downtown trip report-long 01/10-1/14

We flew form CLE-LAS on continental non-stop 01/10 ..the flight was severely overbooked and they were offering up to 400.00$ in travel vouchers to take a later flight ...My wife and i thought about it but we had reservations at Hugo's cellar for the same time the later flight would be arriving at LAS. 6 people took the vouchers and we flew out a few minutes later than scheduled...the flight was cramped but otherwise uneventful. 4 hours later we arrived at LAS and grabbed our bagage ...waited in line for a cab for a little while...i was impressed with the whole cab situatuion ...when we got yto the cab stand we were behind hundreds of people but the line never really stopped...25.00 including tip and we were at our hotel ,The Fremont ...we always get comped rooms here and they included $75.00 in food vouchers this trip as well. We checked in on arrival which was cool cause it was only like 1130am and checkin is usually at 3pm. Our room was the same size as it has always been at the Fremont..kinda small with a tiny bathroom , the neat thing though was all the rooms are fully remodeled ...new bed and furnishings and carpets...new pictures and linens...very nice linens..the room was very nice, and FREE.
We had a few hours to kill until our reservations at Hugo's cellar...so we walked around fremont street and had a quick lunch at the Golden Gate Diner..this places' food was really great ...my wife loved the potato salad and the portions were too big. The bill was like 20$ . Great place to eat. We gambled a little bit here and there and before long it was time to get ready for dinner ...I bought a new sport coat and my wife had a snazzy dress...so after showers and stuff we were dressed and over to the four queens .
This was our first time at Hugo's cellar . I made our reservations about 10 days earlier on the four queens website . we got there at 6pm for our reservations at 630 pm ...we were seated immediately. we were seated in a nice booth an ordedered our drinks within a minute or two..i don't know our waiters name but he was cool. my wife had a glass of chardonnay i have no idea what kind it was dark red and i had carafe of perfectly made kamikazes . The service was incredible we ordered amaretto sours and each of us got an iced down carafe of them . Then came the salad..mind you, i wasn't really hungry, we had a big lunch at the golden gate a few hours before...but that salad kicked ass...i got everything but anchovies and my wife had to poke me with a fork to get me to stop eating it....did i mention we were kinda drunk... for the main dish she ordered the raspberry chicken and i had a ribeye steak (i think) ...both came with veggies and garlic potatoes...fantastic...oh yeah i almost forgot between the salad and the main course ...the waiter gave us the littlest ice cream cones on earth filled with raspberry sorbet...i could've eaten about 35 of them...they were good. After our main course they brought out a liitle chocolate raspberry mousse cake with a candle in it for our anniversary...my wife said that it didn't last long...i usually don't eat sweets but i'll tell you this stuff was yummy. then we had coffee and espresso with chocolate chips and real whipped cream along with chocolate dipped strawberries and raspberries and i think it was a date? or a tiny apricot or something doesn't matter, once i saw it it was a gonner. The meal and service were great ..the early reservation was good thing cause when we got ouutta there around 745pm it was packed. This is a must do evertime we go to vegas. total was 155$ including tip. great place.
After dinner we went up to our room to change clothes it was freezing in vegas the whole time...and we gambled till around 11pm ...i think we went to bed then i can't recall clearly ...for the day i lost approximately 200$ gambling in various machines my wife lost less than half of that...next day to follow

joel

 

a glass of chardonnay was dark red?! yes, you mentioned you were kinda drunk! carafes of kamikazes, and carafes of amaretto sours. forget the tableside salads, the sorbets, the phony little roses, hugos is the place to DRINK!

seriously, enjoying your trip report, keep it up. for this being your first post, after being a member this long, you are doing great, and i love downtown trip reports!

 

Free room, good food, nice buzz going sounds like a pretty good first day (except for the gambling losses). I've heard alot of good things about Hugos one of these trips I've got to check it out.

 

Good to hear the Fremont is completely remodeled (roomwise). That's the necessary re-investment downtown must have to stay viable.

 

nice to hear about fremont redoing rooms, glad somebody is making rooms nice downtown. I am getting worried a decent room won't be found DT except at the nugget.

nice report, looking forward to more

 

downtown trip 1/10-1/14 day 2

On the 11th we awoke surprisingly early and clear headed . We ate at the fremonts breakfast buffet...we've eaten here a million times before and it is fine but i thought it sucked this time...maybe it was an off day or something. they didn'e have cheese blintzes or the sausage pepper stuff they always have...maybe i'm being whiny but it was a let down...my wife like it just fine, she thinks i was being a pansy. Anyway, we had breakfast and headed out to the four queens again ...did i mention it was really cold for vegas like 34F ...so we ended up stopping in each casino whether we were planning to or not, just to warm up. I recall that i put 20bucks in a 25 cent five reel slot with a bonus reel on top that had devils and numbers on the reels , don't know the name...Anyway i hit the bonus round twice within a few pulls the first time i got 105$ and the second time 60$...we happily cashed out and walked towards the lobby area where the bathrooms were and they have 25cent pinball and top dollar machines ...i put 20 bucks in the pinball machine and the first spin hit double diamond 3bar double diamond for 320 coins...cashed out . My wife was playing a tiny bit here so the only reason i'm not writing her wins down was because on this day there were none. We had great drink service at the four queens the casino was clean and not too smoky. Onward, to the el cortez...i love the cortez ...my fondest craps memories are here and i just dig the fact that Jackie lives upstairs. last year i talked my wife into coming down the the cortez but she didn't like it too much it was yucky..her memories were of her sticking to the spin button on a slot machine...anyway she said she would give it a second try since i love it soo much. What a blast ...she had a great time. Luckily on thursday morning it wasn't too busy/smoky and the drink service was second to none. Oh yeah my wife won the third stage of the jackpot hunter progressive 75$and got a keychain with her picture on it when she joined jackies club... we played 3 dollar craps (her first time) and 3 dollar blackjack(her second time-first was at lady luck)...we had a blast at the EL Cortez. We left the cortez and headed back to the room to shower and freshen up . don't get the wrong idea the el cortez was clean but you still end up smelling like an ashtray when you leave.
WHen we got back to our room at the Fremont we noticed that the housekeeper failed to take her tip ...it was weird i left it right on top of the tv...it wasn't a bunch of pennies but about 3 bucks in silver?...strange (mystery solved later in week). We left and walked back to the four queens and ate lunch at magnolias veranda ...it was fine i had a 241 coupon from acg that i used ...i met the f&b director and mentioned this site along with lvtalk and told her what a great dinner we had at hugo's the night before...she said that if anybody has comments to e-mail her from the four queens website and she posts all the e-mails on the bulletin board to boost morale for her staff....i thought that was cool. Anyway the lunch/dinner there was good as always.
After eating we started down the other direction towards mermaids...three kamikazes for me and two and a half tequila sunrises for my wife and we were drunk. We didn't win any money but i think we each only put five bucks in the machines ...i played mine out and my wife won a little money so we left about even with grubby hands from the coins and a healthy buzz from the drinks...they don't provide handy wipes there and the bathrooms are only for emergencies(yucky) so we went over to the golden gate to wash up ...all spiffy again and over to the Vegas club for more cocktails and slot machines...i like the vegas club...i never liked it before but i put twenty bucks in the cashman machine on the west wall and won 150.00 in about three seconds. The drink service was akay ..the waitresses have to walk from the main bar all the way over to wherever their are is...so service can be sporatic , once you get your first drink and she get her first tip form you the service is great though. We signed up for slot cards and both recieved cool t-shirts...the lady said that if we sign up at the palza we'll get t-shirts too...she said that even though tamares owns both, their clubs aren't really combined . we left the vegas club and headed over to the plaza to get those t-shirts too...the slot club is where the checkin used to be ...the lady and i talked about tamares' plans for renovating the vegas club...she said that the mayor wouldn't let them close it but management hasn't really said much about it. We got our t-shirts and headed back to the fremont to drop off our loot. It was still freezing so we walked through the golden nugget on our way there...We have stayed at the nugget before but my comps there dried up so i don't stay there anymore..the place ahas definately gotten a face lift...it looked nice , the aquarium and the pool looked really cool...the chairs at the 25cent and up slot machines are nice ,the penny slots are just stools though. We didn't hang out here too much just walked around and looked. Back out in the cold and over to the fremont up to the room to drop off our stuff. and wash up again ...Back down and over to the mermaids for a re-buy on the kamikazes and tequila sunrises....blurrrr....blurrrr....blurrr... went up to the upper deck cafe in the las vegas club (i made my wife wait and we drank until after midnight so i could get the 2.99 special steak and eggs) but they were closed apparently on wed/thur they close up at 11pm and dont open until 6am . so we kept on truckin and wound up at the main street station and won on cashman within a couple spins ...cashout 97.00$ cool ...into the 777brewpub 12 Hot weings and a pizza 2 kamikazes and 2 tequila sunrises ...paid with credit card 30+$ , all in knew was my money was in the pocket with a whole bunch of change and macine ticket and slot cards and hotel keys and i didn't want to be the drunk guy with the hot girl dropping all his shit on the floor trying to pay the tab. So the credit card was the safe way to go. The food was fine i felt better and we headed back to bed at the fremont.....zzzzzzz more to follow

 

Keep it up, this is a good one. I am awaiting day 3!!!

 

downtown trip 1/10-1/14 day 3

Today was kinda uneventful had breakfast at the fremont ...the selection got a little better today ...but i woke up so freaking thirsty i thought i was gonna die...we booked down to the buffet and i loaded up on watermelon and cantaloupe and grapefruit...i didn't even check out the rest of the buffet...my wife shared with me some of the blintzes and some regular breakfast food...i just sat there and drank water and oj and ate watermelon ...i had all intentions when we got to our room on wednesday to walk down to walgreens and buy some soda or something for the room but i never quite got around to it. At any rate breakfast was good today and we made a b-line to mermaids and la bayou to really start the day off right. We consumed the proper amount of strong drinks and wandered back to the las vegas club hoping lightening might strike twice...well for me it didn't but my wife hada good time playing jackpot safari she got some bonus rounds and made a little dough. Today downtown was kinda getting crowded and it was still cold outside...they had the porno convention in town and the ces show was about over,but with the long weekend i think folks were coming in from california or AZ or something. The places were getting crowded.
We ate a quick lunch at golden gate diner ...i was drunk from mermaids and the "chili size" burger i got was awesome ...the servers and staff there were freaking out because it was snowing outside...they were all calling home telling there families or whomever that it was "really coming down " and better hit the grocery store and stuff...it was like barely snowing...i thought that was funny. After lunch we headed over to the four queens and my wife did really well on an american original penny slot she got 100 free spins several times and 50x2 spins a couple times too...the place was getting packed so we went over and cleanes up at the fremont and started over to the el cortez...we figured it would still be reasonably empty...nope it was busy too...they did have a 3 dollar blackjack game and ther craps was steady at 5 bucks...we played here i won 115$ on a cleopatra machine and we both played blackjack for a couple hours on a 20$ buy-in...we ate a careful kitty's using a 5$off coupon in the free funbook (see acg)...this cafe was second to the golden gate and surpassed magnolias veranda the prices were on par with magnolia's.we had a good time at the cortez and headed back to fremont around 2am...nobody ever bothered us on the walk between the fse and the el cortez...day four to follow

 

Great read so far. Who cares about the cold as long as you're winning and have a nice buzz going on.

 

So you were real thirsty and the food didn't seem to be as good as the last time you were there....do you think maybe all those kamikazes from the day before might have had something to do with that? There's a reason they call em "Kamikaze".

 

conclusion downtown trip report 1/10-1/14

Sorry for the delay ...i'll finish this thing up very briefly ...the highlights of day four were as follows Breakfst at the golden nugget buffet...40 bucks down the toilet...I was impressed with the larger room and the quicker line ,but the food and the price were a joke ....40 bucks? for two mediocre buffets?...never again. We used to love the nugget's buffet with the cheese blintzes and the good quality food ...but this new outfit screwed the pooch.
For dnner that night we ate at the fremont buffet for steak night ...man it was great ... we got there about 20 minutes after they opened .. used a two for one coupon and it was great ...the steaks were very good and they had a whole bunch of fresh sushi and other meats there too..i think it was 14$ with the two for one...great meal. late dinner was the 2.99$ steak and eggs at the vegs club ...wifey had a huge club sandwich ...it was all very good . no great wins on the fourth day ...played mainly at the four queens and the vegas club ... oh one thing that was cool on saturday was the MLK parade ...It went through between the fitz and walgreens northbound ...the streets were barricaded and there was a decent turnout despite the cold .

the fifth day was checkout day ...breakfast at fremont bufet ..used the last of my vouchers ...had the champagne and stuff ...good brunch great service.
checkout was uneventful ...checked our bags at the bell desk and headedout for a very long day of waiting to get to the airport ...gambled at the el cortez and the four queens ...the vegas club and the fitz and main street station....no real wins today but the casinos kept us outta the cold. WE ahd dinner at main street buffet...once again didn't dissappoint...great selection and quality...not really a facncy selection but they had all the stuff you'd expect to see at a vegas buffet. used another two for on coupon ...great meal.
after dinner we picked up some stuff from the fremonts promo desk ...actually they had really nice t-shirts with emboidered fremont anniversary logos on the left chest are ..got two of thosee and got our bags and split..the plan was to take a cab but there was a shuttle outside the fremont so we took that instead it was 6 bucks a piece and we were the only people on it ...15 minutes later we were at the airport ...great flight home ...it was warmer in cleveland than in vegas.

that's it ...we didn't win and we didn't really lose , had a great dinner at hugo's andf gambled all day everyday...pretty good trip ... thanks for reading

 

Oh Yeah we also met that Larry G Jones as we were leaving the fitz...He was walking into work with his big ears on and and i mentioned to my wife that he was sorta famous and had an act here..he introduced himself and did a Bush impersonation...he was really funny , he invited us to the show. We didn't go but looking back i think we should have. Maybe next time(april).