Aria 10/11-10/13

Me and my boyfriend decided go to his high school reunion. We decided make it more about us having fun and partying.

Thursday
I left work about two o'clock and my boyfriend left got to my house about 3 and end up leaving around 3:45. So we begin our three hour trip to Vegas from SoCal. It was an pretty quick and uneventful drive. Once in Vegas we make our first stop at the M Resort for their buffet. The good was pretty normal and forgettable. So much for the best buffet in Vegas those billboards say on the highway. I'm hoping that's because we didn't go on a seafood night. Best part was the included drinks. My bf had wine while I had their house cider. The cider was really good light and a bit fruity, I got a bit of a buzz going. Good thing I didn't get drunk off out because we still had to drive to Aria.

We get to Aria about 8:30 and head to the mlife desk to get the first of my myVegas rewards loaded on my card. We head over to the front desk and get a very nice girl. I attempt a $20 sandwich, she takes the twenty and leaves it on the counter. We tell her it's our 5th anniversary(white lie we actually met in February) and she is instantly excited for us. She gushes how she's a sucker for anniversaries, wedding, yada yada yada. She make a couple of calls and tells us we are in the 50th floor room 50105 to signify our event. I am happy, and allow her to keep the twenty. We head to our room and am hit with the realization that I wasn't really upgraded. We were facing the back of the resort. The view was of Vdara, Palms, Rio and part of Cosmo. Not exactly the most fantastic view but it was ok. Me and my bc being to have an romantic moment when there is a knock on the door. I rush to put some pants on and open the door. It was chocolate strawberries and coconut macaroons. I liked the strawberries, even though one of them tasted unripe. I hate coconut texture so only took one bite.

After our little moment my bf gets ready for us to go out. I decide to head down and play a bit. I hit a 50 hand .05 poker machine. After a couple of hand I get hit with 4 Aces x 50 for a $400 win. I head up to the room to tell my bf the good news. He is happy and excited to go out. We hit Cosmopolitan just to look around. Then decide to head to the gay nightclub Share. They were doing a promo for $10 all you can drink wells. I jump on it, but my bf prefers absolute to the generic stuff. I was a bit disappointed in share. The go go boys were not attractive and didn't know how to dance. They danced like the go go girls at the big clubs(not attractive). They played hop for the most of our stay and only maybe 20 min of pop/EDM. EDM is one of the reasons I love Vegas so it's a bit of a letdown. Around 2am, we head back to Aria. I play VP for a bit and my bf watches getting drinks from the cocktail waitress. We head up to the room about 3am and go to sleep.

Friday

I wake up at 8:30 and decide to hit the gym. The Aria gym is very nice and even had spare headphones I had forgotten. After 40min I decided I had enough and head back to the room to take a shower and wake the bf. He is still a sleep when I finish, so I wake him up by opening the shades lol. I call up the front desk to see if any upgrades were available and get the typical were sold out line. So I ask for some kind of comp and get a 25 food and drink credit. It's fine I guess so I give up trying to get an upgrade. I head down and play a bit while my bf gets ready. Hit up some slots and vps to not much luck. The bf is finally ready so we head to the Aria buffet. It's free thanks to myVegas. The food was very standard and didn't impress me much. Best part the giant cocktail shrimp. After we decide to walk the strip to the fashion show mall as I realize I only brought tank tops and it was abit breezy. We stop by bellagio, mirage, and to on the way there just for the fun of it. We buy a couple of thing in mall then decide to head back. We hit up fat Tuesday in the Venetian for a football sized drink. Then continue through Harrah's then to the Quad to explore the renovations. The main floor was nice enough...Then we headed upstairs. Greeted by popcorn ceiling I can tell it's still a shithole. We take a quick view of the buffet and am glad I never used the buffet of buffets passes for that one. I'd rather eat at the Paris one, which I loathe. Good thing they are closing it down. We go into Planet Hollywood for some shopping but don't buy anything. I admire the Britney elevators they had.

We get to Aria and I play around abit. I decide to try a table game and decide on three card poker. The dealer informs me I have to play at least $35 to get rated on my mlife card. I lose all of my 100+20. I didn't even get any good hands. I tip the dealer for being so nice and head up to the room so we can go to Caesar for the Baccanal buffet. Had 2 passes for the buffet of buffets thanks to the total rewards credit card and got to bypass the line thanks to my platinum players card. Baccanal was great as always. My bf loved the seafood. He got black chicken soup and told me it reminded him when his dad would bring home chicken from cockfighting in the Philippines.

After dinner we cab it to MGM to go to Hakkasan. Bf figures we are there to early, so I play some vp while he gets cocktails. We roll into Hakkasan about 11:30. It wasn't too crowded yet so we get drinks or a sticker shock of $32. We head to the dance floor right next to the DJ booth. We enjoy the music waiting for Steve Aoki, the headliner. He finally comes on at 1:30am. His set was awesome great music through out. He threw 5 cakes into the crowd. I got a partial cake on my shirt. He is the best DJ I've seen with crowd interaction. Head back around 4am.

 

Saturday

I wake up around 9am and go get myVegas comps ready while the bf sleeps. I get to mgm and play $100 at a craps table and hit two craps on the pass line so I decide to forget it. Get the comp at the mlife card. Head to NYNY to grab the Zumanity tickets thanks to myVegas. Go back to Aria hoping bf is ready. He is ready and we had to planet Hollywood for brunch. Once again got to pass the line thanks to the total rewards card. The buffet is the same as I remeber decent, but not much to write home about. They took our picture and tried to sell it to us for $30...how about no.

After we decide to make the trek to Mandalay Bay. We ride the tram and note it's the same type at Aria. I wonder why they didn't just extend it to make traveling the mgm properties easy. I sure my bf Light. I'm disappointed we couldn't go but didn't want to pay to see DJs I don't really care about(A-trak that night). We notice its a herbalife convention at MB and joke how is like Marie Kay. Pass through Luxor and notice how it kind of smells. I play a bit but quickly move on. We get to Excalibur and note it smells better than Luxor. Play a slot breaking even. We pass thru Monte Carlo hoping to find cocktail waitresses, but no luck.

We head to the room and get ready to go pool. I get a huge 32oz drink and head into the pool. It's nice and warm. So warm that I didn't want to get out and face the chilly breeze. I get out and the bf informs me the reunion already started at noon and not 7 which we thought previously. It was 3 o'clock so I tell him let's go. Get go to get ready I finish first and head down to play abit while he gets ready. I play some VP being about even. I finally see it's about 6 and head up to see if he is even close to ready. Turns out he was cleaning cake of his jacket from Hakkasan the night before. We get to the reunion about 6:30 at a house in west LV. I originally wanted to go to the Rio buffet to get the most out of the buffets passes, but bf didn't want to be rude staying only 30min. I tell him it's fine and we stay until 8:30 when we need to head to Zumanity.

We get to NYNY and I play some machine craps before the doors open. We go in and get 32oz drinks. I get one of the frozen drinks and have a sneaking suspicion there was no alcohol in it. The being of the show was great.The comedic characters were hilarious and the drag queen hostess was fantastic. The middle parts made me feel bored and sleepy. The guys, save the contortion guy, were ugly scary looking. Not so sexy. Over all I give it a 6 out of 10.

After the show we decide to head downtown. Parking was hell figuring out where to go. We ended up going around until parking at Binions. Binions feels old to me so we head to the D. It's nice downstairs but I wanted to check out the coin slots. We go up and pick a slot to play at. Our money kept getting stuck in the machines and the attendants kept ignoring us. I was very annoyed by that. I finally got to play, but I realized it's not like the old fashion was where coins came out when ever you won. I grew bored of it, but bf went from $3 to $17 so good for him. Did the sigma derby, but not my cup of tea. We head back to Aria play some before heading to bed.

Sunday
I wake-up and start packing to leave. We check out and then head to mgm champagne brunch. I had bogo from myvegas so only payed $28...so not worth it. This buffet is the same from when I came in the 90s when I was still a preteen. After we headed to Caesar's to have a Zen moment with the Brahma outside, then we watched bellagio's fountain before we headed back home.

Overall a pretty successful trip. I only lost $100 out of the $500 I brought in cash and an just shy of pearl with MGM. My next trip is the weekend before thanksgiving with the fam.

 

Seems like your BF took more time to get ready than you haha. Nice trip

 

I thought the same thing Haha!

Nice trip report, keffex, and nice hit with the Quad Aces!

Regarding the $35/hand mininum for rating at Aria, I thought it was $25?

 

My BF is the one who cares about looks more than I do. I am a bit more masculine then him.

I originally was just going to play the min. The dealer then was just making sure I bet the pair plus also to get the most they can get from me. She told me that it didn't count also if I didn't play a hand.

 

keffex: thanks for the info! In a few weeks, I plan on doing most of my gambling at Aria since I'll be at Vdara... Possibly at Bellagio and Cosmo too...

 

It wouldn't hurt to ask. Just to make sure.

 

Cool TR. I was there that weekend too. I actually got a table at LIGHT and I enjoyed A-TRAK. I know he's not my initial choice... I'm not an EDM snob or anything.. lol. But I do go to Nocturnal, EDC, Beyond, and local socal stuff at Palladium, Exchange and Avalon. So I know he's not your known EDM DJ that plays at festivals.
He's did play all EDM and I actually was happy to check it out since he mixed it up. Since he was a world DMC champion DJ in the past, he actually did some scratching within the set which was pretty cool. And I actually enjoyed LIGHT since they had so much going on with the Cirque type acrobats. I was wanting to go to Marquee in the beginning for Tritonal (#trancefamily!) haha, but the table choices and minimum at LIGHT were so much better that night.

I'll be going the weekend before Thanksgiving. I dont think it'll be that busy so I'm getting a table at LIGHT again. My host is pretty cool in getting people in more than what the table allows, so maybe message me later if you and your bf wanna join us then.

 

I didnt know so many of you VMBers were into the EDM festival scene.

 

There isnt. LOL. Very rare in these parts.
Especially at my age. I'm 38. Most of my group is late 20s to mid 30s.
Other than EDC, Beyond Socal and Nocturnal Socal, I've probably seen 20-30 diff DJs on other occasions this year. We're fortunate to get alot pass through Socal every week, several times a week.

 

I know A-trak a bit. Saw his set at wonderland on YouTube and wasn't as interested. Plus, I saw Ingrosso at light on the 4th of July, so it wasn't like I need to go to light again(seeing each the nightclubs in Vegas little by little)

I love festivals. I'm 28 years old so I fall in that age range lol. I was at nocturnal. I'm going to escape from wonderland and hard day of the dead. I so want to go to EDC Vegas next year. When do they usually start selling tickets?

 

oh awesome. ya I'm skipping Escape and Hard this time. I will be in Vegas for 8 days starting the weekend of Hard, for work and play. LOL.

EDC Vegas if you havent been is just 10times better than the other festivals. The first presales I think were November then the regular sales start in January.

 

Thanks for the info.

 

Some of my best friends actually produce many of the events you have named and I have done a good amount of work for that industry.
Lets just say, I have been to quite a few myself :evillaugh