R&R with the Wifey

T minus 5 days and counting until the wife and I take our annual December voyage to the greatest place on earth. We will be staying at the Rio in a comped Luxury Suite on Saturday and then over to the Flamingo on Sunday for 3 more nights in a comped Go Room. We had offers at every CET property, but we chose these two as we haven't tried them yet and we could secure decent smoking rooms. We don't smoke inside at home and so we love the novelty of it. Nothing better than waking up in Vegas and enjoying a morning coffee and smoke in your room with very little to worry about except where the next hand pay might come from. (I am bringing a water boiler and french press to ensure maximum coffee enjoyment. Hotel coffee usually sucks and I like my coffee strong enough to chew) We also chose CET because our home casino (Cleveland) switched from the Horseshoe to the Jack this year, we haven't had the opportunity to earn our status for next year. Even though my weekly airline is AA, we are flying First Class on Delta out through DTW and SWA home. The one way out on Delta was too good of a price to pass on and we used SWA points coming back. SWA is the only airline with a direct to CLE anymore (unless you enjoy the special kind of hell that is Frontier and Spirit) and once it's time to go home we are ready to get there. Looked into cashing in some AA miles but the flights on AA suck and since i've long made status on AA this year, I don't feel pressured to pay AA for a shit flight to get the additional miles in. Airport BMW 7 Series pick up scheduled via Omni. The cost is about 3x a cab but well worth every penny to not have to hassle with cabs/uber, the ability to stop at the liquor store for some room booze (and diet pepsi), and someone who is usually fairly friendly.

We are both in our early 30's, no kids, and both work what some would consider to be too many hours. Additionally, I travel about 30 weeks out of the year both domestically and internationally for work and so this trip marks the end of travel season. Leaving tomorrow for a quick 2 day out and back and then one day to do some laundry and pack and then off to our happy place. We love this trip because in addition to being off the road until January, we get to come back to a light work schedule with the Holidays so the reality of returning from Vegas is a little less brutal.

We are both slot players and I will play some dice/BJ and wifey will play VP as well. In addition to playing at CET casinos we also plan to spend a day at Cosmo. Neither of us have played there before and we would like to see what a day's worth of gambling with get us in terms of offers. In addition to gambling (the majority of the trip) we are looking forward to a nice dinner with some college friends that live out there, a day trip out to some of the state/national parks, and some off strip properties, and last but not least, DAILY NAPS! (you read that right, second to a morning smoke we find the 3pm vegas nap to be one of the best parts of the trip. We are lame and usually somewhat drunk by then so its a great recharge for the night)

So, enough rambling, I have the app downloaded and will attempt to remember to update as we go with pictures. If that fails, I will write something up when I get back. This will be my first TR and I feel compelled to write as the TR's here have gotten me through a number of long layovers at the airport and boring nights in hotel rooms thinking about this trip.

ps. Not sure if this is a sign but I needed new tennis shoes and wifey needed some new heels before this trip. Hit up Zappos. The shoes I liked best and bought were called the Nike Zoom WINflo and she buys these black stilettos called "Jackpot" by somebody or another... I'm really hoping this is a sign of things to come! I'll report back on the comfort but most importantly the effect they have on the machines. "It's gotta be the shoes"...

 

Enjoy the trip!!!!

 

Have fun - isn't it still hunting season in Ohio though? Vegas is fun, but we go in summer - or not hunting season, lol!

Flew out of CLE in August via Frontier; it went smooth for us. It was about $500 cheaper all-in rather than flights from BUF or ROC, where we live. Plus we wanted a direct flight, even if we had to drive a bit.

I travel 1-2x per month for work and CLE, while not being a trendy airport, had a lot of nice people working there. I'm usually on Delta or AA and starting to prefer Delta over AA pretty quickly.

 

Sounds like a great trip is planned.....hope you enjoy & come home a winner!

 

Enjoy the trip, can't wait to follow.

 

I make the trip flying Delta through DTW as well, it's not a bad stopover. I usaully fly ou t of CAK though. Have a great trip, and the shoes should definitely bring you the ood luck!!

 

Work Trip Done, Check.
Wifey and I are planning to head out tonight after she gets home from the office to pick up some last minute items, grab some dinner and discuss our packing needs.

We generally like to fly out early in the day but tomorrow we don't leave until 6pm. That was planned on purpose as my wife's best friend and her husband (honestly awesome human beings) are celebrating the formal adoption of their two little boys. Long story short, for personal reasons they were looking into fostering with the plan to adopt a baby. They ended up with two as they were brothers (1 and 3) and it wouldn't have been great to separate them. 6 months into fostering they moved forward with adoption and just last week it was made official. So they went from no kids to 2 under the age of 4 in less than a year. They are great kids and my wife and I are really excited to be "Auntie and Uncle"... and with no kids of our own and no plans to change that, our new mission in life is to spoil the shit out of those kids!

Anyhow, just over 30 hours before we leave and the excitement is building. Moved some money around this morning for our BR and finishing up the laundry now.

Stay Tuned as I try to master the art of the tapatalk app...

 

This is wonderful for all involved....kudos to your friends....all lives will be blessed. Now....go enjoy your trip!!

 

Have a great trip with your lady! I am already looking forward to my next one.

 

Cleveland sounds like milwaukee, no non stop flights to/from Vegas besides southwest

 

I used Frontier out of CLE for the first time last Sunday evening for a 6:30 flight that left right on time and got in on time at 8:11pm. I am a true SWA flyer all the time but had to go on a quick planned trip to cash in my Tribe bet. When I checked what SWA wanted in points or money I couldn't pass up Frontier's fare of $101 r/t. And since I do pay for the A pass at least on the way back I paid $12 to pick my seat on Frontier and since it was a short 3 nighter ,we all took under the seat bags. My only complaint was that the seat bottom cushion is not as thick......so $125 R/T was great! The return N/S Wed. Night went just as smoothly .....I am surprised that everything went so well and would use them again if the price was such a big difference .

 

Day 1 (and a half)


Day one (travel day). A few minor complaints but this is vacation and we are the types that really try not to let the little shit bother us. My beautiful bride and I are just happy to be on Vacation and not worried about work for the next 4 days.

We got to the airport on time and sat at the only bar in Terminal B at CLE. I call this the loneliest place on earth because it only has a few gates, one bar, and a general morose feeling about it. None the less, immediately upon arrival we ordered a few doubles and waited on our flight, hoping the snow wouldn't effect our departure.



Our First Class Delta flights were fine. I will say we were both disappointed in the older 737-800 we flew from DTW to LAS. We generally fly AA as I fly them almost weekly for work and have quite a few miles. I never thought I'd say this, but I guess I'm spoiled by AA domestic first. We found the seats on Delta to lack legroom and the headrest wasn't adjustable like most so it was tough to sleep. (To be fair, I am 6'3 and most seats lack leg room for me) I realize complaining about first class makes me sound like a giant spoiled D bag, but I paid for the tickets so live with it!!! We like to splurge on flights when it makes sense and enjoy the journey. Given the option we probably won't fly that Delta plane in FC again. None the less we made the best of it, had a few more drinks and most importantly made it safely and on time. One last note, it was one of the bumpier flights I've had in a while. In fact we took a pretty big detour south to try to avoid the "extreme" turbulence and while our pilots did everything they could, we ended up like a James Bond martini most of the way. Needless to say, the seatbelt sign was nice and bright most of the 4.5 hours.



Upon arrival, we had Omni pick us up in a sedan. We ended up with a Cadillac as opposed to the BMW 7 series ordered, but not a huge deal. Our driver was nice but OMFG she was super chatty and my wife is too nice to disengage from the conversation so we basically learned her entire life story between LAS the liquor store and the Rio. All and all a pretty smooth ride.


Once we got to the Rio we quickly checked in. We have never stayed here and figured we'd try it out. We are happy we only stayed one night. I think the most best way to describe the room would be "A SH*T HOLE", and while it's supposedly "upgraded", neither of us could tell. I was going to take pictures, but just imagine a 20 year old hotel room that hasn't seen a good cleaning in the same amount of time. Anyhow, it was only one night and so it's not that big of a deal. I didn't wake up with bites so thats a win! After we arrived we quickly changed and went to grab a drink and began gambling. No good pics but I broke even and Wifey is was down 100 over about 2 hours of play each. I did hit bonuses on $1 WOF and $1 Top Dollar but neither broke 100. No pics of the wins last night b/c none of them warranted a picture.

We woke up this morning at 5am. Not because we were ready to wake up, but because some drunk D bag decided to pound on our door thinking it was his friends room. After that I couldn't fall back to sleep so I got up, made some coffee (I brought our own coffee supplies) and just relaxed and realized it didn't matter because I was on vacation and I can nap at any time. Shortly after we took a shower, and headed down for some Bloody's and VP. After we went through about 100 each we went to Hash House for breakfast. I got the eggs and bacon and wifey had the Biscuits and Gravy. Both were great. Highly recommend!

After breakfast we decided to give Rio some more play before moving to the Flamingo. This is the only shot I got from this morning.



It's at this point the most unbelievable thing happened. My wife and I are playing the Buffalo machine. I am winning a bit, wife not so much. So my wife decides not to reload the machine and is sitting, watching me. No more than 2 spins after she runs out some lady comes up and asks if she is playing (mind you its 8:30 am at the Rio on sunday morning and there are at least 4 other Buffalo machines open). My wife being the over polite person she is, said no and got up. This is when it gets weird. My wife and I were sharing an ash tray. It happened to be on the end of her machine. I am still actively smoking when this lady sits down, grabs the ash tray and walks it to another machine. She comes back and I mention I was using that. She says "well I like to clean up my space before I play" and starts wiping the machine down. I was blown away. Like who the F do you think you are? Go use one of the other 10000 slot machines if you want your space to be special... Whatever, I stood up, cashed out, made some comment about "as long as she was comfortable, thats all that matters" and walked away. At this point, we were done with Rio and grabbed our bags and headed out. We were just laughing about how ridiculous the whole thing was.

We then headed over to the Flamingo. We used the VIP check in and were in our room by 10:30 AM. This room is the ritz compared to the Rio. Sure it could use some work, but the Go rooms are completely acceptable. My wife put it perfect. The Go rooms are like the Target of the strip. Nicer than the dollar store Rio but not like the Nordstom of the Cosmo/Aria/Wynn. They are just fine for us and it's hard to complain too much about fully comped rooms.

So we are here now, played about 5 hours and went up and down. We both played all morning on 200 each which is awesome considering generally play 2-5 pull. We are now napping/relaxing and getting ready for dinner with some old college friends who now live here. We are headed to Glutton tonight downtown. We have never been and are looking forward to it.

So until tomorrow... thanks for reading my rambling.

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Sorry to hear about crazy lady if I was you I keep on smoking and blow smoke her way see if she likes it lol