Live 6/13 to 6/18 - A Salute to All Resorts, but Mostly Cosmo

Slacking on the wrap up posts.

Since it came up earlier in the thread, I figure I’ll list the reasons why I love Cosmo so much. The property is not for everyone, but when I look at it compared to my other choices it’s a no brainer right now.

1. The Rooms. This is by far the top reason we stay at Cosmo. The terraces are so important to our enjoyment of the trip, even when we can’t use them a ton due to the weather. Whenever we’ve stayed at other properties we’ve felt claustrophobic the whole time. You just never feel removed from the action when you can step aside and get the sights/sounds of the strip whenever you feel like it. Also, I love the layout of the studio and the design matches my personal taste much more than the other luxury properties.

2. Staff. This one slipped a bit on this trip, but on previously visits we’ve always had amazing service across the board. We also enjoying seeing the same familiar faces we’ve been interacting with for years, and have our favorites that we love to see.

3. F&B options. For me, Cosmo offers the best variety of options from quick/cheap to finer dining. I don’t think they deserve any awards for their top end restaurants, but they’re all great options and we’ve enjoyed meals at each. On the other side, Block 16/Eggslut/Secret Pizza is so much better than the equivalent options at other resorts. If you want full table service every meal than I wouldn’t rate it as highly as V/P, Bellagio, Wynn/Encore.

4. Slot floor. Cosmo always has the latest and greatest machines, cocktail service is quick and offers real drinks in real glassware.

5. “Vibe”. This one is hard to quantify, but I just feel comfortable there. The property feels cool and full of energy, and generally speaking has the crowd to match. I like the decor, I like all the little touches like the artomat machines, and as I said earlier the new wave/alternative playlist is my jam. This is going to make me sound shitty, but I also like that the property is more expensive so you have less riffraff, but doesn’t have the stuffiness you get at a place like Wynn. Can’t describe it exactly, but I think we can all basically identify the difference between the average guest at Cosmo vs Flamingo vs MGM vs Wynn etc.

6. Identity Program. This has become a little less important now that we play at a higher level, but getting guaranteed free rooms and 5% back on spend is awesome. If we had better friends/family to use the companion rooms on it would be even better. I feel my offers are fair, and I see no real reason to stray.

7. Pool/Events. I love the Blvd pool because you’re right on the strip. When I’m in Vegas, I generally want to feel like I’m in Vegas at all times, and for me that means the action of the strip. They also regularly have special events, programming up there too. We enjoy the ice rink in the winter quite a bit.

8. Spa. This is just for the Hammam. The rest of the spa is very pedestrian, but the hammam services are wonderful and unique to the property.

9. Ease of access. You can get in and out of the property real quick. We don’t spend as much time walking up and down the strip anymore, but when we feel like it it is nice to be right there.

Things I don’t like as much

1. Weekend crowd, especially with Marquee at full strength. Just too many club kids and folks looking to mix it up with them. The people watching was fun when we were younger, but now we’d take more peace and quiet.

2. Disappointing room upgrade options. We don’t really like the layouts of the higher tier floor plans at the hotel which is a bummer because it would be nice to do something different for special occasions.

3. Entertainment. I’ve never been on property while there’s been anything of note happening at the Chelsea. I wish they would put a bit more effort into establishing resident performers as I’d love to be able to stay on property for my show options. Eliminating Rose Rabbit Lie didn’t help, because that was at least show adjacent. I like Opium, but I’m not going to see that more than every few years even at 50% off.

4. Shopping. The merchandise options in the gift shops are pretty lame and the stores on property pale in comparison to the other high end properties. We don’t do a ton of shopping, but it’s still fun to walk through it sometimes.

 

Really enjoyed your TR. I have an upcoming stay at Cosmo for my return to Vegas post covid trip, but it’s a weekend trip in August. Hoping the crowds are less then but not expecting it.

 

So, follow up to this I found out about after getting home. My dad gave me his picks at Belmont, which were shit. Nothing but chalk in short fields, so I played a few races and called it after losing $60. He did not offer his picks for the evening at Churchill Downs, where he hit the Pick 6 for $30K.

 

Done this on previous trips and I like it. Here are some rankings related to F&B.

Top 10 Food Items this trip
1. Black cod at Zuma
2. Bone Marrow at Beauty & Essex
3. Pho’rench Dip and Fries at Lardo
4. Pork Belly buns at Momofuku
5. Spaghetti at Scarpetta
6. QuesoBirria at China Poblano
7. Miso Praline Bacon and Egg Biscuit at District Donuts
8. Spicy Pork Wrap Ups at Bang Bar
9. Little French Dips at Beauty & Essex
10. Tiramisu at Scarpetta

Top 5 Drinks this trip
1. Pistelero at Ghost Donkey
2. Burning History at zuma
3. The Source at Datamosh Omega Mart
4. The Pear-a-sol at Parasol Down
5. Vietnamese Iced Coffee at District Donuts

Overall Table Service Rankings
1. Momofuku - Slipped a bit on this visit and menu was more limited than usual, but our best experiences have still been here
2. Zuma - Jumped way up after first visit based on the quality of everything we had and the fact that there is still a lot to try
3. Beauty & Essex - Lots of great food to choose from, love that we can have lots of dishes, and have had great conversations with their bar staff on prior visits
4. China Poblano - Same as above, only reason it's lower is that we've had 1 or 2 dishes that were misses over the years
5. Blue Ribbon Grill - Bar staff is the best on property, love the drinks, and the classics are prepared so well
6. Scarpetta - Spaghetti absolutely lives up to the hype, hostess have generally been rude, and we just aren't as excited by Italian so it drops by default
7. Holstein's - Was amazing when they first opened, quality has slipped IMO, and shake menu/presentation is less appealing now
8. Wicked Spoon - Used to love it, but last pre-pandemic visit was disappointing, 2-1 for Gold is a great value
9. The Henry - We've enjoyed everything we've had, it's rather basic and the setting/service are not as great
10. Jaleo - Disappointing meal here the 1 visit we made at the bar, and we've got one at home so not dying to give it another chance
11. Overlook Grill - Slightly worse food than The Henry, with the same setting/service concerns
N/A STK (Have one at home, no interest)
N/A Red Plate (On the to-do list, not open last two visits)

Overall Quick Service Rankings
1. District Donuts - Amazing breakfast options and great sliders/fries, wins for versatility
2. Lardo - Probably the highest highs, but have had some clunkers and more limited than District
3. Bang Bar - Spicy Pork Wrap Ups were excellent, Teriyaki Chicken U-Wrap was good, short line and quick turnaround also a plus
4. Eggslut - Food is always good, truffle hashbrowns are a great recent addition, just not worth the long lines
5. Milk Bar - If you want something sweet that isn't a donut, this is pretty much the option
6. Hattie B's - Food isn't as good as Eggslut, but lines are almost as long
7. The Juice Standard - I'm in Vegas, so too focused on food that destroys my body to really appreciate the stuff I've bought here.

 

The pictures of the conservatory are beautiful! Impressed with the plan to buy chocolate ahead of time . Priorities!

 

Area 15/Omega Mart

So I’ve been thinking more about our Omega Mart experience and I have to be honest, I’m really disappointed. I had such high hopes going into it, which may be part of the problem, but when you know so many industry folks that tell you how Meow Wolf in Santa Fe was life changing, it’s hard not to get excited.

My mom asked me to describe what Omega Mart is when we came back, and the best I could come up with is a mashup of an art gallery, a children’s museum geared towards adults, and an escape room. What I mean by that, is there are a lot of interactive exhibits/stations like you would find at a kids museum, with an escape room type storyline/mission and message meant for adults. You can trigger different things with your actions, and completing tasks on one station opens up new ones on others. There’s an insane amount of detail to explore in these areas, and they’ve clearly put a tremendous amount of time/effort into making everything as “real” as possible. Also, many of the employees are great actors and play their parts perfectly. At one point, we were followed through the mart for a few minutes by an employee trying to “hide” his spying with increasingly ridiculous methods.

Unfortunately all this effort is completely wasted because they allow way too many people inside. The sense of discovery is gone when you know something is important because there is a line of 10-15 groups waiting for it. You can’t go deep into the story and watch the “extra” content that’s not essential to completing the mission because you’re aware that so many others need to access that specific device to move forward, so I question what the value of having that stuff is. In fact, we had to stand and wait for a guy as he watched multiple 3-5 minute videos on a computer that we needed to access. That’s not enjoyable for him or us.

The other problem is families bringing really young children. This is not meant for kids, but if you offer a children’s price and show playground slides in your marketing materials, you’re going to end up with a bunch of kids let loose in your attraction. No one is going to look at your FAQs where you say it’s meant for 12+. We had to step over screaming kids and bite our tongues when they would run up and push us aside to get to something we were “playing” with.

Overall, I can’t recommend this experience given their current setup. We went at opening on a weekday, and it was still too mobbed to enjoy it. They need to seriously reconsider their model, as I can’t imagine their average visitor is leaving feeling satisfied. If you have any specific questions I’d be happy to answer, since it’s still hard to find much online.

As for the rest of Area15, it looks real cool but it’s ultimately a collection of chintzy attractions/shops you could find in a lot of other places. Without Omega Mart I’m not sure they’d be drawing many people in for the rest of it.

 

Gambling Recap

Let’s start with the numbers as I know I always find the nitty gritty stats interesting.



Really makes you appreciate the randomness of slot play. Take out those two hand pays and I essentially get the same result as I had on my last trip. Those split second choices to hit the button resulted in wildly different results.

This was only our second winning trip in approximately 15 visits, and the first was back when we played so low and so infrequently that it wasn’t hard to protect a win if you hit something decent early.

Even with our first ever handpays and a healthy win, it was a very choppy run. It felt like a baseball game, all three true outcomes and nothing in play. We either hit something huge or got wiped out. Didn’t have many instances where we camped on a machine never swinging more than a few hundred up or down for a while. Again, not complaining with the result, but it just felt like we were bouncing around and chasing rather than getting the chance to play until growing bored.

I had big plans to get on the tables this trip, and I think at this point I just have to admit to myself that it isn’t going to happen. Playing the $5 Roll to Win craps for a few shooters helped me realize that the pace/payout of a table game just doesn’t rev my engine. Granted I was only playing pass line with the max 2x odds, so low stakes, but I couldn’t wait for the rolls to just resolve themselves one way or another. I’ve become addicted to the get rich quick feeling of slots, which is not a great thing to have to admit. Risking $500 on a hand of blackjack to win a max of $750 doesn’t make sense in my broken brain. The downside risk is too great since it happens all at once. Yet playing a game with an awful house advantage just for the infinitesimal chance of a huge win is somehow fine. *shrug* Hopefully I’m describing it in a way that makes sense, but do any of you find yourself thinking this backwards way? Perhaps if my wife was more interested in playing I could do more regular limits and enjoy the social aspect, but she’s only willing to play Let It Ride (slow pace, low limit, impossible to screw up, chance at big hit any hand) and those tables have practically disappeared at this point. When I mentioned giving Talon a try just to say we did it, she didn’t seem very interested and I immediately felt silly for considering it. Some might say she’s just being practical, but sometimes it feels more like a wet blanket on my attempts to “live a little.” Happens fairly frequently on trips where I throw out a wild suggestion in the hopes that she’ll encourage it and we do something outside our usual routine, only to have her not react at all or react negatively which results in me feeling stupid for ever thinking about it. That was basically what happened with my attempt to buy VGK Game 1 tickets for example. But I digress…

Back to the RTW table, it certainly eliminated the nerves that have kept me away from a real craps table, but it was hardly any more fun than a bubble craps machine. The dealers are going to hate working it too based on what I saw. No one tipped other than me, and mine was a measly $4 so I could leave even.

Left up significantly on VP which was wonderful. I believe the HL machines were previously 9/6 JOB and are now 9/5 which was disappointing. Not sure if the paytables on the other games have been adjusted as well. My foray into higher variance games paid off with BP at Chandelier and with BP Deluxe in HL, so perhaps a gateway drug into the real crazy swings on DDB and beyond. I’ll have the learn the strategy though, which is part of why I’ve never played anything other than JOB or BP previously. Also played a bit at the actual HL bar for the first time, but at that point my wife was feeling a little too good so I wasn’t feeling it. Can’t speak to the service there as a result. Chandelier’s ticketing seems to have finally been ironed out to the 10-15-20 minute intervals that were reported in other threads. Plenty fast for my tastes and I’m generally ready to leave by the time that 3rd ticket spits out.

I did not receive the usual Tuesday after checkout offer update, but it did hit my account today. Room type option now includes the Terrace Suite based on a couple of test stays I checked. Hopefully seeing this data is useful to those of you trying to figure out what Identity gives for play. As a reminder, I was on a 5 night fountain view studio comp with $100 RC and $150 FP on this trip. I did not receive any backend, but that may have been my fault for not pushing the issue with the grumpy host on duty that was too busy sharing her political rants to review/discuss my play. I believe the fact that I already had a host assigned left her uninterested in actually giving a shit, so she heard I was open to using my Identity points and just applied that without looking any further.



I’ll probably have one more wrap up and look forward post. Can’t have these updates stretching more than a week past getting home though.

 

Great trip report sir.

 

great report!!!

 

Great report thank you and nice hits. Boy I do wanna stay in Cosmo one day

 

Thanks everyone for following along! Hopefully it was enjoyable or useful. I write these mostly for myself as it’s nice to have a little journal of the trip and something to look back at when getting ready for the next trip. I almost always read through all the old TRs leading up to a trip.

Some miscellaneous thoughts, reflections, and advice to myself for future trips

Faded Karaoke at The Barbershop Saloon
-As stated prior, too much of a club setup for my personal tastes
-I appreciated that the band didn’t start too far after the stated 10pm start. I hate when bars advertise entertainment and it doesn’t end up starting until much later
-The karaoke seemed very loose. Band was a little sloppy and backing was pretty thin, lyrics were just on an iPad, and you signed up via a web form that I unfortunately forgot to save the address for. Didn’t see anything particularly surprising on the song list, you can probably guess what might be available.
-The band kept things moving, which was much appreciated. Guests got brought up pretty quickly with a little bit of patter in between. They had played an hour by the time we left, not sure when they break but doing at least an hour is pretty good IMO.
-Performances were much better than I expected. Not sure if the crowd is more dedicated since it’s only once a week and behind closed doors, but having seen the “talent” at Harrah’s I was fearing the worst.
-We’d consider going back to watch a regular performance if we could get a table for a reasonable minimum.

Wynn
-Truly felt like you were in a different world out by the Lake of Dreams. I contend that Wynncore is the place to be when you want to go to Vegas without actually going to Vegas.
-Service at Parasol Down was awful, but that probably worked to our benefit as we were really just trying to nurse a drink and catch the first show.
-The “show” is so bizarre. I’m not sure how they decided on these things, but it seems so out of left field for the setting. It’s odd to me that the same person dropping $1K at SW for dinner wants to be serenaded by emojis singing ‘I Got You Babe”.
-If/when we stay at Wynn again in the future I’ll set aside an evening to either eat at SW/Lakeside or plant at Parasol Down to watch as many of the performances as possible. My wife was bummed we didn’t get the smoking frog.

Atomic Saloon
-Don’t do the booths on the side, the comfort of the seats doesn’t make up for the viewing angle
-The humor is all cheap. I know that shock humor plays heavily in all the Spiegelword shows, but it seemed like there just wasn’t as much else in this one compared to Opium/Absinthe
-Think I’m set on aerialists at this point. Not sure if the show is always so heavy on it as I do believe it’s still a modified version for Covid, but too much of it in this one
-Performers definitely interact more with the guests in this than any of the other shows. I don’t necessarily mean calling them out during the show, but just stopping by in the midst of the chaos in the “story”. The reverend character laid on our booth seat with his head up against my wife’s lap just venting about how tiring the whole situation was. Probably a good 30 seconds while some other stuff happened on stage. I believe this stuff is why my wife liked it more than Opium.
-If you like Absinthe/Opium then you should give it a shot. If you didn’t like one of those, I don’t think this will be any different.

Lyft/Uber
-The glory days are over for now. Waits were longer and prices were higher than cabs in most instances. It was kinda nice to have the more confident/aggressive rides from the cabbies, but I’ll miss the lower prices and ease of paying through an app versus cash.
-I’m hoping rental cars come back down sooner rather than later. I like the freedom that comes with having a car. There were a few things I likely would have done on this trip if I had a car, as the friction of paying for a ride is enough to stop me in many cases.

Things I wish we’d done
-VGK Game 1
-Hammam, wanted to book before the trip but they didn’t open until we were in town
-Drybar, tried to convince my wife to go and she was wishywashy on it
-Pinball Hall of Fame, when I thought about the time and ride cost just didn’t pull the trigger
-Wynn status match, didn’t realize this ran through end of 2022 until I got back home.
-Played more at the HL bar to try some new drinks/liquors
-One of the special events at the pool, either dive-in movie or sunset hour
-Could’ve pushed a little farther as far as consumption of food and alcohol, but it’s a delicate dance between not getting sick and not feeling like you’ve given it your all
-Not spend time doing birthday shopping in Miracle Mile when that could’ve been handled at home
-Dispensary visit, it’s kinda silly but sleep aids are always helpful

Future trips
I think I’m getting closer and closer to narrowing down what a perfect trip would entail in the future. I think 4 or 5 nights at Cosmo is pretty much perfect, plenty to keep me occupied on site for that length of time and I like to focus everything there when I’m staying. Then 2 nights at Wynn/Encore for relaxation and as a base to do other Vegas activities that I never feel I have time for when trying to jam in my Cosmo favorites. I’m not sure when I’ll ever have the volume of time off to justify 7 nights in Vegas when there are so many other places to go, but I think that’s going to be the right balance. I just need to figure out a way to keep my brain from thinking about the end of the trip once I’m a few days in. I start to get sad and feel rushed/rundown by day 3 thinking about how it’ll all be over soon. You hit a cold streak when you’re already in your feelings lamenting the end of the trip and it’s a nasty spiral. I wish I could figure that out.

 

Something else I forgot to add related to the flights.

My wife and I got into the habit of bringing Starbucks gift cards to give to the SW employees when we were traveling on Thanksgiving/Christmas day. We’ve always gotten a great response from them, and since the last year has been tough figured we just do it on all our flights for a bit. On the flight home, my wife was handing them out to everyone as we passed during boarding, and the one in the exit rows immediately burst into tears. He dumped a lot on us, and had clearly been having a rough time, so it felt great to brighten his day a bit. Just something to consider for you all in case you’re looking for a karma boost. $100 on $10 Starbucks cards for the round trip doesn’t take a big chunk out of budget, but can make a big difference to the folks that are getting them.

 

Fantastic trip report. Sorry I’m just now reading it. Better late than never. Glad you had a great time and congrats on your wins. Looking forward to the next one. You sound like a writer.

 

Thanks for all of the wrap-up posts. I appreciate your insight about a lot of things.

Very helpful!

Vegasworm

 

Thanks! I’m about the furthest thing from a writer (Finance), which is why I tend to feel like I’m rambling a lot of times. Spend all day without saying more than a few words while pouring over numbers, so once I get the chance to “speak” it all comes spilling out.

Glad you found it useful. As my wife was counting my 50 hands on the my daily $5 VP play I was thinking how useful a finger clicker would have been. Maybe I’ll order one before the next trip.

 

It is kind of interesting that Cosmo has maintained the length of their offers at 5 nights for the summer. I was expecting them to drop back down to 4.

 

Great report, thanks!!!!

 

This is actually a really neat idea. I have started ending my fall trip on Thanksgiving Day and I might do this for my trip this year. Do you do it when you are getting on the plane or off?

 

Great TR, I just now read the entire thing and really enjoyed it. I loved all the food and drink pictures, and you did a great job keeping up with your posts during your stay. I know how challenging that can be.

Thanks for taking the time to do it, and for all the helpful insights.

 

I’m surprised by it as well. Sure doesn’t feel like they need to be giving away the house right now with the demand, so I’m surprised they haven’t ratcheted back at all. With all the short term thinking present in Vegas management and ownership it sticks out.

It’s much easier when boarding the plane as we usually catch all but 1 on the way back to our seats. Also, the flow of people is slower getting on than off, so you don’t have to worry about stopping progress to hand them off.

My wife loves to yell at me for spending so much time on my phone while we’re moving about. I don’t have the heart to tell her I’m sharing pics/info with a bunch of Vegas nerds on a message board. It is kinda wild when I look at how many phone pickups I have that week, but a lot of that is for photos. Have a lot of those that aren’t worth sharing due to the poor quality or stuff that seems interesting when you’ve been drinking but upon later inspection is not.