Whitefox's First TR (Semi-live) (11/19 - 11/26) (PHo, DTG, Cosmo)

Good Morning from Downtown Las Vegas!



Yesterday morning after checking out of PHo we ran some errands at Town Square in Summerlin. Ulta for some LadyFox makeup and Trader Joes for sweets.

Then, one of the main things we’ve been looking forward too…

Chik-Fil-A!

We were not the only ones craving chicken and waffle fries.



This was everything we dreamed of and more. I also tried the Mac and Cheese and it was great. Very creamy and a good flavor.





Then we made our way to downtown and checked in at Downtown Grand.

After getting settled we sidled up to some VP. Love the paytables here.

I have yet to get a quad this entire trip. LadyFox popped our collective quad cherry after about ten minutes.



And then her very next spin…



I asked if she was ready to walk around and she said there’s some more left in this machine. Not one to argue with any gambling-related superstition or feeling, we continue to play.

Not even five minutes later, she hits...



BOOM! It’s so fun to flop quads. But it’s amazing to flop premiums with kickers.

Feeling great, we decided to walk down to the D and check out the new single person bubble craps game.







It was a bad first experience, but not necessarily the fault of the game. There was a guy there playing two machines at once and using his fists simultaneously to pound the roll buttons. During the hour we were at the D he continued to go back and forth to the ATM and anytime he left would drape clothes across both machines. Other people wanted to play and couldn’t because he was hogging two machines.

I didn’t mind the game, but was very annoyed at this guy's pounding so we didn’t stay long. The game also had a fatal error on my machine and needed to be rebooted.

A Quick Note On Breaking Machines:
Yesterday, I somehow broke three slot machines. As in, they had fatal errors or simply froze and had to be rebooted (which took between five and ten minutes each time). Fatal Error on the bubble craps. Jurassic Park frozen. Davinci Diamonds frozen. At three separate casinos (The D, California, and Downtown Grand, respectively). I’m not sure how common this is, or if I’m just bad luck. Haha

After the D, we walked over to Mainstreet Station and California. LadyFox got some ice cream.



And I have been drinking these all afternoon:



Then we broke this machine, then got this bonus:



Then we headed back to DTG. I played craps and had my first losing session of the trip (-$151) but here’s a few action pics. I was in for $300 and ran it up to about $700ish before taking the slow slide back to even, and below.



You can see all my come bets and odds:





Then dinked around on Blackjack, high limit slots, Ultimate Texas Holdem and Ultimate X. No wins to note. Down about $600 total for the session. Still positive for the trip, but couldn’t tell you how much (yet).

Grabbed a late night slice of pizza from Pizza Rock and crashed.

We’re getting a late start today and couldn’t be more excited for another day at Home.

 

Nice run on the DTG VP! But remember the bar also has a progressive Royal and progressive AWAK!

 

Thanks, Gaggles! Your reports are awesome, too! You've helped me scratch the Vegas itch so I'm glad to return the favor.

 

I had walked by Guy Fieri's so many times and had no idea how great it was. We will definitely be going back. Thanks for the brunch recommendation! And, yet unreported, but we did have the pork buns at Momofuku and they were to-die-for.

Yeah, this weather has been incredible! I'll try to save some for you next week!

 

Glad I could help. You are helping me scratch right now! No itchy or scratchy for me until Super Bowl. I just showed JR your Hawaii pics and she is demanding we go! She's been there a few times and loves it. She literally just said "He's lucky to live there". JR used to live in Saipan. Clearly she likes the island life.

 

Thanks! We loved your latest report at Cosmo too!

 

I know!!!! That was exactly our response!

 

Thanks for following along. I love when craps works out!

 

Thanks for the reminder, I can't believe I forgot how good the bartop is here. Will be playing significantly tonight...

 

Super Bowl is so far away! Haha! We are very blessed to be in Hawaii for now. Island life is weird, some people like it, some don't. I'm more on the dark side of that table, but we are taking advantage of it while we can

 

Somebody's never been to Laughlin LOL

 

That would have annoyed me too. Sounds like the guy was going full tilt (and succeeded)...

 

THANK YOU!!!...Yes, I'm shouting, but your report has been a huge help in getting us jazzed for our trip tomorrow. Looking forward to seeing how your trip ended. Congratulations to both of you on your upcoming blessing.

And, I would be completely remiss if I didn't tell you how much I loved your introduction to your trip report. Not only poetic, but captured so many of the feelings that we share about Vegas.

Again, thanks!

 

Are you going to go over to The D to give that single bubble crap game another go? Sucks that The D-bag was there.
Good pictures of the game. Thanks.

 

Still alive! Just had a delicious Bloody Mary at Mon Ami Gabi. Today is a massive gambling marathon at Cosmo. Not sure how much I’ll post but will make sure and do write ups at the end. Leaving tomorrow morning, sad!

 

That looks delicious! Last days are always bitter sweet, so go and win big!!

 

Our view right now

 

We took a quick walkthrough the D to check that out and do some freeplay,
Dice were even smaller than I expected, kind of hate that bouncing up platform action.
That machine in your picture was down when we went through, I threw a $20 in the machine to the left, goofed placing a $5 place bet (instead of $6) on a 6 and ended up with a useless .66 in credits,
Overall, meh, the location by the escalators (one was down), restrooms, and line to Andiamos (?) had a clusterfuckian crowd spilling into the area.

Oh, and P had a machine error out on her that made me laugh, as I had just read your report, but it seemed to self-correct in a minute or two.

 

Hope the last day went well for you!

 

It has been a whirlwind week since arriving back to Hawaii but I’ve finally found some time to wrap up this trip report.

Where were we?

Saturday morning (11/23) was a lazy morning. We wanted to check out Donut Bar which is about a block away from El Cortez right next to Carson Kitchen restaurant (which I’ve heard is great, but we haven’t gone yet). So we puttered over there.





The donuts were great. And MASSIVE. I got the classic Homer Simpson donut. LadyFox’s hand for scale.



As we were leaving I overhead one of the employees saying something about happy hour and filling a box for $11. Not sure the details but might be worth checking out in the future. Our donuts combined plus a glass of milk was about $9 before tip.

Then we puttered over El Cortez to do some low-rolling slots. Our very first pull on the Oompa Loompa game produced a bonus that lasted close to ten minutes! I of course had a Baileys & Coffee and it was fun to just sit there and watch.



Then we dinked around on other slots for about an hour with no major wins to note.



Then we landed on bubble craps. I was surprised it was empty. Almost every time I’ve been there the last few years there were always people playing and it wasn’t likely to get two seats.

Shockingly, the machine at El Cortez allowed five times odds on all numbers! The most I’ve ever seen on a Bubble Craps game prior to this was three times odds on all numbers, and it’s usually two times (almost everywhere). I am still shocked and don’t know if this is an error or what. It makes the game better than several live games downtown and nearly every game on the Strip (which offer 3x4x5x odds). Not that Bubble Craps is a direct replacement for a live game, but if you’re going to play you may as well play at El Cortez.





So I took these pictures and about five minutes later three security guards walked over to the Bubble Craps game. One of them approached me and said he got a report of me taking pictures.

“Oh yeah, I took a couple pictures.”

“Well we don’t allow that here.”

“Oh okay, sorry about that.”

Now I realize most joints have rules against taking pictures but this is the first time I’ve ever heard of it being enforced. He was friendly about it. Well, at least you get the benefit of seeing the pictures I took and seeing the 5x odds!

After craps, we walked over to Container Park. It was a lovely fall afternoon.



I thought this was cool looking:



Then we went to Pizza Rock to get meatballs and bread! It was heavenly. We’d been talking about these for months and it hit the spot.

I enjoyed a Saugatuck Neopolitan Milk Stout which was the perfect complement to a cool fall day.







After that we cleaned up in the room and went over to Golden Tiki for happy hour with some of our Vegas friends.

You’d think living in Hawaii would spoil us for tiki anything as lots of the bars and stuff are polynesian-themed for tourists. But no… Golden Tiki remains at the top of the list and a MUST VISIT in Vegas. As another poster aptly said, it’s a Disneyland quality experience.

Golden Tiki’s happy hour is surprisingly affordable and their mai tai’s are awesome. LadyFox got a virgin batida (mango because banana couldn’t be done virgin). Friends got blue drinks and gimlet.





After happy hour, we had a tour planned. In the shadow of the Stratosphere sits a nondescript butcher shop. (Mind you, this is not a great part of town.) An after-dark tour of a butcher shop may sound frightening by itself, but nothing could have prepared us for what was to come.

Just past the butcher shop there’s a large wrought-iron gate with a guard. We gave our names and entered the sprawling complex.

This is the Saw Escape Room (https://sawescaperoom.com/), based on the movie series, and without giving much away, this was one of the most fun activities I’ve ever done in Vegas. I’ve done several escape rooms and this was easily a hundred times better than all of them. I can’t overstate how amazing this experience is. What starts as a tour of a butcher shop quickly becomes an insane game to escape this terrifying environment.

If anyone has any specific questions I’m happy to answer them. I just don’t want to give too much away for those who want to do this. 10/10 would highly recommend to anyone. It was not scary at all, but definitely thrilling.





After Saw, we parted ways with our friends and headed back downtown. We decided on 777 at Main Street Station for dinner. I had the ribs and LadyFox got the prime rib. Both were great. I had a couple seasonal brews but cannot remember for the life of me what they were.



After dinner we slotted around MSS for a bit before heading back to Downtown Grand. I played craps, blackjack, and Ultimate Texas Holdem before heading to bed.