Caesars/Aria - 2/21-25

This was going to be a Solo trip, but a few weeks before leaving, a college buddy, Ron, decided to tag along. So instead of staying at the M for the first two nights, I ended up giving Ron a coupon for two free nights (run of the house) to Caesars and ended up there. I wasn't really to interested in staying at a CET property again, but this time, I'm glad we did.

This could get long, and I'm going to try to include pictures. I will post the full album and a link to a video at the end of the report.

Since my wife skipped out the our previous trip, I had a credit on Allegiant air to use up, and got the ok from her to head out again. Allegiant has changed their boarding process to force assigned seat holders to be at the gate 45 minutes early to board first, so I showed up to the airport in Springfield Missouri 1.5 hours before flight time. Not because of security, but only for the check in process. Thirty minutes later, I receive my boarding pass and head outside for a quick smoke. Head to security, no line as usual, and proceed to the gate. The plane boards on time and leaves 10 minutes early. Bad luck hits quickly with a 180 mph head wind. 3 hours and 4 vodkas later, we land in Vegas. Call Ron and he meets me at baggage claim, where the bag appears quickly and off we go. We had planned to go to the Pinball Hall of fame, but decided to head straight to Caesars to check in. Drop our bags at the bell desk and head to check in.

When I booked my room, I first sent an email to the "executive booking agent", in other words, my hosts aide. Never heard back from him after 4 days. Called him and got a recording telling me to call so and so. Called her, and her message said I'm out for 3 weeks. So I found the business card my (?) host had sent and called him. He never called back either, so I just booked a room online. Since my wife was not coming, I could only get a classic room comped up front, but figured I'd beg at check in to get a room near Ron.

So we get in the Platinum line at check in. There are two conventions starting that day and the check in area must have had 1000 people in line. The agents aren't paying any attention to the platinum line, and neither are the people who were not platinum in the line either. I say to hell with this, and see an employee standing out in front giving out information, and go ask her if we can check in at the diamond check in since "We aren't part of this crowd". She says yes, tell them I sent you and away we go. Walk in and tell the guy whats up, he says no problem. Tell him Ron has a Palace tower room, and I've got a classic room and am wondering if we can get the same tower. He types away and says I've got you in the same tower, one floor apart, Ron will have the room right above you, we are full up, but I think you'll like the rooms since they are suites. Turns out they are in the Centurion tower (by cleopatras barge) I got Room 34-006, Ron got 35-006. I'm thinking, well, at least it's a suite, even if it is 40 years old.

We head up to my room and open the door, and holy shit. This room is HUGE.

From the foyer, there is a half bath, then a bar with fridge and microwave, living room/dining room, component stereo (with karaoke! ).



Off to the bedroom, which faces the strip, flat panel tv along with another stereo.

http://i1127.photobucket.com/albums/l630/maulster711/IMG_20110221_165844.jpg

In to the bathroom:



The shower doubles as a steam sauna, which came in handy the next morning.

Ron yells out that he's going to have to come to Vegas with me more often and heads off to his room, which is the same.

 

Great First Win!!

I thought the tale might turn bad based on the check-in story, but it looks like you are "up" already for the trip!! I hope the gambling part of the story goes the same way!!

Looking forward to reading more...

 

Call the bellman and get the bag sent up. He arrives and I inquire about ice, none in the tower, have to call room service. That's strange. Ask about the mini bar, not in this room (???????). Call Ron and we head down to grab the car and head out to the M resort as I wanted to put some points on the card and get my address fixed at the players club. The club had called me last month wanting to know my address (I have a PO Box for mail) and I wanted to make sure they had actually put in the switch. They had not. So the guy fixed it, and said I have offers. Grab my free gift (coffee), skip the buffet, and we wander around. Decide to play sex in the city. I play off my $20 free play and end up losing 10. We wander around looking for stuff to play, I can't find $ machines or free booze anywhere. Go into the high limit room, get a drink and find the $'s. Lose 50 in there, find Ron and we decide to go to the South Point.

Get there and go to the booth to verify my address there too. As stated previously on the board, it appears South Point doesn't send mailers to people not local. So I go up and ask the lady to verify my address because it's either wrong or you guys don't send mail to Missouri. She says they send it quarterly, and that my address was wrong. Fixed it and wander off to find a drink and play. Sit down at a 5 line triple blazing 7 machine and lose $100. That was fast, wait, I thought South point had loose slots?? Find Ron and we head to the craps table ($3 min). Got on a good run and got up about 100, then the table went cold and cleared out. It got to the point where Ron and I were the only ones playing, and I was betting the don't when he was shooting. Left the table up $30.

Wander back to Caesars so Ron can start drinking. I head off to the "Pole" which is a 5 line 3x4x5x $ machine next to a column (hence the pole), put in 100 and start playing. Put 200 tier credits on the card, 4 7 and 7's in me and the 9 line triple flaming seven machine is calling my name. I move over the one spot and put in my card. Hello Ann, we are gathering your comp balance. Ann???? WTF, I'm playing on my wifes card, who is not here. Fix that problem and play the 9 line beast. My balance went down quick, but managed to hit something that brought me back up to even and left. Ron wanted to go play pennies so we head over to the other side of the casino and sit down at Tigers Realm Machines.

Making sure I was playing on the correct card, we start to play. The CW came up, took our order, asked us the time, and left. We never saw her again and decided she needed to get to her second job at the strip club. Another CW came buy and brought us two drinks at a time. They were stout.

All we could do was lose, so around midnight, we decide it's time for food. I'm thinking noodles, Ron's thinking food court. Turns out both were closed. End up going up to the room, we look at room service, Ron says that's to expensive and wants to go to Bills. I tell him to have a nice walk, and order room service. He says to call him by 8:30 the next morning. I got the House Lo Mein, and it was a sorry excuse for the noodle joint downstairs. The noodles were Italian pasta, not good. Wandered into the bedroom to look at the strip and woke up at 7AM in the bed, amazed that I didn't hurt.

Wandered back into the bar area, and fired up the coffee maker I brought, made a cup, and went back into the bedroom to look at the strip. Good plan till the sun made it over the Flamingo. Go check out the shower and notice it's a sauna too. That works.

Ron is ready by 8:30 and we get the car and head to the South Point for the 5.99 breakfast buffet. I paid with points. It was worth it. I don't do tomato juice, so I passed on the free bloody marys. Finished up insulting my stomach by putting food in it and went to play off my $20 free play. Played droid hunt, Ron got bonus after bonus, I got squat.

We had to have the car back to Caesars by 11:30, so we went to check out the Silverton. Signed up for the card and got a free buffet and $8 in free play. Turned that 8 bucks into 120 on a $ machine. Went to play goldfish and won another 50. Had a couple of good stiff drinks and went to check out the hotel hallways, hoping to see a room being cleaned to check it out. The entire hotel is non smoking, so not for me till I quit.. To bad since I liked the casino, a lot.

Head back to Caesars and get rid of the car. Played some gimmicky game, think it was Vegas Lights, had two wheels on top while waiting for Ron. That was a money taker.

Went and played a 9 line penny triple 7 machine and hit this.



We wandered around for a bit, and decided to head out. Ron wanted to go to Margaritaville so we headed that way, via the Bellagio. We wander through there and Ron wants to ride the train over to wherever (he wanted to ride the train). We end up, after what seemed like a 20 mile hike, at the station and took it to Monte Carlo. Played over there a bit, got a few drinks (tasty) and headed back towards the B. Since I was staying at Aria the next two days, we skipped it to keep the suspense up.

We walk back over to the Flaming Ho and end up at Harrahs where we played craps at the door to the Carnival court. The table was good, but I got into it with an old man who decided to join the table by standing in front of me. Now, I'm 6'3, 280 lbs and was standing up next to the table, so I didn't take to kindly to this. He kept taking 20 bucks out of his wallet and buying in every roll or so, the pit didn't care that I was spreading 50-100 bucks and getting hassled, so we left. Ron had wanted to play that table because it was busy which translated into fewer rolls, but even he got bored with it.

We went over to the casino royale for a bit, then headed back to Caesars via the forum shops. I headed back to the pole area, and for the first time in 5 years, there was a lady at my pole. The nerve. So I went and played a triple seven machine



Played it a bit more and went back to the pole.

 

So I make it to the pole, the lady had left and sit down and hit this:



Ron shows up and finally decides he can play $1 at a time and sits down and starts playing. Hit's something for $200 or so, he's happy and we are getting good drink service. We play at bit more, but the pole gets hateful and we wander around a bit. Don't remember what we played and looking at the pictures I took, didn't hit anything, so we headed back up to the room for a bit to discuss dinner. We decided to go over to the Rio to the All American Grill for some wings, and head downstairs to find out about a shuttle. No shuttle from Caesars, so we decide to skip the cab and go to the food court (good fish and chips). Stop off at a machine for a cocktail. The server never shows up, so we go get our chow. Take it back up to the dinning room and eat. Good stuff. Head back downstairs and played some more, lost. Ron decides to head over to Harrahs to play some Pai Gow, and I decide to go enjoy the room. He tells me if I don't hear from him by 9:30 Wednesday morning to wake him up as he has to pack.

Get up around 5 AM and pack up for the move to Aria. Go downstairs and play Alice in Wonderland. Interesting game, but when the bonus don't pay as much as the base bet, not a good game. Ron calls around 8 and is hurting. He made it back to the room around 4am. Tells me he's gonna pack. I mess around in the casino, and we check out around 10. All food is taken care of via reward credits, and the final bill was $11 for tips. Catch a cab to Aria and that part of this tale will be told in the next installment. I will say that while I lost at Caesars, I win at Aria.

 

Nice report so far, waiting to hear your impressions of Aria

 

So far so good! LOVE the room you got!

 

We make it over to Aria and dump the bags with the Bellman. Aria's system is that the cabs dump out at one end and pick up at the other end. That works for check in, but at check out, it's a pretty good stroll to the other end of the casino to pick up a cab. The Bellman says it's probably to early to check in, so we go check out the casino and end up at the other end of the casino. I'm playing some penny game, with a hot penny feature, 5 x 4, the one where the fireball sits on a throne and play it for a bit, Think I win 20 and we go wandering around. It's obvious Ron is hurting from the lack of sleep and we decide to go check me in. I had an offer for 3 free nights, two for one buffet and 75 freeplay. When I booked it, I asked about the invited guest line and she said she would put me down for it. Glad I asked as the front desk was busy. No line at the invited guest and I ask if it's to early to check in. The lady says no, and proceeds to look for me in the computer. She asks if I booked it in my name. Yes.................She finally finds me and gives me room 11-037, pool view, king smoking. Shows me how the room key works (wave it at the sensor) and I ask about the buffet offer as I'm alone, can I get it half off. She tells me no, but I can eat it on two different days and it's for breakfast only. Doesn't do me any good because Allegiant leaves out at 7AM for the flight home (Always brutal, but better than 6 AM which they used to do). I ask about freeplay and she says you do that at the Mlife booth. So we head over there, and I get the freeplay (which turns out to be a good thing)

We head up to the room.



Not a suite, but being alone, just fine for me. I thought the room was pretty cool, especially the goodnight button next to the headboard (both sides) that turns off the TV, Lights and closes the drapes. You could also program the touch panel to do this at a set time. The control panel controlled everything.

We wandered back downstairs and I found a "gears" game I'd never played and sat down at it and hit this:



Interesting game, but the gear function really slows it down. We then decide to grab some food and end up at the Buffet. It was $19.99 for lunch and I charge it to the room. Ron had put on $3 in express comps for his little play and used them to help pay for his. The buffet had all the usual stations, along with sushi and crab legs. One thing it did lack was vegetables. Seriously. They had mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and a mixed squash/zuc dish. I never found the gravy for the spuds either.

Started with a Salad and the sushi. The sushi was typical buffet sushi, but the wasabi was the hottest I'd ever had. It really stayed in your mouth doing its thing for a long time. The salad was good. Grabbed some of their fried chicken (dry) and roast beef (tough). Made the mistake of getting a tamale (beef) and it was more masa than filling. The service was good, the food wasn't bad but honestly, Golden Corral or Ryans is better. So what I'm saying is the food was bad. South Point has a much better buffet and is a lot cheaper.

We both agreed that we wouldn't be back unless it's really free and by this time, Ron is ready to catch a shuttle to the airport. His flight is at 4:30 and it's 1:30. We stand around for a few minutes and he heads out. I head back up to the room to call the bell desk and get my bag delivered. Having already noticed that the room was a long way from the elevator, I pulled a land surveyor trick out my hat and paced the hallway. One of my paces is about 3 feet, and it was figured out to be about 400 feet from the elevator to my room. Call the bell, up in 15 minutes sir. It was about 15 minutes and the bellman showed up, apologized for the delay and away he went. Unpacked the coffee pot and went back downstairs.

Wandered around playing various games. Sat down to a goldfish race for gold, hit max bet (200 credits) a couple of times and then noticed that it's a 5 cent game. Racked up some quick points but didn't hit anything. oh well, wandered around some more, looking for a 5 line $ machine to play and found a triple blazing 7 5 liner right next to the pits. It also was next to a bar with a piano player so I sat down and hit this:



Played that machine a few times and the cocktail service really started to pick up. Decided to go play something else and ended up at a super red hot penny, rock this or something like that. It didn't pay, but was loud. Wandered around some more and kept losing on pennies (why do I play those?) and went up to the room around 8 to put on my pretty people clothes. Wait I didn't bring any, so I went back down in my shorts and looked at all the pretty people in the little black dresses and suit coats. Snagged a few more drinks and went up around 10 PM, thinking room service is in order as I wasn't that hungry but needed something to protect my stomach.

Ordered the wings. The wings were good. I was impressed that the carrots, celery, pickled broc, the cold stuff, was actually brought on a cold plate instead of on the hot plate, like every other place seems to do. Hung out in the room for a bit and decided I'd lost enough for the day and tried out the Aria bed.

Aria seems to be proud of their beds and linens. I sleep on a tempur pedic at home, the commercials are true. Arias is a Serta tempur pedic knock off. Pretty good bed. That sold me on the place right there alone, as once your used to it, springs are hard to sleep on. Programed the room to turn everything off later and gave the pillow some head.

Day 4 coming up.

 

Wake up around 6:30 and make some coffee and somehow manage to waste two hours drinking it. Try out the shower, pressures not great and think housekeeping must really love having to clean the tub since it is right next to the shower. Kinda strange having to walk through the shower, but I can see it's benefits. The tub is not a bubbler, so I figured I would conserve some water and not use it.

Head downstairs around 9 AM thinking I'll play for a bit, then walk over to the PHO to go to the tommy bahama store and grab either Earls (not bad) or Pinks (never been). Stop and play for a bit, end up at American Idol and win about 80. One thing I have noticed about Mlife is that if the slot is a gimmick (has a big tower on the top or is a movie/tv show game), it's $10/point instead of $2. Come on, that's just plain stupid. These games usually pay back less too, so I avoided them, until I found rocking olives at monte carlo later.

Lose about 150 and decide to head out in my shorts for the stroll to the strip. If you ask me, I didn't think the walk was any farther than the walk is through the bellagio to the tram station and was really quite pleasant. One tip, if you walk through crystals to get to the PHO, it's shorter. On the walk, I've noticed that the bottled water sellers have been replaced by one man bands. Some of them were pretty good. One of them was singing tightwads as people walked by who didn't tip. I didn't tip, but I guess he decided I wasn't a tightwad.

Get to PHO and find the store. Didn't have what I was looking for and went to find pinks. Got the chili cheese dog/fries/soda. $12. That was some greasy assed chili, or at least the gravy had that grease look to it. Tasty, the fries were a huge order. I think I would have rather had two extra long chili cheese dogs from Sonic for the same price, but now I can say I ate at Pinks. Walked back to Aria and sat down at Tigers Realm. It didn't pay, damn pennies. Wandered around a bit more playing pennies and went back to that gear machine, or at least the one next to it and hit this:




Decided to go to Monte Carlo.

People have been saying Aria is dark inside the casino. They haven't been to Monte Carlo. Found the rocking olives game and enjoyed it. Hit all the bonuses and stayed even, but tired of the $10/pt gouge. Messed around there for a bit and went back to Aria. Decided to play my free play back at that triple blazing 7 machine from yesterday and put in $100 and activated my free play.

The last $5 of the freeplay, I hit this:



So I cashed out my $75 free play for a net profit of $531. Called my wife to brag and went outside to have a smoke.

 

A really great score with the rooms at Caesars - WOW !! Those steam showers are the ultimate hangover removal device as well, I think every hotel shower should have them!

 

Came back in and went upstairs to put some money in the safe. Went back down and decided to play that $100 I planned to play in the same machine. Played for a bit, having little wins and got this:



I go back to the room to drop of some more money, and come back downstairs.

Decide to go back to the same machine, and hit this:



which led to this:



which led to a very nice conversation from a floor person who wanted to know if I was staying at the Aria. By this time, I've taken $2300 or so out of this machine today and the CW shows up. I ask for a double to really get the party started and this continues. Common sense takes over (actually she called) and said take the money to the safe. So I stagger the 400 feet (each way) with two drinks in my hand and drop the cash off, wander back downstairs (with the empty glasses left in the room) and put another $100 in that same machine. I know what everybody is thinking, and I hit the button and

 

Cliffhanger lol.

I need to get myself away from the pennies too. They are more interesting but a money pit. Going to limit myself to quarters or higher slots aside from playing out free play. And that will be half my bankroll, other half is dedicated to video poker.

Hope you hit enough to retire.

Sent from my DROID2 using Tapatalk

 

Great hits. I'm headed to Vegas in 3 weeks with a smaller bank roll and am thinking i may play slots this go around. Normally I stick to table games, but i'm thinking this is my only way to really hit big.

 

Enjoying your TR so far, congrats on the nice wins. I want to know what happens next!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Nothing, I hit nothing. But I did get enough play on that hundred to earn 500+ points (1000 coin in). By that time, all of the doubles I had drank had taken over my brain and I went to pennies Sat down at a hot hot penny machine, the kind where if all of the symbols are the same on the first reel it locks and you get two more respins, or it could hit a bonus. Luckily, some sobriety showed up for a millisecond and instead of betting $4 a spin, I only bet 80 cents a spin, and it actually lasted a good long time. I always get a laugh out of the machine when it says BIG WIN and the win is $8. Guess it's all relative.

I get bored with the machine after awhile, and I had run out of smoke and didn't see the floor person that helped with my hand pay to see if Aria comps smokes, so I walked as straight as I could to the room and did a money count. Found out I was in the money, looked at the clock and said to heck with the 7AM flight, I'm going back downstairs. But I only took $100 to insure a win.

Went back to the Sevens machine and won $35 or so, then took that one bank over and sat down at a hot top dollar. I'd never seen one of those before, $3 a spin. I was on that machine for 15 minutes and it hit the top dollar 10 times. Amazing. Didn't hit any big bonuses, $50 was the highest, but managed to cash that out $300.

Decided that paybacks a bitch in the mornings, so I should get food and make my way upstairs to try to sleep the booze off to make my flight. Was planning on going to the sports bar to get something to go, got halfway there and decided room service is better, so went back to the room.

Ordered the philly cheesesteak pizza:



It was good. Plenty of garlic. For reference, when a recipe calls for 1 clove, I put in 10.

I set the alarm for 4:30 and get in bed around 11. Wake up at 3:45 and get up. Drag the bag downstairs watching all the youngsters coming in from the clubs. Go to check out and use my express comps so only end up with owing $11 in tips. Grab a cab and get to the airport at 5am, use the skycap and hit security at 5:15. It took 35 minutes to get through the line at the D gates, longest I've stood there in a very long time, if not ever.

Get to the gate, grab a seat ready to board at 6:15, which turns out to be 7am since a light bulb had burned out on the plane. Plane pushes back at 7:30, 30 minutes late, but we had a tail wind, and got in on time. Managed to get out of the airport and on the road in under 20 minutes (amazing).

Another trip in the books

Thoughts:

Caesars room was great, but the resort is starting to get tired. The casino just looks old. It's hard to believe that a hotel tower doesn't have an ice machine. Having a stereo in the room is great, the people in the next room over having a stereo is not great, since there is no maximum volume restriction.

Aria:

Loved the place. I have no illusions that my play is going to get me RFB there and I'm fine with that. The bed was great, I enjoyed the room technology. The only gripe I had was that the remote control for the tv didn't work, I figured batteries and the shower pressure was a little low. It was a quiet room.

Every employee I walked past, besides the casino area, made a point of saying hello. They seemed to give a shit. The slot people didn't mind running down an ash tray when I needed one (the trays tended to be few and far between). Trash/empty glasses were picked up.

Room service was reasonable, and I like the fact that they make it clear that tips are not included. No reason to feel like I had to tip on top of the 18% already added on, like at other places.

Thanks for reading, and if anybody has questions, ask them!

 

Great trip report. Thanks for posting. Awesome hits on those machines! And really loving that room.

 

Great tr

Drinking, smoking, gambling, and room service to top it all off... Sounds like a perfect trip! Good job on the hits, I've never played slots before, usually at craps tables, but this report has persuaded me to keep $100 aside strictly for dollar slots.

My question is (sorry if I missed it in report), are you a CET diamond? And I the mgm "milf" program, are you as high as gold for your play? I assume gold since you stated at aria..

glad you had fun!

 

Seven Out: As far as CET, I let my platinum status drop this year, so I'm back to gold. I've been with CET for about 8 years or so and have gotten pretty bored with them, so I took time out of a trip a few years ago to go pump some coin through at Bellagio. The offers for MGM started then and haven't stopped. When I got home, I had 3 free nights (a first) at Bellagio, sent before I left.

MGM, I'm pearl, tried to get to gold, and forgot to mention that I'm only 1800 points away, so I'm kicking myself hard right now for not staying up later the last night. That's my main gripe about Mlife, no way of knowing (easily) what your tier score is. I have the app for my droid, but it will NEVER let me log in. And I left my netbook at home this trip.

I, too, used to play craps exclusively, then got started playing the slots with my wife. I still sneak away to the tables. I sneak because my wife drives me nuts playing the hardways and horns.

 

Video of the Caesars room is here: http: //www.youtube.com/watch?v=7BZllYoAb7k (can't get the link to work, take the spaces out between the : and the //



Additional pictures of Aria and the trip are here: http://s1127.photobucket.com/albums/l630/maulster711/

 

Thanks for the report. Still don't understand how someone could muscle his way into a craps table with you and your chips their, no common sense. Great trip , Thanks again.

 

Great trip report! This makes those $1 slots look even more tempting!