tigershark
Low-Roller
- Joined
- Oct 20, 2011
- Messages
- 279
- Trips to Las Vegas
- 21
The past 10 or so times that I've been out to Vegas, it's been either by myself or with a girlfriend. My friends are all broke and can't get time off, so my options are limited to flying myself out or flying myself and my girlfriend out. Paying your guy friends' ways out just isn't okay. I love the place no matter who I'm out there with, but I was looking to switch it up and managed to convince my buddy to go out for a few days. We found a package for flight and hotel for $180 each at the Riviera and booked it up. He'd never been on a plane in his life and he'd only been to Las Vegas a couple of times as a kid and stayed at Circus Circus the entire times, so I knew it'd be fun showing him around.
Monday, 4/23:
We got in pretty early, around 9AM. My friend doesn't like walking as much as I do, so I figured we'd be footing a cab to the Tropicana and walking it in from there. Thankfully, a "Biggest Loser" competition had just started at his work and he was dead set on winning it, so he said that we should walk it in. I normally head down Paradise to Tropicana and take that into the strip, stopping at the Paradise/Tropicana gas station to grab a beer. This has been my tradition for years and years, but I decided to mix it up. We kept walking down Paradise and stopped into Hard Rock for their steak and shrimp for $7.77 for an early lunch. I've had it before and I think that it's gotten better. For $7.77, you get a steak, three shrimp, mashed potatoes, and a salad. Well worth it.
From Hard Rock, we headed toward Planet Hollywood. Seeing that "HILTON GRAND VACATIONS" sign on the PH Tower"s" made me puke in my mouth a little. Whatever, though. We stopped into Miracle Mile to grab a couple of brews at the ABC Store and played some video poker. I had decent luck, getting up about $5, but my friend was killing it on his first ever Vegas machine with a couple of quads and a straight flush. We were playing at the bank of machines outside of the heart bar that go around that big glass disco ball chandalier looking thing over a stairwell and drink service was awesome as usual. We both left with some extra cash and a few extra drinks in us.
From here, our shoulders were a little sore from trudging all that way with our backpacks on, so we decided to B-line it to the Riv to drop them off ASAP. I like the $20 trick because it's fun to be ridiculous with it and act like a completely phony high roller, so I was bummed that I couldn't do it this trip because Riviera had completely automated their check in system. After navigating to the reception area, the check in machines were turned off with real people at the desks! Walked up and let her know I had booked the presidential suite reserved, with my hand halfway covering a $20 spot on the counter. She laughed a little bit and told me how much smaller my reserved room was than the presidential suite, looked down at the $20 bill and goes, "oh you're going to try the upgrade!?" Hahaha... we got a couple of choices and ended up going with the smaller Monaco room that included a refrigerator because my friend had insulin that he needed to keep cold. The room was nice enough and the fridge was very handy.
Now we were back on the strip, heading back south to look at the stuff that we had missed by skipping passed Tropicana to go to Hard Rock. The goal was to hit MGM as soon as possible to donate some cash to Lion's Share. We eventually made it, stopping to grab beers every couple of casinos. I forgot that the damn thing doesn't take new 10s and fed it one. It made some grinding noises, spit the bill out half way, and as I reached for it, yanked it back in most of the way, leaving just part of it sticking out while making paper shredder noises. The attendant came by pretty quickly and got my mangled $10 bill out. It was hilarious, she just gave me a new one. I told her I'd make it worth her while to get my money out and that I'd tip her huge when I hit the jackpot. She joked about how she'd heard that before. First spin, I got one of the symbols on the pay line and hit $40 or so. From there, I quickly pissed it back. We hit Sigma Derby for a little bit after that and it was a good time. I forgot it pays in quarters hahaha...
After this, the night starts getting blurry. I have pictures of us walking through Excalibur/Luxor/Mandalay Bay, but I don't remember it. Thankfully, I apparently decided to sober up for the walk home, because I do remember stopping into Circus Circus to play some $3 blackjack. Man, people at the Hooters $3 blackjack tables are bad, but people at Circus Circus are BBBAAAAAAADDDD. I quickly rolled over to the $10 table and ended up making about $75. We called it a night around 2AM and headed back to the room and passed out.
We had some big plans for this trip: going to Stratosphere, riding the NYNY rollercoaster, hitting the Rio buffet, jumping off the Stratosphere, and some other stuff. I explained to my friend that everyone thinks the Stratosphere is a great idea until they get to the end of the strip and see how far away it is and then everyone turns back around. We talked about walking there when were at Circus Circus, but he agreed with me that it was too far away...
Dang this is long. I'll put the other days in separate posts.
Monday, 4/23:
We got in pretty early, around 9AM. My friend doesn't like walking as much as I do, so I figured we'd be footing a cab to the Tropicana and walking it in from there. Thankfully, a "Biggest Loser" competition had just started at his work and he was dead set on winning it, so he said that we should walk it in. I normally head down Paradise to Tropicana and take that into the strip, stopping at the Paradise/Tropicana gas station to grab a beer. This has been my tradition for years and years, but I decided to mix it up. We kept walking down Paradise and stopped into Hard Rock for their steak and shrimp for $7.77 for an early lunch. I've had it before and I think that it's gotten better. For $7.77, you get a steak, three shrimp, mashed potatoes, and a salad. Well worth it.
From Hard Rock, we headed toward Planet Hollywood. Seeing that "HILTON GRAND VACATIONS" sign on the PH Tower"s" made me puke in my mouth a little. Whatever, though. We stopped into Miracle Mile to grab a couple of brews at the ABC Store and played some video poker. I had decent luck, getting up about $5, but my friend was killing it on his first ever Vegas machine with a couple of quads and a straight flush. We were playing at the bank of machines outside of the heart bar that go around that big glass disco ball chandalier looking thing over a stairwell and drink service was awesome as usual. We both left with some extra cash and a few extra drinks in us.
From here, our shoulders were a little sore from trudging all that way with our backpacks on, so we decided to B-line it to the Riv to drop them off ASAP. I like the $20 trick because it's fun to be ridiculous with it and act like a completely phony high roller, so I was bummed that I couldn't do it this trip because Riviera had completely automated their check in system. After navigating to the reception area, the check in machines were turned off with real people at the desks! Walked up and let her know I had booked the presidential suite reserved, with my hand halfway covering a $20 spot on the counter. She laughed a little bit and told me how much smaller my reserved room was than the presidential suite, looked down at the $20 bill and goes, "oh you're going to try the upgrade!?" Hahaha... we got a couple of choices and ended up going with the smaller Monaco room that included a refrigerator because my friend had insulin that he needed to keep cold. The room was nice enough and the fridge was very handy.
Now we were back on the strip, heading back south to look at the stuff that we had missed by skipping passed Tropicana to go to Hard Rock. The goal was to hit MGM as soon as possible to donate some cash to Lion's Share. We eventually made it, stopping to grab beers every couple of casinos. I forgot that the damn thing doesn't take new 10s and fed it one. It made some grinding noises, spit the bill out half way, and as I reached for it, yanked it back in most of the way, leaving just part of it sticking out while making paper shredder noises. The attendant came by pretty quickly and got my mangled $10 bill out. It was hilarious, she just gave me a new one. I told her I'd make it worth her while to get my money out and that I'd tip her huge when I hit the jackpot. She joked about how she'd heard that before. First spin, I got one of the symbols on the pay line and hit $40 or so. From there, I quickly pissed it back. We hit Sigma Derby for a little bit after that and it was a good time. I forgot it pays in quarters hahaha...
After this, the night starts getting blurry. I have pictures of us walking through Excalibur/Luxor/Mandalay Bay, but I don't remember it. Thankfully, I apparently decided to sober up for the walk home, because I do remember stopping into Circus Circus to play some $3 blackjack. Man, people at the Hooters $3 blackjack tables are bad, but people at Circus Circus are BBBAAAAAAADDDD. I quickly rolled over to the $10 table and ended up making about $75. We called it a night around 2AM and headed back to the room and passed out.
We had some big plans for this trip: going to Stratosphere, riding the NYNY rollercoaster, hitting the Rio buffet, jumping off the Stratosphere, and some other stuff. I explained to my friend that everyone thinks the Stratosphere is a great idea until they get to the end of the strip and see how far away it is and then everyone turns back around. We talked about walking there when were at Circus Circus, but he agreed with me that it was too far away...
Dang this is long. I'll put the other days in separate posts.
