Long report: Nov 27-Dec 2 Flamingo

Sorry for the delay of this trip report. When we got back we were exhausted & then work & life have been keeping us busy! (sorry… this is a LONG report. If you do not want to read the details, final thoughts at the bottom of the post)

November 27- December 2, 2009 Trip to Vegas!

Tampa to Vegas. We used my frequent flyer miles with Delta & this was a FREE flight! ($10 per person taxes only) We arrived Friday (had to be at the airport at 6:30am Eastern time!) in Las Vegas a little after noon. The trip out there was a packed flight, but we lucked out! We had the ONLY empty middle seat in our row, so my husband & I had room to relax instead being cramped on the long flight out there. I thought this was a good sign of a lucky trip! Then, upon arrival, our luck changed. Delta had ruined our luggage. One of the wheels had completely come off of our larger of the two checked bags. We filed a complaint, but it was just a pain to lug around to the cab & through the hotel. Oh well! My husband made me promise to forget all about the luggage until we got home. OK, done. We are in Vegas!

The cab line went quickly and we were on our way to the Flamingo where we would be staying for the next 5 nights. We had this room comped for 5 nights; so… another FREE, no cost! (see a trend here?). We had a room with a lovely view of Ceasars on the 20th floor. My only complaint about the Flamingo is that they have the timeshare people camped out right where the guests get on the elevators up to the rooms. This was very annoying. Other than that, we love the location of the Flamingo, the staff is friendly, we found the drink service fast & good, and you can not beat the 5 free nights 

We unpacked in our room and were really hungry so we headed down to the Burger Joint. We each had a burger & fries. The burger was good, the service here was NOT. Our server was only seen once when he took our order. We had to flag someone down for a refill & to pay.

Then it was off to start doing our part to help the Vegas economy! Gamble! This trip, I expanded my games from just slots, roulette & craps to playing a bit of black jack, 3 card poker & pai gow poker. We definitely gambled a lot more this trip that our past 2 trips. I will not do a play by play of all of our gaming, but we had some good wins, and some slow losses. There were some slots that were my “lucky†slots that I would make a quick $40 on every day  Rapid Roulette at the Flamingo allowed me to play on $40 for about 2 hours. The dealers at the Rapid Roulette are very friendly. Bill’s also saw a lot of our gambling funds; my husband had an AWESOME craps roll there and hit 5 points plus a ton in between points before finally crapping out 40 minutes later.

Friday night we really just gambled around the Flamingo & Bill’s. I went to bed pretty early still on east coast time; I was toasted as well with too many free drinks! Steve stayed out about 2 hours later than I did and hit the poker table. He didn’t play a lot of poker this year as he said he just was not getting the cards. He was having better luck at other games.

Saturday we had breakfast at Bill’s Victoria Room. It was decent food for breakfast, but a tad on the expensive side for what you got. After breakfast we decided to walk down to the south end of the strip. We went into all of the casinos on the way down & dropped a $20 or so. Steve had luck on his side at MGM! A $20 in a slot & $140 out! I, however was not feeling the love from MGM properties this trip. When we got to Excalibur, Steve decided to watch some football & I set off to find my lucky machines from my last trip to Excalibur this summer for a conference. Again, no love from MGM. We skipped the Luxor and headed to Mandalay Bay. We were going to go to the Noodle Shop there as we had a Restaurant.com $25 gift certificate but they wouldn’t let us use it at 2pm, only for dinner. We ate at another restaurant towards the convention center there at Mandalay Bay. OK food. Too pricey & again the service was not great. After lunch, we had had enough of MGM & got a cab back to the Flamingo.

Back in Central strip we gambled a bit more, had a few drinks & had some fun! We then went to the Flamingo buffet for dinner on a two-for-one coupon we had. Some more drinks and then a relatively early evening for us both (midnight).

Sunday morning we went for breakfast at Le Creperie in Paris. It was very good. I had a savory crepe & my husband the sweet & we split the two. We played a bit in Paris & then went to Planet Hollywood to kill sometime as we were supposed to meet up with our friends for lunch around 1pm. We found a 1cent 100 play video poker machine, had a couple of free drinks and played for a while. We called our friends around noon with no answer. Hmmm. Called again at 1pm. No answer. At this point we decided, forget it. Let’s get on with our day!

Tonight, we were heading downtown to the Four Queens where we had a free night + $50 slot play. We had never stayed at the 4Queens, but it was just for 1 night and… it was FREE! We really like downtown and decided after our friends hadn’t called to head down there early. (our friends ended up calling around 1:30 that they had just woken up, were checking out & then going to the Venetian to eat before heading to the airport. We told them, see you back in Tampa! We are heading downtown.)

We took a cab down to Freemont Street & saw the Pawn Stars pawn shop on the way there. We didn’t stop, but at least now we know where it is! Check in at the Four Queens was a breeze & they didn’t even take a credit card upon check in as it was comped. I thought that was a bit odd, what if we had incidentals? Oh well. The room was not great, but it was OK as all we were doing was sleeping there. The bathroom was falling apart. We opted to not shower there in the morning, but wait until we got back to the Flamingo! Our sink faucet fell off when you turned on the water, we didn’t want to test out the shower!

We also had a 2-for-1 coupon to the restaurant at the 4Queens. A nice sandwich shop overlooking the casino. Food was good and the service was good. The price was excellent with the 2-for-1 coupon.

My $50 slot play was fun & I made a few bucks. We walked around freemont street and I found a $5 pai gow poker table at Binions. This is where I was most of the time! We ate at MSS Sunday night at the brewery. Great food & large portions. We gambled a bit here and there downtown & watched the American Pie lightshow.

Monday we had breakfast at Golden Gate Coffee Shop. It was good & an excellent price. I enjoyed reading a bit about the history of the Golden Gate & if you eat there… have you noticed the picture of the hotel in 1906 with the prostitute standing in the window? Interesting.

We did a bit more playing downtown and then took the Duece back to the Strip. We were planning on stopping by Slots of Fun. There was this really wasted guy on the Duece who was close to passing out. It reminded me why I like taking cabs!

Slots of Fun was very depressing. I played craps a bit while my husband played black jack. Neither of us won, but at $3 tables, we didn’t lose much either. We decided to cab it back to the Flamingo.

We freshened up at the Flamingo, we got a piece of pizza & my husband then took a nap while I played some more games, did some more gaming & then got ready for our nice dinner out at the Eiffel Tower restaurant at Paris. The view was amazing. We saw a few Bellagio fountain shows while eating. The food was good, but a bit overpriced for what you actually got. I guess we paid for the view

I was VERY tired after a day of drinking a heavy meal so I went to bed early (around 10pm!) and my husband stayed out to play some more.

Tuesday was our last full day in Vegas and I wanted to do something other than gamble for a bit. We went to Harrahs buffet for breakfast (another 2 for 1 coupon) and then headed to IP for the car show. We had a 2-for-1 coupon for this as well. It was very interesting and there were a lot of really nice cars there. It is a nice break to do for free, or close to it. We then walked over to Bellagio to see the Conservatory but it was being changed out so we headed back over to the Flamingo. We walked around the gardens and saw Bugsy’s memorial. We had a late lunch at the coffee shop within Flamingo. The club sandwich was really good & had we known it was so big we would have only gotten that! Later that evening I won $200 on 3 card poker! Steve had another amazing craps run!

Wednesday it was time to get in one more gaming session and then head to the airport; we quickly each lost $100 and then decided to do a little shopping and get to the airport early. The flight back home was delayed at our layover in Atlanta and we didn’t step into our house until 3am! Yikes!

All in all it was a great trip. I am shocked that we did as much gambling as we did. We didn’t see any shows which is a first. We had charged as much as we could to the room & got $48 comped off of our charges. Total room bill with 5 nights + multiple meals & gift shop purchases: $110. Despite all of the gambling, we still came home with 2/3rds of our budgeted money. That is a win in my opinion

Sorry that this was so long! If you have made it this far then I will just leave you with these final thoughts:

-As much as people complain about Harrahs, I really feel that their service is miles above MGM
-We loved the location of the Flamingo & being so central to everything
-3 card poker is hard to win at! I had that great $200 win, and then each time I played after that it was nothing…
-Pai Gow is a lot of fun! Hard to find a $5 table on the strip though.
-The view from the Eiffel Tower restaurant can not be beat; however, the food is not worth the price.
-Bill’s dealers & pit bosses were especially nice
-Downtown is fun, but I will stay at the Golden Nugget if we stay down there again
-We did really well with not dipping into our gambling money each day! We brought home 2/3rds of the cash that we took. This included paying for tips, cabs, etc.
-Had a lot of fun on this trip but my liver is glad that we are back home to normal!

Kim

 

Great report, thanks.

 

Coming home with 2/3 of your budget is a win in my book! Congratulations! I also fly out of Tampa and that is a long day getting to Las Vegas! Thanks for posting your travel report!

 

Enjoyed it, thanks! We also like the Flamingo location. It is hard to beat....central to everything and easy to get in and out.

 

Enjoyed reading the report~

 

Nice report thanks for sharing

Free Flight - Check
Free Rooms - Check
Free Liquor - of course

That is the way to do Vegas.

I always include all my expenses when I am in Vegas. That includes tips, cabs, flight taxes, whatever else the airport charges me, and anything else. My goal is to have all my expenses covered. I can usually accomplish that feat with some smart sportsbook betting and some luck.

The Eiffel Tower is awesome to see the fountain show at sun down. I agree, the food is so so, and you get a new napkin every time you leave your table!

 

Great report, thanks for sharing! I also like HET, they treat me well, so they get my business. Unfortunately they keep changing stuff in their favor so this loyalty may be short lived, but I guess MGM is doing the same.

 

Thanks for the great TR

 

Thanks for posting your TR.

 

great TR

gotta love them cheap flights and comp'd rooms

 

Great report, wasn't too long at all. I love reading the long ones...details!

Thanks!