Vegas Virgin Trip @ PH Sept. 19-25, 2010

We flew out from Buffalo for our first ever Vegas trip! I've included the Buffalo part too since it was all part of our vacation. This is going to be very long! Enjoy! I have it all typed out, but I'll post by day to make reading easier. I'll add photos and video as I get them uploaded.

Saturday, September 18th:

We drove to Buffalo and got stopped at the border. Mike (my husband) always has problems because of someone with the same name. We passed over the passports and told them there would be an issue. The border guard gave some code to stand down while an alarm went off, so we didn’t get swarmed by guards this time right away. They made us get out of the car and made Mike empty his pockets and I had to pass over my purse for a guard to inspect. When he asked me what was in my purse, I answered and I quote “I don’t know...purse stuff?”. I wasn’t trying to be a smart ass, he just caught me off guard! One of the guards drove our car over to the customs area while we were escorted inside by about six armed guards. The place was packed, but as per usual, we were the first ones up to see someone. They gave us our car keys and we were free to go. Mike asked if he could get it fixed, but it would take about an hour after giving some fingerprints to get sent off to the FBI, so we said forget it and left. Quick and relatively painless.

We stayed at the Sleep Inn by the airport which was decent. After we dropped off our stuff, we went to Chili’s (we don’t have them here) for dinner and got 2 for one drinks. When we got back to the hotel, we had our car brought over to the airport parking lot. The price was included in our stay. We booked our shuttle time for 4:15 am and got a wake up call for 3 am.

 

Sunday, September 19th:

We got to the airport and ran into our friends (Gillian and Sean) before the flight out of Buffalo (they were on a different flight). We flew with AirTran and the flights were all early and uneventful. We had a stopover in Atlanta and the second flight took us over the Grand Canyon. Saved us a trip out! We flew over Lake Mead and strained our necks to get a view of the strip. We landed at around 10:20 am Vegas time. From all the talk on the board, I was under the impression that McCarran was a small airport but then we had to take a tram to get our luggage. Apparently the people who think it is small haven’t been to the Buffalo airport! lol

We found our friends, got our luggage and rented an SUV for $47. He took us to an In and Out by UNLV. I had to do it after all the talk on here! We all got Double Double combos. It was tasty, but not as fabulous as everyone made them out to be. We all agreed the fries were great though. We got to Planet Hollywood around 11 am and gave him a nice tip.

When we booked in, I tried the $20 trick and the guy looks freaked out and gave it back to me. I noticed his hands were a bit shaky. We found out later he's new. I freaked the poor guy out! lol Our friends at someone else down the way asked for rooms together. Nothing was available. They said they could get a second room ready in a couple of hours, not together, but on the same floor. Our friends got the first room which was a strip view. It was the Batman Forever room on the 16th floor overlooking the pool and City Center. The view kind of sucked. I was hoping to get a fountain view room, but they didn’t know to ask that. Oh well! We dropped off our stuff and went for a walk.

We walked around Miracle Mile and got big drinks from Cabo Wabo then back to the casino to sign up for Total Rewards. After a couple of hours the room still wasn’t ready. I asked for a fountain view instead and get it from the same shaky guy. Gillian doesn’t like her view, so she asks for one too and they won't do it for them (different guy). Finally they agree do it for $100 more for the 4 nights they’re staying instead of $200. They end up with a Julia Roberts room on the 38the floor. They have an awesome view and you can tell that this is an actual upgrade. The room is a lot longer and the window is larger. They even had a coffee machine!

Our room is A Time to Kill themed on the 16the floor. We start unpacking and I notice my shampoo exploded in my bag. Good thing I wrapped up my toiletries bag in a plastic bag! Once we finished unpacking we had a quick shower and head down. Gillian got a second drink from Cabo Wabo as she only likes fruity stuff. Then we headed over to the Flamingo. On the way, Sean got bombarded by porn slappers. He loved it. He started exclaiming very loudly "Oh yes! Definitely need one of those!” or to the ones who were handing out pamphlets “No, no books!". People were cracking up. At Flamingo, we went to Sin City Brewing Co. for beer pong which we had a coupon for. It didn’t look beer pong friendly, so the guy recommended O’Sheas which would have been about the same price anyway. O’Sheas smells like vomit! We stayed anyway and $22 got us set up for beer pong with 2 pitchers. Played a few rounds, got a third pitcher and then headed over to Margaritaville for dinner. We played the ring toss game while waiting. Mike and I both had the Jambalaya which was ok.

We headed back to PH to grab stuff and made a few friends along way. We were all pretty buzzed by now. While Gillian stopped for another drink, I started to dance with one of the time share guys in the mall and then Sean joined in. Mike had a pile of the porn cars so as we were leaving he pulled the porn slapper move and gives one to the time share guy. He then shows me the card Mike gave him and says something pervy like “Wouldn’t you like to have that on your lap?”. I laugh and we leave. He didn’t try to rope us in after that. lol

We then headed over to MGM. Mike wanted to play poker there. He played for a few hours and I played a 5 cent slot for an hour with only $20, so not bad. A cocktail waitress finally shows up and I get my first free beer! Our friends aren’t big gamblers and started getting tired so they left to go back to bed. Now I'm tired and wait for Mike a bit. He indicates that he’s ready to go soon. Then I notice the Centrifuge bartenders dancing on the bar. Fun! I go in and put $15 in a VP machine and get a couple free beers and watch their dance routine a few more times. Mike gets me a while later. He’s up $100 and has a pile of half dollars. I'm awake now at this point but he's sleepy, so we head back around 10:30 pm (we’ve been up for about 22 hours at this point). We stopped at McDonald’s for a bit then went to bed.

Some views from our room:






The room. It was actually quite dark, but the flash lightened it up a lot.


They did make the bed up nice, we had just been sitting in it.


Sandra and Matthew watched me bathe!






Our home for the week. Taken outside of the Harley Davidson Cafe.

 

Monday, September 20th:

Mike woke up at 4:30 am. He had a lot of vodka and Red Bull the night before and he’s itching to play poker again so I tell him to go. Not sure what time I finally get up, but the four of us took the bus to Imperial Palace for Hash House a Go Go for breakfast. It was sooo good! I ordered some kind of smoked salmon scramble, but it wasn’t smoked salmon. Still tasty though. Mike had a sage chicken eggs Benedict meal that was humungous and our friends both had pancakes that were the size of large pizzas.

After breakfast Mike went back for a nap and the rest of us headed over to the Ross store for shopping. I just bought a purse. Then we went to the Coke store and I fell in love with the giant Coke Bear! He was so cute and life like. We went back to the hotel and looked around the Hawaiian Marketplace briefly. By the time we got back, Mike was ready to get up. The two of us walked over to the Bellagio to explore a bit. Saw the conservatory with the fall theme and walked around the casino a bit. Signed up for the MGM card and played some slots. He loves his fedoras, so I told him about some they had there so we walked back over. He bought a hat and a pair of creepy reptile novelty contact lenses. We thought they would be cool for Halloween and for freaking people out at the poker tables. Lol

We got ready then took the Gold Line downtown for the meet up at Main Street Station. We got to what we could only assume is the Boar’s Head Pub at about 6:50. We played some VP until about 7:30 and left. We saw one small group of people that didn’t totally fit the descriptions we were looking for, but they didn’t seem like they were looking for anyone and I couldn’t hear if they had accents, so we just chickened out and left. We walked down to Freemont Street and I bought a 40-something oz novelty drink just in front of the Golden Gate. It’s a bikini clad lady with tall boots from the neck down like the bartenders were wearing. Mike bought one of the 80 oz guitar drinks that lights up and plays music. I had a buy one get one free coupon for shrimp cocktails, so we went in and got a couple of the $1.99 ones. Not bad! We walked around a bit after that and watched a couple of the light shows. The first one was American Pie and the second one was Queen. Quite cool. Got a couple of videos if they’ll ever load on You Tube. It’s so slow! We ended up going to Tony Romas for the $11.99 lobster and steak dinner after 9 pm. I don’t recommend it. It was all kinds of nasty!

We headed back after that. Gillian and I stopped to watch the fountain show at Bellagio. The music was God Bless the U.S.A. We then got stopped on the way in to PH by people handing out wristbands for Koi. $20 cover for ladies and you get to drink free (except for beer or wine). We couldn’t pass it up, so the two of us went. It was quite small, but busy. We sat in the area that overlooked the casino and met a couple of girls from Australia. I think we got to bed at around 2:30 or so.

Hash House breakfasts. Mine:


Mike's:


Sean's (note the size of the bacon and eggs beside it):


Gillian's (her sausage is looking a little pervy there lol):


My cute glass from the Golden Gate:

 

Tuesday, September 21st:

I slept in and Mike went to the Bellagio to play poker. The two of us went to the Spice Market Buffet for lunch. We really liked it. We thought about doing the Buffet of Buffets, but figured we’d wait for our friends because they wanted to do it too. Mike planned on going up for a nap, but I signed up for a $70 poker tournament at PH and when I texted him he came back to join too. There were only two tables for the tournament. I didn’t last very long, but at least I wasn’t the first one out! I think about 5 or 6 people were out before me. Mike got out at 5th place, but they only paid the top 3. Darn!

After that we walked around Miracle Mile for a bit. I really wanted to check out the Betty Page store. Cute stuff, but I didn’t bother trying anything on. I have stretched ears so I bought some new earrings at Club Tattoo. I found the jewellery here was really cheap compared to the high end tattoo/piercing shops in Toronto anyway. Great stuff! After shopping around we went back to the room to get ready.

The four of us took the bus to Treasure Island to see Mystere. I thought it was really good. Quite funny, great costumes, acrobatics were amazing, but the story line was a little odd. And I usually love weird stuff. I guess I just didn’t it. Mike liked the acrobatics but didn’t like the interpretive dance stuff. He was laughing pretty hard at the “show crasher†at the beginning too (for those who have seen it). Both our friends loved it. After the show we caught the end of the Siren show in front of TI. Wow, so cheesy! The crowd was insane too. We started heading south down the strip after and it took us forever because of the people. We decided to start the Buffet of Buffets after the show and were going to head to Caesars Palace to start. We caught a glimpse of the volcano at The Mirage on our way and walked through the Forum Shops. We finally got to the buffet and they were closed...Tuesday and Wednesday they’re closed for dinner. Great. At this point it’s getting close to 9:30 and I know the buffets close at around 10. We decided to go across to the Flamingo buffet instead since it’s closest. 9:45 now, but they let us in. Our friends thought it was ok, but after having the Spice Market Buffet already I didn’t find it very good. It might have been better earlier in the night too. We felt very rushed.

After that we headed over to Carnival Court at Harrah’s. Had a drink and watched the flair bartenders do the fire show. It was pretty busy, but not too crazy. Mike played a bit of BJ there and our friends were tired so they went back. Mike and I walked through Harrah’s and ended up at Casino Royale where we played on a few slots before we headed back for the night.

 

Wednesday, September 22nd:

We all went to Paris for the breakfast buffet. I loved this one! The buffet itself is so pretty and the food was fantastic! Gotta love the crepe station. After breakfast we took the bus to the Gun Store. The girl’s bought the ladies package and Sean bought something similar. Mike got some other crazy package that was similar plus it had a machine gun and he added a desert eagle. Definitely not something you can do in Canada. I have my restricted gun license here (which allows you to purchase handguns in addition to rifles and shotguns which you can buy with the unrestricted license), but I have never even shot a gun before (other than an air rifle), only handled them. It was pretty cool! I thought it would be scarier being around that many people with access to guns, but it was all very well controlled.

We took the bus back to the strip and went to MGM to see the lion habitat. They weren’t doing much when we got there, but the trainers started to play with them a little and got them going a bit. Very cute! Our friends separated at this point and we stayed and played some slots. I won $310 on a Deal or No Deal machine. My best win there! We watched the metal horse race game for a bit. I liked that it still took quarters. It was too busy to play though.

We then went across to New York New York and walked around a bit. We each bought a huge pretzel there because I was finally getting hungry, but didn’t want to ruin dinner. I didn’t realize how big they were though. Mike hadn’t seen the Coke Bear, so we went back so I could show him. We then went downstairs to the Glacier Bar attached to Gameworks and had a beer to cool off. We walked through Gameworks which was absolute crap (and dead too – no wonder) then went to M&M World. We watched the 3D movie which was “I Lost My M in Vegas”. Worst 3D experience ever! It looked terrible most of the time and just hurt my eyes. Mike said he wanted his 10 minutes back. lol

We then went back to PH to wait for our friends before dinner. I played on the Goldfish machine and the Wheel of Fortune. Nothing good. We then went to Spice Market to finish our Buffet of Buffets passes. This is where things went bad. I was still pretty full from the pretzel, so I decided to just get a plate of crab legs since they don’t really fill me up that much anyway. I love that they’re already cut open for you here so you don’t have to crack them and dig around. That’s the worst part about seafood! I also had a $2 Corona with dinner. I was pretty full now, but wanted a bit more crab. I went and got another small plate full. At the seafood station they had 3 trays of crab out. The first one was the one everyone was going for and the other 2 were being neglected. I skipped ahead and started into the second or third tray. I got back to my seat and they were completely cold. Oh well. I ate them anyway. Bad news. I’m assuming they were sitting there for a long time...

We had bought tickets to go see Marc Savard the comedy hypnotist in the Miracle Mile Shops, but my stomach was cramping like crazy and I was going to the bathroom every 10 minutes. TMI, I know... I told Mike to go on without me. I’m glad I did, because I spent the rest of the night sleeping for about an hour and then running to the bathroom. They seemed to have a good time though and Sean even made it up on stage. They bought the DVD of the show so I watched a bit of it the next day and it looked pretty funny.

Inside the Paris buffet:


Statue of Liberty made of Jelly Bellies in New York New York:

 

Thursday, September 23rd:

The next morning I was still feeling like crap. After feeling nauseous all night, I finally decided to just get it over with and threw up. Boy did I throw up! I couldn’t believe there was anything left in me after the amount of time I had spent in the washroom all night. I felt better after that and wished I had done it sooner. We went to Denny’s by the MGM and I figured I’d find myself something light to eat. I ended up getting a fruit cup which was perfect.

We took the Deuce down past Mandalay Bay to the Four Seasons stop and walked down to the Vegas sign. It was about 100 F out which it was pretty much all week and not a cloud in the sky. It seemed really far especially in the heat and since I wasn’t feeling that great either. We asked a taxi driver if he could call us another cab, but he wouldn’t, so we decided to start walking again. We headed south towards Town Square and found a bus stop with a shelter. We waited there and got dropped off across from Town Square. We didn’t go far at all and probably should have just finished walking. We rehydrated at Borders and then went to Fry’s Electronics. That place is huge!! It was overwhelming. We were all kind of hot and grumpy, so we got a cab out front and he dropped us off at Mandalay Bay.

Gillian had a lot she wanted to do still and they were leaving that night, so they went off to do their thing. Mike and I took the tram to Luxor and walked around there a bit. We both played some Goldfish slots then Mike found a Let it Ride table. I went back to the slots and found a Star Trek machine which I thought sounded cool since you get to save your game (I was watching something about it on the Planet Hollywood channel, but couldn’t find any in our casino). Well it stunk. I moved on to the Greenback Attack machine. We have one at our local casino and I did well on it, so I kept getting drawn to them. The ones in Vegas were older though. Ours is all 3D. It’s really cool. I did ok on it until it broke on me and I had to get hand paid. She asked if I wanted to keep playing, but I said no. I didn’t feel like waiting around for it. I went to find Mike and joined him at the Let it Ride table. He did ok, but I didn’t do well.

We went back to PH to meet up with our friends for dinner. We went to Cabo Wabo which was overpriced and not that great (although to be fair, I was still feeling ill). I figured I could get away with some fairly plain nachos, so Mike and I split some and we all split a big $20 appetizer platter (except it was not big at all...). We did the make your own nachos and we did get a lot of them. Lots of cheese too. It would have been better if I was feeling better. We then watched another fountain show at Bellagio and went up to our room so our friends could get their stuff and head out. I was drained and still not feeling great so we watched a bit of TV and went to bed.

Mike and I at the Vegas sign:

 

Friday, September 24th:

I was feeling a bit better so we went to McDonald’s just south of PH for breakfast. I figured a good greasy familiar breakfast would be good. We went to the exotic car rental place down the way, but the line was long so we left. We had lots of cash left and were itching to spend it. We went back PH and got my $40 free play that came with our room coupons. Didn’t win a thing off of that. They also had a promotion for free DVDs if you got a certain amount of points on your Total Rewards card the first day of use. We both had enough so we got season 1 and 6 of the Office. If we were there Tuesday, we could have got Get Him to the Greek. Darn!

We then asked about some tours, possibly a helicopter tour. They were too pricey there though and Mike wanted to rent a car, so we thought we’d go see if the line had cleared up at the rental place. It had. We ended up renting a Ferrari F348 Spider convertible for 5 hours! We drove from south of the strip to Blue Diamond Road and went to Red Rock Canyon and got a ton of great pictures and videos. It was gorgeous there. It cost $7 to get in, but it was a 13 mile drive with lots of nice places to stop and take pictures. We then headed back north by way of Charleston Blvd and went past Red Rock Resort. We didn’t stop in, but it looked quite nice. That whole area looked really nice. We stopped in at a Jack in the Box (we’ve never been to one). I was able to scarf down a pastrami sandwich and a strawberry Fanta (strawberry pop – another thing we don’t have here. Genius!). We headed south down the strip and got to see a bit north of the strip and the northern part of the strip that we by-passed on the Gold Line when we went downtown. We sadly handed back the keys to the Ferrari.

We then went to Club Tattoo in the Miracle Mile Shops and Mike really wanted to get a tattoo. I didn’t want to waste the last night waiting for him. They said it would take about 3 hours for what he wanted. We left (him reluctantly), and he asked what I wanted to do. I suggested Madame Toussauds, but he said he didn’t feel like that. So I asked him if he just wanted to go back to get the tattoo. He then said something like “Well I don’t want you pouting the rest of the night” to which I replied, “Well now you’re the one pouting and don’t want to do what I want to do anyway, so go get your tattoo.” lol I was pretty beat anyway, so I figured I’d find something to entertain myself. We went back and set up a time in about 45 minutes with Johnny Blaze for anyone who’s been to Club Tattoo. Everyone who worked there was applauding Mike’s choice of tattoo. I guess most people get pretty boring tattoos.

We went back to the room for a bit to pick something up and then headed back down. We both bought Gizmobies for our phones from a booth in the mall. Mike got a Vegas one for his Blackberry and I got a damask one for my iPhone. We went back to the tattoo store and I sat and watched for a bit then decided I better start packing up. I didn’t make it very far. I started shopping since I hadn’t bought much. I found a few souvenirs for friends and family to bring back with me. I bought us some cute shot glasses with pin up looking girls sitting on the Vegas sign. I also bought myself a pink Las Vegas hoodie (I had bought a cap earlier in the week). I then bought a few bottles of Vegas hot sauce. Apparently I had a stomach of steel again because I was able to eat the hottest hot sauce without flinching. Another lady tried some and she almost died. She came back begging the guy for water and I sent her to the ABC store. lol

I finally went back upstairs and started organizing all our crap and set up a wakeup call for 3:30 am. I was getting sleepy though and figured I better go check on Mike. I headed back to Club Tattoo and he was almost done. He finished up and we went back past the hot sauce stand and I made Mike try the hottest hot sauce. He was so mad at me! He’s usually good with hot sauce, but we hadn’t eaten in a long time and he’d been popping antacids most of the week. We practically had to run back to the casino to the bathroom. I thought he was going to throw up, but he was ok. We decided to go to Earl of Sandwich for dinner and I was back to feeling like crap. I got coleslaw and an apple and Mike got a sandwich and we brought them back to the room. I barely put a dent in my coleslaw and my apple tasted really off, so I didn’t eat much again. We finished packing, and crashed at around 11 pm.

Mountains from the Ferrari:


Mike in the Ferrari:


Me with an awesome view:


Mike's new tattoo the next day:

 

Saturday, September 25th:

We got up and went down to check out. We had called Mike’s work (1-800 #) and it was showing up as a $1 charge on the TV earlier in the week, but we didn’t have to pay it. All the drunks were just getting back from the bar so we had no problem getting a cab. A couple of guys from Alaska asked if we wanted to split a cab to the airport since it cost him $40 last time he was in town. It only ended up being $10. He clearly got screwed around! They told us they’d pay for the cab and we could pay the tip. Sweet deal!

I had printed off our boarding passes the day before so I figured we’d get through quickly. Wrong. Our flight was at 7:10 and when we got there just before 5 am there was nobody at the AirTran desk and there was already a line and no line for baggage only. A lady finally showed up and slowly got ready. She made a big production of spraying something all over the place before she finally flipped her sign to open. Two more people opened up before we got to the front. My bag just made it at 50 lbs on the dot! I don’t know why we printed boarding passes, because she gave us new ones anyway. We then went through security which was really busy but went fast. They’re very efficient at McCarran it seems. We picked up some really expensive sandwiches at Starbucks for breakfast and then headed back. Did the same stop over at Atlanta and got another great view of the Grand Canyon. We hit some big fluffy clouds before we landed in Atlanta and I’m probably the only freak who laughed and thought the turbulence was fun. The pilot did warn us, so I wasn’t scared. We got back to Buffalo around 5:30 pm and drove home. Made a quick stop at the duty free and picked up some cheap Jose and Captain Morgan. The border guard didn’t even ask where we came from. Man I love the Canadian guards! lol It was a good trip, but I was glad to be going home again.

Grand Canyon shot from the plane:

 

Summary:

So other than the food poisoning, it was a fantastic trip! There were so many things I wanted to do and didn’t. Madame Toussauds, Shark Reef, Secret Garden, Ellis Island all come to mind. We didn’t see half the hotels on the strip and didn’t get to gamble downtown at all and only went into a couple of the casinos. I wouldn’t mind staying there one weekend too. We will definitely do it again and after seeing pictures on Facebook from the four of us, all of our friends are talking about a big group trip for a weekend in June. We’re hooked!

I brought coupons from the American Casino Guide and Entertainment Book and probably used only 2 id them. We had better coupons that we received just walking down the street. The free play ones would have been nice to use, but it just didn’t work out.

It was busy during the week, but it got absolutely crazy on Friday night! I think it will definitely be more of a party on the weekend.

We had purchased 5 day bus passes before the fare change and had no problems using them. We rode the Deuce, Gold Line and residential routes and were fine. I did not like the Deuce. It was very slow. We’d see numerous Gold Line buses going by before we’d even see a Deuce sometimes. It took ages to load and unload at each stop. The Gold Line was good on strip, but it got crazy downtown at night. They have to wait for the light show to finish on Freemont Street before it’s allowed to pass by. Then once the show is over everyone gets in line for it so it’s absolutely packed. It was very easy to get around on the buses though and for the ones you could talk to the drivers on, they were all very helpful.

Will we do it again? You bet!

 

awesome read and thanks for the details!!! glad you're hooked...we all are!!!

 

Nice trip report, sounds like you guys had fun. How much was the car rental?

 

Thank you for your detailed trip report.

That's really awful you got food poisoning. Spending vacation time in the bathroom sucks!

I hope you can make it back in June. Just think, that's only 9 months away!

 

For 5 hours with taxes and insurance it came to $500!

 

Here are most of the videos I took. They're the only ones on my You Tube channel.

 

Loved the report with all the details...But where is the tattoo pic???

We are going to PH in 7 days can wait...

 

Oops! Good catch! I fixed the picture link on that post, but here it is again so you don't have to go back:

 

Good Stuff!

Sorry about the food poisoning. But, it sounds like you still managed to have a good maiden voyage to Sin City.

Thanks for sharing...and great pics!

 

Great TR

Glad you all had a fantabulous time! Even after 6 trips, I've yet to see the Secret Garden , Ellis Island and a couple other places , too but its always waiting for you, to make that return trip

Have fun planning trip #2

 

Enjoyed it!