TR Downtown April 9-12 part 3 (long)

Tues., April 11 – Started the day off with breakfast with my mom at the Bay City Diner at Golden Gate. The rest of our party wasn’t in the mood to eat breakfast, so mom and I went by ourselves. I had ham and eggs, and she had bacon and eggs. It was a little expensive by Las Vegas standards ($20 with tip), but the ham was a very large portion, and everything was good. I finished eating and went to pay while she finished, only to have to stand in line for about 5 minutes while all of the wait staff had an argument because someone went to break out of turn. I’m sure this can screw things up a little, but on a Tuesday morning, I can’t imagine that it is so earth shattering that you can ignore a paying customer for 5 minutes while everyone bickers about it.

Went back to the Club, and I decided to try my hand at the party machine again. I played and got the bonus round a few times, but never got more than 20 credits. The machine got $10 of the $20 back from me.

While the others played various machines in the Club, I purchased an internet usage card so that I could register on line for the next days flights and secure the “A†level passes. It costs $5 for 15 minutes, and includes all the printouts you need. I thought that was a reasonable price, and it sure saved us some time and trouble at the airport the next day.

Once we got that taken care of, we went back to the Golden Gate where I got my butt handed to me at the blackjack tables. We were playing at the $3 table, and our first dealer was fairly nice to me. She was friendly and I was up a few bucks at the time she left. Then they brought in Boris. He was a nice kid from Bosnia, but he had beaten me pretty well the day before, and today was going to be no exception. It seemed like every hand I had between a 12-16, and he was hitting 9 -10 or ace every time. My friends and family on the other side of the table actually fared pretty well, but Boris took me for about $50 pretty quickly.

We all decided to head toward the strip and our much anticipated visit to Margaritaville. My buddy Brian is a huge Buffett fan, and this is the only thing he asked specifically to do on the trip. I suggested that we take the deuce to the strip since it was cheaper and may offer a memory of Vegas that we hadn’t encountered before. I was very right on the last part. We walked down to LV Blvd to catch the bus, and upon arriving at the bus stop, found about 70 people in line. A couple of buses later, and we were at the front of the line, exact change in hand, and ready to jump on. About that time, a group of about 8-9 tourists walked up from the other direction, saw the huge line, and decided to form their own line. Despite a lot of heckling from the people in the real line, they did not give in, and when the bus pulled up, he stopped right in front of the line cutters. As much as it made me irate, I understand that there are A-holes everywhere, and that this group knew exactly what they were doing, and that there was nothing that was going to do anything except cause a controversy.

We all got on the top deck, settled into our seats, and were on our way to the strip. About 30 minutes into the trip, my brother in law had to pee (too much early beer), but we were only at Stratosphere . Luckiliy, he was able to hang on for the remainder of the trip (which ended up about an hour or so). We got off the bus across the street from Margaritaville, and had to cross LVB and a side street. I could not believe the amount of traffic (both cars and pedestrian) at 2:00 on a Tuesday afternoon. We went inside and found out it would only take about 15 minutes for a seat, so we waited and had lunch. Very good lunch with good drinks and excellent décor. We were there for about an hour or so, and had a really good time. We then went into the gift shop and dropped some $ before going out to catch the deuce back to downtown. We got on the second bus that stopped, and the trip back was not nearly as bad as the trip there. I decided after this trip to the strip though that it was something I really didn’t care if I ever did again. Man, that was a nightmare.

Got back to Fremont about 5:00, went to our rooms and packed up a little, then went to the GG for blackjack. This would be our final night, and we were determined to have some fun. Dropped mom off at a slot machine and went to the $3 table (just changed to $5). Our new found friends David and Sherry were there along with a Mexican guy who wanted to be called Chewy. He was a bartender at Buffalo Bill’s in Primm, and had come downtown to have some fun for the evening. He and David had made friends easily, and when the 4 in my group sat down, we had all 7 spots at the blackjack table. We played there for about 3 hours, having the time of our lives. We were winning, we were having fun, drinks were flowing freely, and it was everything Las Vegas is supposed to be. Chewy wanted to buy my Corona hat from me, but I told him I wouldn’t sell it (I ended up giving it to him before the night was over). David had to go to the bathroom (and grab a quick shrimp cocktail), and during his absence, all the fun came to an end. First, the casino decided to send us one of the most unfriendly dealers I have ever had to play with. We all tried very hard to get her to loosen up a bit, but it took everything she had to crack a smile. Next, they brought in a girl for an “auditionâ€, meaning that she had never worked as a dealer, but was being interviewed by working at our table. She was a lot better, but she was very nervous. She ended up with about $75 in tips, but unfortunately, those will probably go to the girl with no personality. David returned to the table, very tired and partially drunk, and never recovered to his normal fun self. For some reason, the GG cut off our drink service, and then brought in Vie, the dealer that killed the fun on Sunday night. I gave her 5 hands, then the table completely disbanded.

The 4 in my group walked away from that table up about $325, but none of us were real happy. First, they cut off our drink service (over 40 minutes without a waitress), and they kept sending us unfriendly dealers. It just didn’t make sense to me. I know we were winning, but there were people standing in line hoping to get a spot at this fun table. They had to know that our luck would eventually run out, and they could get their money back if they would just keep us happy. I have a very bad taste in my mouth about the GG currently, and that is especially bad because before that night, it had been my favorite place in all of Las Vegas to gamble.

We spent the rest of the evening watching the light shows, walking Fremont, and taking in the sights. There are lots of homeless people roaming, and I ended up giving a dollar to “a veteran needing 70 cents to pay bus fare homeâ€. I watched as this guy took my dollar toward the bus stop, made a u-turn around a kiosk, and directly into a liquor store. In the mean time, my buddy went in and bought us all a beer (my brother in law didn’t want his), so I tracked down the “veteran†and gave the beer to him. We quickly hightailed it back down Fremont and enjoyed another light show before bedtime.

That is about the extent of our trip, although I am going to post a summary TR with some of the things I liked/didn’t like about this particular trip.

 

Nice report. I can't get over the long trip from downtown to the strip on a Tuesday afternoon! Sounds much more like you'd expect on a weekend trip.

Thanks for all the details.

JoeVegas

 

Deuce is out !!!!

 

Thanks for sharing your report.