Dec 19th weekend.

Arrived in Vegas right on time and met with our limo driver.
Luggage was only about a 15 minute wait.
We usually stay at Planet Hollywood, but wanted to do something different and opted to make this our first stay at Caesars.
Our host (or rather, the guy we thought was a host (more on this later)) originally made the reservation within the Augustus room with a view of the Bellagio fountains.
When checking in, our options was to wait a few hours for our room to be ready or we could switch to the Palace tower and get a room immediately.
After a 5 hour flight we look forward to showering, changing clothes, unpacking and officially starting our trip. As a result, we gladly took the Palace room.

The Palace room was actually pretty nice. It was near the elevators and ice machine yet we never heard a sound. It was one of our more quiet stays in a hotel for a room in this location. It overlooked most of the pools too. The size was nice and there was plenty of room in the bathroom to accommodate more than one person at a time. It had a separate tube and shower as well as its own water closet and dual sinks.

Once all freshened up, our first meal was at the Gordon Ramsay Pub.
We started with the sticky toffee dessert as we were very hungry and it was a great way to start. I ordered the Hellfire Lollipop wings as another appetizer and was a bit disappointed. They were actually a bit dry with little to no moisture. Lets just say if a chef on any of Gordon Ramsay's shows were to produce wings like this they would have been forced to leave.
My wife opted for the Reuben sandwich which was average at best. I don't foresee eating here again.

I enjoy a good milkshake and while at the Mirage I stopped by the BLT to pick one up. The price was very reasonable and for the price it was actually a very good milkshake. I have had milkshakes for double the price in Vegas and they aren't very good.

A short while later we started our official drinking and gambling portion of the night. We were only a few minutes into it and were told not to video tape. As you may know from my previous trip reports I usually include a dozen or more videos but not this trip. This was a huge bummer and the only CET property to tell me no recording. I knew this would significantly reduce my trip report. In fact I originally decided to skip doing a trip report but my wife insisted on it.

Played Craps at Caesars for the first and last time as the crew seemed a bit snobbish. They didn't seem to really like too much cheering.

That Friday the crowds were the lightest I have ever seen in our 15 or so trips, but Saturday and Sunday it became more crowded but still mild compared to what we have seen in the past.

With each Vegas trip, my wife keeps insisting that she will let me sleep in the first morning as I tend to stay up late and drink too much that first night. Once again she holds true to form and wakes my ass up way too early and expects me to get right up, showed and go eat breakfast.

Breakfast was at the Mirage Pantry as we had a MyVegas discount. Not only was this a terrible meal but mostly definitely not the meal to have when nursing hangover and a soured stomach. The eggs were the bright yellow that you see at the buffets and definitely not fresh. In fact the eggs were piled on the plate in a single mound as you would see when getting a scoop of eggs at a buffet. The smash fries should be called shit fries as they weren't even room temperature. I almost broke a tooth on the toast and my wife had to use all the syrup to cover the burnt taste from the pancakes. This is one place we won't be visiting again.

Stopped by Carlos bakery for some snacks which are always great. We only pick 3-4 items because if you get too much you end up getting stuffed and don't really get to enjoy it.
Right next door is Buddy Vs and ordered a meatball sub. It was just average for its price.

That night we ate at Gordon Ramsay's Steak at Paris. This is our second time eating there and once again we ordered the Ribcap. Started with the bread and also tried the mac and cheese. The mac and cheese didn't do much for me but my wife thought it was great. The ribcap was just as good as I remember from our first visit. I was tempted to try the A5 beef and asked to try a once to see if it was worth the money but the smallest they could do is 3 oz in order to cook it properly. Next time I will probably do a combination of the ribcap and A5, but it is tough to pay $200 for a steak dinner which doesn't even equate to a 1lb of meat.

The next morning we had brunch at Giada's. I had the Margherita pizza and wow, it was fresh and bursting with flavor. My wife had the Breakfast Contadina that was also outstanding. We did try the Pastry Assortments but that was pretty average. So far we have brunch, lunch and dinner on different occasions here and extremely happy each time.

Later that day we ate at Hexx since we had a groupon. Here is a tip....When the restaurant doesn't list prices it is probably because that item is higher than usual. We didn't see any prices for their soda until the bill arrived. If I recall correctly it was about $8.95 for a glass of fountain soda and same for iced tea. Paying almost $20 for a soda and iced tea is outrageous. We each got a burger and found it to be subpar for the price. I would rather go next door Burgr for that price.

Stopped by the Bellagio Conservatory to see the Christmas scene. Always impressed with the work they do. In the center of the conservatory is a little snow tunnel. Enough room to walk through in one direction and a bit tight when the flow is in both directions. Knowing that you can barely move people for some reason feel it is the optimum time to do a family photo. If caught in the line you can't move. You can't go back because its packed and you have a lot of people behind you and you can't go around because the lane is only made for a single flow of traffic and it already has two. Now, they don't just take a quick photo and move on....oh no, they take a half dozen, then change positions and take more photos. It took 10 minutes to walk 20 feet but worth checking it out.

Later than night as we headed south toward Mandalay Bay I stopped in at 800 Degree Pizza. Ordered the Margherita pizza and had to eat the entire pizza as my wife wasn't hungry which was fine by me. This is my second time eating here and they serve some very fresh tasting pizza. Both times I have eaten here the place has been empty. If looking for a quick, fresh and very tasty meal it is a great place to go.

Stopped by Shake Shack for a Milkshake and it was very good and the price was not inflated.

Next stop was the Hersey Place. Picked up the pretzels dipped in dark chocolate. Nice surprise as they include a small strip of caramel which just added to the flavor.

Sunday night we attended the Michael Jackson One show. There are two ways to review this show. One as a Cirque show or two as a musical montage. From a Cirque perspective the people in this show are the ones who can't qualify or don't have the skill set for the other Cirque shows. From a musical montage perspective it was a great show and there were a number of wow moments. I am not a big MJ fan but really enjoyed the show. Any MJ fan would be glad they went.

Walking back to Caesars we had to walk past the accident scene. There wasn't much to see at all yet the area was packed with people standing around. It was a bit strange the number of people taking pictures not only of the scene but also posing with the accident scene as the backdrop.

Here is a quick feedback of some games we played. Normally I would have video but as mentioned above, recording was not allowed at Caesars.

Slot Review
Las Vegas Deal or No Deal sucked. Not only were bonuses basically nonexistent, but you could go 10 spins without hitting even 1 or 2 credit win.

The larger Big Bang Theory was too expensive and really didn't see many people playing. The regular size Big Bang Theory was fun. There are a variety of bonuses and we actually go to play for a while each time we played.

Britney Spears is a neat machine. The screens are huge and the bonuses appear a decent amount of times.

OMG Puppies didn't pay much but was fun to play.

My usually Top Dollar machines was not paying out much.

Played Sinbad and as always was able to play this game for a while on a small bankroll.

Flintstones didn't provide many bonuses but did allow for some lengthy playing time.

Gremlins which was mostly teasing as gremlins would randomly appear but wouldn't do much.

BeJeweled 3 was not very fun to play.

The new Ellen machine was fun.

Tried the new Monopoly as the monopoly machines always seem interesting. For some reason I don't have luck with the Monopoly series of games but they always seem to suck me in and get me to play.

Family Feud was boring and didn't pay out.


Usually after arriving home, I e-mail the host and have him review our play and let us know what we owe. We tend to charge most meals to the room and in the end it is all comped. This essentially saves us $300-$400 off of our hotel bill.
This time I do the same and e-mail the guy at Caesars who I thought was a host and ask to have our play reviewed and let us know what we owe. His reply is that he is not a host and doesn't have access to review our bill. WTF?!?!?! My next task is to track down an actual Caesars host to see if they can do anything.

I will say that Caesars was one of the hotel/casinos that we would always get a bit lost but after this trip we know our way around as we do with any other place. In fact we found a few shortcuts for getting in/out from the strip.

Overall, the vibe and the dealing with the so called host will probably exclude Caesars from future stays and we will stick with PH.

 

Nice report!
Sucks about that so called "host".