Hair show trip report June 21-26 Gambling too!

This trip was me and my business partner for the annual International Beauty Show at the Las Vegas convention center. The show was Sat, Sun, and Mon. I stayed for a couple extra nights, but my partner S, went home a day earlier than me.


Sat June 21


Up at 5:45 am to make sure I'm packed and have everything I need. We leave the house at 8am to pick up S for our 10:20 flight out of Love field on SWA. My DH always takes us and drops us off. I have to say I'm not feeling that great this morning.


We arrive in Vegas right on time and get a taxi to Bally's. I was worried they wouldn't have a room ready for us, or worse, try to put us in a king room. No worries! They had us all taken care of with a Jubilee room with a great view and we could check in right away. The main reason I was worried is because it was EDC weekend. I'm really not sure why the hair show coincides with EDC every year, but I know this year attendance was really down. I noticed it just walking around, and many of the vendors were upset at the turnout. I believe it has a lot to do with EDC causing room rates to skyrocket.


Anyway, we get to our room and we have a great view of the tower, fountains, and strip looking south. I was excited to see it lit up at night! It's still only about 1pm and even though we needed to get to the show, I needed a gamble, a drink, and a smoke. S had been practicing DDB VP, so we sit down at the bank of quarter progressives where the royal was over $1200 and begin to play. We'd been there maybe 15 or 20 minutes when I hold the queen of diamonds and lo and behold the rest of the royal fills in!!!!! I couldn't believe it!!! I was even still playing on freeplay that came with my offer! It was $1236, so I got my second W2G of my life. The slot attendants were there very quickly and I barely had to wait to get paid. I tipped them each $20 and continued to play for a while.


After a while we figured we better get to the show, so headed down to the monorail to get our three day passes. Made it to the convention center pretty quick. The show is actually two parts. The hair and nails are upstairs and then there's a whole other show for spa supplies downstairs. We only do hair, but we love to look around at the spa stuff, especially the different skin care lines. We usually buy all of our skin care stuff for the year at this show because you can't beat getting that stuff at wholesale prices. We decided we would spend the first day at the spa show and just look around and take it easy. This was a good call, because after the flight and getting up so early I still didn't feel all that great and wasn't really interested in getting serious and looking at some rather expensive things I had planned to buy for work.


We took the monorail to Flamingo because I'd read on Vegaschatter that there would be a temporary Game of Thrones gift shop at Linq and this would be the last day. I finally found it after having to ask the concierge. It was in a portable pods type thing. They didn't have much, but I managed to find one thing for DH, and S found something for her DH. At this point we were starving and overheated. We went to Yardhouse since it was right there. I had a wonderful turkey cobb salad that cooled me off and hit the spot.


Back to Ballys. We went upstairs to change and then back down to play. I was very upset when I went to Evening Call (the slushy place) and they had taken out my favorite drink. That's the main reason I stay at Ballys! The guy assured me it was a seasonal thing and it would be back in the fall. We shall see. In the meantime, I just drank Kahlua and cream from the cocktail server.


I played mostly Quick Hits and was doing pretty well, bouncing around machines. Tried to go back to VP, and couldn't do anything there. Went over to Paris to visit my Survivor machine, but it was being pretty nasty tonight and not even giving any play. Back to Ballys we go. S decided to find a BJ table and I tried a few more things. I was way up for the day from the royal and doing well on QHs, but I still felt like crap and I was really tired. I was up in the room by about 1. The club music was loud and thumpy, but I sleep with the TV on anyway so I just turned it up until it drowned out the club noise and I was fine.

 

Sun June 22


I woke up pretty early, as usual. I normally can't sleep much in Vegas. I felt much better today, having gotten some sleep. Not so much for S. She hadn't come back to the room that night. This is normal for her, but I was worried because we had to get serious at the show today. Normally we get to vegas a couple of days prior to the show so she can do that with little consequences. It didn't work out that way this year.


After I get ready, I go in search of S. Our plan was to go to Wicked Spoon this morning. I wondered if that would happen now. I found her at a BJ table. She is still drinking and absolutely bombed. Great. In the past when she's done this, she's started drinking water at some point so when I find her she's somewhat sober. Not this time, she's been drinking vodka tonics all night.


I asked her if she still wanted to do WS, and she does. We begin the walk, err, stumble over there. I knew she'd planned to do unlimited mimosas, but I told her that wouldn't be a good Idea. She told me in a drunken slur, "OK, I'll just be boring like you hahahah!" This pissed me off to no end. I was fuming. Yeah, ok I might be boring because I'm not a drunk every day of my life. (This is a regular thing for her, not just in Vegas)


I tried to ignore her as much as I could at breakfast, but she kept asking me questions that I'd already answered 2 minutes ago. I finish my breakfast and I tell her I'll meet her downstairs. She doesn't come down for quite a while. I play Dean Martin, Bettlejuice, Buffalo. I had a male cocktail server that morning at Cosmo. That was different. When she finds me, she seems sobered up a bit. We play for half an hour or so, then go back to Bally's so she can have a shower and we can get to the conv. center.


I play at Ballys while she goes upstairs. More VP and QHs, but not doing well this morning. She comes down and we go. We start to walk the floor. I'm in the market for some new hair cutting scissors, a good flat iron, and some other things. The place is so big, but I had a plan. I was going to try out lots of different scissors and if I found a pair I liked I would have them write down the model number and their booth number. Otherwise, you could never find them again.


About an hour into being there, S says she feels sick and is going back to the room to sleep. No kidding?! So I spend my day there, taking my leisurely time looking around at everything. I didn't buy a whole lot today, but I narrowed down the scissors I want to 3. I'll think about it over night and buy tomorrow.


Take the monorail back, play a little while. VP, nothing. Slots, nothing. Wow, the gambling is really crappy all of a sudden. I go upstairs around 6. S is sleeping, but wakes up when I come in. Throw my bags down, change, and go back downstairs. S is getting ready so we can eat. I'm losing my ass.


When she's ready we go eat at the café at Paris. They have a $39 deal where you get a choice of soup, enteree (steak), two sides, and dessert. I got this when I was here in april, and it was so good I wanted to do it again. Service was not great here this time. We had so many people waiting on us at different times we didn't know who to ask when needed something. They seemed confused. The food was still just as good, though. S ordered some turkey wrap that looked great. I noticed she wasn't eating. She said she still felt sick.


After eating, she went to the room and took her food to put it in the fridge. I wanted to play Survivor. Well, there was a couple camped out on it. I couldn't get on that machine for 2 days because they were always on it when I went to play. GRRRR. More losing for me. Went to the room about 1 and S was there and still up watching TV and on her phone. She said she was able to eat some of her wrap. I must have gone to sleep around 2am or so.

 

Mon June 23


For breakfast we decide to head over to Bacchanal at Caesars. It was great as usual, and I think this has edged out WS as my favorite buffet.


We walked over to Harrah's for our after breakfast smoke and so we could use the monorail to get to the show. They have a survivor machine there that I was able to get on and started hitting bonuses right away. I did good and played here about 45 min. Cashed out $60 up.


At the show, S had to hurry around to find what she wanted since she missed yesterday. I had already decided on what scissors I wanted so I went to get them right away. We stayed about 5 hours and went back to home base to drop off our stuff.


I had read on VMB the Palms was doing status matching for other players club programs. For diamond they were matching your status, you got 2 free buffets, and $25 free play. We decided to do this, it had been a long time since I'd been there. We took the shuttle to Rio and played there for awhile. Rio was absolutely brutal. I must have lost $200 in a couple of hours on $.25 VP. We walked to the Palms and it was still light out and very hot. That was a LONG walk! Went straight to the players club and the line barely moved. Must have stood there for 30 minutes,but it was 30 minutes I wasn't losing money, so that was good.


We went straight to the buffet with our passes. Wow, this was NOT what I'm used to. The food wasn't bad, but the selection sucked. In the end, we found enough to eat and it was fine. After eating, S found a BJ table and I found VP. It started out good, but we stayed at the Palms until 4am. S was doing really well at BJ, but I had tried everything and it was lose, lose, lose. We took a cab back to Ballys. I don't think I'll be seeing the Palms for quite a long time.

 

Tues June 24


I slept in until about 9:30 this morning since it was such a late night. I took my time getting ready. This was going to be spa day at Qua.


We didn't really feel like another buffet this morning, so we headed to Caesars and went to Central. this was only my second time here, and last time service was so bad that I only left a small tip, which is out of the ordinary for me. This time service was much better and we had a great, funny waiter.


When we got seated, there was a woman sitting alone at a table behind me. She told me she was about to head to the airport and her husband had gone to see a host to take care of their room charges, and that she was 7 star. She volunteered all that, and I just wanted to look at my menu. She wouldn't stop talking! Finally her husband comes back, bitches at the waiter for the food taking so long. Bitches at the woman for losing so much money. Bitches about the host for not comping everything, they were gonna be late for their flight and blah, blah, blah! I could tell the waiter was frazzled and they had only left a $3 tip in cash on the table. What a PIA! I was sorry for the waiter, but only in Vegas can you see such a train wreck of life LOL!


We played slots for a while after breakfast, and I bounced around everywhere. Still couldn't get anything going, so we headed to Qua. I was tired after eating, so I spent some time in the water and S and I both slept for about 2 hrs. I think we got there around 2 and didn't leave until 6. It was great! They recently raised the price of a day pass at Qua, but if you're diamond you get admission for $20 each for you and a guest. All of the other spas at other properties are free day passes for you and a guest. What a great deal!


We played around at Caesars after Qua, but I'm still losing. I go to Total Rewards to get my fee diamond tix for the High Roller. I didn't really want to do this, but S did. I'm not really a big fan of heights, but the more I read about it, I realized that it probably wouldn't be scary so I got more excited about it.


We went back to Ballys to get ready for the night, then walked through Cromwell to Flamingo. I had to exchange my voucher at their box office to get my tix for the ride. It was about 10pm when we went to ride it. It wasn't scary at all. It was kinda fun. Probably wouldn't do it again unless I was with someone that wanted to.


It was time to eat, and Yardhouse was close so we went there again. It was good, but the waiter was an a bit on the over sharing side. I got to find out all about his life and I wasn't that interested. Took him forever to get me the bill and even longer when I told him I wanted to charge it to my room. I think we played at the Quad for a while this night, but I don't think we stayed up too late. Probably back in the room by 2 or so.

 

Wed June 25


I got up and went down to play while S packed, because she was going home today. This was going to be the day I tried for 1000 TCs so I could get 1000 bonus TCs on my card. See, I don't play high bets. I mostly min bet on penny slots except QHs. But I do play a long time, so with 3 trips per year I can achieve diamond status if I have a few days that I can get the 1000 point bonus. I earned diamond last year for the first time, so I'm hoping they keep this system so I can keep it.


I still couldn't do any good on anything and I was hoping at this point that I wouldn't have to hit the ATM. I said goodbye to S because I had a lunch date with Diana (Evoni) at Grand Lux at Palazzo at 1pm. I cabbed it over there and got there a little early and played before we met up. I broke even, which was quite a relief as fast as my money had been going!


I haven't known Diana personally for very long, but like most of you I've been reading her trip reports for years! She's the nicest person and we had a good chat at lunch and got to know one another a bit better. After lunch, I wanted to play something new I hadn't played before, so she took me to the Jurassic Park machines in the Venetian. We played for quite a while and got lots of bonuses. She even filmed them! We had a good time, and she even won quite a bit on hers. I got to play for a while, so I was happy with that. I wanted to play ZZ top, so we went back to Palazzo for those, where we parted ways. Thanks Diana! See you in September!


I walked back to Harrahs to begin my quest for my bonus points and stayed there quite a while. I played Survivor first. They had the "poker palace" area where all the VP used to be all torn up, but I found a few VP machines to play. I started doing a little good by hitting a few quads there. I think I hit 4 aces no kicker. That was great! I did pretty well here and racked up almost 300 points. I walked back to Ballys, played at Paris for a while before making my first trip to Planet Hollywood. I knew I had to really get busy because it was getting late. Played QHs for a while, then more VP. I hit quad 3s no kicker twice on one machine, then a couple non premium quads on another. After that it was all downhill, and the points were accumulating soooo slow. I was tired and ready to go to bed. I ended up getting the points about 4am then I went back to Ballys and to bed.

 

Thurs June 26


I got up and made it down to the Paris breakfast buffet this morning. It wasn't very good. After that, I went to diamond check in about getting a later check out. I had arranged for 2pm the day before, but I really needed a nap. The girl that checked me in was there and I had tipped her upon check in, so I don't know if that's why, but she took pity on me and let me check out at 3:30. I also took care of all my room charges. I had $125 in resort credit, and I owed $89 on top of that. They used RCs and I have nearly $100 left on my card after that. I went back to the room and napped. I had done most of my packing the day before, so not much to do there. When I woke up, I took my time, showered, and got ready to go. My flight was at 5:30 and I wouldn't get home until 11:30 Dallas time. This time I was changing planes in ABQ, and I don't usually change planes. The thought of it was a little nerve racking, but I was a bit familiar with the airport in ABQ.


When I got to the McCarran, it was obvious the A/C was having issues there. It was sooo hot and everyone was fanning themselves. I ate at Pei Wei while waiting. I couldn't wait to get on the plane and get cooled off. Guess what? One of the A/C compressors was out on the plane! Hottest plane ride I've ever been on!


Never been so happy to see the airport in ABQ. It was so nice and cool in there, and at this point I'm so happy I decided to change planes. My flight was delayed and hour. It landed at about 12:45am. DH was there waiting for me and we made it home at about 2am. I was happy to see my cats! And my bed!


It's taken me a couple of weeks to recover from this trip. I guess the older you get the harder it is to recover from Vegas. I think next trip I'll try to take it easy and not stay up too late every night. I might just have to spend part of each day at a spa relaxing, too.

 

Great report....thanks for sharing!!

 

Skyler, great trip report! I had the same experience as you at the Paris buffet breakfast when I ate there in April, except for the crepes which were great it was very disappointing.

Was lovely having lunch with you at Grand Lux and playing slots together afterwards.

BTW, after you went on to ZZ Top and then left, I finally got the mudslide we were trying to order earlier!

Looking forward to seeing you again in September.

 

Do you have a host? If not, I would check into getting one. Thanks for the TR.

 

Nice report !! Do you remember where you may have lost $200 on VP at the Rio that Monday? One of the VP bars or floor? And maybe what game you were playing?
Thanks

 

Congratulations on hitting the Royal right out of the gate...that's a great way to start the trip! Nice that you and Diana were able to connect on the trip; she is such a nice lady! I really like Palms buffet, it isn't huge like many of the strip buffets but I always enjoy it and the casino and staff. Ughhh on the long, hot trip home. I enjoyed your report; thanks for posting.

 

Did you say that CET Diamond get free day passes to all the spas and $20 for Qua?

Thanks

 

I "sort of" have a host. I have a casino marketing person that I use to book my trips and offers. He is really nice, and I was supposed to go to Planet Hollywood and meet him for the first time this trip, but didn't make it over there during his working hours. Maybe next time!

When I was playing at Rio, I was playing on the floor. All over the place. I usually only play DDB.

Yes, if you're diamond, day passes are free at all the spas except Qua costs $20 per person. This is for the diamond member and one guest only. I have read others report this, and I can't verify it for every spa. I asked at Bally's and they said it was free. I can definitely verify the $20 cost at Qua. I took my mom for that price in April, and I took my friend this time and both times it was $20 each.

 

Thanks for the report. Getting a royal, what a great start. I've used the fitness room at Caesar while my wife had a massage and I didn't pay. Maybe I was lucky

 

great report, your business partner sounds like a hand full.