Trip Report 1/22 - 1/24

Just got back late last night so here goes:

Flew to LV Saturday morning early. There is nothing like the sound of the slots as you are exiting the plane! Stopped for a smoke in the smoking lounge, then went on to take our shuttle to NYNY. When we got there, we went to check in. We did get upgraded to the jacuzzi room -- the casino host set it up for us before we even arrived. The room was comped but they still had to swipe my credit card for incidentals. I gave my low limit card ($200) to the agent and she said it was declined! Come to find out, she told me they were only authorizing $150 but the computer was calling out for $350. It took a while for her to realize that she needed to call in a manual auth (just like I do at the front desk I work at). She was really nice though so it didn’t really bother me. I was just glad there weren’t any problems with my card.

The room wasn’t ready yet so we stored our bags and went on to eat. We ate at the Chinese place that also has breakfast – don’t eat there for breakfast. That’s all I can say. It was $25 for both of us and there were only about 5 things on the buffet. Then we decided to play a little while waiting for our room. I lost about $80 in slots and my husband won $200 at craps. Then we went to see of our room was ready. It was. We had a room on the 26th floor of the century tower. I will post pictures when I get them developed, but it was a great room! Very large with a clover shaped Jacuzzi across from the bed. The Jacuzzi was deep too. Much bigger than the one we had last year at MGM. Not much of a view – we were on the opposite side of the strip. We could see a bit of the MGM and we could see the Palms and the Orleans from our room.

I honestly do not remember a whole lot about the day. I know that we walked down to the fountains and played some craps at the Bellagio. I also know that we lost at craps at the Bellagio. The tables were being brutal this trip so far. We had reservations at Nine Fine Irishmen for dinner so we had to head back there. Dinner was not so good. I don’t know if it is just us, but we weren’t really into the whole Irish food thing. We both got fish and chips…it was good and it was a lot but I wouldn’t say it was worth $16.99. I was given a $25 F&B credit there so our whole meal only came to about $18 out of our own pockets. After eating we went over to the MGM to play craps. We did horrible. Again, the tables were just BAD this trip. Finally about 9pm, I decided I was going to play Blackjack and see how I could do. Well, I sat at that table until 4am. We had the 2 best dealers in the house, Joe and Paul (look for them if you go!) They were nice and fun and they kept me winning. I started with $40 – 7 hours and about 10 drinks later I walked away with an early hang over and $450 !!! It was a good night.

The next morning, my husband was raring to go at 10am. I was still hungover. I probably would have stayed at that table longer but I felt horrible. We bought 2 all day monorail passes and went over to the Forum Shops at Caesars to eat at the Deli there. We love that place. My husband had this triple decker sandwich called the “Wayne Newton†It was HUGE. He is a big eater, but he could not finish it. I had my usual – a potato Knish. They are SO good there. We walked through the mall and my husband found a $160 pen he wanted in the Mont Blanc store. A $160 PEN? A writing utensil? A pen? $160???? I don’t think so. But, I told him that if he really wanted it that he would have to win it. That would be the only way to rationalize paying $160 for an ink pen. We then saw the new fountain show (I think it was new, I had never seen it before) the one about Atlantis with the fire and the dragon….it was excellent. Better than the old one over by the magic shop.

Well, walking through Caesars proved to be a huge mistake. $20 lost in a slot machine – about $300 lost on craps. We just could not catch a break with the craps tables. We vowed that would be it for craps. We had just lost what I had won the night before. We had to head back to NYNY to get ready to see Mystere at 730. We changed and headed downstairs. We started playing more BJ. I lost about $50 at my table so I headed on over to my husband’s table. They were all hooting and hollering like everyone was winning. Well, they weren’t, they were just all a bit tipsy. I stood there and watched, these people were hilarious. We sat and played and drank with them, danced when we got a blackjack, did a table wave when everyone won the hand and booed when everyone lost. They nick named me my mobster name “Jenn the Jaw†and my husband was “Dave from Dallas†It was a lot of fun, they were nice people. We had to leave after about an hour and a half because we had to go down to Treasure Island for the show. We were almost broke anyway LOL.

We took the monorail over to Harrahs, walked over to the Mirage and took the tram to TI. We saw the 730 show of Mystere. We had 3rd row seats. The show was awesome. Probably the best show I have ever seen. It was amazing. The performers did not even look real at times. The music was haunting and beautiful at the same time. The 2 girls who sang to every song had the most beautiful voices. I was just in awe the whole time. I hated to see it end. We will definitely go see “O†next time and maybe “Ka†too. I’m sure they are just as good. I recommend this show to everyone. If I can give you one word of advice without giving anything away – do not give your tickets to an older usher with fluffy gray hair!

After the show we had to go eat. We were starving. We counted that we only ate 5 times our entire trip! We went to rainforest café for dinner (knowing what they have there is good, there is one where we live) it was great as usual. Then we decided to play some. Well, I lost my A$$ at BJ again, but my husband sat down with $40 and again, after about 3 hours of play, walked away with $740!! Another good table. His head was hurting so we decided to walk with the chips. After cashing them in, we decided what the hell, let’s play some slots. We played $100 in Elvis ($50 each). Didn’t win much, maybe walked away from there with $48 of it but at least we didn’t lose quickly. We sat and played slots for another 2 hours or so. Lost about $200 of what my husband just won. Another late night.

The last day (yesterday) we got up around 1030 and packed. Left our bags down with the bellman and checked out. We ate at Nathan’s….well, my husband ate Nathan’s. I can’t stand the taste of them. We played more BJ. I lost $50 within 20 minutes. My husband lost $150 in about 2 ½ hours and in the meantime I lost another $150 in slots. We headed back for the airport and learned that our flight had been delayed an hour. Just enough for us to catch some Burger King and souvenirs and a little rest.

Over all it was a great trip. Well worth the time and money. We had great weather the entire time. We could have come back with a lot more money than we started with but we lost it. After you win so much, you think “what the hell, I just won $700…..†Then a few hours later you are thinking “Now, where’s that 700????â€

Vegas is great but we looked forward to seeing our kids and our dog. Not ready however to go back to work!! I will just have to start planning our next trip now….

 

Great Trip Report.

We ate at 9 Fine Irishmen and I really did not like it. The Fish and Chips were like something you could find at an amusement park.

 

Nice trip report WLvegas. Fluffy gray haired lady huh? I wonder what that's about? Looking forward to the pictures!

 

Are you talking about the animatronic show in the Forum shops with Atlantis & the 2 children fighting? That's not new--unless they've tweaked it. We've seen it a couple times.

 

yellfore99- Actually it is a fluffy gray haired gentleman

HoyaHeel- Yep, that's the one. I can't believe we have never seen it. Guess we just never went down that way before.

I forgot to mention that my husband never did get his pen hehe

 

My husband loves to look at watches, so he says he's going to get a new watch (he likes Tag--expensive, but not in the uber-expensive category) More than a Mont Blanc, and he just hasn't made that much at the craps tables yet Mont Blancs are nice pens though...I tried to steal one of my dad's once but he caught me (we have a friendly thieving that goes on in my family--for most things it's ok, but apparently the pen was off limites. go figure

 

The 'stage' decorations were kinda cool, but the show reminded me of a dubbed japanese flick. After 5 minutes, I was outta there. But I suppose, what do you expect for free.

Redirect their attention.. and they quickly forget what they were thinking about. Way to go, my girl.

 

really good TR! I was gonna change our res to Mirage but my girlfriend has blown that idea out of the water, she loves the whole NYNY theme, so if she's happy, then i'm happy! which host did you email? it might be worth a shot for an u/g if i drop them a line

 

Sharkey -- His name was Jeremiah Chambers. If you go to the NYNY website under "gaming" they will have an area to e-mail a casino host. That is how I went about doing it. I feel bad though, we played mostly table games and most of the time our average bet wasn't large enough to be rated. The night I sat there for 7 hours (and was actually making large bets), I forgot to give my card!!!

NYNY was nice. I have always liked the casino there and I thought that the staff and the hotel was really nice. The only thing is, don't order room service at 4am -- they told us it would be an hour wait. After about 30 min I called and cancelled because we were about to pass out!

Good luck with your upgrade, when are you going? Sometimes that makes a difference too. Next time we will try to stay at the Mirage, just because we never have and want to stay at all of the MGM properties.

Have a great trip! I can't wait to go back.

 

We are going March 27-30 and booked the package deal. This one is not only our first visit to Vegas but it's also my 30th, and, i'm thinking of popping the big Q! So it's gonna be a biggie...i've emailed J Chambers outlining our trip dates so hopefully something good will come from it. How was the drinks service there? we've got 2 for 1 breakfast passes for il fornaio, did you guys eat there?

We are planing to visit the tix4tonite place to get some half price shows (we hope), visit the Hard rock, Palms and Bellagio among others, The girlfriend is a celeb hunter...scary.

I just want to polish up on my roulette strategies and try live poker, and also give the wheel of fortunes and elvis machines a go.

 

Sharkey

My husband and I will be at NYNY the same days that you will be there. This is our first time staying at NYNY, but last year (when we stayed at MGM) we did have breakfast at Il Fornaio. It would be worth it since you have 2 for 1 passes, but if you had to pay full price, I wouldn't recommend. Not a lot of choices. Of course, last year when we had breakfast there it was the day after we ate at the Paris buffet, and that is a hard act to follow.

 

Thanks for the info on il fornaio, if you're playing roulette in the NYNY and hear a broad Scottish accent, give me a shout, maybe we can all grab a beer and hit a few tables together.

 

Great report.
My sister saw the Mystere also and had a great time. I think I know what you mean about the fluffy gray haired usher.