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Paris, Gold Coast, MSS 9/5 - 9/10 (3 Royals!!)

Discussion in 'Vegas Trip Reports' started by Scot, Sep 12, 2013.

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  1. Scot

    Scot Low-Roller

    Joined:
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    Location:
    New Hampshire
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    8

    My Trip Report

    This is my first shot at a trip report. I was tempted to not write one up (especially since I announced the best parts as they were happening... the 3 royals!), but I realized that no matter what the trip report has been, I've always enjoyed reading others. So here is my attempt to add to the community. I apologize for the length, and any typo's in advance.

    Last March, my girlfriend and I spent a week at the Rio, and an unexpected night at Main Street Station (cancelled flight, twice). While at the Rio, we ended up spending most of our time over at the Gold Coast. I used the prospect of spending a night at Paris to entice and excite her for another trip to Las Vegas. Between all the free rooms, and the promised night at Paris, she agreed to the trip!

    As soon as my September offers rolled in (end of June, I think), I went to work booking our trip. I immediately booked our flight with Southwest. I really wanted to get non-stop flights, but Jet Blue is the only airline in the Boston/Manchester area with non-stop flights, and their prices were just too high this time. Instead, I booked us on a flight out of Boston that didn't require any plane changes, and our return flight to Manchester, also with no plane changes. This turned out to be almost as good as non-stop.

    I then booked the hotel stays...

    9/5 - Paris
    9/6 and 9/7 - Gold Coast
    9/8 and 9/9 - Main Street Station

    I also immediately booked our rental car, a "standard/midsize" through Advantage Rental Cars for $133 for the trip. I'm very glad I booked it when I did, as I continued to monitor rental prices, and the price never came back down below $150.

    When the big day finally rolled around, boy was I ready!

    We had a 12:40PM flight out of Boston, so we didn't have to rush. We took the Concord Coach Lines bus from Concord to Logan Airport for a cost of $20 per person. This was, as always, a very smooth trip, and I highly recommend this to anybody traveling to Logan from New Hampshire.

    Our flight took off on time. I had paid for the Early Bird Check-In, so we had no trouble getting decent seats, and overhead storage with our A26 and A27 boarding positions. I really enjoyed having Wifi on the flight. It was worth the $8 for our 8 hours of flying. It wasn't the best connection, but most of the time, it was very reliable.

    [​IMG]

    Our flight landed 30 minutes early. We went straight to the luggage claim, and after just a few minutes of waiting, out popped our bags. We then hopped on the rental car center shuttle, and took the short ride to pick up our car.

    It was about 6:00PM Las Vegas time by the time I got to the Advantage counter. There was no line, but it seemed like it took forever to get through the process. There were no problems, it just seemed to go on, and on. At the counter, the nice young woman gave me my rental papers, and directed me to the garage. Once at the garage, the gentlemen behind the glass gave me my keys, and told me to do a walkaround of the car, and note any damage on a diagram of the car. It would have been a lot easier to note where there wasn't any damage! I ended up covering the diagram with little S's and D's to indicate (accurately) that there wasn't a panel on the car that wasn't damaged!

    Now we were on our way, in our Mazda 3. This was my first time driving in Vegas, and it definitely won't be the last. The freedom the car provided was awesome. We didn't spend hours waiting for shuttles here, and there. I don't really drink much, so I didn't have any trouble saving my drinking for the evenings after we had settled into our home casino.

    We arrived at Paris in good time, and parked in the garage between Bally’s and Paris. Check-in was very smooth. I didn’t bother asking for any upgrades, but we did get one. We got a Red Room, with a beautiful view on the 25th floor. The room was beautiful and spacious, and reminded me that the strip is king when it comes to grandeur.

    [​IMG]

    Thanks to this board, I was made aware of nearly free tickets to the Veronic Voices show. I took advantage of the offer, and got us 2 tickets for our night of arrival at 9:30PM (12:30AM home time). I knew this was going to make for a really long first night, but the convenience of staying at Paris to attend the show at Bally’s was too good to pass up. We had a couple of hours to burn, so we decided to grab some dinner. We had sandwiches at JJ’s Boulangerie. They were delicious, and I would definitely eat there again.

    [​IMG]

    [​IMG]

    My last trip to Las Vegas resulted in a total loss of about $350. $450 of that was in slot machines. If I had only played video poker, I would have come out ahead! I had decided that I was going to set aside a single $100 bill, and play that on the night of arrival in penny slots. This, I pledged, would be my only slot action. I managed to hold true to it. It also was the only action I gave Paris for my free room. I’m not sure if they’ll be inviting me back again.

    The force was with me. I ended up doing really well playing the Star Wars slot machine for about 45 minutes, and only lost $19.85. I made back $10 vulturing a full screen of 5-play 2x bonuses on Ultimate X.

    [​IMG]

    Veronic Voices was a great show. It was very entertaining, and would be well worth a price of $30-$50. Thanks again to this board for giving me the opportunity to score them for $2.50 each! After the show, we were both exhausted. We went straight back to the room and hit the hay.

    Day 1 Total - Down $9.85.

    The buffet at Paris is my favorite buffet. I’ve always really enjoyed the food there. The price is considerably more than the rest of the buffets we ate at on our trip, but it is always nice to treat yourself. We were up by 7, and at the buffet by 8. Surprisingly, there was a line of about 15 people. After a 10 minute wait, we were seated, and proceeded to enjoy our breakfast. The ham was AMAZING! This was one of the best things I ate on the entire trip.

    [​IMG]

    After breakfast, we immediately checked out, and headed to the Palms. We both had $40 in slot play there, that we had purchased before our trip for $25. Since it is right across the street from the Gold Coast, we decided we would go use up our slot play to burn some time before checking in. I ended up playing mostly 100.76% FPDW, and the 100.07% DDB at the quarter level. Nothing spectacular happened, but we did walk away with $80 on our $50 investment.

    [​IMG]

    Check-in at the Gold Coast was very smooth. We were very happy with our room, a Premium King, non-smoking.

    [​IMG]

    After unloading our luggage in the room, we headed directly to the casino to our games of choice. For me, that means 9/6 JoB Super Times Pay. Before the trip, I played many thousand practice hands, and came to the conclusion that I didn’t have the bankroll to support playing 5-handed, no matter how badly I wanted to. For this reason, I played 3-handed. After experiencing some of the swings, I’m not so sure I was properly bankrolled for 3-handed, but I survived.

    My first session consisted of 1403 hands, coming out $30.25 ahead. At one point, I was down $400. Here are the highlights of that session:


    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]

    This one had me excited. Open ended straight flush draw with 8x! I was really hoping for a couple of 2000 credit winners.

    [​IMG]

    Next was lunch at the Gold Coast Buffet. This is one of our favorite buffets, partly because of the great price. The roast beef was actually really good.

    [​IMG]

    After lunch, I returned to the Super Times Pay, and proceeded to lose $500 over the course of about 600 hands. I didn’t get a single hand worthy of a photograph in this entire stretch. This brought me to halfway through my bankroll for the day, in a very short period of time, so I decided it was time to take a break and regroup. I went over to the bar to play some less volatile 50 cent 9/6 JoB. I played for about 20 minutes, and hit a 4 of a kind.

    [​IMG]

    I then decided it was time to return to the game I came all this way to play. I had allocated $800 for the day for this game, and I was ready to return to it.

    After a bit of playing, being down about another $125, I hit my first ever 25 cent Royal Flush.

    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    It was nice, but it didn’t really excite me. It was more relief. Before this, I was down around $600 on the day, and this was more redemption than profit. I made a few phone calls to announce my good fortune, and proudly returned to the room to show off my reward. At this point, I decided to call it a night. It’s great to have a winning day.

    Day 2 - Up $451.75 - Running Total - Up $441.90

    We decided the night before that we would visit Red Rock Canyon on this day. It was a really beautiful place, and well worth the $7 entry fee for the car. I would highly recommend this to anyone, as it is a very short drive from Las Vegas, and you get a lot of value for your money. This alone was worth having the rental car for.

    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]
    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    Since we were somewhat in the area, I decided I wanted to visit the Suncoast. I had a 5x points coupon from the ACG, and a buy one get one buffet coupon. We used the bogo buffet coupon, and I used my BConnected points to pay for the other half. Sometime during the day before, I had earned my Sapphire card, so I was already accumulating points at a great rate.

    I dumped a quick hundred into a 9/6 Bon(er)us Poker Deluxe machine. This was another reason I wanted to check out the Suncoast. I could definitely see myself spending a couple of nights here playing Bonus Poker Deluxe at the bartops.

    I enjoyed the buffet, specifically because of the “Make it your way” Mongolian section. It was really refreshing to have freshly prepared vegetables and meat. Basically, the way it works is, you fill a bowl with the vegetable ingredients that you want, and you pass it to the chef, and tell him which meat and sauce you want. He cooks the meat, adds the vegetables, adds the sauce, and bam, you’ve got yourself a made to order fresh dish. Other than that, I wasn’t too impressed with the buffet. It wasn’t bad, just nothing really jumped out at me.

    [​IMG]

    After we returned to the Gold Coast, I proceeded to lose $700 on the 3 handed Super Times Pay. I didn’t get a single photo to show for it. Nothing was worthy. This was the last of my $800 stake for the day, so I retired to the room. At this point, I was prepared to be down $1700, so being down only a few hundred was actually quite comforting.

    Dinner was at the TGI Fridays. It was mildly disappointing. Nothing worthy of mention.

    Day 3 - Down $773 - Running Total - Down $331.10

    The next morning was checkout morning. It was also a point multiplier day. Normally, I wouldn’t have played on checkout day, but the 4x multiplier was too good to pass up. I decided I was willing to sacrifice $200 of my $400 stake for the day to the Super Times Pay gods while my girlfriend was getting ready for the day. 51 hands in, I got the biggest surprise of the trip. I was dealt 4 to the royal, and somewhat in disgust, I immediately hit the draw button, expecting the normal 4 to a royal disappointment. Instead, I got another royal!!

    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    Unlike the last royal, this one really hit me. I could not stop giggling, and my eyes were watering. I’m not sure why this one felt so much better than the first one, but it did! I played one more hand, and cashed it out, and headed straight to the cashier. I once again proudly returned to the room with a dozen $100 bills.

    While at the Gold Coast, I had charged all of our meals to the room. This was my first trip to Vegas that I thought I would play enough to get anything charged off on the backend. I averaged about 10,000 coin-in on the first 2 days. I’m pretty sure playing only $221 coin-in on the 3rd day, combined with being up as much as I was didn’t help things, but I did manage to get $15 taken off my bill. It’s better than nothing, right? This also left me with 24,000 BConnected points ($40 in food credit) to use at Main Street Station.

    After checkout, we headed to Main Street Station. We got there at 10:00AM, and there were not yet any rooms available. We decided it would be a good time to walk over to the Mob Museum. This was a good way to spend a couple of hours. On a scale of 1-10, I’d give it a 6.5.

    [​IMG]

    After the museum, we went to the Triple 7 for lunch. We had made dinner reservations at the Flame at El Cortez for this evening weeks ago, and it was already fairly late, so I decided I would get something small. I ordered the 1/2lb hot dog, with Chili and Cheese. Woops! This isn’t small! IT WAS GIGANTIC! I was barely able to eat a third of it. It was delicious, though. I used my BConnected points to pay for this, and every other Boyd Property Meal from here on out.

    [​IMG]

    We then checked into our room, 423. The noise was not bad at all, as long as the air conditioner was running. The room was very comfortable, and we had no problems.

    [​IMG]

    I then proceeded to the Boar’s Head Bar, where I played for a bit with many quads. At one point, I had quad kings, got my scratch card, and then went to “clear” the game by dealing the next one, and was dealt another quad! Luckily the attendant was still there to give me my next scratch card. Here are the highlights... I am leaving out ordinary quads, as there are too many to post!

    [​IMG] followed immediately by: [​IMG]
    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]

    As you can see, this machine liked giving me 6’s.

    I also managed to score a $5 scratch card, as well as 3 $3 ones throughout my stay.

    [​IMG]

    Jamie was the bartender. I really liked him. He did a great job, and showed interest every time I needed to call for a scratch card. On the next day, I got to be served by Jose, and I can see why everyone likes him. The staff at the Boar’s Head bar is really exceptional.

    Next was dinner at the Flame at El Cortez. We walked down Fremont Street to the El Cortez, and used our ACG coupons for free slot play before dinner. Between the 2 of us, we got about $17.50 out of them. Dinner was excellent, and our waiter was really great. The garlic mashed potatoes here were phenomenal. They were very hot, so creamy, and so flavorful. Everything was delicious, but surprisingly, the mashed potatoes were the highlight of my culinary adventures. Our total bill came to $51 after using the $25 off coupon from the ACG. It was well worth the money.

    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]

    On our way back, we stopped at the 4 Queens and played some Jacks or Better. My girlfriend enjoys playing Jacks or Better, but doesn’t like risking much money. This is the only place around with 9/6 at the nickel level, so we made a point to get her some play time here. I would really like to spend some time here playing bartop DDB, but I haven’t played enough there to warrant any room offers. Maybe next time, I’ll make a point to put in some play. I also stopped by Vato Cigars to get a Royal Flusher inspired celebratory stogie.

    [​IMG]

    Back at the Main Street Station, I returned to the Boar’s Head Bar and had another good, long session, finishing up $89 on a couple hours of play.

    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    That was it for the day. And what a great day it was.

    Day 4 - Up $1096.25 - Running Total - Up $765.15

    The next day, we decided to use the BOGO National Atomic Testing Museum coupon from the ACG. We got conned into paying the extra $6 for the Area 51 exhibit. The Area 51 exhibit was pitiful. It looked like something a class of 6th graders put together. Excluding that though, this museum was great. I’d rate the Atomic Testing portion of the museum at a 7.5/10.

    [​IMG]

    They had a piece of the Berlin Wall there. For some strange reason, I had a strong urge to urinate on it... I guess my brain thought I was still at MSS!

    [​IMG]

    Before my trip, my plan was to stick to the Jacks or Better at the Boar’s Head Bar, to preserve my $400 bankroll for the day. Since I was up so much, I decided I would do something I had planned not to do. I put a $100 into the more volatile 10/7 DB machines at Main Street Station. I didn’t hit a single quad, but after a short bit of play, I did hit my 3rd and final royal. What a wonderful thing!! Now I’ve not only hit a 25 cent royal, I’ve done it on a single line machine!

    [​IMG] [​IMG]

    For the rest of my gambling, I stuck to the 9/6 Jacks or Better at the Boar’s Head Bar, and had a really great time. At no point during my stay at Main Street Station did I need to feed a 2nd $100 bill into a machine.

    [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG] [​IMG]

    We had a 7:00AM flight out the next morning, so I ended my gambling at 9:00PM sharp.

    Day 5 - Up $989.75 - Running Total - Up $1754.90

    It was an amazing trip, and I can’t wait to go back (especially to MSS!). I’m working on planning a Superbowl weekend trip now with my uncle. I did learn it doesn’t take a royal to make a trip... it takes 2! The 3rd one is a real bonus.

    Thanks for reading, I hope it wasn’t too long! Also, thanks to the VMB community for providing such great information and entertainment.
     
    Last edited: Sep 12, 2013
  2. BlackjackCat

    BlackjackCat Tourist

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    Sweet pics dude....thanks for sharing. It sounds like you had a blast!
     
  3. tringlomane

    tringlomane STP Addicted Beer Snob

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    Great report Scot, and I see where my Royals went! :Þ Sorry we didn't have much time to possibly cross paths with you after Friday afternoon as we were mostly on the strip. I guess I should have asked if you were going to that museum too! I really enjoyed it, but tried to go quickly to not bore my g/f immensely. We didn't let them sucker us into the Area 51 exhibit though. :evillaugh
     
  4. RockyBalboa

    RockyBalboa Front Line Winner

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    Nice report and great hits there, buddy.

    I am interested in the Mob Museum...can you tell us a bit more about it?
     
  5. higgiel

    higgiel Low-Roller

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    Well done for your first trip report. You had a vp players dream trip, getting three royals. You really do have to work on those multipliers at STP, though. You had an awesome run of quads at MSS. Were you ever tempted to move up to a higher denomination?
     
  6. Scot

    Scot Low-Roller

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    The Mob Museum is housed in the old Federal Courthouse. It has a lot of cool artifacts in it, including the reconstructed St. Valentine's Day Massacre wall. There was also a lot of interesting things from the prohibition era, and a lot of items relating to Las Vegas. You also get to see an interesting movie in the actual courtroom where major hearings on organized crime took place. I believe the cost was $19-$20 a person.
     
  7. Scot

    Scot Low-Roller

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    I was never tempted to move up to a higher denomination for one reason. The scratch cards at Main Street Station pay the same for a 25 cent quad as they do for a dollar quad. This means, at the quarter level, the Jacks or Better is basically a 100% game. If I were to jump to dollars, it would be closer to 99.65%. I have a hard time justifying that jump.
     
  8. Tubbs

    Tubbs High-Roller

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    Nice report and some sweet hits! Enjoyed the pics, thanks for posting.
     
  9. RockyBalboa

    RockyBalboa Front Line Winner

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    Sold!

    I'm going to check it out. I may be going solo in Nov and this sounds like an interesting detour.
     
  10. Dutchy

    Dutchy Tourist

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    Very Nice TR!

    3 Royals, your dreaming!
     
  11. jackincols

    jackincols Guest

    Great report and loved the pics. 3 Royals in a single trip is one to remember.
     
  12. M_ILIS

    M_ILIS VIP Whale

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    Great report! Congratulations! Are the scratch cards at MSS paid in free play or cash?
     
  13. Scot

    Scot Low-Roller

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    Cash. $$$.
     
  14. bclub

    bclub Tourist

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    Great report and congrats! Always nice to go home in the black!
     
  15. M0rtyC

    M0rtyC TBD

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    Super trip and report. Hope you left a Royal at the Boar's Head for me
     
  16. D in the D

    D in the D Oldest ride, Longest Line

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    Nice report, congrats on the royals and all those quads.
     
  17. Royal Flusher

    Royal Flusher Savvy Gambler

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    Nice job, its great to read about a super-lucky Royal getting trip. Nice pics too. :)
     
  18. marcianofan

    marcianofan High-Roller

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    WOW, three royals, thats impressive , especially for one trip! Gotta ask, do you or anyone else, find the Gold Coast really smoky?? I'm not a smoker, and I've only been to the GC once, but it seemed really smoky to me and smoke usually doesn't bother me. Some casinos where people complain about smokers I usually don't think twice about but the GC, I don't know about there.Tks for posting a good read....
     
  19. Scot

    Scot Low-Roller

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    I didn't find the Gold Coast to be particularly smoky, but I have heard that complaint from others.
     
  20. breanna61

    breanna61 Super Moderator

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    WOW, way to Royal!!! Congrats!
     
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