Trip Report- Oct 17th to 24th "Hanging on in until the end"

Hi all and greetings from the UK,

Just back from a 12 day trip to the states, 7 of which were in Vegas, here are some things that we did, wanted to do or as usual never got round to.
trip involved My wife, 2 kids, and myself. Other days were spent at Disney

Travel;

As this was a 2 centre holiday we flew direct on American from London to LAX (my 1st ever frequent flyer freebie) and overnight was in San Bernadino (2nd freebie). Up stupidly early and on the road to Vegas in the dark and rain (vey scary)

Hotels
First up was the Luxor, 2 nights. We have stayed here quite a few times and this will probably be the last, nothing wrong with the place, but I think it is looking worn, does not represent value for money and I don't think the gaming options are that good. Saying that they did post us with the wrong room rate $40 dollars cheaper than quoted so I broke the world check out record when I checked the bill on the 2nd morning ! East tower room with a view of nothing, but it was clean although slightly cramped.
Next Up was the Alladin two nights(wed/thur) on the $59 special. I loved the place, room was great, big very comfortable with a pool/bellagio lake view and after working out which entrance to use great for the mid strip.This was the first time I had stayed here and I hope that the new name etc will improve it further because it was great.
Finally Sunset Station, we have always liked this place and decided to stay here for a change. Again I loved it, we had a BIG corner room with views of the valley, my wife could pop over to the shops at anytime and the Kids loved the Bad parents club (sorry I meant Kids Quest). The only downer was the feast not been open, but I could live with that. We even extended our stay and cancelled a night we had booked at primm. ( I was I glad I did this). So a big thumbs up to SS.
Food
Won't bore you as my choices are not exciting, but the Blueberry Hill waffles are to die for, and my wife is still talking about her first fatburger !!

The reason I was there:
Yep the gaming, to admit it we should not really have made this trip financially wise, but after a long year and a wet summer in the UK what the heck we came but the old gaming budget was very limited.
Poker,
I love online poker (playing now!) so I wanted to try a live tourney, due to jet lag, couldn't get in the Luxor morning tourney, so (sorry now not playing online just had my aces busted!!) I signed up for one of the Alladin morning tourney's ($40) buy in. There were around 120 entrants and as I sat down my heart was thumping. I was seat 7 and the first hand I played was in the Big Blind, had Q2c's and there had been a raise to twice the blind with 3 callers before me, but although I should,nt of I called. And the flop was .....Q22, I must have lit up like the Strip on new Years eve, but managed to keep my cool and drag a great pot on my first ever hand in the live game. Anyway after that I never got a thing and ended up busting out in 24th, which I was happy with given my inexperience.
Table games;
Played craps for the first time, what a rush loved it, played for an hour and a half after the poker tourney and was up $60, although I will never roll again. My rolls were on the come out; 3,3,3,3 made a point (6) and then rolled a....7 !!!! Needless to say not much appalause when my roll finished !
LIR,
I know it is bad but I love this game, played for hours at Sunset and even left up after two full houses and a couple of straights. Had no luck at other casinos playing it though, although Excalibur had fantastic drink service, the walkway back to luxor seemed to be a lot longer after a couple of hours there.
Played a bit of blackjack and roulette, didn't loose my shirt, but I cannot get excited about blackjack, don't know why but just cannot.

VP
Most of my trip I played VP, either deuces wild, DB or DDB. For the first 3 days my luck was thin to say the least and the bankroll was disapearing, then on a very early (4am) rise from my pit in the Alladin I wondered over to bally's to play so bonus deuces wild on the only machine everto give me a royal two years ago. At 4am you can pretty much guarantee you'll get the machine you want ! Anyway I had about £150 with me and was down to my last $20, so it looked like my wife would get her moring coffee early, then I was dealt 2 2's heal them and bang in came the other two, great I thought $380 (it was a progressive machine) but then I looked again and the 5th card was an ace so it was $838, happy days. Looked at my watch and thought I play for another 15 mins, so there i was and 5 mins later, held 1 2 and in came the other 3(no ace this time), so the good lady got a coffee and some shopping money.
No more good luck at VP until Sunset, where I was doing well on double double hitting quite a few 4 of a kinds, including 3 lots of aces, once with a kicker.So by the last night I was doing ok, about even or slightly better for the trip. On the last night I was playing one set of deuaces when I noticed a bank of ddb, that everyone was playing and the credits seemed to be racking up, so when a place came empty I had a go and hit 2 4ok in quick succession, so that's why they were playing, anyway was tired and went to bed. Monday Moring woke up early (no surprise there) and realised I had 3 hours left to play, so went downstairs with $300 of the $800 cash I had yet and said when it was gone that was it.
I could not hit a thing, the machines were like hoovers, so with $50 I went back to this bank of DDB from the night before. Down to $30 when I hit 4 J's., 3 hands later 4j's again, 5 hands later 4j's again, 10 mins later 4'3s. So suddenly I was up to around $268, so I thought right play down to $250 and call it a day, so Off I went, and I was on around $255 when I was dealt Ak of diamonds, held them and at 6.30 am in the morning there is no sweeter sight than seeing JQ10 of diamonds come along, looked up at the paytable and the payout for the royal was $1199, how sweet was that. After the handpay upto the room to share the goodnews and the rest of the trip was on sunset's money. Leaving vegas with cash was such a great feeling.

Random things
Wow did it rain on the the Tuesday, thought I was back in the UK.
Sunset has a great variety of things to do if a break from the strip is needed.

Roads that start in one place, then have a gap and start somewhere else suck big time, trying to find the LVA office took me hours !! On this subject I went their as I had ordered a POV on the $10 deal, it did not arrive in time, so I got one in vegas, only used 2 coupons !!!(just about got my money back),and when we got home the other one was here,so if anyone from the UK is going over before the end of the year, PM me with your address and I post you a POV FOC !!

And finally, this will be our last trip for a while, money and all that, so I'll keep lurking and posting when i can, good luck to you all and I hope you all enjoy your trips to LV.

Cheers
Graham

 

Hate when that happens...

Talk to Jer. He'll let you roll again, Very VERY happily.

 

Sounds like a nice trip, with a Royal to boot. Gotta like that.