Our Trip

My boyfriend (J) and I booked this trip about 4 months ago. We wanted to go earlier in the year, but it didn’t happen that way. This was our second time in Las Vegas. I spent a lot of time researching and reading many reviews here on this board. I took a lot of advice from you all and thank every one for the ideas we received.

DAY 1 August 28, 2007

We flew in to Vegas from Dayton. It was a non-eventful 3-hour flight. We were just excited that it was non-stop. We took the Gray Line shuttle to Flamingo and checked in. The room was not ready yet, so we checked our luggage. We got our Players Card from Flamingo and headed over to Bill’s Gambling Hall & Saloon to sign up for their Players Card. Seen Fat Elvis performing. We played a few slots there. This is when we discovered the Deal or No Deal slots. My advice is if you get the ladies bonus, take the very last deal from the bank. About 80% of the time, I had the smallest amount in my briefcase but took the deal and got around 1,000 credits. We walked through the Habitat at Flamingo and decided to check on the room. By this time, it was ready. We unpacked and checked out our room. We had a Go Deluxe room on the 26th floor. Our view over looked the pool. We decided to try the Rio Carnival World Buffet so we walked to Ballys and boarded the shuttle to Rio. We were both impressed with the enormous selection. We had something from just about every station. The only thing was we could only get little portions of everything so that we could try so many other things. After we ate, we gambled a little and watched the parade in the sky. We took the shuttle back, played some video poker, and headed in for the night since we were jet lagged.

DAY 2

Woke up early and soaked in the bathtub watching TV in the mirror television. We ate at the Victorian Room in Bills for breakfast. (very good, reasonable price) J played Let It Ride until the free Craps lesson began. Learned a lot. We played Craps for a little bit, but something about it was just not for us. We played Blackjack and slots. Yesterday when we signed up for the comp card we got a ticket to put in a drum for a drawing every day at 1:30, so we filled it out and put our names in. The drawing was for up to $2,500. Today at 1:30, everyone gathered around the stage and they had a phone booth looking thingy that supposedly held $2500. They drew a name and the man went into the booth for 45 seconds while money flew all around him. During the 45 seconds he had to stuff all the money that he grabbed into this tiny mailbox slot and at the end whatever was in there was what he kept. He got $89. Lo and behold guess whose name they called next…mine! While I was in there I tried to see the bills but all I saw was 1s, 5s, and 10s. You had to kick your feet around in order to get the money really moving. I had money flying into my mouth and everything. At the end I ended up with $98, not counting the $5 that dropped out of my shorts when I went to the restroom. They called three other names and the most walked away with $350. We gambled a little more and went to room to refresh. Stepped back out a little later and we got a drink at Margaritaville and caught the monorail to the MGM Grand. Before the trip I ordered 4 one-day pass monorail tickets for the both of us. I paid half price for them and it was less we had to worry about there. We enjoy the monorail and find that it comes in very handy when you want to visit other places on the strip, instead of walking 5,000 miles. We checked out the ½ price ticket booth at Coca Cola World and picked up tickets for Fantasy. We had the Coca Cola sampler from around the world. It cost $7 unlike the free one in Atlanta. But it was neat, some were gross others were tasty. We went over to Luxor and picked up our tickets for Fantasy and ate some hot dogs at Nathan’s. We went back to the room for some Mylanta (thank goodness I packed it). After some rest we went back down the monorail and stopped at Excalibur for a drink at our favorite bar Sherwood Forest. We met a really nice bartender, Mike from Thailand, who poured us premium liquor and double shots at half price. We both had a B-52 that about knocked my shoes off, but was exactly what I need before we set off for Fantasy. Of course the show was not my kind of thing but I didn’t have a bad time either. We decided we could live without an autographed calendar and headed back to see Mike at the bar had some good drinks. Played some Deal or No Deal won over $100. We stumbled back through the flipping huge MGM GRAND and went to board the monorail, when to our surprise we discovered that it closed at 2 am. So back to the strip we went and walked our butts back to Flamingo and called it a night. Looking back on it I have no idea why we didn’t get a cab.

DAY 3

Slept in a little, ordered room service. We walked over to Bellagio and picked up our tickets for O. We tried to gamble some while we were in this casino but the one cent or five cent slot machines are few and far between. I like these so I was bored. We caught the monorail through Ballys and rode to Sahara. We signed up for the Players Card and got $10 in free play. I played Deal or No Deal and used that 10 bucks and made 10 bucks so it was worth it. We also used the promotional coupon where you buy $40 worth of special chips and you get an extra $10. So we played some Let It Ride and Blackjack and I came out of it with $40. I am beginning to like this place. J wasn’t as lucky I was but Sahara was growing on him, too. We walked to the Stratosphere . Neither of us was that impressed, but we can say we been there. J sat down at the Once Around Community Monopoly and I decided to sit down and play while he was. We got the Once Around twice when I was completely out of credits and just waiting for my bonus time to run out. So I got to play longer. J ended up winning over $100 and it was fun. We left there and stopped in Bonanza gift shop and picked up a few things. I was wearing a backpack and I did not like how I had to leave it with the “security guard” while I shopped. I felt weird and distracted so we didn’t look around for long. On our way back through Sahara we stumbled upon the 60’s Room and $3 Blackjack. Fun! We caught the monorail back to hotel with just enough time to change and head to O. We enjoyed the show. J later said that he like Ka better. To tell you the truth I really liked both shows, but I dozed off during both of them. I don’t know what it is about those shows. Next time I am napping before and drinking some caffeine. Although this town is a 24-hour town, we couldn’t find much still open, so we just opted for the Victorian Room again. Both had the Top Sirloin dinner and it was decent. I had the vegetable soup also and it was good. We played some video poker in hotel before bed.

DAY 4
J got us breakfast from the coffee shop and then we headed out looking for an ATM. Per last time we knew there was a reasonably priced one at Walgreen’s. So we were headed to the monorail, I decided to just look at the ATM at the monorail before we boarded and come to find out it was cheap. So we just loaded up on cash and walked to Caesar’s Palace and gambled a little. We walked through the Forum Shops and seen Pete Rose signing autographs for $60 a pop. We took a sneak picture and left. Went back to the room and changed so that we could go swimming. Scoped out the pool at Flamingo, had a drink in the pool, soaked up some sun. We ate dinner in the hotel at Hamada of Japan. It set us back a whopping $110 but it was so worth it. We had some great sushi and tempura. We loved the Vegas Roll. Again we couldn’t resist Sahara so we went back for some more Blackjack. We grabbed a taxi from this hotel and took it to the Golden Nugget, gambled for a while in here. While DT we signed up for Players Cards and gambled in Binions and Plaza also. Plaza gave us an As Seen On TV Lint Remover and a manicure set for signing up. We ate a fried Twinkie. What an experience! We seen the Fremont Street Experience and some guy who was doing Cirque kind of stunts in the middle. We bought a picture from a guy who was making art in the street. He created awesome pictures out of spray paint. We caught a cab back to Flamingo and put up our things and walked over to Mirage. We shared a Chicken Salad Sandwich from Carnegie Deli and then caught the tram over to TI. We just gambled for a little bit in there and then crossed the road over to The Venetian We got really lost and decided that we probably don’t like that place. We walked really quickly through Casino Royale. They had a great deal going on with their Players Club bought it was closed already for the night so we were disappointed. We went to Harrah’s and gambled for a while in there. J hit the jackpot on the Playboy slot machine. Unfortunately he was just playing $.01 on all the lines so he only won $100.10, but it was still a jackpot.

DAY 5

We rode the monorail to Hilton and ate lunch. We checked out the Star Trek experience and took some pictures. We rode monorail to Sahara and grabbed a taxi to the Cashman Center for the Anime Convention. J was slightly disappointed that it was not as pleasurable as the convention in Cincinnati. We didn’t stay for too long before we took the taxi back to Sahara. We played a little blackjack and some slots and then went to room to rest. We went over the Forum Shops for dinner and ate at Stage Deli. The sandwiches were dreadfully massive but good. We rode monorail to MGM, picked up one of the enormous drinks from Fat Tuesdays, and walked to Excalibur to see if we could have the same luck with the great drinks there. We tried to get a Grateful Dead (something we had just heard of the night before), the bartender said he knew how to make it but boy was he wrong. A Grateful Dead is a little like a Long Island Iced Tea but with Chambord and tonic water instead of coke. He forgot the tonic water so it was all alcohol. We walked away from that bar to another and kindly asked them to add tonic water. It didn’t help so we just chugged the drinks as we didn’t want to waste our $20. By the time we got back to the hotel we were both pretty drunk but we played some slots before bed.

DAY 6

I had a 25 minute river rock massage scheduled for at the Flamingo spa this morning. I have never had a massage before or been in any kind of spa. I was completely stunned and maybe a little intimated by the experience. I enjoyed my massage though. J and I got lunch and swung through Imperial Palace to sign up for Players Card and gambled a little before I decided that I was not going to make it much further. I had been feeling really weird all day (not hungover sick just really more like motion sickness). I went back to the room and took a 45 minute nap and felt much better when J came back and woke me up. We rode monorail and walked to Luxor for Carrot Top’s show. We really enjoyed him and got a lot of laughs. We ate dinner at the Sherwood Forest Café. It was a simple dinner but it was fine for us. We ended up turning in early probably exhaustion setting in.

DAY 7

We got up really early and packed everything up. We had breakfast over at Bally’s in Johnny’s Deli and then walked through Paris onto the strip. We went into Planet Hollywood and of course signed up for the Player’s Card. We gambled in there and J was pretty impressed he said he would look forward to going back in there again next time we are in town. I didn’t feel anything for the place. We had to walk back over to the Excalibur because J forgot to cash a ticket in. We took a taxi to Bills and cashed in a ticket I still had and played some more blackjack. Then we went back to Flamingo for our last round of gambling. I accidentally hit the max bet on a $.01 Deal or No Deal and got a bonus. I only got like $16 but it was cool that I didn’t lose on max bet. J played more Once Around Monopoly, got the bonus and won $100. The last slot we both put played a quarter machine and I put in $15 and doubled it to $30. Pretty cool for last one. We went up to room and did the express checkout on the TV and grabbed our shuttle to the airport. J got caught up in security. Then we had to sit on the plane waiting to take off for two hours for “maintenance paperwork” even though you could hear something going on underneath of the plane. So we ended up getting home around 1:30 a.m.

TOTAL:

Player’s Club cards = eleven
Casino visited this trip = twenty two
Gambling money taken = $1,250
Gambling money brought home = $700

Links below are of room and view:

Go Deluxe Room
Plasma Screen
Bathroom (had tub and stall shower)
TV in the mirror
View of pool

 

WOW! What a trip! Is there anywhere you didn't go? lol I've been to Vegas enough times that I should have seen as many casino's as you but, no..
I'd like to try though one day to hit as many places as possible.

Great TR! Thanks for taking the time to write

Sticky

 

Nice report. Great pics. I liked the Coke experience in Atlanta better, too.

 

Nice trip report. Thanks,

 

Wow...that's an awesome and extensive trip. Thanks for sharing!

 

Great report! I don't know whether to quit reading these (because I want to hurry up and get back to Vegas!!) or keep reading them to get a little LV prozac to keep me calm until my time finally comes.

 

I am absolutely amazed! How did you go to so many casinos in 7 days? That's incredible!

Now, the loaded question - when are you going back - and what casino did you miss that you'll have to see next time????? LOL!!!

Good trip report!

 

ZOOM ZOOM ZOOM.....Great trip report!

 

Great TR. I also find it fun to check out all the casinos. We stayed at Flamingo in a GO Deluxe last Christmas. Nice room, but I can't take all that pink. Reminds me too much of Pepto Bismol.

 

Great trip report!!

Our first trip we spent two days just walking the strip going in and out checking out all the casinos.

 

Great TR. You hit alot of casinos which one was your favorite?

So what about the massage/spa did that to you?

 

Good read,Thanks

 

Wow, that sounds like a great trip. Thanks for sharing!! I hope I have your energy when
we go on 10/13. Couple of q's - Where is Coca Cola World and what exactly is the sampler
dealy? This will be our second time to LV, so we're still learning.

 

Great report, thanks for taking the time to share your trip with us.

 

Coca-Cola world is down near MGM - by the M & M store area.

Don't you love the money machine at Bills???? I was so excited with my $189 that I accidentally hit max bet on my Cleopatra penny machine when I was trying to cash out and got the bonus & another bonus on top & ended up winning $400 on that boo-boo. So the money machine ended up actually paying me about $589 It's on my list for next month because I believe you can get an entry with every $2 comp you earn also.

 

WOW WOW WOW.... great TR!!... seems like you really enjoyed the Sahara... ur right about vegas seeming like its not 24hrs anymore... thanks for the tip on KA... im thinking about seeing it... also the monorail...