SB recap - 4 nights at Aria 2/4 - 2/8

So I have never been to Vegas for the SB, I decided to change that shortly after my trip in December. I am glad I did, it was a lot of fun. We booked 4 nights at Aria comped in a standard room, we love the casino and everything about the resort, and it has become our standard. Booked flights, going out Saturday morning the 4th and returning Wednesday the 8th. The plan was to just relax, eat well, gamble, take in the game and do some new things. We accomplished all of that here is the recap.

Flying out of the Midwest in February can always be a little dicey, we had a tight connection so I was a little nervous. We got into Detroit about 20 minutes early and the departure gate was pretty much right at the top of the stairs so we had no issues. They were already pre-boarding when we got to the gate so we basically rolled right in which was nice, no waiting. Arrived in Vegas a few minutes early, our driver was waiting for us and our bags were on the belt when we got down to baggage claim, things were going great. We checked in and they offered a room on the 9th floor that was available, we like a higher floor and opted to wait for something on the 30s. I was offered an upgrade to a penthouse on the 52nd floor in the sky suites that was available immediately, but I didn’t feel like paying $300 a night for it so just opted to wait it out. So we dropped our bags at the bell desk and decided to get some lunch.

Before we settled on a place we walked around a bit to try to see what was going on We ate at Javier’s, it seems like it has become one of our standards for lunch each trip. I had the enchiladas poblanas and she had the quesadilla mariscos, both were excellent. Room still wasn’t ready so it was time to gamble some before we headed out to the Speedway, I’ll get to that shortly. We scoped out the craps tables at Aria and they were spreading games from $10 - $100. We decided on a $15 table and got to work. Things were pretty much up and down for the first circuit around the table, I think I PSO and so did my wife. It looked like it was going to be a quick losing session but we hoped to weather things out to get the dice again. We did and it paid off. When my wife got the dice again she hit the ATS. I play that horrible bet almost every shooter, I think I am probably up on it since its inception and really hate the fact that they lowered the return, but I still play it. Nothing really notable about her roll other than the ATS, she got it pretty quickly and none of my numbers were pressed to high. We played for an hour or so (a little more than doubled our buy-in) and then had to get ready to head off the property. Our room still wasn’t ready so we grabbed one of the bags from the Bellman and hopped an Uber out to the LV Motorspeedway and Exotics racing.

The drive out to the Speedway took about 25 minutes. I had a 3:00 time to drive the Ferrari 458 Italia, I wasn’t quite sure what time to get out there so we left a little after 2 and got there around 2:30. Plenty of time to spare, next time I would plan on getting there at my appointment time. After getting checked in you are allowed to walk around and check out all of the cars. Sorry to all the car fans out there, I just don’t take a lot of pictures and didn’t here either. Their line-up is impressive, Ferraris, Lambos, a McLaren, the new NSX, R8, an Aston Martin, they are all out there and you can climb into any of them if they are unoccupied. It’s pretty cool to be up close to all of these supercars. So for the 3:00 appointment, they don’t star things until 3:15. First they have an instructional video and someone that speaks to you about the whole experience. Next they take you out on the track in a Porsche SUV to give you some on track tips then it’s into your car with the instructor. Depending on the number of people in your time slot there could be some waiting here. I was a bit nervous as I have never driven a supercar, nor driven on a track before. My instructor Buddy was great in going over the car with me and helping me out on the track with instruction and encouragement. I was a little slow and only turned on lap at under 1:00, but still had an awesome time. I would definitely do it again, but would change some things up. I bought 8 laps, had I know that they can only do 7 at a time I would only have gotten 7. They split the 8 into two 4 lap sessions; we didn’t take the car off the track, but did a slow 5th lap in between the two sessions. The break allows the car to cool some so as not to get overworked, probably not as much a problem in the winter as the summer. I felt the break disrupted my rhythm as I was starting to drive better and then he slowed us down. There was a lot of waiting, like I said; there really is no need to get there too early. They don’t start the briefing until 15 minutes past the hour. You have time to check the cars out after the briefing before or after you actually drive. I would also drive more than one car, building up to the best car you choose. They also had an opportunity to ride along with a drift driver; I would have taken them up on that offer and will if they have it next time. Took the shuttle back to the Aria, they drop off both at the Wynn and Aria, got back around 6:30. Great experience and worth it, I will do it again.

We got the text that our room was ready while out at the track so we were able to just head up there and relax. We called for our bags, unpacked and took a little nap. After an hour or so we got up showered and headed out down to the casino and to eat. We were pretty indecisive about what we wanted to eat so just decided on Aria Café, it did the job. We had only eaten breakfast there in the past and I probably wouldn’t go back for anything but. The food was fine, but the menu is pretty limited, I guess for a café it is fine. With so many great choices in Vegas it really isn’t a dinner spot. I had the philly and my wife the chicken noodle soup. Nothing exciting, but it did the trick. Now it was time to go gamble some more. With the earlier hit on the ATS I was hoping for some more good luck. Things didn’t go quite as planned. We were able to get a couple hours of play in nothing really noteworthy in this evening session. We played until we busted out then headed up to the room. My wife decided she was ready for bed, we had been up since 1:00 Vegas time and it was now close to 11:00. I was hoping for the 24 hour day, but could feel I was fading too. I just decided to call it a night as well.

So that was day one. I will come back for day 2 a little later . . .

 

Exotics Racing is on my to do list for Vegas Can't wait for the next update.

Mark

 

Enjoying the report thus far. Thanks for posting.

 

Sounds like a great day to me!

 

So day 2 was SB Sunday, my first in Vegas. Still being on Eastern Time, we woke up early and decided to get out on the strip and take a walk. Of course the siren call of the craps tables grabbed us before we made our way out the door. There was nothing noteworthy while on the tables, ran through our buy-in somewhat quickly. So out the door we went. We wanted to try a new place for breakfast and decided on Citizen’s Kitchen at Mandalay Bay. We were going to take the tram from Excalibur to MB, but we were at the tram entrance about 15 minutes before it opened and figured we would just enjoy the nice morning and walk the rest outside. The walk down the south end of the strip is somewhat depressing. We made it there and made our way back to Citizen’s. I had the Chili and Cheese skillet my wife had the Corned Beef Hash skillet. Both were very good. Nice atmosphere for breakfast, sort of tucked away in the back of MB. An aside on MB, every time I’ve been here I realize I really like the property. It seems like they have a nice casino floor, good eats and a great atmosphere overall, I just hate the location. I might need to just get over the location and break down and make a reservation to stay there.

After breakfast we started the trek back to Aria, this time through the casinos instead of out on the street. I liked the walk through the shops, Luxor and Excal. We made a leisurely stroll stopping at a few places and just kind of taking in the sights. When we got to NYNY we stayed inside and walked through the casino some and hit a couple of the shops there, including the Hershey store. Some of those deserts looked great, but it was too early in the morning for cupcakes or cookies. The rest of the way back to Aria along the strip, things were starting to get a little livelier on the strip at this point. We stopped at the Starbucks out on the strip in front of Mandarin Oriental, seems like this one never has much of a line, we hit this one often because so many in the hotels have too long of lines. We made our way into Aria after this, headed back up to the room to drop some stuff off and get some more cash.

We had plans to go to Crush for their SB party and now had a few hours to kill before we needed to get ready to head there. What else to do but hit the tables for a bit. There were still some $10 craps tables open at this point so we hopped on, I am not opposed to higher limits, but sometimes I like to start out with a low pass line bet and build up. This ended up being one of those times. For the first hour things were pretty back and forth, a few good rollers a few PSO. My wife had to go up to the room to get ready for the big game and stayed to play, here’s where things heated up. There was a shooter that had the dice for about 20 minutes. I typically only play the inside numbers and press pretty aggressively after a number hits. Playing inside cost me a few dollars here, the shooter was killing the 4 and 10. I finally got on both of them after a few hits; a first for me here was that I worked a number up to $1000, the 4. It never hit after I was pressed up to $1000, but the table made a killing on this roll. All my other numbers were pressed up considerably, but nothing like the 4. The shooter did not hit the ATS on this roll, he got one side and I think we still needed a 2, but what a rush. There is just nothing like a hot craps table anywhere else in the casino. I stuck around for a couple more shooters and the table cooled some. Had I just colored up I would have cashed in for a cool flag, which would have been another first for me, but alas I wanted to press my luck further. I only had a few minutes to get ready before we were headed to Crush for the party, I wouldn’t have minded missing the party for another good heater.

Off to MGM for the big game. I’ve never been to Crush and I thought it was a pretty cool little place. They had plenty of TVs set up and you could see the game from anywhere in the joint. It was $85 for all you could eat, there wasn’t a buffet but there was a list of items that you could tell your server you wanted. Everything we tried was very good, there were wings, crispy shrimp, flatbread pizza, philly dumplings (probably my favorite), chips and salsa, potato salad, sliders, chorizo subs and a few other things. They also brought out sweets in the 4th quarter mini cupcakes, cookies and Elvis flatbread (nutella, bananas, bacon and whipped cream on a flatbread). Drinks were not included, but I thought it was a great party. As for the game, incredible, what else can you say? For 3 quarters Tom Brady looked like Father Time finally caught up with him, that 4th Q was magical and I hate the Patriots. I had the Patriots and the under on a parlay for my main bet on the game, mid-way through the 2nd I knew that was doomed, I thought the under was good and the Pats not, I guess that was wrong. I used the playMGM app on my phone to make my sports bets for the weekend. Set-up takes a few minutes and it is great to not have to wait in line for anything. I had Patriots would punt before scoring, Tom Brady 4 TDs, combined rushing yards for QBs 28 – 35, 8 or 9 total penalties, and then I took the Patriots -6 in the second half. Only 2 winners there, oh well but it was fun. Back to the Aria to gamble.

So when we get back to the Aria there are only spots open at the $50 and up tables, that’s a little too rich for my blood to start things off, I can get there if things are going well, but not comfortable starting there. We walked around a bit and decided to get a milkshake at Jean Philippe, after killing some time, we made our way back to the craps pit and they were opening a new table at $25, we decided to wait it out and hop on that table. As we were waiting there was a women who just passed out at a slot machine, she just crumpled. It was a little scary for a few minutes. We got out of the way so security and medical could get the situation under control. While they were taking care of the woman, the table opened up and we hopped on. Nothing of note on this session, we got about an hour of play in before we were felted and then headed up to the room.

Another great day in Vegas, I’ll be back later for day 3 . . .

 

Great craps story! You are dead on...there's nothing like the rush of a hot craps table! Looking forward to the rest of your saga....

 

I stayed at mandalas bay for the first time last year. Loved Citizen cafe and HOB. The location inst bad if you use the pool and all the restaurants and bars. Casino is plenty big! I stay there the first few days of a trip then move down the strip for the end. Doing Aria and Cosmo on my next trip though.

 

Great report through Day 2 so far!
The experience at the speedway sounds interesting!

I would really love to take my Chevy Prizm out there and see what she's got left under her hood.
She has a bumper sticker on it reading "Honk if Anything Falls Off."
I doubt there's been any cars out there sporting that sticker before!
Then again, the stopping every half a lap to add fluids might be too hazardous!

I'd best go with a Lambo, then!

I can't wait to see the rest of your TR!
Thanks for sharing your trip with us!

RICHARD

 

Ok I’ll try to wrap things up here, we are on Monday. Nothing really noteworthy happened on the gambling front, it was all losing sessions. We got up and headed toward Caesar’s for breakfast. We weren’t really sure what we wanted, but we were going to try something new. We ate at the old Serendipity 3 and decided to try its replacement. I got the huevos rancheros and my wife got the Denver omelet. Both were good, but nothing to write home about. I liked Serendipity better; it was also pretty empty in there. After breakfast we headed back toward Aria and up to the room. We had a couple of appointments lined up at the Salon to be ready for a night that featured Ka and dinner at Carbone.

I typically get a shave while in Vegas, this trip was no exception. Vinny one of the barbers at the Aria salon took care of me this time. He’s given me a shave multiple times in the past. This visit lived up to the others. He is a good conversationalist and will talk as much or as little as you want to. To me this is a nice relaxing 45 minutes, after the shave I had a hot tea and sat out by the fireplace for a few minutes. My wife and I met up and then we headed back up to the room.

After our appointments, we went to get ready for the evening. I was ready first so I headed down to make more donations to Aria. After a while, my wife made her way down and we played together for a little bit. At about 6:30 we hopped an Uber for MGM to get to Ka. We got there right as the show was starting, missed the opening playfulness with the crowd. We really enjoyed the show, it was the 4th Cirque show we’ve seen and I would rank it only behind O. My favorite act was the scene in which the villains were shooting arrows at the rock wall and then the battle on the vertical wall. The other thing that happened during the show was that a guest seems to have had a heart attack. There was a disturbance toward the back left of the theater and security went rushing over there. I could see someone administering CPR; I hope the guest was ok in the end. This took nothing away from the show, but now it was two nights in a row that security had to come in and take care of someone. Time to head back to Aria.

After the show we went straight to Carbone. This has become one of our favorites in Vegas and we have hit it every time we’ve been to Vegas since it has opened except once. Things were a little busy there and we had to wait a few minutes before our table was ready. We are not drinkers so we just hung out in the lobby, the bar area was hopping though. They took us to our table and then the fun began. We decided to change things up a bit, we usually get the Veal Parm, we got the lamb chops instead, they did not disappoint. After our first trip there, shortly after they opened, we realized that one salad, one pasta and one entrée is plenty for the both of us. We got the Caesar’s salad, spicy rigatoni, and lamb chops. We didn’t even need a side on this night. As per usual, they start you off with spicy salami and a little cauliflower salad. The bread they serve is incredible too, there just isn’t anything they do that isn’t top notch. The service was again impeccable If you’ve never you should definitely give it a try. Our bill for the meal was just over $200 after tax and tip, no alcohol. The after dinner gambling was not good.

Tuesday was our final day. The plan was to head north on the strip as we were having lunch at the Country Club at Wynn. We knew we were going to have a bigger lunch so wanted a lighter breakfast. We decided on Eggslut, when we got there the line was pretty long, I didn’t want to wait so I was sent down to the craps table. After about 15 minutes and a few dollars less breakfast arrived. I had the bacon, egg and cheese sandwich, she had the slut. Both were very good, not sure that I would wait too long in line for it but I would get it again if I could walk right up. After eating we donated the rest of our buy-in to Cosmo.

Our strip walk continued up north. We walked outside up to Venetian. We did some window shopping and walked through the canal shops. No purchases but did try some things out. We made our way through the shops and into the Wynn shops. Again just some window shopping and a little trying, but no purchases. We made our way onto a table, the 2Xs odds bother my wife more than me, I think some of the other stuff at the Wynn outweigh the poor gaming, don’t shoot me, that’s just how I feel. The gaming didn’t go well there either, we were early for lunch so we walked around the property a bit. We made our way over to Encore and just took in the sights. We made our way back to the CC and went in to eat. Just a note to the women out there, ball caps are a no-no even for you. My wife was wearing one backwards and was told she needed to remove her hat, as we were walking to our seats she was told she could just turn it around. By no means was she under dressed and the hat looked good with what she was wearing, she complied and things moved along. I got the French onion soup and open face French dip. My wife had the tomato and mozzarella salad along with the sweet corn chowder. Everything was excellent, including the view. Not many people playing golf on the day, but it was fun seeing a few groups play through. After eating we walked out to the patio to take in the view. It was time to head back to Aria though.

We made our way back, this time through the Forum shops. Again, no purchases just looking, we typically do make some sort of purchase at some of the higher end shops, but since we were sort of getting our teeth kicked in at the tables we decided to lay low. We made it back to the room and decided to take a little rest. We had no real dinner plans and figured a burger would be good. We made our way back to Cosmo for Holsteins. We’d been before and knew what to expect. Both our burgers were very good and were just what we needed. Now we needed to get to work. Our bankroll was down about 75% and it could have been a pretty quick night, but hopefully not. We made our way back to Aria and grabbed some cash.

Off to the dice pit we went. We looked around and settled on a $10 table, start off slow and see where things go. I’ve said in the past, not sure if in this thread or not, I play the inside numbers, I started with $30 on the 6 and 8 and the minimum on the 5 and 9. For about an hour we just treaded water, then things turned for the worse. In a matter of 10 minutes I had to reach back into the pocket and buy some more chips. Things still were bad, we got down to $3 in the rail. All of the sudden things changed, we went from those $3 to back in the game, we hit an ATS and then things got fun. We hit a couple parlayed hard ways, some back-to-back pressed horn bets, and lots of numbers. We ended up playing until about 2, I built up to over $5000 from those measly $3, it was so fun. We played a little longer than we should have and gave some back, cashed in for just under that elusive flag but we didn’t care. It was time to head up to bed because we had a 9:30 flight.

We got up at 7:00 I went down to the host on duty to see what my final numbers. I had checked earlier on Tuesday and was really checking on the final session. I was pretty disappointed with what the crew had me in for that final session. I was rated for less than my initial bet and for less time. Just a reminder to check with the boss when coloring up. Not much they can do after the fact. Oh well you live and learn.

So that was another great 4 days in Vegas, I hope you enjoyed. Sorry for the long post.

 

Never be sorry for a long post. We, who are not in Vegas, live through you guys lucky enough to be there. I really enjoyed reading your report - you did lots of fun things and enjoyed some great food. Thanks for taking us along.

 

Nice finish! Too bad you couldn't stay above 5k for a flag pic! Guess seeing them makes me feel more patriotic...haha