February 2nd - 6th. Not quite live. Caesars and Gold Coast

[lowsmith]

I will try to provide updates a couple of times during the trip, but I'm not sure if I will be able to every day (hence the "not quite live" title), so I'll apologize now for the long updates.

This year is the 22nd annual spring guy trip with my Father-in-law and Brother-in-law. We don't go to Vegas every year but have for the last few years. The trip is in conjunction with a small conference.

In the past we have been lucky enough to time the trip with St Patrick's Day and/or March Madness, and are really excited about being here for the super bowl this year. The first 2 nights are at Caesars (the conference part) and the last 2 nights will be at Gold Coast.

Thursday 2/2
Flew out on American Airlines. The conference started right after noon, so we had to catch an early (7:45am) flight out of Charlotte. We live a couple hours away, so we had to leave about 4 to have time to get there and be checked in on time. Other than the ungoldly hour, it was a smooth trip. This was the first time I have flown on the new merged (with usair) American and I was pleased. Free cookies and you get the whole can of soda so better than before.


On arriving in Vegas we grab our luggage and hit the taxi stand. No line so we grab a cab and head off to Caesars. Driver is great and we are there in no time.

I generally like Caesars but my biggest complaint is the early check in racket they have where you can't get your room until 4pm unless you pay $35. We opt not to pay for early checkin and just drop our bags in the conference room.

Caesars has a pretty good food court so we grab lunch (I had the curried chicken and rice). You can also get TR points for all food purchases so be sure to show your card.

After lunch the other guy's head to the conference while go out exploring.

Chinese New Year was just a couple days ago so there are still lots of decorations up everywhere.
Nothing really new in the forum shops but I always like to walk through and see it

I get a notification that our room is ready about 3pm (the hotel texts you when it is ready). We are in the palace tower which is really convenient to the conference center. The room is pretty nice but you can tell it was one of the older renovations. It could use a touch up in the no too distant future.

We have a reception at Gordon Ramsey's pub that night and it was good, but I have to say our local pub at home has better food. We did get a couple of good English beers. I had the Fuller's ESB, and one of the others had the Boddingtons.

After being on the go for 20 hours we call it and early night and get some sleep

 

[GamblingGolfer]

Have fun! Following along.

GG

 

[JSwan]

Good luck!

 

[Richard Alpert]

Nice start to your TR!
Best wishes for continued good times!
Thank you!

RICHARD

 

[RedChip]

Good luck! Have a great trip!

 

[lowsmith]

Friday 2/3
After breakfast at the conference, I headed off to explore the strip. On the days when I am on my own (other guys in class), I like to go out and see what is new. I decided to head south, so crossed over at the Cromwell.

From there I headed into Bally's. I noticed that they have continued to build up the little cluster of shops on the corner near the entrance.

From there went through into Paris.


I played some slots there and hand a little luck.

I stopped off at Walgreens to,pick up some drinks for the room.

I did some souvenir shopping at the Hard Rock Cafe, and the crossed over to the Monte Carlo. Spent a couple of hours playing there and managed hit a few good hands at VP


I have played poker at Monte Carlo before, so I stopped by to see what was happening. No cash games going on (the run a 2/6 spread limit). There was a $50 buy in tournament but it didn't start for a while.

I noticed that all of the shops (in additition to the pub) were closed, to make room for renovations), from the monorail platform you can see that they aren't just updating, but expanding the building



I took the monorail over to Bellagio, since I had cashed in some myVEGAS points for a free ticket to the exhibit at the BGFA. On the way checked out all of the Chinese New Year decorations.



After that it was time to head back to Caesars and grab something to eat. The food court has an Earl of Sandwich. I had heard folks rave about them, and it was pretty good.

Spent the rest of the day at Caesars. Tried out the fitness center (nice), and played a little VP. Hit several quads



That night we had drinks at Fizz and a great dinner at the Old Homestead steakhouse

 

[Miller12pack]

Sounds like you are having a great trip. Lots of nice pictures.

 

[Joejoejackson]

Seems like a great start...Hit em hard drinking and gambling

 

[lowsmith]

Saturday 2/4
It's was check out day at Caesars, so we went ahead and got packed up and headed down to breakfast where I was able to stash my bags until the conference ended at noon. While the other guys finished up training, I headed out to check out the stuff north on the strip. The only things I noticed that were particularly different were the construction at Wynn and some kind of new interactive experience with the avengers at TI. I also found a Spy VS Spy slot machine that was a lot of fun (played it at ventian. Turkey saw it at other places).

I walked up on the east side of the strip to the Wynn and then crossed over at the mall to walk back

Some random pictures from the walk:


About noon we grabbed a taxi and headed over to the Gold Coast for the last 2 nights.
We have stayed here several times and had offers so that it was all free except one of the rooms on Saturday night (and that was $45 ). The rooms were updated not too long ago, and are pretty nice.



The Gold Coast also has several good restaurants. We had lunch at the noodle exchange where we split the Crispy Fish, Singapore Noodles and the small Hot Pot (with beef).

The rest of the evening was spent with mostly VP in the red zone bar, some slots and a little Blackjack in the Hippy Pit. The Hippy Pit has classic music and the dealers wear Tie-Dye t-shirts.



For dinner we took the shuttle over to the orleans for Big Als Oyster bar where we had the seafood chowder in sourdough bread bowls.

The Gold Coast also had a promotion going where if you got 150 slot points they gave you a small cooler and a six pack of either Pepsi or Diet Pepsi, and you could get up to 2 coolers each. We maxed out with 6 coolers between the 3 of us

 

[Miller12pack]

Good thing they are the soft coolers,you can squish them in your luggage. If they were the hard ones, you couldn't take them.

 

[bshowell]

Nice pics - you're getting good coverage. How was the Fine Arts Gallery?

 

[lowsmith]

The Gallery was great. The exhibits are small, just two rooms, but good selections and the audio tour has lots of interesting information. I got my ticket for 4,000 pts on myVEGAS.

 

[lowsmith]

Sunday 2/5 - Big Game !
Slept in a little but we were still up fairly early. Still feeling like we are on eastern time. We decided to go,to,the Champagne Brunch at the Ports of Call buffet at Gold Coast. Free champagne and mimosas. It was $15.99 but we figured we would really need lunch after that. The food, and the service were very good. Their buffet is a good deal, and compares well with more expensive ones.

Spent the day at the hotel, watching games at the various bars and playing a little VP.

We decided to get some drinks and snacks and watch the game in our room. Great game, even though we were pulling for Atlanta.


After the game we grabbed dinner at Ping Pang Pong, and played a little more.



Had to get to bed at a reasonable hour to get up,and head to the airport in the morning

 

[carolineno]

Thanks for the report, sounds like a fun trip. Staying 1 night at the Gold Coast in a few weeks, hope I can get a cooler or other random crap! Glad Ping Pang Pong is open again.

 

[tringlomane]

Nice report!

 

[kkinwi]

Love PPP...thanks!

 

[lowsmith]

Monday 2/6
We were expecting crowds at the airport on Monday after the Super Bowl, so we planned to add a little buffer time (got there about 7 for a 9:35 flight). The traffic into the airport was backed up, but no problems once we got into the terminal.

Beautiful day for the trip home. Another great trip in the books and already planning for next year.