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TR - Vegas for 8 nights, low rolling style!!!

Discussion in 'Vegas Trip Reports' started by LV2GAMBLE, Apr 16, 2017.

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  1. LV2GAMBLE

    LV2GAMBLE Certified LOW Roller

    Joined:
    Oct 20, 2012
    Messages:
    1,247
    Location:
    Land of 10,000 Lakes
    Trips to Las Vegas:
    35

    My Trip Report

    I’ll TRY to keep this short instead of my usual novel. Haha. This time, I’ll just give a review by topic instead of indepth trip report, but, some of you may have read my past reports and sometimes it just isn’t easy keeping it short.

    This was our 17th trip to the city of Sin, so we know what and where we like. Low, rolling gambling is our thing. So yeah, we are a little boring. Mainly slot players. I get a little bored with VP, but to each their own. I usually end up with a few too many cocktails while the DH would rather gamble. Fine, that’s his choice…..and mine!! Haha.

    So follow along if you will, for the most recent trip our favorite city.

    Trip dates: March 29-April 6, with 3 more dates added …more on that later.

    Flight: Flew United using my CC points. Total cost for 2 to fly, approx. $175 including paying for a checked bag. Left work at 3:20 in the afternoon for a 5:30 flight. Time to grab a quick brew at the bar before boarding. Flew FAR to DEN, DEN to LAS. All flights both coming on going on time, or early. Win win!!! 2nd win of the flight was on the DEN to LAS when I ordered a double vodka cran from the FA, and she insisted I did not have to pay. :woohoo: Win Win!!

    Bag was on carousal by the time we got to the terminal. Amazing!!!


    Car: Booked a Dollar ‘mystery’ car on Expedia for a total of approx. $181 including all fees for the 8-night stay. Get to the car rental terminal and an attendant waives us over. Tells us the ‘mystery’ car this day is a compact!! I literally laugh out loud and say “of course it is”!! haha. Does not try to upsell us anything. Awesome!!! Tells us to pick any car in row 2. Get down to row 2 and all cars are being reserved. Ask at the booth and they tell me to pick any in row 6. End up with a nice blue VW Jetta. That thing had spunk!!

    The only issue we ran into was DH forgot to get the receipt when we gassed up and they tried to charge us $10.91 for the gas. We barely put any miles on the car as it was only for convenience because we did a lot of moving this trip. They eventually take it off when we went to booth and told them the attendant said they were on shift change and really couldn’t help us. WHAT?? Don’t forget your receipt folks!! This is the first time we’ve ever been asked for it. In the past they just turned the key to see that the gage showed full.


    Hotel: DH is all about cheap or FREE rooms. We literally rearranged where we stayed this time based on the offers. (same locations, just different dates).

    1st stop: Gold Coast for just one night using my comp offer. Room was fine. On the 1st floor, now to them 1st floor is not 1st level, it is actually on the 2nd floor. Yeah, I know weird, huh? But whatever!! Room did have a safe, which from past stays I don’t recall them having.

    2nd stop: Orleans on DH’s 3-night comp offer for his slot tournament invite…more on that later.

    Asked for a room near the elevator and bed type didn’t matter, never really does!!. We don’t care about that. Got a king room on the 21st floor facing Tropicana. I guess this is the top floor and some thought we were high rollers or had an emerald card, nope!

    The rooms at both GC and Orleans are very similar and comfy in their layout. It’s nice to just sit on the couch and watch the news with a drink or read. Love that the bathroom window opens, The only main difference that I could see was that the closet area at the GC was a wardrobe type in the main room, while the one at Orleans was an open type in the bathroom area. I like that they have changed their line of toiletries and I actually like the lotion that they now have.

    The only issue that we had at the Orleans was that around 9 a.m. there was no hot water left. Hey, we are on vacation and not about to get up early!!! We get up early most of the year so lying in bed, lounging, and doing absolutely nothing….or maybe just a little :kiss::kiss::kiss:if that is what we want to do on vacation. No pressure right?

    Oh, and no resort fees on the comp rooms, BUT, they now have a sign at check-in, and if I had the skills to post a picture I would, but I don’t ….yet, but anyway it reads like this in a nutshell:

    "Check in time is 3:00; early check in fees apply 7:00 a.m. – 9:00 am == $25+ tax; 9:01-1:00 pm==$15+tax. Resort fee is $17.99 + tax"

    3rd stop: The D downtown….or should it be uptown, since it’s north?? You decide! 3 nights booked on a comp offer, we only actually stayed 2. Got there a little too early to check in (around 12:30 or so) Went wandering around Fremont and checked in around 5:00. Room on the 31st floor facing Walgreens. Still hear some noise from Fremont. We like it here and have stayed in the past

    Last and final nights: Wyndham Grand Desert. Nice place. DH fell sucker to the timeshare bit so now we try and use it when in town. Was a great place to do all the laundry before coming home. Haha. The place is very comfortable and the pool is nice. Would always recommend a stay here. They run a free shuttle to the strip that stops at Harrah’s. Useful!!!


    Gambling: this certainly wasn’t a winning trip, but I did manage to bring back about $1200 of my bankroll, while DH spent all of his on the last night. Oh, well!!!!

    As mentioned earlier, DH was invited to a slot tourney at the Orleans thus the 3 free nights. Registration was on Thursday with rounds 1 and 2 played on Friday and the last round and prize awards on Saturday. No exact slot times given, which I don’t know if I like or not, but hey, I wasn’t playing, but you go stand in line and wait your turn. His 1st round wasn’t so great, the 2nd round better, and at award time found out that they had to throw out the 3rd round because some of the machines locked up. Go figure! He probably wouldn’t have been in the money anyway, but who knows!!

    Bounced around Fremont for the 2 days DT. For some reason Binions coldn’t find me in the system when I got a new card and treated me as a ‘new’ customer. Well…..ok! Geez, we were just here last April. Got a 2-for-1 at the deli or café and $10 in free play after earning 10 points. Walked back down later that night and turned that $10 FP into $140 cash! Yay me!!! Started it on Ducks in a Row and cashed out at about $40 and slipped that into the Stinkin Rich machine next to it. Had that baby up to about $170, but decided to call it quits when it cooled off. Yup, took the money and run …FAST away. LOL.

    Played slots at GC, Orleans, The D, GG, Cal, Fremont, Binions, 4Q, Plaza, Elco, Harrah’s & Linq. Didn’t really win anything, but I look at gambling as ‘entertainment value’. All I want to do is play for a while on the money I have.

    BJ at Orleans and Carnival Court, which has bad rules, but it was a $5 table and the dealers and pit bosses fun, and besides band was good, or maybe I was just drunk, :drunk: but anyhow it suckered me in one afternoon and I didn’t care.!! We played here right after getting off the High Roller happy hour so I already had a nice buzz going. LOL.

    I had more luck than DH, going up for a while and then down while he dwindled the whole time. He tends to push and chases a bonus, while I just leave if the machine isn’t paying. I like a lot of the old machines but had some fun and a little luck on some new ones, such as Gremlins…they are darn cute in the slot machine! Elvira and Miss Kitty were good to me at Orleans but that bitch Brittany wasn’t fun at all!!!


    Eats & dining: :feedme: :feedme:

    Now we are NOT foodies at all, so if you are looking for some top dining experiences you won’t get it from me, I promise! DH could eat burgers and fries for about every meal, and I’m not kidding. Plus he’s downright picky and doesn’t try anything new.

    Some of the usual, with nothing special about them include: breakfast buffet at GC, lunch buffet at Orleans, Subway, Fuddruckers, The D Grille, Binions Café, Coney Island, Mickey D’s, Mirage lunch buffet, Fulton Food Court (Harrah’s). DH claims his best meal was at Sbarro, where we split a pepperoni calzone combo…LOL. My favorite was at Big Al’s Oyster Bar where I had the Shrimp and Fire Grilled Chicken wrap that comes with a side of fruity coleslaw. DELISH!! I couldn’t stop eating it and had to literally go to bed as I was too full!!!

    Tried a couple of new places: Balliwick at Orleans. They had a little 2-piece band playing that I thought were good, but then again it might have been the cocktails…again.. LOL. We sat up at the bar. DH had the fish and chips and thought they weren’t ‘done’ enough. (yeah, he likes his food overcooked). He didn’t get food poisoning so it must have been fine! I had the bacon wrapped dates and the baked goat cheese. Both were ok. Dates were a little too sweet for me. We’d go back, but I’d try something else.

    The 2nd new place was Blueberry Hill on W (?) Flamingo. I’d heard about this place and always wanted to try it, but a Sunday morning if probably not the best time to do. Very little wait time, and the food came out in decent time, even though the place was swamped. Somewhat loud in there too. Standard breakfast with the BEST. PANCAKES. EVER. Yes, even better than Dupar’s (RIP). So fluffy and buttery!! YUM

    Cocktail service: :beer:

    Best: Upstairs at the D, Binions, Carnival Court, and The Plaza

    Pretty good: Orleans, GC, Harrah's

    Fair: El Cortez, Four Queens, Fremont, Cal, Linq (whatever happened to the ipad order takers??)

    Non existent: Golden Gate, yep....were there twice and NEVER had service. :thumbsdown:


    Other:

    Bought a groupon for the High Roller happy hour (of course). Did this on a Wednesday around 12:30. There were only 6 total in our pod, so we sure got our $$’s worth of drinks!!

    Weather wasn’t the best. Quite windy. The day after we arrived ( we arrived on 3/29) there were some hellacious wind gusts (60-80 mph). Four semis tipped over on interstate, power knocked out to about 40K people for up to 3 days, a ‘No travel advisory’ issued. Crazy! Even the next day was windy and some flights diverted to Phoenix. One day we even had rain! That’s March for ya! We prefer April, but Easter interfered with our plans this year.

    Each trip I like to get a pack of new $100 bills for cocktail tips. They take up less room in my tiny purse, plus it allows me to keep track of how many cocktails I had over the course of the trip. Just for fun! Haha. This time I brought $14 home. That tells me I had plenty of drinks as I also had a few $2 bills left from a previous trip. Whew. Time to detox…lol.

    As mentioned, we are not foodies and usually only eat twice a day. I bring a separate envelope entitled ‘Lunch’ from which we pay for all food. Fo this trip we had $500. From this we brought home about $230. Haha. We had a MyVegas reward for the Mirage buffet (not worth paying for, that’s for sure, everything just blah, but edible and did the job). We charged Balliwick and Big Al’s to our room at Orleans and they comped if off at the end. Always pays to ask!

    For the 1st time ever I went to a spa. Yes, I did! In the Orleans elevator, there was a sign for some ‘specials’ going on. I took advantage of the Focus Massage – 25 minutes for $50. Just enough time wipe the tension out of my neck and shoulders. Had Joe for a masseuse, did a great job, but talked the whole time! I’d rather have a quiet massage as I find it more relaxing. Afterwards I took a nap! LOL.


    Left LV on Thursday morning, April 6 and upon getting home to the home airport, what do 2 degenerate gamblers do??? :D:D :D Well…we drive up to our local where we spend the next 3 nights before coming home. Haha. I think I even won a few $$, while DH managed to only lose $250 over those 3 days.


    Back to work (uuggghhh) on Monday morning. Don’t know when the next Vegas trip will be, but the plan is to take a road tip to Kansas City over the 4th of July :usa: and stay at Harrah’s. While there, we’ll also take in some KC bbq, see the Harley Davidson plant (we both ride), :biker: maybe see the WW1 museum there, and we also found out that our MN Twins will be playing in KC during that time. Go Twinkies!!!


    Already itching for another trip to LV. If you have any Q’s feel free to ask. Told ya it’s hard to keep it short. Thanks for hanging in there
     
    EAGLES at the Sphere
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  2. Richard Alpert

    Richard Alpert LOST

    Joined:
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    That's it, LV2G? :poke:

    My Chevy Prizm is my mystery car. It's a mystery it's still running! o_O

    Agreed! My minions, bride, and I enjoyed our family trip stay there. :thumbsup: The shuttle came in handy, too!

    Did anything happen if you fed cash/TITOs to Gremlins after midnight? :D

    Thanks for the great report, @LV2GAMBLE !

    RICHARD
     
  3. 93 Octane

    93 Octane Chief Bottle Washer

    Joined:
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    Location:
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    I love Coney island at The D:feedme:

    Did you hit Sigma Derby upstairs?

    What is your favorite cocktail and which casino makes the best one:popcorn:

    How long does High Roller last

    So glad y'all had a great time thx for a great TR
     
  4. tringlomane

    tringlomane STP Addicted Beer Snob

    Joined:
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    Nice report LV2! I think the Linq iPads are a thing of the past. Ive read a few times lately others didnt see them there. :(

    30 minutes.
     
  5. breanna61

    breanna61 Unicow Seeker

    Joined:
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    Great idea extending your vacation at your local; takes a bit of the sting out of leaving Vegas. Thanks for sharing your Vegas adventures!
     
  6. LV2GAMBLE

    LV2GAMBLE Certified LOW Roller

    Joined:
    Oct 20, 2012
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    Location:
    Land of 10,000 Lakes
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    35
    Did not hit the Sigma Derby. A few times it was full and sound like they were having a great time

    Can't say I have a favorite cocktail, but am certainly a vodka and beer drinker, not mixed together mind you...LOL. A vodka cran is a great way to start the day in Vegas.

    And yes, as mentioned, it takes half hour for the High Roller to make a full revolution. It goes quite slow and a few times the DH thought we were actually stopped.
     
    EAGLES at the Sphere
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  7. casinokid68

    casinokid68 Caesars Diamond Member

    Joined:
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    Location:
    brooklyn, ny
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    Great report!!! Great idea on extending the trip 3 more days. Love that idea!!!:clap:
     
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