Trip Report - Oct. 12 - 15

Got up at 6:00 am for an 8:30 am departure from Newark. Airfare was about $200 each, round trip. Made it to the airport and through security with enough time to grab a bite to eat. After breakfast, we walked over to the gate and the plane was boarding and there were three cops standing there talking to some guy. We had no idea what was going on but I asked the gate agent if there was something going on with the flight or something we should be worried about and she said it was unrelated so we got on the plane and took our seats. I booked the airline tickets online via Continental and when booking online you can choose your own seats. Since we couldn’t upgrade, I decided I would book a window for one of us and an aisle for the other and leave the middle seat free because it would be unlikely that someone would be assigned to it unless the flight was completely booked and I was right. We were one of the only people to have an extra seat. Worst case scenario would be if someone was sitting there and in a case like that, they would be more than willing to take the window or the aisle instead of being stuck in a middle seat so that tactic worked quite well. We had a few drinks on the plane and did some reading to try to pass the time. The flight arrived into Las Vegas on time and our luggage was on the carousel before we got to the baggage claim area. We were thinking about taking Las Vegas Limousines but since they are using shuttles we decided to just grab a cab. We arrived at Harrah’s just before noon. We are both Platinum level players because we frequent the Harrah’s in Atlantic City and we tried for an upgrade (they sometimes do this as a courtesy) but there was a black jack tournament going on in the hotel and they couldn’t do it. We requested a room in the Carnival Tower and they had a hard time accommodating that request too but they eventually found a room with a view of a wall on the fourth floor. I didn’t really care about the view though as long as the room wasn’t in the Mardi Gras tower. The rooms in that tower look like a rainbow burped. It’s just a tad too loud and obnoxious for me. Looking at those bed spreads while intoxicated is enough to make you lose your lunch. The rooms in the Carnival tower are a little better. They’re nothing special but it was clean and the price was right so we were pretty happy. We weren’t in the mood for a big lunch so we decided to grab a sub sandwich at the Subway in the Casino Royal and then to walk around a little. After that, we spent most of the day gambling but overall, we had a pretty unlucky day. By mid-afternoon, we made it down to the Riviera. We had a bunch of points left over from previous trips and decided that we might as well use them for something and redeemed them for two free dinner buffets. Their buffet was horrible and I was thankful that we didn’t have to pay for it. It would have cost us over $30 if we did have to pay for it and it wasn’t worth even 1/3 of that. After that, we walked back to Harrah’s and gambled some more… with no luck. Sunday morning we woke up at 6:00 am because we were still on East Coast time. We decided to take the bus and spend the afternoon downtown. We waited at the bus stop for quite a long time and thought that maybe the buses weren’t running yet because it was Sunday and because it was still really early. We walked ½ block and the bus finally rode by so we decided to walk to the next bus stop and wait. The next bus came rather quickly it was almost empty and traffic was light so we were downtown in no time. We went to the Golden Nugget for breakfast but the line was too long so we walked over to the Horseshoe and had breakfast in the coffee shop. Breakfast was reasonable and inexpensive ($11 for two). I got the Benny Binion special with ham and it came with this massive ham steak. My arteries were hardening just looking at it. After breakfast, we wandered over to the California and then to the El Cortez to gamble. We were losing so we decided to head back to Harrah’s to sit out by the pool and to take a break from gambling. The return bus was packed and traffic was unbearable. It took us about an hour to get from downtown to Harrah’s. We spent the afternoon at the pool and then we took showers and went downstairs to gamble some more. We won a little bit here and there and we had enough points on our card to qualify for a $15 food comp and the “bonus†of two free show tickets so we got tickets to the Improv. (250 points each day entitles you to two free show tickets and a $15 food comp) We passed by Café Andreotti several times and decided that we were going to try that for dinner. It looked really nice and the atmosphere was nice but the service and the food was mediocre at best. My biggest disappointment was they didn’t even have olive oil and balsamic vinegar and had to hunt it down. That took about 15 minutes. My waiter was inattentive. Coming from an Italian family and living in the NY area, I eat a lot of Italian and I’m very critical when eating out. I still can’t understand how the Olive Garden is so successful. After dinner, we decided to get drunk and to play some nickel slot machines nearby. Wine at the restaurant was $10 a glass and why pay for drinks if you can get them for free? I sat down at a nickel Monopoly Money Grab machine and had a blast. The bonus rounds are a lot of fun. I played for over an hour on $20 when all was sudden, all the Money Grab symbols lined up on the ninth line. I was playing all nine lines but since I was having a pretty bad losing streak, I only had two nickels per line (90 cent bet per spin). I won 20,000 nickels. Two attendants came over to pay me. The one guy said he hadn’t seen that in a very long time and the other said he’d never seen that before. That $1,000 brought us right back to near even. We continued to play until it was time to go to the Improv. The show was excellent. Last time I went, I was really disappointed but the comedians they had this time were hilarious. After the comedy club we gambled for a little while and called it a night. Our eyes opened at 5:30 am yesterday but we didn’t get out of bed until 7:00 am. One of the lights in the bathroom was going and kept flickering, which created this strobe-like disco thing in our room most of the night. I need to be able to find the bathroom in the middle of the night, especially after all the drinking I did during the trip. Our room didn’t have a safe and I didn’t feel like dealing with the safety deposit boxes at the front desk to store valuables so I decided to ignore it and shut the door all but a tiny crack. (On a previous trip we had to call down for service on something and the room door was wide open and when we walked in they didn’t even ask for identification so I didn’t really want maintenance in the room) We used a food comp for breakfast at the café at Harrah’s and it was basically average. Their pancakes were pretty good. After breakfast, we walked over to the Venetian for a while to gamble and then over to the Mirage to play. We didn’t have any luck so we decided to go to the room for a nap. The room wasn’t serviced yet so I called housekeeping and asked they clean the room sometime soon. We gambled a little, went up to the room and it still wasn't ready so we decided to sit near the pool for a bit. The room was finally cleaned at 3:00 pm so we napped until 5:00 pm. We were really hungry when we woke up and decided to have dinner at the Harrah’s buffet, which was excellent. I’m not particularly fond of the Harrah’s in Las Vegas because it’s not as nice as the one in Atlantic City but I must admit, their buffet is excellent. (We got a special rate of $79 for Saturday and a coupon for two free nights, which we used for Sunday and Monday, which is why we stayed there) After dinner, we gambled some more and then took a break to go over to the Bellagio to watch the fountains. We watched for about an hour and then gambled a bit at the Bellagio. After that, we went back to Harrah’s. We had two more free show tickets for Skintight but I was too tired to go so we gave them away and gambled some more before calling it a night. We played some bonus poker for a bit. I hit 4 aces for $100 and a few more small hits and cashed out for $200, which was nice but didn’t compensate for what we lost that day. Got up this morning at 5:15 am for a 7:15 am flight back home. Got to the airport at 6:00 am and checked our bags. We went to Burger King for a quick bite to eat and then we walked over to the gate. It was extremely crowded so we decided to play some slots until it was time to board. We were one of the last ones on the plane and got pulled out for a random security check. The woman went through my carry on bag, wanded me and made me take off my shoes but never even peeked into my hand bag, which surprised me. She even put her hand in my shoes to see if I was concealing anything. The flight was overbooked and they were asking for volunteers, which we would have done had we not been playing slots when they made the announcement. When we got on board there was a man sitting in the seat between us. I asked him if he would like the aisle seat instead but he didn’t speak a word of English so I just motioned for him to sit in the other seat and he did. Bummer. On top of that, he had some really wicked body odor so I spent the entire flight facing the window so I didn’t have to smell him. Flight took off and now it’s back to reality. Tomorrow I will start to plan my next trip…

Thanks Mikey and Vegas Jer for all your help with craps and to everyone else on the board!