12/14-18, Golden Nugget & Bellagio somewhat Frugal, Live Trip Report

Trip report, from Dorothy (not actually my name) here in Kansas!

The husband and I are heading out of town via Spirit airlines. We are catching the 9:45pm nonstop flight. We are going to be staying 4 nights in Vegas. Our first two nights are going to be at the Golden Nugget in a Gold Tower Room, utilizing 2 best rate guarantee coupons I have burning a hole in my pocket. The last two nights we are staying in a comped room at Bellagio with $40 free play-thank you Mlife. I plan on doing the $20 trick at Bellagio, so wish me luck!

The Hubs and I are celebrating our 7 year wedding anniversary this trip. He’s 33 and I’m 29. We are “fairly” frugal people. We budget each month and live within our means. We each have about $1100.00 each for our gambling money.

We have some things planned for our trip:
1. Eat a Chili Dog at Binions, I LOVE their chili dogs.
2. Eat at BurGR @ Planet Hollywood
3. Eat at the Bellagio Buffet, we’ve never eaten there before!
4. Go on a Gondola Ride
5. Ride the High Roller @ night-purchased tickets through Living Social
6. Eat a fancy-to-us, steak dinner. Place to be determined….maybe Vic and Anthony’s, Hugo’s Cellar, Eiffel Tower Restaurant, or such. Any suggestions welcomed.
7. “O” at the Bellagio. We’ve wanted to see this show for a while now.
8. Attempt to play video poker…….. this is a new one for me. We mainly play slots.
9. Gamble at Binions, I really like their promotion of the swipe and spin after you accumulate so many points. I’ve “won” some cool stuff, backpacks, free lunch at the café & deli, dinner at the steakhouse etc. It’s the little things in life, right?

We usually bring about $100-200.00 per person per day to spend, so our bank roll is a little higher than normal. Typically we are penny slot people but we are venturing out to play some dollar slots this time. This will be trip number 5 for me and trip number 4 for the Hubs. Our last trip to vegas was in April and we stayed at Luxor (with no comps-paid for our room), saw Carrot Top for the second time-still funny, and went to Zarkana.

For numbers people……………………….

Airfare:
Our flight to Vegas is on Spirit $121.18 which includes $35.00 for ONE carry on bag. The flight is nonstop, leaves at 945pm and arrives to LAS at 10:54pm (but the flight is 3 hours and 9 minutes). So, it would only be $43.09 per person if we could travel without that carry on.

Our flight home is on Southwest $344.20, YIKES! $172.10 per person. But this flight works best with our schedule.

Total: Round trip $232.69 per person. I’m happy with this price we’ve had to pay $350 per person before.

Hotel:
Golden Nugget Gold Tower Room:
$44.64 Total for the two nights because of two coupons I had with expedia. It would have been free if we would have stayed in the carson tower. But I wanted to upgrade and see if I like staying closer to the casino floor. I stayed last year in a Carson tower room and it was alright, but it was a little ways from the casino. There is also a $5.65 destination fee per night that we will have to pay at check out.

Total with fees: $55.94

Bellagio: Free because of the “winter offer” I received. Although I’m budgeting $20 for a *hopeful* room upgrade.

Transportation:

Las to Golden Nugget: Taxi
Golden Nugget to Bellagio: Deuce
Bellagio to Las: Taxi

Strip transportation: Deuce.

Thanks for Reading.

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UPDATE

Well, we made it to Vegas before I got the first part posted. We flew out on Spirit. It was a good deal but the seats were not that comfy. Maybe next time we will pay extra for the “big” seats.

Took the taxi to Golden Nugget. approx $40

At check-in they informed us they only had two twin bed rooms available in the Gold Tower so we opted to stay in the Carson Tower with a King bed, but we don’t get a refund for the price difference…bummer. Oh well, I didn’t pay that much for the room. Tomorrow we will get a Gold Tower King Room!

We both worked today and are exhausted so we are hitting the hay and will start our gambling adventures tomorrow.

Stay tuned!

 

Great report so far, keep it up! I'm looking at staying at the Nugget for the first time in May, so I'm anxious to read your report. Have fun and good luck!

 

Good luck....can't wait to read about your exploits!!

 

Looking forward to hearing more.
Good luck.

 

You should think about taking the SDX instead of the Duece to Bellagio...it will be twice as fast!

 

also taking the WAX to FSE...it would have been $4, rather than $40...

 

I didn't even know hotels had twin beds; you should have been refunded the difference in price.

 

The Trip Report Continues.........Vegas Day 2

Vegas Day 2!

Got up and headed to Binions! Started off the morning playing Jurassic Park and a few spins in hit $93.00.


Now I get to play on their money for a bit.

Tried our luck at The Walking Dead machines but they weren’t paying. Eventually we had enough points to do the Swipe and Spin promotion. On my first spin I won $5.00 in free play. My second spin I won $25.00 in free slot play. The hubs won a 2 for 1 entrée in the Café and a Binions Travel Mug. We both need to earn more points before we can do our third swipe-and those prizes are the best!

I tried out the video poker with my free slot play and turned my $30.00 into $55.00.

We’ve made it a tradition to always have a Chili Dog at Binion’s and I love them! And if you have a players card you get a discount of $2.75 off the regular price for the Chili Dog and Fries. Then we used our comps to cover the remaining balance for lunch.


Eventually we made our way to the Fremont Casino. I lost about $90.00. They have a promotion going on that if you earn 200 points you get a miniature stuffed pepsi animal. I got a cute little pup, I’m probably going to give it to one of my nephews. You can earn 2 per day.



Hubby has been working a lot and was feeling a little tired. So we headed back for a cat nap. We will refuel and head back out. Overall I'm down about $90 and I think the Hubs is down about $100 but we're having fun. I love being in Vegas. It’s so much fun.

Catman-We definitely plan on taking the SDX, Thanks!
Timspeed-I have read about the WAX, I think we will give it a try next time, thanks!
Breanna61-I agree. I asked if he meant double or queen beds but the front desk agent was adamant it was two twin beds.

Well, the hubs is up now so out we go!!!

 

Looks like fun...hope you hit a royal!

 

Nice going so far. Keep it going!

 

+1!

 

Ditto about the "twin" beds!
I have never ever ever seen true 39" twin beds in a Vegas hotel!
Crazy....

Enjoying your report.

 

Day 2 Continued………

After the Hubs nap, we checked out of the Carson Tower and headed to our new room in the Gold Tower. I really like our new room. We have a pool view.
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Our next casino stop was the D. We played for a bit there but they took our money pretty quick so we left. We tried Four Queens, no luck. Then ventured to the Plaza, we had never been there. Not many people were there. We were on a losing streak.

So, back to old faithful….Binions! I like Binions. At one point I was down $350.00. But then I found a hot machine! The machine was the game of Life, and it was fun to play.
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I ended up winning back my $350 and actually came out $137.00 ahead! Then I had enough for my third spin at the Mother Load-swipe and spin! I won $50.00 cash! So up $187 for the day. The Hubs also got to do the third spin and he won $50 free play. We wanted to go eat so the Hubs is going to wait until tomorrow to use his free play.


We headed to the Fremont as Hubs wanted to eat their steak & lobster $11.99 special. We played for about 30 minutes as the special didn’t start until 9pm. We played on Jurassic Park and I won $38.00. The Hubs won $20. We ended up having enough points to get 2 more of the Pepsi stuffed animal pups. We have some little family members who will get them.
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We ate our dinner and it was good. It wasn’t the best meal I’ve ever had but for the price it was good. We watched the light show and then headed to the room.
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Gambling wise...... I'm up $225.00, the Hubs is down $195.00. So, we've won $30.00 at this point. However, breaking even in Vegas is like a win to me

We plan on eating breakfast at Binions with our comps. Then we are going to play at the Golden Nugget & Binion's and head to Bellagio. I'm anxious to see if the $20 trick works. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for reading.

 

That Golden Nugget room looks really great!

 

Video Poker Rocks!

Quick update: Video Poker Rocks!
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Detailed update to come. Heading to BurGR for Dinner and then riding the High Roller!

 

Congrats!

 

Yikes on the terrible payback scale (for dollars, to boot!)
But definitely congrats on taking a dollar flyer and hitting a jackpot!

 

Oh fuck yeah!

 

Just to date myself, when I saw High Roller, I immediately thought of the defunct roller coaster on top of The STRAT ...Nice score!

 

Congrats on the deuces! Looking forward to hearing about it.