Turbulence in Vegas! 4 Nights Palazzo May 14th-18th. Food reviews, gambling, rambling.

Great TR! Thanks for the drink ticket advice, hope they don't change the algorithm before I get there. I find that in craps and golf, just one memorable roll / shot makes the whole otherwise lousy day worth it.

 

I wonder what would happen if you called Reza Athari and told him you needed help with a personal injury claim against a dentist named Dr. Athari

 

I heard on a podcast just recently that there is a way to beat the algorithm by pulling your card and it will reset to 10 minutes.....cannot remember if it was specifically for Cosmo

 

What a fabulous trip report; I hate to see it end.

 

I hope you enjoyed your trip as much as I enjoyed the report and pics

I feel dumb now perhaps it was the OP that called the podcast I mentioned above and said to reset the drink timer occasionally

 

Remarkably detailed report and all the pictures have been wonderful. Thank you for taking us along!

 

hinted at earlier in the thread...

 

yea I commented before I got to the second page....premature posting

 

Monday Night
During my dinner at Scarpetta I took stock of my situation and although it was only 6:30pm when I was leaving the restaurant I opted for a cease-fire on the gambling front. The closer I get to the end of a trip the more the money in my pocket starts to look less like this trip's bankroll, and more like next trip's bankroll. So with the decision to shut things down, here are the totals for the trip:
Friday: -3870
Saturday: -230
Sunday: -1120
Monday: -425
Pretty shit, all things considered. But I did have a whole 18 months of losses I was making up for in one trip, and escaped with some of my bankroll intact. I did not make good on my goal to try a variety games--I was hoping to get to play a Baccarat squeeze game--but the interest in trying new stuff or expensive stuff diminished quickly when I sustained such heavy losses early on.

Thus, after dinner I crossed over to the west side of the strip on my way back to Palazzo and took a brief walk through Planet Hollywood.



I saw this half-completed Roll to Win craps table, I think taking the place of a regular craps game in the pit.
Back at the hotel I took a nice hot soak in the tub, and compiled some of the notes from which I got to write up this after-the-fact TR.



TUESDAY

Grand Lux Redux
I woke up around 7:00am, with a car coming to pick me up at 10:00am for the return leg of the round trip service I splurged for. I open the curtains in time to catch the lifeguards doing some sort of rescue drill; apparently there are cases where you have to bring some sort of stretcher out into the water for an injured swimmer?



I briefly considered using my breakfast credit on room service but decided to go once more to the Grand Lux Cafe at Venetian. This time there was a 30m wait and I got to take stock of just how busy the Venetian casino was at 7:30am. The tables were most all dead, but the slot scene was vibrant for such an early morning with a fair amount of people playing all manner of electronic games. As I pass by the Grazie players club desk I briefly overhear a quick quip from one of the would-be players standing in line "yeah I put my money in crypto, but now I wanna gamble it".

Once seated at the restaurant I notice that they still have a ton of tables marked with closed-for-social-distancing placards and suspect they just don't have the staff to open things up more fully. Either that or they are just late to get the 100% capacity approval from Gaming, I don't recall. Having been overwhelmed by the sticky sweetness of the french toast the day prior, this time I went for a more savory option in the DeLux Breakfast Sandwich which has scrambled eggs, bacon, ham, grilled tomato, and havarti, and is served with hashbrowns.



The sandwich is alright, it could be served warmer and the eggs aren’t particularly flavorful, but the bread, tomato and meats are all pretty tasty. The hashbrowns are a different story.

Man oh man are these hashbrowns truly bad. The cooked outsides are crunchy without being crispy, and the texture is stale and congealed–not what you’d expect of something recently fried. The insides are soft, mealy, and lukewarm. I would be sorely disappointed with these hashbrowns if I were severed them at age 17 at Perkins at 1:00am. They are simply atrocious and in true Grand Lux fashion there is an absolute ton of them. I eat about 75% of the sandwich and about 2-3 bites of the hashbrowns before throwing in the towel.



If I didn’t already have a credit to cover my meal I probably would have campaigned to get some sort of refund for how unacceptable these potatoes were. It was like someone took a large griddle-full of hashbrowns, used a flat spatula to stack them haphazardly in a stainless steel pan as if they were going to be served buffet-style, and then left them under a heat lamp for an hour and a half before they made their way to my plate.

One last interesting thing from the gaming floor: a Bacc layout with tons of specific props on the winning hand which (I'm sure) have terrible odds. It is a kinda cool way to make a baccarat game that plays a little more like roulette.



Departure
I don't have many notes of use other than that the driver was prompt, and again was knowledgeable about the various properties we drove by on the way out of town. Not used to being a checked-bag guy I always worry that my airport timings might be off, but the bag drop was quick and painless. While there were hundreds of people in the line for C/D gate security, the TSA Precheck line had one person in it ahead of me, so I made it through immediately.

Thank you for reading my trip report, hope you enjoyed! It definitely got to be a bit of a chore to finish up, but I got to lean on the F&B review that I had written up separately before embarking on a full TR.

As I bid adieu to Las Vegas, I'll leave you with this picture of the remedial breakfast snacks I enjoyed in the airport lounge prior to departure.

 

truly epic trip report with great details and high quality pictures!
Sorry it was a losing trip and the saddest part was you never had any good win to remember,
very similar to my trip 2 days behind you, and also at Palazzo!

 

Thank you for the drink recommendations! Sorry about your losses but very much enjoyed your TR!

 

Superb TR. Too bad about the big hit you took on Friday night....go get ‘em next time.

 

Excellent report except for the results!!! And looks like I'll just miss you for your next trip! Dang.

 

Loved reading this! Thanks for the details and pictures, as you covered several of the restaurants I want to try.

Bummer about the gambling losses, but love how you went bold bringing a bigger bankroll.

Well done!

Vegasworm

 

10/10 TR that - really enjoyed it. Thanks for taking the time

 

brilliantly detailed report and fantastic pictures - thanks for taking the time to let us share

 

Great pictures and report, thanks for taking the time to post!

 

Enjoyed reading. Thanks for sharing your trip with us.

 

Great Trip report! Thank you for sharing your experience

 

I echo what everyone else has already said. Great report!