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Paris Aug 8-11, Giada's, The Cromwell and more

Discussion in 'Vegas Trip Reports' started by mrem3200, Aug 12, 2014.

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  1. mrem3200

    mrem3200 VIP Whale

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    My Trip Report

    I will post in 3 sections, one for each day.

    I love reading trip reports so I thought I would share my first one. This was my 13th trip to Vegas this one with my best friend, Chris. I live on the east coast and he is on the west coast. So we don’t see each other nearly enough, usually just on the Vegas trips and this was our first one in over 2 years.

    Coming from the east coast I won’t go for less than 3 days, my friend can only usually swing a 2 day trip so I usually fly in a day before him to get acclimated to the time difference so I usually have a day or so by myself which I am fine with.

    I was staying on an offer from CET, 3 free nights in a Red room at Paris and $50 free play and $50 gift card. This was the 5th time staying at Paris even though I don’t really like the casino and rarely play there. It was the best hotel I could get a free room at so I went with that over Bally’s or the Flamingo where I like to play more.

    My gambling budget was $1,500 per day, I also had opened a line of credit at Paris in case of an emergency.

    Day 1My flight (Virgin America direct JFK to LAS) arrives around noon, luggage comes reasonably fast and there is virtually no line for a taxi. I usually let the taxi driver know I have been to Vegas several times so they won’t tunnel me. The driver is a local, super nice guy and was lamenting how slow business is these days. I was his 11th trip of the day, back when things were booming he said he would be over 30 by this point in his shift. There was some traffic and get to the hotel by 1pm. No tunnel, the fare on the meter was $17 or so.

    Long line at check in and I had a lunch reservation at 2:15 at Giada’s. I didn’t want to wait in the huge line only to be told my room isn’t ready so I leave my bags at the bell stand and figure I would go over to Giada’s and see if they can take me early since I was eating solo. I get to the Cromwell (my first time there) and as soon as I walk in I wasn’t a big fan (this opinion would change significantly the next day). All of the black jack tables that I see were less than $25 and all 6:5, I didn’t know then that the $25 3:2 tables were in the back.

    Head up the escalator to Giada’s and they tell me they are on schedule and can’t seat me early. I ask if I can sit at the bar and there were a few open seats so I sit at the bar. After coming from the east coast I was starving. The bartenders were really nice guys and the service was good. I got the Orzo meatballs for an appetizer, the baked pasta for and entrée and the tiramisu for dessert. The meatballs were excellent. Then the pasta comes. Now the pasta is the only thing on the menu with no description so I didn’t know what was in it when I ordered it. I take my first fork full. Oh NO!!!!! What is that??? It looks like a diced mushroom. I ABSOLUTELY HATE mushrooms. I pick out the first piece and start digging through the rest of it and there are a lot of them in there. SHIT. Just then the bartender comes by and I ask him what is in the pasta, he tells me sausage, cheese and eggplant. WHEW! It is eggplant, which I am fine with and not mushrooms. Overall I thought the pasta was pretty good but not too special. Then I had tiramisu which was outstanding. Overall impression of Giada’s was that I thought it was very good (not great) and a little on the pricey side. $85 for lunch but that also included 2 beers. I would like to go back to try it for dinner on a future trip.

    Head back to the hotel to check in, I was booked in Red room with no view and wanted to try the $20 trick to see what I could do. I give the woman my credit card and ID and hold a $20 in my hand so she can see it and ask if there are any upgrades available. She is typing furiously so it looks like she is trying to help me out. She tells me she can put me on a high floor with a pool and strip view but warned me of club noise from the pool. I tell her no problem I can sleep through anything. Hand her the $20 and I am on my way.

    I get to the room and yes there was a nice strip and pool view and yes there was noise from the pool. But, it is a shitty blue room. I may be the only person ever that used the $20 trick successfully…TO DOWNGRADE (at least in my opinion it was). I call the front desk and explain she situation, they tell me I can switch to a Red room but without a view. I take it, the second room was much nicer. The view wasn’t quite as good but still not bad. Could still see the Bellagio fountains.
    IMG_0187.jpg
    I then went to the casino to pick up my gift card and match play and to activate my line of credit. Then to the Flamingo to gamble. Started at craps (pass line with odds, 6 and 8 and two-way hard ways if the point is 6 or 8). Bought in for $500, played for a while, choppy no real big rolls, lose $470. Then switch to a $25 blackjack table, play for a while and make back the $470 so even for the day. I will take that, I usually start out in the whole so being even almost feels like a win. It is almost 11pm by this point and I was still on east coast time so went back to Paris to call it a day.

    Chris was arriving the next day which would make the trip much more interesting….he often needs some adult supervision and this trip would be no different…
     

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    Last edited: Aug 12, 2014
  2. Ty

    Ty ?

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    Good start, I'm ready for day two.
     
  3. pphold

    pphold pp Park Place Degenerate

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    Still trying to find out If Giada's is still visiting the guest at Dinner. Guess since you went at lunch you did not see.

    I'm planning to have Dinner at Giada's this next trip but will have to see. I have a reservation made for dinner.

    Good TR so far. Add some more pics.
     
  4. mrem3200

    mrem3200 VIP Whale

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    No she was not there when I was there...at least I didn't see her.
     
  5. mrem3200

    mrem3200 VIP Whale

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    Thanks. I have some more pics but I can't figure out why they are rotated when I attach them.
     
  6. mrem3200

    mrem3200 VIP Whale

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    I am having problems adding the pics. I will keep trying but I am not sure people want to see pics that are sideways.

    Day 2
    I woke up at 6 am and went down to get coffee. One of my favorite things in Vegas is walking the strip early in the morning and seeing the people still out (and drunk) from the night before and the working girls ending their shifts.

    I wanted to see the welcome to Vegas sign so I got a 24 hour pass for the deuce and hop on the next bus at the Bellagio stop. Someone told me to take it to the first stop AFTER the sign. I did that and it was a very long walk back up to the sign. But it was before 7am so it wasn’t too hot and I had time to kill before my friend got there at noon. Get to the sign, take a few pictures and have a guy that was there with his family take a few pics of me at the sign. I am glad I finally got to see it but I can cross it off my list of Vegas things to do. Walk back up LVB to grab breakfast at the McDonalds just south of Mandalay then hop the deuce to see the Linq for the first time.

    We had discussed going on the High Roller, I see it for the first time in person. WOW that looks high! I have a huge fear of heights so I was still debating if I really wanted to go on it or not.

    I don’t like gambling in the morning so I just wander around waiting for my friend. He gets to the hotel right on time at noon. We each grab a 24 ounce beer from the gift shop on the way up to the room so he can drop his bag off then head over to the Linq hoping to use my gift card for lunch at Guy Fieri’s place. I thought I had seen a sign for it when I was there earlier and thought it was on the main strip of the Linq, down near the ticket office for the high roller (could I have been any more wrong?). We walk all the way from the strip to the high roller and don’t see Guy’s place. Ugh, how could we have missed it? We walk all the way back to the strip and eventually figure out that is was inside of the Quad. We were both pretty hungry at this point. So the good news was we found the place…and the bad news was that there was an hour wait for a table.

    We didn’t want to wait so we decided to go to the Mexican place outside of O’Shea’s since there were tons of open tables when we walked by it so it would be quick…or maybe not. The hostess says that they are short staffed so they are not using all of the tables and it would be a 45 minute wait. Ok fine, I give her my cell phone number and she tells me she will text me when it is ready.

    Sit at the bar outside of O’Shea’s and order a beer, then another and one more. I talked my friend out of the Tequila shot just then. It seems like it has been at least 45 minutes so I go to check with the hostess. There is a party of 3 that just got there. I told them there is a 45 minute wait. They tell the hostess they are a party of 3 and she says “sure follow me” What?? I ask her what was up and she gives me a little attitude and says that she sent me a text. I never got a text so either I gave her the wrong number, she wrote it down wrong or they never sent the text. In any event we were then seated right away. The food was pretty good but the service was beyond dreadful. It took forever to get our food, even the chips and salsa must have taken 20 minutes. I thought we were about to leave and Chris orders another round of beers. He tends to be all or nothing when he drinks. I had a feeling I knew where this day was heading. Chris doesn’t want to leave any tip at all, the service was THAT bad. I don’t think that is the right thing to do, I settle up and tip 14% or so.

    We decide to go to the Flamingo for some gambling. We start playing BJ at an empty table. The dealer is a dick. I played for less than a half hour and colored up even. So still even for the trip. Chris is still playing and starting to get a little belligerent with the dealer who had to tell him multiple times not to touch his cards. He then starts complaining to the dealer that he was making him lose on purpose. It was now around 3 pm and he is clearly pretty buzzed. The dealer was getting pretty annoyed, even though I didn’t like him I felt bad for him. I stay and watch him play for a while and he climbs out of the hole and gets back to even and we leave.

    We leave Flamingo and head to the Cromwell. This is when we found the $25 3:2 tables in the back in a very quiet area. A much different atmosphere than Flamingo. We play for a while and it is pretty back and forth no really big swings either way. Chris loses $300 and decides he has had enough for a while (his gambling budget is $500 per day), at this point I was up a few hundred. I didn’t have a sense of how drunk he was…yet. He says he is going to walk around for a bit and that he will text me to let me know where he is. A half hour later I get a text that he is in the room. I tell him the table had heated up and that I was going to play for a while and would meet him in the room. For the next hour or so I got RED HOT. Was pressing my bets quite a bit (my average bet was $150 vs. $58 the night before) and cashed out for $3,500 (profit of $3,000). Woo who!!!! Now THAT was a good first session at the Cromwell. Maybe this place isn’t so bad after all! That was my largest ever win in a single session. I thought the dealers there were great, very friendly. The drink service was outstanding, I do tip $1, $2 or $5 per drink so I’m sure that didn’t hurt. I also liked the daytime pit boss (Randy – I think).

    I go back to the room at around 8:30, Chris is passed out, fully clothed on top of the bed. I smack him in the leg to try to wake him up and I am greeted with “leave me the f alone”, or something to that effect. All righty, I guess I am on my own for the rest of the night. I go down to the casino at Paris, buy in for $500 at a craps table lose it all eventually. Still up $2,500 for the trip so it’s all good. With only one day left.
     
  7. mrem3200

    mrem3200 VIP Whale

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    Day 3- last day

    We wake up around 6:30, I hope he is well rested since he only got 10 hours of sleep. We headed over to the Linq to use my gift card at Guy’s place for breakfast. We both had the breakfast burrito, it was just ok, the service again was very slow considering the place was nearly empty.

    I won 2 for 1 high roller tickets from a suited BJ at Flamingo and decided I did want to go on it. We went on it just before noon, there was no line and we had the pod to ourselves. He asked if I wanted a beer to take on it with us. Sure why not. So is today going to be a repeat of yesterday? I enjoyed the ride, I didn’t find it scary at all. Glad I did it once but probably wouldn’t do it again.

    Once we left the high roller we stopped at the bar outside of O’Shea’s. The bartender was a really good guy (Ryan I think his name is). The beers were flowing at a reasonable pace. I am not a big fan of the new O’Sheas, I loved the old place for what it was and used to play there some on every trip. I didn’t play at the new one at all.

    We decide to go back to the Cromwell, the scene of my big win the night before. But like a scorned mistress she was out for revenge. I buy in for $800 and initially it starts out pretty good then goes cold fast. I am down to my last bet of the $800 buy in, and of course it was a double or split hand. I don’t remember which but in any event I needed more chips. Buy in for $200 more. That is gone in a few minutes. Ok, not a huge deal, still up $1,500 for the trip, so still good. Chris says he has never seen someone lose $1,000 that fast. Um, thanks? Chris keeps playing. I decided why not try another $500. Because I lost it in about 20 minutes is why not! Ok, not a huge deal, still up $1,000 for the trip. He left right when I bought in the $500 and said he was going to wander around the strip. Oh boy! Again I was not sure about his level of drunkenness and what this might lead to.

    He sends me a text that he is going back to the room and to meet him there when I was done and we would go to Diablos (or as we refer to it – Mexican Hooters) for dinner. Ok no problem. On the way back I sent him a text asking if he was still in the room. No response. Ok, so is he passed out again? I get up to the room and he isn’t there. A few minutes later I send another text, no response. Then I call him, no answer. Another text and call and nothing. Hmmmm, what to do. He could be anywhere and at that point was MIA for 30 minutes or so. I finally get a text that says “sorry dude I was in the bathroom, I am in the lobby now meet me down here”. WHAT? The bathroom? I didn’t really ask any questions, I was just glad he wasn’t being beaten up by a hooker.

    So we go to Diablo’s for dinner, it is fine nothing special but we go there once most trips. After dinner he wants to go to the room to call the family. I had never played at Planet Hollywood so I figured I would give it a try. Well apparently PH is not too happy with me either. $500 buy in gone in 30 minutes, ok still up $500 for the trip but so far a rough day, down $2,000.

    We decide to meet up again at Cromwell, I really like the vibe of the place. This would likely be my last long session of the trip so I buy in for $1,000. Up and down for a while then I go on a pretty good run to get up $2,000 for the session. Things start to cool considerably. Chris is done, he is down $900 for the trip and goes back to the room. I was chipping away at the $2,000 profit and said I was going to leave when it got down to $1,000, I figured I only had a few bets left and was just playing out the string. Then…BAM!! The Cromwell likes me again! I got super-hot, played for a few more hours and cashed out with $5,000 ($4,000 profit for the session).

    I go back to the room, it is close to midnight and Chris is sitting up in bed playing around on his laptop and is reasonably sober. I ask if he wants to go down for one last quick craps session and that I would stake his buy in and he could keep 50% of any winnings. He doesn’t feel right doing that. I go back by myself, buy in for $500 at Craps and can get nothing going (again with craps just very little luck this trip). Play until I am about even then take one last crack at BJ but by this time I am pretty tired and buzzed. Play a quick session and cash in up $250 and go up to bed around 2am. Total win for the trip $4,750, my biggest ever. I am waiting to get my stats (time played, avg. bet, etc.) for the whole trip. It is definitely higher than my previous trips.

    Woke up yesterday and got my flight out at noon and #13 is complete. The next trip will probably be either December or next spring with a different friend. The trips with him are equally enjoyable for different reasons.
     
  8. RM777

    RM777 Low-Roller

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    Thanks for the trip report. I am definitely looking forward to gambling at the Cromwell.
     
  9. pphold

    pphold pp Park Place Degenerate

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    Great TR. Good to hear you ended up winning.


    I was wondering about if we can get a POD to ourselves. I'll have to ask. We went at night and it was pretty crowed in the POD. Might have to see about riding during the day.

    Like the TR.

    Glad you made some money and had a winning trip.
     
  10. mrem3200

    mrem3200 VIP Whale

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    Thanks. I really enjoyed the Cromwell (and not just because I did well there). It is a very relaxed environment, especially at the BJ tables in the back. The dealers were super nice, they all asked us our names and where we were from.
     
  11. mrem3200

    mrem3200 VIP Whale

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    Going in the morning would definitely help I would think. The pod in front of us was empty. The one behind us had what looked like 6 people in it.
     
  12. RockyBalboa

    RockyBalboa Front Line Winner

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    Very nice! That is a nice win there, man.

    I am seeing a lot of good stuff on The Cromwell so I will be stopping in to hit up your $25 3/2 personal ATM table while I am in town.
     
  13. Vegasphan1911

    Vegasphan1911 Tourist

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    Nice report! Will be there in less than two months.
     
  14. Dr Nostron

    Dr Nostron VIP Whale

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    Great trip report - will be there in less than a month and looking forward to checking out the Cromwell and new osheas

    It's our annual September guy trip and we have two rooms at rio, two at the palms and two at Cosmo so where we gamble could get interesting
     
  15. kevstf

    kevstf Low-Roller

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    Great TR, congrats with the winning trip!
     
  16. Ty

    Ty ?

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    Nice win. We're hoping to check out Cromwell soon.
     
  17. casinokid68

    casinokid68 Caesars Diamond Member

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    Nice trip report!! Congrats on the winnings. I am flying out of JFK tomorrow for 5 nights and will be staying at the Cromwell. I was there last month for 5 nights as well over the 4th of July. Stayed at the Cromwell as well. Got comped for 5 nights, so I figured let me try it out. Absolutely loved it!! The rooms are great. Awesome shower, great comfy bed and everything has that special boutique hotel touch. Snacks and Fiji water at turn down. Free breakfast for all guests, a newspaper at your door every morning. Free coffee and tea bar on every floor in the morning, ice tea and sparkling water during the day. The service and the attention from everyone there is just great to see. They really make you feel like a special guest. That is why I am coming back tomorrow again. This time with my fiancé. I was solo on my trip last month. I want her to experience this hotel as well. She can't wait.
     
  18. mganut

    mganut Well-Known Member

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    Great trip report. Looking forward to playing craps at Cromwell.
     
  19. DeMoN2318

    DeMoN2318 The DERS

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    Great TR!

    Finally someone who resizes pics!!! koodos!
     
  20. gotavegasjones

    gotavegasjones VIP Whale

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    Very nice TR. Thanks for taking time to write and post. Great BJ sessions. Congrats on a big winning trip.

    later, GVJ
     
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