December 2018 Birthday ReCap: Downtown VP, dispensary, Surprise Surprise Surprise!

I was hesitant to post this report because I didn’t take all of the usual pix to fill it out. What I did was three and a half days of heads down video poker followed by nights at the craps table, I ate some food and did what I wanted, and every day of the trip I woke up with more money than I had the day before. With all of that winning the trip seemed worth a comment or two, and I do have some good pix of the El Cortez tower room remodel to share. So enough said.

Second flight on Allegiant. Even with all the nit-picky charges I got exit row aisles with a carry on for $260 Round trip. Empty middle. Show the Allegiant credit card at the gate and board with the pre-boarders, which was nice. As it was my birthday I decided to have a cocktail inflight. I kept trying to hand my credit card to the flight attendant and she finally told me, “I see your card.” I guess that was my first birthday surprise: show the Allegiant credit card and first drink is free, and it’s a double! Nice.

 

Sunday WAX bus runs about once per hour, I arrived at the stop with a five minute wait. Sunny and 60 degrees, short sleeve weather and a nice walk to El Cortez. Check in Line of Doom: any time there are more than four people in line their system grinds to a halt, and I see eight people waiting. Thirty minutes of listening to other people’s problems, and I complete my own check in business in under two minutes. Asked for second floor tower or a remodel, turns out the entire Tower remodel is finished.




Really nice update, although I think the owners will find that this newly manufactured furniture is probably not going to last fifty years like the previous version. Odd thing about the shower is that the knob which diverts water from the shower head to that spray hose thing is on the opposite wall, which means you get an unpleasant surprise when it pushes all of that cold water out of the tube in the middle of your hot shower. Everything else is a welcome update, especially replacing those old wall outlets which could barely hold a charger plug.

 

So the Allegiant boarding pass earns you a bonus at El Cortez and Golden Gate. At El Cortez I picked up a spin for free play between ten and a thousand dollars (it was ten), a Blackjack coupon and a coupon for a free drink. Their kiosk system really works well outside of the occasional paper jam. Golden Gate bonus is two of their twenty-five dollar match play chips. On the way back from Golden Gate I stopped at Four Queens and opened up the lid on the quads.




Sufficiently emboldened to employ the Strict Rules of Parlay, I switch to fifty cents and I am rewarded with this:




Surprise! On my birthday I hit the goal of my last three trips, a Royal at a level higher than quarters. And my first handpay! Beer and a Makers shot for the birthday boy.

 

Needed some food so I decided to finally try the taco stand at the Four Queens patio entrance. The food is exactly like the picture on the wall, but the picture doesn’t indicate that this is very tiny food. The counter service was quick, but apparently these three employees weren’t responsible for cleaning the seating area, which looked like they had just hosted a children’s birthday party.



Closed the night by filling out the straight flush.

 

Day two started with Loco Moco and consisted of a lot of video poker throughout Downtown.

Placed and won an NFL bet because I could.


After craps and alcohol I paid one last visit to the restrooms before heading up to bed. Outside the restrooms near Ike’s Bar is a carousel of old time three reel coin droppers and this one caught my eye. Slid in a twenty and listened to the reels whirring. I came up with this display and the machine dumped twenty silver dollars into the tray and fell silent. I’m not real proficient in slot machine language, but I managed to convince myself that the flashing ‘3300’ was not a dollar value since it was larger than the machine’s highest payout.




Within 60 seconds of the hit a tech is standing beside me asking me if I am having trouble with the machine. I said I think so, could you explain the reels to me. He said the bars means 60 dollars, you have a triple, so 180, and double that, 360. After opening the machine and closing it he says the machine paid you 20, so I’m going to get 340 dollars cash for you and I’ll be right back. Then I’ll be right here, I replied with a grin.

 

Day three I take the bus to SLS to redeem a twenty five dollar match play. At 11 am they don’t have a single craps table open. I reluctantly sit down at the Blackjack table and hand the dealer a hundred. Twenty five dollars and the coupon, push. Do it again, loss. Another twenty five, another loss. Twenty five again, soft 18 against dealer 6, so I double with my last twenty five dollars. I make eighteen, she goes 6, 13, 15, 20. Truly a Clark Griswald moment to cloud my winning trip. Then across the street to the true destination.




How convenient that you can get high and handle firearms, it’s like one-stop shopping.




While waiting in the ante room of the dispensary we hear a loud cheer from the inside. This is my fourth dispensary visit and something new. The receptionist said it was probably a birthday. When I presented my ID I told her it was too bad my birthday was two days ago. She said 48 hours and I am still good for a freebie. So when I get to the counter the guy asks if I want a birthday shout out. “What comes with a birthday shout out?” I asked, thinking about my potential gift. He replies, “Usually a smile and some good feelings, but I can keep it low key and you still get the gift anyway.” The birthday gift is a free pre-roll, Surprise! It’s listed as 11 dollars/ one gram, I add some gummies and a vape. So I hand over a hundred dollar bill and think, at Essence I got a bag of goodies and a free fattie while the same hundred dollars at SLS got me a big old kick in the nuts.

. Ducked into Strat for this hit then motorcoached it back downtown.

 

Back at the Four Queens and this happens:

I held three this time and kind of thought about it before I drew. So the music starts and I am pretty sure that I am in the same seat that I hit in two days earlier, five seats from the street on the Flusher side. This comes up in a conversation with a group at the bar while I wait for the handpay, and I tell my brother on the phone that I think these people are waiting for me to move. So when I got up I motioned and said it’s all yours if you want to try your luck, one immediately said “Don’t mind if I do” and took the chair.

 

I agree rhat the food at the taco joint at 4Q is very small.
I tried it one time, and about an hour later I felt like I hadn't eaten anything.

 

Day four the morning pocket dump reveals a 21 game keno ticket which I only watched about three games of. I really thought this might be a defining keno moment for me:






then I find my twenty dollars has yielded seven dollars in winnings. Me and keno.



My friend dropped by and we drove to Jerry’s Nugget, played some three dollar craps, nothing scary about the place at 11 am.


So we decided to drive over to the Silver Nugget. Did a slow pass and contemplated the characters we were going to have to walk through to get to the entrance, and went to Skyline instead!


Maybe a little paranoid, but my pockets were pretty cash heavy at the time. We dropped into Sunset Station for a bit then headed back downtown.

 

Awesome trip report. And nice hits! Cool to see the ElCo has their tower rooms all finished. Hopefully we will be invited back there or DTG for our next trip. ;-)

 

Last morning starts with breakfast at Siegel’s. There aren’t many diners and I overhear someone explaining to the waitress that he’d like his check brought out because he was in a hurry to meet someone. I look up because I have so many bad memories of trying to pay the check in this restaurant and how long it can take. I think the face looks familiar, and I have to bring up the VMB on my phone before I can make one of the oddest introductions of my life, “Excuse me, are you not from concentrate?” I knew that @notfromconcentrate was writing another monster trip report before I left home, but I didn’t expect to run into him down at the old El Cor. We had a brief moment to chat and that constituted my first official VMB meetup, credit NFC the selfie.


Anyway, I had three hours before the limo and flight, so I filled them with what I like to do on my last day: more Vegas! Bloody and a beer.


Wrong game but still happy:



Seriously wrong game.


Why am I not playing Double Double?


Time to go and I have a long but happy trip home. I left the house with one thousand in cash and returned with four thousand five hundred and two tax slips. Oh, and two pretty red chips for my collection.

Not so bad, almost makes me look forward to my next birthday. Next time more pictures, but thanks for reading anyway!

 

Awesome report. So nice to see you swing double royals!

 

Great report!!! We run in the same circles, i'll be staying at the ElCo [vintage king] and visiting Essence on day one. I had the same birthday experience there last trip! I ended up with a third of it and 4 oz of cherry drink [highly recommended heh] that I didn't want to throw away. Walked across LVB, there was a homeless vet in a wheelchair playing guitar so I dropped them in his tip bucket. He was stoked!!!

 

Congratulations on the timely .50 cent Royals! Nice trip. The El Co rooms look good.

 

Nice hits and great report. The room remodels look good, but I have always liked the tower rooms.

 

Thanks for the shoutout, Fullpay - and great photos, especially of the new Elco tower rooms. I still can't get enough of the vintage rooms, myself. But if they're ever unavailable for some strange reason (or perhaps I wind up going to Vegas with a significant other for some even stranger reason), I'll be more inclined to give them a shot now. Killer job on getting those royals at $0.50 too

If you don't mind me asking, where did you get that loco moco? I know they serve it at Cal's MSS and Fremont's Paradise Cafe, but that tabletop doesn't look anything like either of those places... so I'd be curious to find out where that was

 

One of the older tables at Aloha Specialties, upstairs at the Cal. Magnolias took it off the menu a few years back, I was hoping it was gaining traction in Vegas.

 

Loco Moco is a great dish in small doses and a wonderful hangover breakfast....about halfway through I ditch the rice and go for the proteins.

Dont shoot me for this but it's great with Heinz 57

 

... and what is it with trying to get the check at Siegel's?
I have the exact same problem, busy or not busy. in most places, if you are ready to go, they want you to go so they can seat someone else and make more money. they are there to make money -- right?
the place isn't that big, the kitchen isn't that far...
sometimes I give up and just go to the cashier and tell them I did not or could not get a check.
at least you got to meet a celebrity!! (NFC) cool story.

 

Great read...congrats!