3 days and 2 nights just doesn't do it for me in Vegas. Commitments and air schedules restricted my stay but anytime in Vegas is better than no time. I got out of Cleveland just in time to miss the snow Saturday. Flew Southwest to Houston to visit my brother and family. Stayed until Tuesday and flew into Vegas that afternoon. Got my car rental from Alamo and checked into the Gold Coast around 4 P.M. Met up with my brother from Fla. and his wife and another friend from Cleveland. We went to the Hard Rock for the $7.77 special at Mr. Lucky's. We also had a coupon for a free desert which made the deal even better. Let's face it. The steak is nothing fantastic but it's a good meal for the price. The service was fine. After dinner we headed over to Paris to see We Will Rock You. Thanks Jimbo for the website for the discount tickets. If you're a Queen fan you will love the show. If you like rock and roll you will enjoy the show. I sat in the last row and still had a good seat. The sound will make your chest vibrate. It's quite powerful. The show ends at 10:30 P.M. and I come to the realization that I haven't even dropped a nickle yet gambling. We go back to the Gold Coast and I dump about 60 bucks on VP. No quads. Time for bed. WEDNESDAY We use our 2 for 1 from the ACG for the breakfast buffet at the Gold Coast. Pretty much anything you could want for breakfast. Omlettes made to order, Poached eggs, Eggs Benedict, Scrambled Eggs, Hash Browns, Sausage, Ham, Bacon, Pancakes, Waffles, Crepes, Breakfast Burrito's, and even a Chinese selection of wings and won ton soup, etc. Not to mention cakes and cookies and donuts and other fine pastries. Did I mention tons of fruit and cereal also. For $6.45 for 2 people you can't go wrong. I'm stuffed until dinner. We play some more VP. I usually play Double Bonus. By now everybody has at least gotten 4 of a kind except me. Time to up the stakes. I start out at nickles and move to dimes if I feel I'm due. Then I'll move to quarters. What I like about VP is I know I'm going to get my share of quads and full houses to keep me going. The math tells you they will come and they do. The only problem is they sometimes come in bunches or not at all. Right now I wasn't getting squat. Just what I figured would happen did. I finally get quads when I'm down to $3 in the machine. This doesn't even get me back to even but I'll take it. We took off and went to Palace Station. There were 8 of us at this time together so we pooled our money together to try and hit Mega Bucks. The best we could do was get a few cherries and uneven bars. I called Snickerboob on her cell and she said she was at Casino Royale. We hooked up for a couple beers. It was nice to meet somebody from the board. She told me she got to meet Mikey and they had drinks and food at Peppermill. She is quite a lady. Thanks for the get together Snickerboob. I left a message for Mikey if we could hook up at Ellis Island around 6 for dinner. It was short notice and I think he was probably working or moving. I'll catch up with you next trip in August Mikey. We went to Barbary Coast for the free hot dog and beer with the ACG coupon. It ended up costing me about $25 which I left at the Pai Gow table. The coupons work both ways. I'll take what they're giving and it gets me there to gamble. We stopped at the Venetian for some free slot play with the coupon from AGC when you sign up for a card. My sister-in-law hit 4 aces with the kicker playing Double Double Bonus on a quarter machine good for 500 bucks. I told her I wanted a cut since it was my idea to go there. Coupon worked for us that time. Time to eat dinner at Ellis Island. You guessed it, another 2 for 1. I got the grilled chicken breast. Others with us got chicken fried chicken, orange roughy, cod fillets and chips. Very good dinner. This place really has good food. I dumped another 20 in VP. So far only 1 quad for the trip. We went back to GC to change and wash up and headed to the Trop for the Comedy Club. My brother's friend told us he had 5 tickets waiting for us at the box office. Nice guy. 5 tickets had our name on them. There were 3 comedians for about an hour and a half show. My face was hurting from laughing so hard. Great show. Before the show we had some time to kill so I sat down at a 3 play VP machine. I was really due so I figured 3 hands would get it done for me. My only regret was that I didn't have the guts to play quarters. After about 20 hands or so I held 2 aces on the bottom hand and caught the 4 aces on the third line. Finally I cashed out for more than I put in. THURSDAY This sucks I have to get back to the airport around 3P.M. to go home. We ate another buffet for breakfast at GC. A gentleman in the elevator I was riding going up to our room told us the line to get into the Wynn went down to Sahara for the opening at midnight. I was glad I didn't go. I was hoping it wouldn't be that bad this morning. Thank God there was no line but it was very crowded. The thing that's bad is that if you are walking up from the blvd. you have to follow a narrow walkway to get into the place. They have fake grass all around the sidewalk. It looks nice. As we got near the hotel we saw the line for people waiting for taxi service. Yikes! At least 30 or 40 people in line. If it was me I would have went across to the New Frontier and caught a cab. That's where I parked my rental to avoid the traffic getting in and out of the place. I agree with most comments so far. My first impression was Bellagio with a Mirage and Treasure Island mixed in. I wasn't impressed with the check in area. Bellagio and MGM are huge open areas. Wynn has a separate room which didn't do anything for me. The casino was pretty much your typical megaresort casino. Don't get me wrong, the place is beautiful but nothing jumped out at me to put it above the rest. I didn't gamble there because the place was a zoo and cash in lines were very long. Went back to GC for final fling. Sat down and played BJ for about an hour. I was getting down pretty low and then I had a pretty good run of double downs with a few black jacks mixed in. When the smoke cleared I was up only 10 bucks but I was down and I had just lost splitting 8's so I figured it was going to go south again so I'll take the money and run. Besides I had a score to settle with VP. Not too far into VP I was dealt 4 deuces. I was playing Double Bonus so this was nice. 2's 3's and 4's pay 400 units. About ten or twenty hands later I catch 4 nine's. They seem to come in bunches like that. I was only playing dimes. Still was a nice rebound. Good way to leave for the airport. AFTER THOUGHTS If you have the bankroll and stomach for it I feel you can beat Video Poker. The American Casino Guide is a great value. You pretty much have to rent a car to get to alot of the places. I came home $150 lighter than when I left. That included food so I consider the trip a success. The Bellagio had a part of the casino roped off for filming of some Drew Barrymore movie. Sorry if I spelled that wrong for you fans. Glad I got to meet Snickerboob. The Gold Coast is a great value.
Thanks for the good report. Sorry you had to return to Cleveland so soon. As I recall, when you left, snow was forecast and you said something like "getting out of dodge just in time"... Welcome back . I went out for lunch today and got caught in a brief snow/sleet mix - Freakin' May 2nd and I saw snow . Things are looking up for the weekend though... we'll see .