Mandalay Bay in October

Just got back from a 3 night trip to Mandalay Bay (MB). Overall: Wife and I had great times, wish it was 6 nights!


We chose the MB because of it's location: Since it is at the extreme south end of the strip, it is easy for our friends to come and visit us (we lived in Las Vegas up until a year ago). But it is also easy to get into the middle part of the strip thanks to the tram to Excalibur, which really takes you to the corner of Trop and Las Vegas Blvd, so you have quick access to MGM, NYNY and other nearby locations.

After landing on Wednesday late afternoon, we were pleasantly surprised at the complete lack of lines at the taxi stand, but when we arrived at the MB, we were confronted by this:


Apparently every convention goer in Vegas stays at the MB due to MB being a big convention hub. Also, the professional bull riders thingy was going on. But there is always something. Anyway, no worries, we went to the MLife check in desk that let's you bypass that line if you have a high enough tier. Whoops... we didn't, but since no one else was waiting she let us check in anyway. We tipped 20 dollars in gratitude! Sometimes it pays to be Mr Magoo and not see the sign right.

I am not going to give you a blow by blow of our trip, but just mention some things I found interesting. We basically confined our gambling to the NYNY, Luxor and MB. NY NY are MB had no blackjack that was below $25 except for the "6:5" variety which was available in $10 and $15, sometimes from a CSM! (Continuous shuffle machine). People were playing all these 6:5 games too, so whatever. I have said enough about that in other posts, but if you want to play blackjack you probably need to go to the lower tier casinos or off strip somewhere. Unless you are a $25+ player, then you are all set.

The good news is that the craps games were all very lively almost all the time. I think more and more people are finding out about how much fun the cubes can be! The limits were generally $10, going to $15 at the MB at night. I find $15 an awkward limit so I played craps at the Luxor instead, where the limits were only $5, and the tables were full of people having a riot. In the end I broke even on dice, which is just fine for me, because I had whole lot of fun playing. A couple from New Jersey was playing next to my friend and I and they were cracking us up, making up nicknames for everyone, trying to set the dealers up with her sister, and generally being silly. Mostly I stuck to $10 with single to double odds depending on how i felt and threw in a bunch of nutso bets here and there, e.g. hard 8 or "Horn high Yo", only because it is fun to say. A friend who was gambling with me prefers the "Horn High Ace Deuce", only because he figures that particular piece of felt probably never gets much love. One wild thing that did happen was some guy bought in for 10k, and proceeded to loose it all in a couple of tosses betting on the dark side. He then slouched away. I don't know how people can do stuff like that. I have just plenty of fun with $20-40 at risk, thank you very much!

For some wacky reasons I sat down also at a roulette wheel (What? Weren't you just complaining about people playing 6:5 blackjack?). My mother always asks me to put some money on her favorite number, so I always sit down so I can tell her how it went. Also, the pace of the game appeals to me sometimes. On this particular trip I stopped to watch some pretty girls play roulette and the favorite number came up, so I took it as a sign (Yeah, i know it is unlucky to be superstitious) and went to the next table over and bought in. It was a ten dollar table, so I put 2 dollars on a 5 different numbers, and wouldn't you know it, the favorite number came up! So I ended up sitting there for a while, enjoying the free drinks and getting really lucky with that number and a few others! I ended up winning $200 at that table before I walked away. There is something about hitting an inside number and having them push that stack of chips your way that is hard to reproduce in any other game. Note that if you look at house edge / standard deviation when comparing games, which I argue you should (since the variance is where the thrill comes from, right?) then roulette compares a bit better when you stick to only a few numbers.

The only other gambling I did on this trip was online (WSOP) poker in my room. Nothing special to report about that, but isn't it interesting that you can gamble in your room now on a computer in Nevada? I wonder if they will take this much farther, perhaps putting terminals in your room to gamble on?

We decided to do a bit of exploring as well, and headed to the back of the MGM to take the monorail up one station so we could check out Paris. We hadn't been to that casino for a while, and I had never taken the monorail, so off we went. $5 a head and we had our tickets and boarded the monorail station. The station at the MGM is pretty nice, but where we got off (Behind Ballys) left something to be desired. I mean, does this look safe to you?


Sure, during the day.. but later ?

After braving the back alleys and the seedier parts of Ballys we were into the shopping part of Paris, which are much more welcoming and quaint. Yes there were plenty of people walking and shopping, but thanks to the magic of photoshop and multiple pictures, I was able to get rid of the ********* :evillaugh



Definitely a highlight was lunch at the Eiffel Tower Restaurant. It is not cheap, but the food was absolutely delicious. I recommend you try it out. Also, the view:



Finally, on our last night, some friends picked us up and we went down to the south point to enjoy dinner at the Italian restaurant there (Don Vitos, surprisingly good and affordable!) as well as the best way to end any trip to Vegas, watching the Sin City Sinners (with guest Ron Keel) perform! Yes, I am fan of these guys from when I lived here, but their shows are always fun, and I recommend them to anyone who enjoys any music that is in the same class as AC/DC's Highway to Hell

 

Thanks for the great TR. I always love TR's with pictures. Makes it so much more entertaining to read. Sorry for being curious but you lived in Vegas until a year ago? What made you decide to relocate and come back to Vegas for vacation?

Thanks for sharing!

 

Relocation was due to new employment, but still love vegas. Actually, it is somewhat better, since now I can "go to vegas" for vacation Before that was just staying home....