6/19 to 6/25 Off strip/on strip

After months of planning the June vac was finally here. We awoke about 5am and began to make way to the airport for our 7:30am flight. Once we got to the airport panic set in, the lines were double and triple what we are used to and what we allowed for time wise. We literally walked to the gate of our SWA flight and our boarding group, group B was being called to board, we found our place in line and boarded. We were leaving two days ahead of my buddy "J" and his off and on crazy GF, this would get interesting upon their arrival, but I digress.


Flight was uneventful, but ran about 15 mins late, which is rare. We felt the familiar Las Vegas heat as soon as we exited the terminal and got into the taxi line. No wait, about $30 got us to Sunset Station via the Sunset airport connector.


We attempted to check in but no luck, hotel was sold out and it was only 9:45am, we were told to have breakfast and check back at 10:30am. We entered the buffet line, it was suprisingly long and slow. The food was mediocre at best, this would be our last morning buffet, it was cheap, like $10 or so for two, but wasnt worth the hassle and dissapointing food.

We checked back, no room, I decided it was close enough to beer thirty for a cold beverage and some bartop VP. We started at a small bar and I put in a hundo, played for a good while and cashed out about $13 down, so I took my ticket and moved to the center Gaudi bar, third hand and boom,




My first ever Royal, hit on the progressive which gave me a win of over $1029 or so. My GF looked over after hearing the buzzing of the machine and I told her we just won over $1000! A great start to the trip.

We drink a celebratory beer, tip the barkeep $20 and finally get checked into the room. 12th floor, "Valley View" room, room was clean and up to date, no complaints, a nice basic room, nicer that a basic room at Bally's Flamingo, etc.
So far we are very happy with Sunset Station





We then headed to the pool for some much needed pool therapy and unloaded a couple of buckets of BUD LIGHT off their hands. The pool was great, we found a nice shady spot where we would spend a lot of time at in the days following.






After some pool time we cabbed to the strip, the little lady had two requests for the trip, to spend some time watching the Bellagio Fountains and to see Mystere' her first Cirque' show. Neither show dissapointed, Lady "S", loved both shows, it was my third time seeing Mystere' and the latest version did not dissapoint, I continue to believe that dollar for dollar this is the best show in town. We had 35% off tix and sat in sec. B, seats 1 and 2. mid-way high in the section, seats were perfect.

Unfortunately the night closed with a long-hauling and $50 cab fare from TI, cabbie acted like he didnt speak English well and couldnt understand me, so in turn he went the longest possible route. I didnt tip him a cent, shouldnt have even paid, but hated to cap the evening with drama, so I just shoved $50 in his hand and told him thanks for the low-life long haul.



more to come..... including a jackass encounter, EDC people watching, and a Vegas first for us, we actually lost a member of the group 8 hours into her first trip to LV.

 

Need more!

 

awesome way to start your trip with the Royal flush..... can't wait to read about the rest of the trip

 

Blood is Flowing

Awesome start ! You have my blood flowing waiting for more Vegas adventures.

 

I need to start my trip off with a Royal.

Oh and..

 

Congrats on the Royal! I agree with you on Mystere. We're seeing Zarkana next week but only due to free tickets. Mystere is great and an awesome value.

 

Nice start, but dam it Ron, you are about 9 days too early! Good luck the rest of the way!

 

Great start, looking forward to more. You gotta love a big win just hours into the trip!! I'm still chasing that first royal myself.

 

DAY 2

Day 2 began with breakfast at the cafe inside Sunset Station, breakfast was under $20 for the two of us and I couldnt finish half of what they serve. I am typically an oatmeal and toast kind of guy, so the huge breakfasts they serve are way to much. The $9.99 French Toast special consists of 6 piesces of French Toast, three eggs and three large sausage patties. It was insane, but very good.

We then headed to the pool, we got our favorite spots again, we did pose for a couple pics;





We had a nice relaxing day at the pool, we spent about 5 or 6 hours, went thru a couple buckets of beer and two or three margaritas a piece. Before we knew, it was time to head in for dinner and then out for the eve.

We had dinner at Cabo, which is Sunset Stations mexican restaurant. I can say without a doubt that this is the best mexican joint I have ever eaten at dollar for dollar. It was fantastic, and it was more than I could finish which is a rarity for me. We had dinner and played a little Video Poker at the bar before heading our for the night.

I had purchased us tickets to see Steve-O and Tom Green perform at the Hard Rock Hotel and Casino. We jumped in a cab at the valet, Deluxe Cabs works the Henderson area, they mostly drive little Toyota's, anyways we tell the female cabbie our destination, I say "Hard Rock Hotel", she says which one, I repeat the HOTEL, not one of the restaurants. She says okay, I then get an off feeling, so I offer that it is on Harmon and ask if she is familiar with the route, she says yes. She then breaks into a speech about the difference between local cabbies and strip cabbies. I am half listening, enjoying the sights and what is left of my pool buzz, when I notice she misses the turn to catch Harmon. I then say you missed the turn, she says I better get over, she fails to get over in time and misses Koval as well. I instantly realize we are screwed, she begins to apologize and say, well we can go this way anyways, I say no, its the absolute wrong way to go via the strip. I tell her that we just doubled the route and the fare, and I am not going to pay. She begins to panic, starts calling dispatch, meanwhile we are stopped dead in EDC traffic on the strip. I tell her catch Harmon and it will get us there in two blocks, she continues to panic. Harmon is down to one lane, so we sit and sit. This detour costs us 30 mins. She continues to try and tell us she did us a favor by turning off the meter once we got to the strip. I tell her she turned it off too late, it was already at $30. We finally make it to the Hard Rock, I give her $30 even, no tip. She looks pissed, I remark that we overpaid and lost vac time. We made it inside just in time to watch the last 8 mins of the NBA championship, watched the bet I placed for "J" who was to arrive the next morning go down the drain with a final score by the Heat.

Oh well, onto Hard Rock. I had bought tix on Vegas.com, there was not a location specified for the seats, we were relieved to find out we were first row and dead center at that.



We watched the show, and they were both funny as hell. The stand-up was story telling based mostly, Steve talked about his Jackass days and Tom Green told some good stories about being on Celebrity Apprentice and how truly pissed Donald Trump was that he didnt take it seriously. It was a great time. After the show they both stuck around for free pics, we got one with Tom Green, but didnt want to wait in line for Steve. Tom just mingled about.



After the pics we grabbed a fresh drink and just walked around the Hard Rock, checking out all the swag and people watching. There was definantly some of the drunken and drugged out EDC element floating about. We saw quite a few struggle to keep themselves upright.

We were pretty drunk at this point, so we just cabbed it back to the Sunset Station for a nightcap and off to bed. Good thing we rested up, because we had no clue what the circus would bring the next day........

 

More pics of girlfriend please!

 

Awesome TR so far

 

Great report thusfar, congrats on the Royal. Cab story got my blood boiling a little bit just reading it. Way to not let it take you down.

 

What a great start. I'm sooooo jealous!! Anyhow, I have been to Vegas 11 glorious( well, some no so glorious--lost 2500 in 2 days my 3rd time) and I do know my way around also. Well, after the 3rd time, we just said screw it and rented a car--Whoever I went with, one of us had to drink soda or very lil beer. I was so screwed by cabbies by this way, and that way. Last time I was there, even though it was a penny machine, I was dealt a royal on a " 100 " play at max. Only other one I got was at the Ho about 12 years ago----so good job! Overall, would u stay there again? Pool looks awesome---hot tub???

 

Thanks!

We would def stay at the Sunset Station again in the summertime when we are at the pool 5 or 6 hours a day. We will do a couple things differently, one we will likely rent a car, two, we will stay the last two days on the strip and see our shows then, that way we cut out the cabbies. I will touch on cabbie issues more later in the report, I will say that I am on a mission to not use cabs anymore!

 

Great start Ron; congrats on the Royal and having a beautiful girlfriend to buy something sparkly for with the win

 

Woohoo, glad u r enjoying Sunset Station, and thanks for the report and congrats on the Royal. Oh you should expect good comp offers in future from them. I didn't actually give them much play the 2 days I was there and just got offer of 3 nights including any weekends. Can't wait to read the rest of trip

 

Oh, and I feel bad, should have warned you about Crazy long Buffett lines and the lousy food. I hate either at that cafe or the Fat Burger on location.

 

Days 3 and 4

I wake up Friday morning feeling good, no hangover, no sunburn, a def win in LV! I get a call from an 800 #, I typically dont so I answer:

Is this J?, this is Southwest Airlines baggage claims.

Me: No, this is Ron, I booked J's travel, so my number is listed.

Lady goes onto tell me that J and his travelling companion that we will just call "Angel" grabbed someone elses bag. That someone else is very upset and wants their luggage back ASAP so that they may continue on their respective vac. I phone J, and he is in cab 2 mins. from Sunset Station, he tells cabbie to make a U-turn and they head back to McCarran. J remarks that he asked Angel if she was sure that was her bag, her reply was "Of course dumbass, there sure wouldnt be two people with leopard print luggage." Well, there was.



J and Angel eventually find their way to the pool. It is 1030am and they are drunk, I mean DRUNK! No shock they mixed up their bags. They order more drinks poolside and after about half an hour Angel remarks that she met a certain group of gentleman while at Sturgis Bike Rally and these certain gentleman have a store on the far north strip and a reality television show that chronicles their family and business relationships. Well, she didnt say it like that, but I dont want to name drop.



Angel then sends a text and minutes later the younger, heavier of the gentleman calls her up. They start discussing whats going on for the weekend. We all end up invited to a concert, me and mine decline the invitation, say we have plans. Angel decides she wants to hit the strip, it is now about noon, she and J get ready and head towards town.



Long story short, another employee of the store, that is not on the show meets up with them. J says this employee and Angel start getting way too friendly and he becomes uncomortable, he finally asks Angel if she even wants him around, she says no, not really and hands him cab money to go back to Sunset Station. A hundo covers the ride from downtown and even leaves drinking money for J. The good news is that is the last he would see of Angel for the entire trip. On my advice he has his room re-keyed and leaves her bag with the bell hop. He would later decide to cancel her flight so to avoid airport/airplane conflict with her. As of this writing she is still in LV and we got back yesterday! I told him he was the biggest winner in town for "Pawning" her off on someone else. Pun intended or not, you can decide.

The rest of the evening J spent with us, my GF and I had enjoyed a good three piece accoustical band at one of bars at S.S., and later enjoyed a very entertaining performance by the Spazmatics. It was decent day gambling as well, I played a lot of VP, and was down $75 to $100 on the day. As we were walking to our room J and my GF, S needed a restroom stop. While waiting I put $5 into a Blazing 7 hot shot machine and hit the bonus for a quick $75 profit. Even or close enough on the day for me!

Saturday

We spent the day at the pool, didnt really drink or gamble, just got prepared for the Club Crawl we were doing that night.

We met up with the crawl at a bar simply called 'V" at the Venetian of course. We really enjoyed seeing all the kids in costume going to the EDC. They def go all out for it. The crowds waiting on cabs were huge, Venetian actually had an EDC specific shuttle service. We also really liked "V", nice laid back atmosphere, new and modern decoration, felt like upscale Vegas.

Next stop was the new Rockhouse bar located in its new home inside the Venetian. It was nice, def much larger than the old place, had all the usual beer pong games and pool games going on, nice crowd. They still have the cage, grabbed a photo of a smurfette looking girl dancing and drawing a crowd to the cage.



Next and final stop was the new club "Act" which is located inside the Venetian as well. We were really geared up for this one! Act is a new club that has a centrally located round stage and has various acts starting up every few seconds. The acts are heavily staged and costumed, they were fantastic.



Act holds over 900 according to its occupancy, but the way it is laid out makes little use of its space. Everyone was forced to crowd into the same area in order to see the acts. There was a second floor, but it was roped off and no access was permitted. We loved the bar, but it was so crazy packed I literally had to wrap my arms around my 115lb GF so she would not be knocked around too much. At one point we were bumped so hard my drink went into her face. It was so crazy we had to leave well before we wanted to.
Interesting note: the bathrooms are unisex, and when I say unisex, I mean like no stalls even around the toilets. Its a bizarre scene and one that seems really unnecessary and "exposes" everyone to all sorts of problems.

We arrived back at S.S. at about 3am and called it a night. It was another great Saturday night in LV!!

Days 5 and 6 are next.......

 

Ron, your comment about long secutity lines has me concerned. We leave prolly same flight (7:30) this Min. Any idea why the long lines ?...

 

SWA and AIRTRAN have merged, they now use the same counter to check bags and issue boarding passes. This alone has easily doubled the old lines.

SWA is also now using the busier gate to board for the Vegas departures, this lumps you in with everyone else instead of using the smaller gate where there were not many originating flights.

Get there two hours early, thats what my buddy did and he said he had enough time to eat a quick bite and then 30 mins to board.