Worst travel partner you've had

Is dinner done yet????

 

Come on Gino, dinner's got to be cooked and eaten, a few times!

JW

 

My ex-wife.

The woman is weapons-grade crazy.

 

My worst travel companion was my best friend and her childhood friend. We are no longer friends now because other reasons, but they really made the worst vegas companions.

I was single, my ex best friend was single, and her childhood friend is married (she lives in different city than ours). She's a type of person that always think she's the prettiest and hottest female on planet earth (even though she's just average imo...i meant she aint' kate upton).

We stayed at Paris and we planned to do all these fun stuff including clubbing. Well, the day started off not fun at all. None of them like to gamble. I played my slot machines and told them I could just meet up with them somewhere and they insisted to hang around and look around the casino floor. I said ok, 30 minutes later they told me they were bored. They wanted to go to Madame Tussaud. Fine, we went there and actually had an ok time.

We walked to TI to check out the sirens of TI show and tried to decide on dinner. Well, my friend and her kate upton wannabe friend was dictating on what they wanted to eat. Pretty much they want american food so we ate at the cafe there and it was baaaaaaaaaaaaad. It's bland food. I was kinda pissed about that because I know there are so many other amazing food options in vegas and they pretty much forced me to eat there.

Then we went clubbing. This was when everything hits the fan. We went to Studio 54 (RIP) now Hakkassan...at MGM. They played fun dancing music. I grabbed my friend who was usually my partner in crime. Her childhood friend didn't want to dance. She just stood by the bar area watching us dancing. We danced with this group of funny guys from Spain. They were not rude or ******s, they were actually pretty polite. After 15 minutes dancing, my friend said she felt bad for her friend. So we stood next to her watching people who were dancing.

After 15 minutes wasting my time in Vegas watching people danced, I asked them if I could danced with those guys. I even told them if they were bored they could just go somewhere else, check the casino or even check out the strip. They told me no, they were ok. So I danced and danced with these guys and girls from Spain. Fun fun fun. After an hour or so, I went back to where those girls were just stood right there. I asked them if they are ok, want to dance, or drink or anything. They said they were fine.

While we were standing there, a nice guy from south carolina came by and offered to buy us drinks. i said sure! he seemed nice and polite. Him and I were talking. he asked where we were staying, i told him we were staying at paris, etc. Just small talks.

Suddenly they grabbed me and told me they wanted to leave. I said ok, once we walked outside, my ex friend's childhood friend started yelling at me. She said I endangered them by telling this guy where we were staying. What if he followed us home, etc. I told her straight up, girl you are not all that and also she needs to go out more.

For the rest of the trip, I just separated myself from them. The bad part was we stayed in the same room so I woke up early left to casino and then came back later. Thank God it was only 4 days trip. Yeah never ever again to travel with small minded people.

 

Last summer after 3 solo trips I decided to take a couple of friends along. They are my local casino buddies and we've been hanging out there for many years and always do well together so I figured what could go wrong? I was going for 6 nights and the first 3 my girlfriends were staying in my comped suite with me and then the day they were leaving, my husband was joining me for the rest of the trip.

As usual, I research, read and plan ahead. Find out what the girls want to do and make plans accordingly. Check with them so they're on board. Explain my "envelope system" of cash management knowing how they can both go on tilt at local casinos and stress how important it is in Vegas to be careful.

Flight is delayed and we don't end up getting there until midnight (supposed to have arrived before dinner). I had my host arrange a limo so that thought was be fun and it was. Get to the suite and unpack, and as I'm getting ready to put my envelopes of money for the rest of the trip in the safe, one of the girls touches a bunch of buttons and effectively locks it up without a code. I carefully hide the rest of my envelopes, planning on getting security up to fix the safe once I've got my fix of the casino. Remind them to do the same. Nope, they'll "be careful" and keep all of their money on them. Go down to the casino and I start roaming around checking in with them regularly while they sit at the same machines for the whole night. At some point, I realize I'm hungry and head over to McD's for a snack. Confused when I see the breakfast menu and then get off the elevator and see out the window that it's daylight. Shocked it's 7 am, even more shocked that my friends aren't in the room but I am thrilled that I played all night and came up even and climb into bed after eating.

2 hours later, one gf comes in and quietly goes to bed. At 11 am, the other friend comes in, wakes us up and says she's not gonna sleep, lets get on with our plans. I'm up for it, so we get up. At breakfast, I discover the 2 of them played through their ENTIRE trip budget.

Of course, I have lots planned so off we go. As the day goes on, they 2 of them start dragging and complaining, feeling bad that they are so dumb for spending all of their money. It gets on my nerves so I send them back to our hotel to rest and I enjoy the rest of my day.

Day 2, they decide to go shopping for the day so I'm solo until dinner. Had a great day...worked out in the gym, great pool time, and gambled around our hotel casino. They come back and the evening plans are to spend their last evening downtown. The 2 are still grouchy and dragging and don't want to do any gambling as their broke. Went to the Fremont seafood buffet and they complained about the cost. Finally go back to our own hotel as they are a real drag. As the night goes on, I start feeling something wrong digestively. You guessed it...food poisoning. One of my gf's has it too, but not as bad as me. I'm up all night, she crashed in my bed as the fold out couch was "too uncomfortable" so I kept her up and she felt ill too, but again, just a minor upset tummy. I ended up puking blood and unable to eat a proper meal for days.

In the morning, the girls are packing and arguing about how each is doing it wrong. I am so ill and can't even get up to say goodbye. They leave and I spend the day in bed or the bathroom. Hubby arrives in the late afternoon and I meet him in the lobby and break it to him that I'm ill. He tucks me into bed and I send him out to explore and not let me drag him down. He did and had a good time.

The next day we have to check out and move to a different hotel. I spend the rest of the trip sicker than a dog and had to cancel all of the planned meals and copious drinking but we still had a pretty good time.

 

This was the lady I went with this past time. She only came out of the room for us to see 1 show. I finally said forget it, and went gambling on my own. Came back to the room up $600.

 

Win-Win situation, no nagging since she was sulking in the room,you won money..

 

Darlene either Od'd or got banned.

 

Best thread EVER! Such entertaining reading. My hubby and I have gone to LV with friends twice and had a blast both times, but it was with the understanding that we would spend some time all together, but would really be doing a lot of stuff on our own. I think we were all afraid the other would be "clingy" so we were all relieved, and it worked out great. My hubby and I have such a blast in LV, and have had quite a few people tell us "we want to tag along next time you go." That plan has never materialized---probably because we don't tell anyone we're going until it's planned, hotel and flights booked, and rental car reserved. Since we don't get out there as much as we'd like to, I like to splurge a little and stay in a nice hotel, and most of those who tell us they want to tag along won't pay those rates. Some day, though....some day....it will happen and I'll be posting about it! In the meantime, I am soooo enjoying all of these hilarious tales (which I'm sure weren't hilarious at the time.)

 

My second trip ever to Vegas was sometime around Sept 1992 when my buddy “K”(married no kids at the time) and I (girlfriend and 2 yr old) cash in a 2-night comp for two people at Palace Station. It included two “passes” for unlimited drinks at “Any Casino Bar”. Our friend “F” (single) wants to go so we let him tag along. F is the friend we all have who never has as much money but is likeable and loyal for the most part so you don’t mind his company.

F blows his entire bankroll the first night. I mean everything. He has no money for food so guess who gets to pay for his meals. It shouldn’t be a total surprise I guess because he only brought $120. None of us were Vegas-Savvy back then. To his credit he didn’t ask for loans and trooped around when we hit the Strip. We gave F one of the “Any Casino Bar” passes and he bounced from bar to bar most of the time. He found out the hard way that pass was only good at Palace Station Casino bars. I’d love to go back in time and see how those bartenders treated him after getting stiffed all night.

I don’t recall which night but K drives us to the Strip. We casino hop for a spell then got separated. After awhile K is nowhere to be found so F and I cab it back to PS. K is a Cheesehead and prides himself on how much he can drink and still remain functional yet he’s very susceptible to suggestion and easily influenced to do fun things. His problem is everything sounds like fun when you’re blitzed.

Supporting Side Story Alert: One time in our local pub at home we were chatting up two gals we’ve never met sitting at the bar. We’re lubed up so I tell K to show them his tattoo on his butt. He doesn’t have a tattoo but that doesn’t stop him from facing away and bending over and dropping his drawers to his knees. He’s a decent sized guy and his wife often hints at his “sufficiency”. Needless to say these girls got an eyeful of Wisconsin ballsack and no tattoo.

The next afternoon K shows up and tells us he got arrested. He says he was walking along the Strip and into the Silver City(?) parking lot where a guy was struggling with one of those spotlights you tow. The guy’s lady friend was standing there watching as the little voice in K’s head tells him to help out the struggling guy. K grabs the tongue of the trailer out of the guy’s hands and puts it on the truck tow ball.

The guy goes nuts. That’s how he described it. Four large Security guards in suits appear immediately. It doesn’t help they are black guys as K is not very open minded. He says they argued and then Head Guy belly bumps him and it’s on. But not for very long as they pile on him and cuff him. He was put in the casino holding cell, which is just a small room, and held until morning when a real cop wrote him a bench warrant. I guess the only good thing out of this was K had to go back to Vegas to settle that. I think he just paid a fine in the end.

 

I've never been drunk enough to think I had a tattoo somewhere I didn't (which is everywhere for me). Sounds like a champ. There's got to be more to that story than just trying to help a guy, but I doubt there are credible witnesses.

 

A few years back I took my girlfriend for a few days. We had been going out for about 2 months and we decided to hit Vegas. I thought we knew a lot about each other by then, she heard about my then annual trips to Sin City and thought it would be fun for us to do it - she told me she visited the local Indian Casinos a couple of times so she was not a big gambler, I'm more a low roller myself so I figured we'll have a great time. So we drive out, check into Mandalay Bay and I'm hungry so I suggest we eat something. She sees a keno machine on the way to lunch and says 'those are fun, I played them before' (Indian Casino I'm guessing). Ok, what the heck, let's gamble! I've played video keno at the bar on occasion so I put 20 bucks in and started playing .50 per play Caveman Keno - she throws in a hundred bucks and then starts making selections as fast as one of those old time cashiers ringing up a grocery order. Looks like the keno game where you can play multiple cards at once - I think each game is like $10 after she plays all the cards... hmmmmm... then she starts saying stuff like 'gotta play the corners because that's where you win the big money'.... 'hey how about lunch?' 'oh, I'm not really hungry, go ahead without me' not taking her eyes off the screen...

Ok - so I realize that she has done this before and probably many times... as the trip progressed I realized that I'm dealing with a problem gambler - she cared about one thing, playing keno... 'hey, we talked about hanging out by the pool weeks before this trip? let's go!' 'oh, no - my skin feels really sensitive - go without me...' That was how it went for the first day and a half - so now I'm at the pool and I see her in the distance looking for me... as soon as she spots me her face changes and it's like she's trying to pretend to cry... she gives me this sob story of how someone picked her bag and took her wallet with all her money in it.... oh crap - let's go back to the room, we need to make some calls on your credit cards and see what we need to do about getting you a new license... 'oh - no... you won't believe this, this morning I took those cards out of my wallet and put them in a separate place in my bag! how lucky!'.... ok, I was born in the morning but not that morning - I know she's been feeding those machines $100's like nobody's business so I figure she's just broke - her story about being ripped off was like watching the worst actress in the worst movie... I'm pissed so I tell her that 'we haven't spend one minute together and I'm honestly ready to leave and since you're broke I see no reason why you'd want to stay anyway....'

We broke up on the ride back - I dropped her off at her place and turned around and had a pretty awesome last two days in Vegas by myself! that was over 8 hours of unplanned driving and worth every minute... she did admit to me a week later that she made up the story and that she plays keno all the time at the local casinos... needless to say we didn't get back together...

 

wow lol, why would she hide it from you? After two months of relationship and she knows that you like to gamble, I though she would at least talk about keno a few times.

I like the part when you go back to Vegas about dropping her off hahaha

 

I guessed that the hiding was just part of the addiction/gambling problem (I'm not a trained therapist so I can't say for sure if she had either) but she showed major signs. My friend who is a recovering alcoholic (10 years sober) told me her 'out in the open' gambling on our trip is a common symptom - the addict thinks they are in a place where their addiction is hidden in plain sight. Like an alcoholic going out drinking with friends who doesn't think anyone notices that he's on number 10 when the rest are on 2 or 3.... (of course the last example does not include Vegas trips because we are all in double digits at any time!)

Anyway - for me it was the lying that got to me... I had a bad marriage and that was enough lies to last me a lifetime... I don't do lies anymore!

 

OK. Dinners done...lol. Sorry gang I totally forgot about this post...Alright, where were we? Aaah yes, good old Sal, who is normally quite animated and chatty is now eerily silent. I was immersed in a Stephen King novel (DreamCatcher) and was quite thankful that my paisan was safely ensconced in dreamland. It was a blissful several hours really, until he started snoring. We were somewhere over Texas when it started...

Again, not to beat a dead horse here, but Sal is a giant fucker. 6'2" and about 320lbs back then. Generally people of that size have sleep apnea, Sal is no exception. For those of you that have ever tried to sleep next to a person with sleep apnea, you know it's like trying to get sleep in an airplane hangar of a fucking sawmill. He was snoring so loud that other passengers thought we were playing a joke on them - like Jackass or Punked! type of shit. It continued non stop for almost 2 hours. Complaints were lodged to every flight attendant on board, by every passenger on board - and then the Captain was notified...I was then notified that Sal will have to be removed from the plane via EMT if he doesn't wake up by the time we land. So, by this time I have held his nose, elbowed his ribs, shaken him, pulled his hair, screamed in his ear, poured water on him, slapped his face, held his eyes open all to no avail. ..Sky Harbor here we come.

Land in Sky Harbor to thunderous rounds of applause by people now so over his log sawing that they are chanting "WAKE SAL UP!!!" and throwing things at him (and me for that matter.) No can do. As passengers are walking by they are literally taking turns screaming "wake up!" to him, rubbing his bald head, or one old lady thumped him - hard. Told me " that fucker ruined our flight.. " she was in her 80's.. You know you've pissed people off when the geriatrics that spend half their lives snoring around other people that snore all day are complaining. No go on Sal's wake up yet either.. So this stewardess that reminds me Niecy Nash (who was laughing about the whole ordeal the entire time) came up and let us know that the PFD was on their way with a wheelchair and that we may not be able to switch planes if he is not awake...

TO BE CONTINUED..TOMORROW SAL ARISES !!! AND ADVENTURES IN CAESARS

 

I can't wait for the next installment! The thought of an entire 737 yelling WAKE SAL UP make me laugh.

 

What's funny is I assumed when you mentioned doing a little gambling and throwing down $20 I expected to read how she'd bet a dollar or two and was horrified that you spent so much.

Welp...totally wrong on that one!

 

About three or four years ago I went to Vegas with a friend for a long weekend. We live in different cities, but flights arrived about the same time on the same day. We stayed downtown at Main Street Station.
Anyway, my friend is a pleasant social drinker, but was definitely not interested in gambling. In fact, at one point I told her that I wanted to go play video poker at the bar. She was fine with tagging along. So we sit down at Boar's Head Bar and I start to play some Jacks or Better. My friend proceeds to pull out a book and starts reading. Just a funny juxtaposition of me sitting there playing VP while my friend is reading The Help. At least she was drinking a beer while reading.

Not really a worst travel partner story, but she's not someone I would do Vegas with again. She made me realize that trips to Vegas for me need to be with others who like to gamble, or else go solo. WIth one exception, I have gone to Vegas on solo trips ever since.

 

A friend of mine did that once. It was the last night of our trip and he had a rough time at the tables, wasn't sure if he wanted to play anymore. I was still playing and he said he was going to walk around for a while. After about an hour I sent him a text asking where he was, he said he was up in the room deciding if he was going to play anymore. I went back up the room and he was in bed reading a book, he didn't want to tell me he had thrown in the towel. He is a good guy and fun to go with but to this day I give him a hard time about that.

 

Let's see if we can revive this old thread and get Gino back to finish.