3 nights May 31st to June 3rd

Just got back from a three day trip. I'll just post the recap of events and hope it doesn't get too boring. Great trip and it's the first time in quite a few trips it was just us. While we like 'hosting' with friends, alone time doing Vegas 'our way' is sometimes the best!

Flights: RT on Southwest out of Cleveland. Nonstop. Points used for flight out by using their Rapid Rewards card. (Noticed a promo for new members of 60,000 credits for new sign ups. Since we only got 40,000 when we signed up years ago, thought this was pretty good) Paid for the flight home. Flight out came in a bit early. Yay! Flight home there was a mishap on 'paperwork' for maintenance with the plane and we sat on the tarmac for about an hour before pushing off! So much for getting home on time but at least it was safe and I actually slept most of the way. (Vegas will do that!)

Hotel: Stayed at Paris. Haven't stayed here in a while. Given a Parlor Room. Carpets and room decor was updated and fresh. Bathroom tile and fixtures are still the same. However, the room was on a corner where out of one set of windows you could see down into the pool and the other side was the Bellagio fountains. Room was comfortable and bed was pretty new. Had some noise from what I thought was club Chateau on Wed night? Next two nights we passed out and never heard it again. Who knows but it wasn't a problem. We go to bed early and get up early by 6am to miss the crowd and noise. It's kind of nice with no crowds except those that are just going to bed. Kind of fun to watch those strolling back in.

Used the pool all three days. This was the reason for staying at the Paris. Pool time and it's a relaxing atmosphere. Music is just a background thing (except on Friday it was a bit louder with the weekend crowd coming in. Had lawn chairs off to the side of the speakers and it was more than tolerable) Bought a couple of drinks and of course they were pricey but good. Our bag that I took to the pool was looked in. You can bring in water, tea or coffee. Rent a cabana and it comes with rafts. Sure would have liked a raft to lay on but not doing a cabana with just the two of us! Plus we don't hang out but a couple of hours max at the pool so it's not worth it.

Food: Usually we are one meal in a restaurant in the evening/late afternoon a day but we are not really into fancy restaurants and such. Grab a muffin and coffee for breakfast and that's it and do an early dinner. However the last night we made reservations at Ruth's Chris using the Diamond renewal dinner. (which if we hadn't had this, we wouldn't have come here--good excuse to try something different and relaxing) Food was excellent. We told them when we arrived that it was for my birthday and at the end of dinner they brought out a small raspberry cheesecake that was fabulous and a very nice touch. Harry did the salmon and I did the scallops. Both on the Chef's menu that night and we could not eat it all. All of their sides were big enough to split so we did that, including the salad. Dinner for two was $130--granted we did not drink at dinner--but it was pretty reasonable especially since we used the $100 comp and charged the rest to the room and paid for it with points. BTW used the TR app to make the reservation. I hadn't really paid attention to the app I had downloaded on my phone but it sure came in handy for this.

Mexican restaurant at Ballys: overpriced and not worth it that's my summary of it. Filled the need. Never been to a Mexican restaurant that I had to pay for chips and salsa. Better Mexican restaurants at home.

Downtown: Binions Cafe: Very good and paid for it with points. Food at Binions is always good. Ate at Magnolia's downtown for breakfast one morning and it was really good also. We didn't realize we had racked up as many points at the Four Queens as we had which was a nice surprise plus the $40 in cash that we were able to redeem from previous gambling and that day was cool. Any meals we've had downtown have always been good and way better priced.

Shows: Saw the Bronz Wanderers that was suggested on this board. Definitely second that! We thoroughly enjoyed it. Part of the free shows as Diamond and glad we did this one. When I checked on the show Thurs around 10am, they had already sold out for Thursday. We did Friday (which is what I wanted) but this show is going fast. Great entertainment.

Gambling: It was a good trip. Vegas didn't get it all. I mainly play quarter video poker. Toss in some higher denominations once it a while when I hit something but that didn't happen too often. Once in a while I'll divert to a slot machines when video poker just doesn't seem to be happening. However, 4OAKs were far and few between. Did have a couple of good hits early Thurs morning with 4 aces and a couple of premium quads with kickers however that got played back in. Same with Blazing 7's. Hit three sets of mixed 7's on the dollars but that goes quick with playing dollars. We played at most of the Caesar properties (except PH and Caesars). Did some monorail riding (courtesy of My Vegas) and caught cabs down at the SLS to go downtown. I gotta get with the times and use Uber. (Normally we rent a car but we weren't visiting any outlying casinos or special events so we decided not to. Kind of liked that--I do hate the extra hour of shuttle service to get a car and return and all that hassle. For three days, not worth the time.)

Played at the Plaza, Binions and 4 Queens. Spent a few hours on both Thurs and Friday. Decent results nothing great. But fun. Wow is all I can say about some of the street performers/exhibitionists. Always something new I haven't seen before. lol!

The last night after dinner we played in the video poker room at Harrah's. I said screw it and played dollar vp and hit a few quads and worked a couple of other machines up to doubling the buy in. Made it a semi early night since the casinos were definitely in another level of crazy with the weekenders.

Got up early on Sat morning and played a bit at the Paris. Finally catch a heater (I'd been waiting the whole trip to do it) Get dealt 4 4's with a kicker on the dollar vp and then another 4of a kind heading back to the room. Brings back almost half my bankroll..........cuz I was at the tail end. Headed to the airport and then of course we gotta play a few hands and I catch 4 aces on quarters and quit. That's half of what I took and I was excited for that. What better way to do it than on the way out of town? But that long dry spell sure does suck.

How'd my husband do? He's why we are diamond. At home he's one fiscally conservative guy. Go to Vegas and all bets are off. He plays video poker with me a bit usually at 50 cent/dollar but he'll find the craziest/newest slot machine and has a full go at it. He never had any hand pays but got lucky on 50cent triple plays over at Harrah's and hit 4Aces with a kicker the one day along with about 5 other 4oaks on the same machine. Hit some other crazy new slots and did real well at Binions on a new Tarzan. He was on a roll and brought back his stake to use on our next trip which will be in October.

It had actually been 6 months since we were in Vegas. We did Spring Training instead for a week in March and that was pretty relaxing and alot of fun in Phoenix. Yes, we were tempted to head north to Vegas but we refrained and I'm glad we did. Made this trip a lot better since we hadn't been there in a while. Yep, I have plane tickets already for October (may do a downtown trip for that time-but have quite a bit time for planning) and that'll help when I go back to the grind next week after having two weeks off work. If you made it this far, thanks for reading and thanks to everyone else who posts and shares tips etc. They are helpful!

 

Thanks.

 

Thanks for the report!

 

Glad to hear Bronx Wanderers are starting to sell out. Really enjoyed them. Thanks for the report....

 

Nice report!

 

Thanks for the great report. I am staying in Paris in 3 weeks, so good to hear about the relaxing pool area. With the weather being so hot, will definitely spend time in the pool!!