Using Family as an Excuse Again! June 7-12 Bally's/Vdara

Are you a Pittsburgh guy, or just a Bucs fan?

 

I grew up in Pgh in the 70s, City of Champions!

 

Ah very cool! Mom is from there and I went to college there. Adopted Steelers and Pens but lived in Chicago too long to move away from Cubbie blue. Nice to meet a fellow Yinzer. Good luck with the progressive.

 

Nice hit by @MrsIrishDave to finish up

So we’re gonna call it a trip, I’ll try to do a recap when I get home on Saturday. Good trip overall, had fun at the slot tourney, really enjoyed Vdara, hit a premium quad on the last day, and got a chance to chat with a baseball legend for a few minutes. Not bad at all

 

Ok, one last pic before leaving

 

Great report, and thanks for sharing!

 

And @MrsIrishDave with the airport 4oak!

 

Pittsburgh for life! The Caps parade is bumming me out today.

Excellent end to an excellent trip report. Thanks for taking us along for the ride.

 

Great report as always @irishdave!
Thanks for taking us along!

 

@irishdave Loved the trip report (as always). Were you in a one bedroom penthouse at Vdara?

 

Yep!

 

A quick recap. Appreciate everyone following along, it actually adds to my enjoyment have some folks to share the trip with!

The really important part of the trip was a blast. My nephew was very happy I could make it out for his big eighth grade graduation. I think we definitely overdue these things in our society. I mean really, if he didn't graduate from eighth grade there'd be a real problem, but I guess if they didn't make a big deal of it I wouldn't have gone, so there's that. Had a great time with my sister and her family. We hit a nice little air museum at San Carlos airport, went to the Monterey Aquarium, and spent some time on Monterey beach. With apologies to all the degens out there, I enjoyed that a lot more than Vegas.





Traffic was a pain getting to the airport, but we had an empty seat between us and got in about 25 mins early, so I'll take it! Of course room was ready at 10pm and we got a high floor at Bally's. I've decided I'm not a big fan of the leave after work routine. I'm beat after getting up at 4:30 or 5am east coast time and getting to either BWI or IAD is a pain in the evening (DCA has very few directs). Hitting the ground tired sucks! But I still managed a little bit of gambling at Le Cabaret before the band quit and/or I passed out and...not from drinking

We played a lot more at Bally's than we ever had before. @Suekel and everyone else are spot on about the bartenders at Sully's, they are awesome, but I'm still not big on Bally's, it's just bland to me and few newer slots. We did a strip crawl to do the quest for rewards promo on day two and got beat up at Caesars and Paris. Paris has been brutal to me this year. The slot tourney was fun, two rounds and a couple of drawings, fruit trays and bar for the playing rounds, and everyone was guaranteed at least $50 in freeplay. I got $75 and turned it into $300+, but that was in the face of about $2400 in losses across my CET play. When I had my play evaluated, they had me at about $800 in losses. I have no idea how they came up with that, but the points were right and they comped off all the meals/room charges. By the time all the CET bonuses for breathing add up, I'm sure I'll re-up diamond for whatever that's worth!

The penthouse fountain view suite at Vdara was awesome. Really enjoyed the view and just hanging out in the room. I paid for it up front and it would have been worth every penny, even if the host on duty hadn't comped all of our meals and the base Vdara room value on the back end. I was surprised we got that much (~$500 on food) based on Aria's reputation. I don't have the coin-in in front of me, but I think it was between $15K and $20K for three days. I still had to pay the upgrade to the suite, overall money well spent, and I thought the comp was fair. Other than the quick strip crawl on Monday, we barely left Aria the three nights we had that room, enjoyed playing there more than I have in the past. Found a lot of 8/5 BP and good variety of slots, got quite a bit more play for our money than at CET. Never made it to Nine Fine Irishmen or RiRa (even though it's right across from where Pete Rose is set up!), so my whiskey consumption was fairly limited, but I tried to compensate with Guinness. Generally, alcohol consumption was not up to par, might have something to do with no VP at Chandelier! But, Aria has some of my favorite food options on the strip, great meals at all the places we ate.

Overall, the trip was a lot of fun. Vegas highlights were chatting with Pete Rose, hitting the premium 4oak, and eating at Carbone again! Hope my trip coincides with more board members next time. Didn't meet up with anyone this trip and I find meeting board members is becoming one of the real highlights of my trips. No trips planned until my birthday in January, so I'll be living vicariously through trip reports for a while! Hope you all enjoyed following along.

 

Wait!!! I have to go back to cash this!!!

 

Haha I save these on purpose in case I ever do s scrapbook. Great TR thanks so much for bringing me along! You had a lot of almost royals!

ha