steamed, split crab legs (another win). They were very good and we also enjoyed the cold, non-split legs that were on the buffet and some shrimp and other goodies.

We finished the night by walking down to PHo to see if the Dark Knight slots were still there. These are one of our favorite and we have always been able to play them for hours on an initial $100 buy-in. They are really fun with lots of great features and bonuses. Alas, they have been removed. We played around other games for a bit; gave the Hangover a try – it was fun, but at $2.00 minimum a spin, perhaps a little rich for our tastes. We had excellent service from the slot staff however, as the games volumes had been turned off and, as we all know, these types of slots are no fun if you can’t hear the music and all the lines from the movie. By this time we had been drinking all day and my head cold was starting to get to me; we had made our goal of 1,000 tier credits for the 1,000 bonus, so we called it a night.

Up on Saturday and, amazingly, no hangover. Our SOP for the mornings in Vegas is a latte from Java Detour, sitting on the couches near Sin City Brewing and looking out the windows into the garden - so relaxing and beautiful. Along with the latte we enjoyed the absolute best peanut butter cookies in the world. These are available in the VIP check-in room and yet another little perk. After walking through the garden, mourning the loss of Turk (the guinea fouls senselessly killed a while back) and enjoying the fish and other birds, we decided to walk up to Harrah’s. We hadn’t been up there in a while. The selection of games we enjoy playing was pretty sparse this trip and Harrah’s was no different. We settled in to the newer Lord of the Rings and got some decent play in. We basically play the penny games that have themes that we like and as many features and bonuses as possible. We prefer to get lots of small wins over the course of a longer session than high volatility and the promise of a potential bigger win. Although reading engicedave’s trip report, it’s very tempting to believe that we could dump our bankroll into some high denom slots and get some big wins!

We played some more at Quad and back at Flamingo, basically all Lord of the Rings and Ghostbusters. We tried Life (after the board game), but it sucked down a hundo pretty fast, so that was it for that one. We were headed for Supercross out at Sam Boyd around 1500, so we decided to grab a sandwich at the Flamingo food court and head out. It was surprisingly comfortable out at the stadium. In years past it has been unbelievably hot. We parked and walked the pits a little looking at the bikes the riders would ride in the races for the day. Then we lay on the grass in the shade napping and waiting for the event to get started. We had decent seats and the racing was good. Since this isn’t a Supercross forum, I won’t bore you with the details. We headed back to Flamingo around 2300, played some more games hit the 1,000 point goal, got some cold medicine from the shop and went to bed.

Sunday was very similar – latte, peanut butter cookie, gardens, etc. We decided to walk over to Caesars and check out the offerings over there. Again, couldn’t find any interesting new games, so we settled on the original Lord of the Rings (Two Towers version). We always loved this game, the map, the trophies, the many, many bonuses and features, but in recent trips it had been very, very mean to us. There are only four of them and they are always full. There were two full when we arrived, a third empty and the fourth was not working. We happened to flag down a very friendly slot attendant who was kind enough to reboot the game and, after about 20 minutes, it came back on. We played for several hours on a few hundred bucks. Our strategy on this game is to save all the Powerspins until we’re ready to leave and then use them all at once. This worked out as hoped for us this time. We walked away even money after winning back everything we put into the machines on the Powerspins.

We had tickets to see our friend, Tracii Guns’, show up at LVH that night. It’s a rock and roll retrospective with an all star band called Raiding the Rock Vault, I think. So we wandered over to the Caesars Diamond lounge for a few drinks, had a salad at Romaine in the food court at Caesars (this place is great – fresh, healthy, tasty) and went back to get cleaned up and drive up to LVH. That place makes me sad. It used to be sort of cool; we stayed there almost every trip many years ago because they had the Star Trek Experience, but since that is gone, it just seems old and boring. We got there, picked up our tickets and went in to the show, which was great! The musicians are so talented and the music, of course, is wonderful. The stage show that they use to make it more of a “show” than a “concert” is a little weak, but the musicians make up for it. They come out after the show and do a meet and greet in the Tempo lounge also. Played a little more on Sunday, just to get 500 tier credits for the bonus, but that was the end of our trip. We checked out Monday morning, using a $100 TR giftcard that I received for participating in the Caesars Circle focus group to cover most of our room charges and hit the road.

We’ll be back for a short trip at the end of May/beginning of June to show some family around, but our next “real” trip isn’t until August now for the Star Trek convention. Sorry this was pretty boring, but thanks for reading. I hope some new fun games come out soon.

 

Never consider your report boring. There are others like yourself who are not big party people. I enjoyed your report, nice read. In a few weeks you can read my boring report We don't party, eat fancy, drink big or play tables...aka boring, but we are happy with what we do

 

Thanks! We had a great time and it wasn't boring for us, but we're no Beejay or NateDogg...

 

Too bad I didn't know earlier, I could have toured you around to some of the teams we sponsor, I'm sure you saw our logo all over the teams and bikes.

Glad you had fun, I just watched the race on TV today.

 

Thank you for the offer. Of course we recognize your sponsorship. We go every year, so maybe we'll have a chance for a meet at some point. Already have our tickets for A1 and Vegas next year!

 

I did take a few pictures of Tracii at the show on Sunday. I'm going to try to post one here. I've never tried to add pictures before...