Downtown and wifes first trip 07/15/07

Sunday we arrived. We waited 45 mins for luggage..was awed by size of airport. We took shuttle to car place. We waited 30 mins for car. We drove to hotel. It was about a 45 mins in check in line.

After getting settled into the room, I played a lil craps. won some..not much.

It was dinner time so we wandered over to the 777 pub at market place. They had good dinner, but they kept changing the television from the Tour de France to some crap that was on 6 other tvs in there.

It was getting pretty late so the wife went to sleep. I gambled away at craps lost everything I put down. I went to walgreens for water, came home and went to bed.

monday...

We got up, went to binions for breakfast. The food was pretty good. Afterwards walked up and down freemont st. We went to the harley store.Wandered down to the El Cortez. That was an adventure. played a tiny bit of craps. Long enough to watch this elderly man place 1000 down on the pass line.. and lose it. Then layed down all his money which was over 1k, since the pit people kept telling him they will only pay up to 1000. No worries, he rolled a nice 12. That was depressing. Not to judge people, but he really didnt look like he could afford to lose 2k in 2 mins..
We almost got conned into tour of some property. We went back to GN and played a lil BG.. then took a nap. After the nap, wandered freemont st bit more, got tickets for a show. We watched the spray paint artist and the wife really liked that. We then walked around fremont st to the north for a while, went back to market st station and looked at antiques. We went to binions steakhouse for dinner. Was a very nice view and decent food. After dinner we went and saw man of 1000 voices. That show was a riot. We almost cryed during his 'the boss' impression.

Afterwards, we came back to gn to gamble..no $5 tables, ended up at The Fremont ..played BJ there for several hours. There we met a great dealer named Dave. He was very nice and talkative and helpful. He even spent his break just chatting with us. The flip side of Dave was Doris...Doris was older lady, and seemed to really hate her job. She was miserable. Also we got Kim, a VERY nice Korean dealer who was chatty and helpful ( I dont play BJ much so all the help I can get is wonderful). We lost money at BJ, I made mine back at craps but the wife doesnt play craps..so she is just down.

By this time its almsot 3 am. decided to get a bite to eat..went to a few dif places and they were all CLOSED..some employee at some casino said to go to binions cafe, they were open 24 hrs, So we did. The wife wanted coffee and choc cake but they didnt have choc cake. The wife was very disappointed...so we left. We came home..slept.

Tuesday..
I woke up with a screamin headache at 1030. We went to carson st cafe for breakfast around noon. I drank a ton of coffee and ate breakfast. We were in line behind this lawyer guy who was with3 friends. He talked non stop in a loud voice the whole time in line. Then we got seated next to him. He continued to talk his head off in a loud voice the entire meal. he didnt take 2-3 bites of food. I now know the entire history of some legal system and all the lawsuits that have been filed. I just dont know where..

After breakfast, housekeeping was in the room, so we went down to casino in GN and I played craps while she played slots. She found a monoploy slots that is fun, its like the only slots I will play..I lost my ass in craps..FAST

After a bit went back to room and got info on show, then got in our rental car and went down to the strip for the first time...We went to the Venetian to get our Blue Man Group tickets, then walked around it. WOOWWWW that mall/restaurant area is NEAT as crap. the painted ceiling sky was awesome. We got some print from some art place that my wife fell in love with.. A print of dogs playing cards, and one dog fell over. its cute

Then we drove down to NY NY and wandered around and went to the MGM. we watched the lion for a few. Wandered around the MGM for a while, got a couple shot glasses at all 3 casinos. ( I’m a geek and collect shotlgasses, have over 300 from all over the world and from every single place I have ever been)

It was about 430 around this time, and show started at 7, so we decided to head back to the Venetian, grab a bite to eat and hit the show. Well, silly me didnt realize how bad traffic would get while we were wandering around NY NY/MGM. We got back to Venetian around 6pm. We grabbed a quick bite from the mall like food court. It tasted blah and was expensive, just like in a mall.

Wife and I were not overly impressed with the gigantic shopping malls with casino floors in them that is the Strip. We decided after today that if we comeback, we will definitely stay down town again. There was soooo much construction on the strip. Downtown we can hit 8 casinos in 10 mins, see 2 live bands, see an artist performing, watch a light show, etc etc. Where on the strip we would have to walk for 20 minutes between casinos. And the strip places seemed more like Malls than casinos. And we felt like cattle.

Ok so after eating, we went down and saw the Blue man group.. wow , that was fun and neat. We really loved it and recommend it. Just be sure to get an aisle seat so you can have a chance of getting picked..

After the show we were BEAT, wife came back to GN, showered and went to bed. I wasn't quite as tired..stupid me. I Went down to fremont st. Hit the craps table at Binions.. I walked up to full table..after 10-15 mins, I was only person there..lost..went to 4 queens..walked up to full table..10-15mins later I was only one standing at table..and out of chips...Went to Fitzgeralds...walked up to full table...this time was a little different. I played 30-45 mins before I emptied the table and was the only one there..and out of chips...Craps is killin me. I can’t get lucky for nothing I and lose money FAST. I think Ill switch to blackjack. I may not win, but I will lose it a lot slower.

It was about midnight, so I came up to room a bit upset. Not that I lost money, but that I couldnt win. I dont mind losing money as long as I win SOMETIMES...Decided I would take a day or two off craps. So picked up the laptop and wandered down to krispy cream. Along the way I just stopped and started talking to this group of people. ( I do that kind of thing, I am a really friendly guy).. Then ended up at KK, but they were closed. The lady inside KK was kind enough to turn back on the wireless so I could check my mail and do a lil research. Went to the board and saved the paged labeled Blackjack-simplified strategy. On the way back to GN, stopped and talked to another group of drunk people. I came to the room, read thru the BJ strat..showered..went to bed. ( ok not really..Im a geek and needed to relax, so played some video games on the laptop..then went to bed)..Next time we come, we will get a suite.

Wednesday.

Got up around 10:30. Sat in out room for a bit. Went to Carson café for for “breakfastâ€. Afterwards we walked down Fremont st and looked at the spray painter guy and looked thru his art. Wife really wants one, but cant find one she really loves.. We hit the Fremont and played a little blackjack for 2-3 hours. 40$ goes a long way at a BJ table. We then hit the triple 7 pub for some dinner around 5pm. This time it was tasteless and disappointing. On the bright side, they did turn on the tour de France for me.

After dinner, we drove down to the Circus Circus and walked around for a few minutes. We decided there was no way in hell we would ever stay there. We then made our way to the Rio and watched the free show they have. It was quite nice. We liked the Rio a lot. It was by far the best place we would stay if we didn’t stay downtown.

We had tickets to go see Penn and Teller. So we went and saw their show. We had amazing seats; second row, middle. It was ok. It was full ticket price ok, but if you can get ½ price tickets it may be worthwhile ( if you are drunk). Ok, I was VERY disappointed with the Penn & Teller show.. They did cheesy easy to see through tricks. Penn took 15 freakin minutes to set up a juggling routine where he juggles broken bottles. I understand it takes talent and skill to juggle broken bottles, but you don’t need 15 damn minutes to set it up. They did have 2 tricks that weren’t blatantly apparent. All the others, if you just watched them, you could easily see how they did the tricks. IMHO, the Larry G. Jones was better and more entertaining for the money.


After the disappointing P&T show, we made our way to Paris. We wanted to get cheesy souvenir Eifel tower shaped drinks. We got one of each kind, the tower and the balloon. The balloon mug is ceramic, while the tower glass is plastic. Both were the same price. The paris casino was one of the nicest casino floors we have seen. It was LOVELY. To bad they didn’t have a lower limit table.

We wanted to grab a bite to eat, but it was close to midnight, and everything in Paris was closed except this rather expensive café. We have been really disappointed at how early everything but a handful of things close here in Vegas. We decided to go back downtown and grab a bite at binions. On the drive back to the GN, wife got really sleepy. By the time we got to our room, she passed out and went to sleep.

I wasn’t quite tired yet, so I headed down to the casinos to play some 21. No room at any tables in GN, so I walked across the street to Binions. No room at binions, so I walked across the street to the Fremont. No room at the Fremont, so I walked across the street to the 4 Queens. There I found 1 seat at a table, and quickly grabbed it. I sat there with 3 Japanese folks who didn’t speak a lick of English. It was a riot. We were having a blast. It was a great table with great people and conversation. I sat there and got way down, then way up, then a little up. By this time the cocktail waitress had disappeared for the last 30 minutes, But I was plenty drunk enough from ordering doubles for the last 2 hours, my bladder was very full, it was getting late, and I wanted to leave a table a winner for one time. I gathered all my chips and cashed them in. Came back to the room at the GN, typed up my daily TR and hit the sack at 3:30 am…

Thursday.

Got up early ( 9:30). We had breakfast at the Carson st café, again. We drove down to Caesar’s palace and walked around. I wanted to see the tattoo shop from that A&E show, but it was closed down. We walked around FAO Shwartz for a bit, saw all the stores, and went thru the casino.

Next we drove down to the Luxor and saw all that they had to offer that was free. We are cheap that way. We even snuck onto an elevator and got up to the 13 floor for a nice overhead view. We couldn’t get any higher though, so sad. We thought the Luxor was pretty neat, but it starting to show its age. We then wandered thru the mall connecting Luxor with Mandalay Bay. We stopped in the wine store there and browsed for a while, but didn’t buy anything. We would rather gamble the money away than drink it away. We rambled thru MB, nothing amazing. We have a shark tank at the GN, so didn’t go see the shark reef. We weren’t overly impressed with MB for some reason. We rode the tram back to Luxor and went down to the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, jumped out of the car, snapped a pictured and drove off. It was rush hour traffic, so that was fun and exciting. We hopped onto 15 came back to the GN.

At the GN, we went and had dinner at the ‘somebody’s†noodles Chinese restraint inside GN. I had the house special stir fry that was supposed to be spicy. The wife had tempura orange chicken.. For and appetizer we had crab rangoons that had curry in them. My ‘spicy’ stir fry was pretty bland, except for the almost raw celery that overpowered everything. The wife’s chicken was decent. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this place unless you just really want some Chinese food.

After dinner we went to the Fremont and played a little black jack. The dealer there seemed to just hate life. We were sitting at a table when a guy sat down on the other side of it. He then proceeded to loudly tell my wife exactly what she should do on every single hand. The he started telling me what to do on every single hand. After about 3-5 minutes of that, I finally snapped at him and told him that we would play our hands and he could play his. We sat thru 2 more hands, weren’t havening fun, so we left.

We went across the street to the 4 queens and got in on a good table. We had a great crowd of folks with us and the dealer was chatty and friendly as all get out. We were losing, but having a great time. He even saw our stacks were getting low and hinted that maybe we should cash out while we still had something to cash out. We laughed and explained, we didn’t come to Vegas to win, we came to have fun, and we were having a ball.

We had to finally go because we had tickets to go see the Haunted Vegas Tour. We drove down to the Greek Isle hotel and casino for the show. That place has seen better days. It made the El Cortez look lively and well furnished. They had about 25 slot machines and a bar. They had karaoke going on, so we got to hear some music while we waited.

Once we saw the hotel where it was being held, we really lowered our expectations of the show/tour. After a little wait, we went into this dark little theater that was decorated like it was Halloween. We watched a little introduction on a flat screen tv that had a nice big yellow splotched area on it. After the intro, there were a couple of magic tricks and a lot of joking around.

After the little stage show, we got onto a tour bus. There were 21 of us tourists on this big grey hound type tour bus. Our tour guide was a retired mortician. He did a fantastic job. The tour lasted over 2 hours and we drove all over Vegas. He told us all about ghost sightings in different places. We stopped at the Flamingo and went into the middle of the place where there are trees and what not. We saw the Bugsy’s plaque and he told us to go take pictures of this hallway where lots of people have reported seeing ghosts. We then got back on the buss and drove and he joked and talked. He was quite entertaining.

Only once did he kind of seem miserable and let his façade down. My wife and I were walking with him back to the buss from the Flamingo and we were chatting, and he said the only reason he did this crap was because his social security check didn’t cover his living expenses. He seemed rather bitter. Then the happy face came back on.

Overall the tour was VERY entertaining and didn’t have near as much cheesiness as we thought it would. You got a decent history of some of the parts of Las Vegas and a nice tour of some famous people’s houses. I would recommend this tour to anyone who has any interest in ghosts, or Vegas history, just get past the show and the location, and it is a great tour.

After the tour we went back to the GN. We were starving because neither of us ate much of the Chinese food, so we went to binions and had the BBB ( Binions Big Breakfast) for 3.99..mmmm good. We were both exhausted and it was almost 1 am, but this was our last night in Vegas and we had to leave first thing in the morning. We decided to go GAMBLE!! The wife had found this really enjoyable Monopoly slot machine that she liked a lot so she went and played that, while I planned on going to the 4 queens to play some bj. On the way to the BJ table, I passed the craps table, and it was rockin. They were cheering and hooting and hollering. I said WTH, and plopped down some money. We won roll after roll after roll. It was GREAT. I was playing conservatively and winning a lot ( pass, then back it up with 3x odds). After about an hour of pretty solid winning, I knew I better go before it changed, and it was late, and we still had to pack. I cashed in my winnings and left. That was my first real winnings all week. I was soooooo happy.

I went and found the wife and watched her burn thru what was left on the slot machine. We went up to the room, packed and went to bed.

Friday.

We got up at 6:30 am. I was surprised to find out there was a 6:30 AM in Las Vegas. We had breakfast at the Carson city café, again. It was fine, again. And just like every other time we have eaten there, once we were about ½ way done with our meal, the waiter comes up and says they are going on break. Those people must break every 15 minutes. Anyway, we checked out of the hotel and drove down to the car rental place and turned in our car. Turning in the car was fast and easy, unlike renting the car. We caught the shuttle to the airport and went through the self check-in. Smooth as silk, except I screwed up the times, and we had almost 3 hour before our flight left. Somehow I saw 11:45, and our plane didn’t leave until 12:54. Oh well, better early than late.

That’s where I will wrap up my TR since everyone knows what its like to fly.

Overall Impression:

We had a great time. We lost about $1200 overall, but we expected to lose a lot more. We loved downtown, and didn’t care for the strip much. We felt that the places on the strip were just casinos with a fancy mall attached to it. We enjoyed the shows we went to but was disappointed with the Penn and Teller show. We decided we would like to come back to Vegas in 5 years or so. It was a great time.

 

It's always nice to leave Vegas on a winning note. [QUOTEWe decided we would like to come back to Vegas in 5 years or so.][/QUOTE] By the time you make it back to Vegas alot of things will have changed again.

 

I could never wait 5 years between trips. Thanks for sharing your report.

 

Thanks for the report - I am seriously thinking about the Haunted Vegas tour, sounds like it was worth it.