Vegas Jer's spur of the moment trip four March Madness 3/21-3/24

Wow... What a great time for something I was just toying with!

I mentioned on a thread that I had noticed San Remo having a $29 dollar rate for Thursday night, and a $59 dollar rate for a Friday and Saturday night. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted to go! So, I called a few friends and after extensive discussions with there spouses, 2 out of the four got away!

I have stayed there once in the past and really wasn't all that thrilled with the place, but after aging a few years and paying between $150-$200 a night weekend rates for crappy hotels during PEAK times I know can appreciate a deal like this when I see it.

We took a half day off on Thursday, hit the road around noon and just turned up the radio and shared past stories about or conquests and misfortunes. Both of them had to hear the story about when my wallet was picked from my friends pocket, that wasn't to fun telling but I kept telling myself it was okay

At about 4:20 we pulled into the San Remo. Friends were kind of skeptical, but I made them remember that we were paying $29/$59 a night for our rooms ON A WEEKEND. Check in was cool, they asked me if I would be needing to use their phones and I politely declined because of the cell phone I had recently purchased(with this reason in mind, but also for safety reasons around home of course!) I did ask to have the rooms near each other, and they were! How cool is that?

We ran over to the Luxor to watch the games, but I made a wager at the book in the San Remo just in case I didn't make it to the window. I HATE the Hoosiers... But on this day I would bet on them and took some real heat from the guy at the window. Exact words, "If you say so, its your money..." I laughed so hard, he in turn just stared at me like I was crazy.

I was going to put more money on Indiana there, but the line was lower and I thought to myself $500 was enough to bet on one game. We sat next to a DIE HARD DUKE FAN! I set my ticket down and the guy read it and said, "Are you crazy? The Blue Devils are going to DESTROY Knight's old squad..." I stood ground and said normally I would agree but he was wrong today. He took that a little too personal and offered me a wager. He said he would give me 5-1 that Duke would win. Shocked, I kind of just sat there and pondered the idea. "10-1, damn you are going to lose..." I couldn't pass that up! I asked him what kind of money we were talking here, and he said he had the money so offer a number. I said $100 bucks, and he backed up a minute and had to think about it. He countered with $75 and we had a deal. I asked him to show me the money, for my own piece of mind and he pulled out a stack of hundreds, man that was a lot of money.

We asked the lady at the window for an envelope and one of my friends was aking me if this was a great idea. I assured him it was and was mad I made the bet at the Remo book, this had better odds! Went back, both put our money in the envelopes, and sat around having a good time while the game was being played. Really nice guy, lived in Sacremento and made it to Vegas ever two weeks or so.

I don't know if any of you actually watched the game, but it had a TREMENDOUS finish. Last 10 seconds or so Duke was down by 4 and made a three pointer and got fouled. My "Chuck" was jumping up and down with joy as I was cringing because if it went to overtime I knew there was a chance I would lose both bets. Williams missed his free throw and Boozer rebounded the ball and had a chance to win the game and didn't make it. I had won both bets! I glanced over and Chuck had grabbed the envelope and and walked over to hand it to me. "Guess I should have stuck with 5-1, huh?" and had a nice laugh.

We went back to the Remo, played a little craps and lost around $100 in an hour. We were hungry, so we went to the Aladdin to eat the buffet there. I am a BIG Bellagio buffet fan, but the Aladdin stacks up rather well. Great food, good service, and I even won on Keno ($12!)

Went to the Monte Carlo, played some craps there and lost another hundred pretty quickly (are you seeing a trend here) I was tired, so I hit the room to get some sleep while my friends went and played some more craps. I was awaken at 3:30am to a pounding on my door. Jesse was standing there with a HUGE grin on his face. I told them to come in and he showed me a money clip full of bills. They had amassed over 7,000 dollars playing craps at the Tropicana. They hit the table at the right time, and just kept getting lucky. I was all excited now and just wanted to go down and do some more damage! We went back to the Trop and my friends received a ovation when we got back to the craps table! Too funny.

We played for awhile, nothing great but I won back the two hundred I had lost earlier. The pit asked us if we were hungry and comped us at the coffe shop, Calypsos? Whatever it was, it was pretty good. They were tired now, and I could use some more sleep so we went up to our rooms at the Remo. Day 1 down.

 

DAMMIT!! I want to be Vegas Jer!

hahahahaa!! You are the freaking King!!

 

Nice report, great call in IU, ballsy but good. I can't get any work done as I still have 4 days to ge before my wife and I pop our vegas "cherry". Hope I have the same luck you do.

Shane

 

@#$%#$ I wish I lived within driving distance of Vegas!!!!! Sounds like your spur of the moment trip was well worth it! So are you going back for Final 4?

 

I just love reading trip reports like this. Ever notice that when you get back from Vegas, you ALWAYS have good stories to tell???

As for the rest of you poor souls that don't live within driving distance, well, I feel for ya. Phoenix is just perfect distance. Far enough away that we don't get into trouble, and close enough that the trip doesn't have to be a full-blown event to get there.

Mikey

 

I envy you guys that can drive to Vegas for a quick trip. It really allows you to take advantage when they have a good deal. I have to fly in from New York or Hartford and it takes a lot of planning to try and get a good room rate and a cheap flight. Sounds like you had fun. And you do have big ones taking Indiana but I'm glad they won.

 

Yes Hoya, plans are to go back to Vegas for the Final Four. My buddies got a couple of free nights so we will probably stay at the Trop for Friday and Saturday night. I think it should be a good time, i'll let you know the details... Anyone going to be out there next weekend?

 

Great trip report! The only sad thing I read in it was Duke losing!!!! I just sat there on the bed in shock. My husband was also rooting for Indiana and was cracking up because I just sat on the bed and stared at the tv. LOL!!