[Grant]

Superbowl Trip Report

Sorry for long delay, I will try to remember as much as I can, but I probably won’t go into heavy detail.

Flight on Southwest from Orlando was pretty uneventful. Arrived early at McCarran and use the free Internet on my laptop while I waited for my friend to arrive. He was arriving about 40 minutes after my flight and was the Luxor limo was picking him up, so I decided to wait. Of course my flight arrived 20 minutes early.

Friend arrives and we hop in the limo, limo driver is fast and experienced, couldn’t have been more than 5-10 minutes and we are at the Luxor. Our rooms were in the new tower, we had two connecting rooms and then my friend’s sister and her friends had connecting rooms about 5 rooms down. In total there were about 15 of us (A few others in the pyramid rooms). I pretty much just hung out with my friend and two of our fraternity brothers. Rooms in the new tower are nice and I love the bathrooms. We take a couple quick showers and get dressed for the nightclub, we had planned to go to Tryst at the Wynn, but his sister and her friends were already at Tao at the Venetian.

On our way to get a taxi we decide at least to play a couple hands and get a couple drinks in our system. We find a $10 blackjack table by the entrance and start to play. For some reason the night drink service was really slow. I can’t get anything going, so I switch to the roulette table, after a couple ups and down I am down to start the trip. The drinks are pretty slow, so we decide just to head over to The Venetian.

Arrive at Venetian and Tao is packed, long line and they are only letting in VIP guests or guys with girls. Of course at this point there is only us 3 guys and we are not on the VIP list. I immediately say, forget this, let’s got to Tryst. My buddy wants to see his sister so he calls them and she actually comes out and some how convinces the bouncer to let us in. Tao was a little smaller than I expected, or maybe it was just so crowded that it felt small. It just seemed like 60% on the club was for VIP tables and roped off areas. Also drinks and shots in this place were expensive. We drink, dance, and hang out for a couple hours and then we decide to head back to the Luxor. The drinks are really starting to kick in at this point.

We arrive back at the Luxor probably at 3 or 4 am and head over to our favorite tables of the trip, the Pai Gow tables. I swear we spent 80% of our gambling time at the Luxor Pai Gow tables. Mins were usually $10 and sometimes $25. We start drinking really heavily, play for a bunch of hours. Started to get on a cold streak and decide to hit the roulette table. Still ice cold, and I am losing money like it is going out of style. At this time it is probably almost 11 am Vegas, our one buddy has went to sleep but we decide to hit the poker room. This was a mistake, I was way too drunk to play, had to borrow money, and was being belligerent. I lasted about 5 hands till the poker room manager threw me out and called security. Security came over and verified I was staying in the hotel (somehow I lost my key while losing all my money) and took me to the elevator. Get in room, flop on the bed, and pass out. (Of course in my same outfit, with my shoes, and my two drinks on the nightstand). Yes, I was double fisting at 11:30 am.

Friday
We wake up at about 5pm Vegas time and we are all starving. Our 4th buddy was arriving today from Boston so we were excited. We go to the Luxor café, decent food, always pretty good service in there. After that we decide to stop complaining about being hung over and start gambling and drinking. We head right to our favorite tables (Pai Gow) and begin another marathon session. The drinks start flowing and we are having a blast. There is about 6-10 of us spread out on about 3 of the tables next to each other, so we are doing a lot of yelling and high fiving. My one buddy who flew in from Boston arrived about 3 pm Vegas time and passed out about 9 pm, it was crazy. We switched it up with Blackjack a little, but mainly it was all Pai Gow. We continue to play but as you all know the time in Vegas flies bye. It almost 3am and I am exhausted, we decide to call it a night a little early and get some sleep.

Saturday
We all wake up hung over and decide we need to check out the grand opening of Hooters hotel and casino. We quickly shower and decide we will eat there instead of at the Luxor. Walk to Hooters and I almost won the car on the Tropicana free spin. Arrive at Hooters and it is packed, this was my fist time at a casino grand opening weekend and it was a lot of fun. The place was clean, fresh, loaded with hooters girls, and a really nice party atmosphere. We head to the Hooters restaurant but there is a line around the building, we someone convince the hostess that we want to sit at the bar, and that everyone else in line is waiting on tables. She takes us to the bar and we get an immediate seat. I start playing the .25 JOB VP bar top, and I actually won a little money. Think I hit 4 of a kind twice. Food was a little slow, but the wings and fries were great and hit the spot. We decide to play a little in the casino. I am not a big blackjack guy, so I head right to the roulette table, I am not there for more than 2 minutes when my friends come over, and say they couldn’t find a seat and want to go back to the Luxor. I really had a good feeling about this table, so I told them I would meet them over at the Luxor. I had bought in for $40 so I said when it was gone I would leave ($5 table, $1 chips). They leave and I lose my $40, for some reason I wanted to try another $40, it was the best idea of the trip.

For the next eight hours, yes eight hours, I catch fire. I broke the bank three times (when they run out of your colored chips and either pay you in reds, greens, or blacks). It was crazy I was consistently hitting my numbers, especially the 5. This whole time when I am winning I am drinking Sobe and Vodka. They didn’t have Redbull, but they had Sobe Energy drink. I am having a great time, but then all of a sudden I felt my stomach start to feel really queasy. I guess 14 energy drinks is not the smartest idea. I have to quickly run to the cashier, get my $565 and head to the front. When I get outside, I walk to left where a bunch of palm trees are and threw up all my drinks, I know it gross but that energy drink really messed my stomach up. I sit down in the outside area and relax for a few minutes. It is almost 10 pm and I decide to head back to the Luxor.

Get back to Luxor, tell my buddies I am not feeling well, and I want to go to sleep, but they convince me to play Pai Gow for a while. I agree and of course I gave back a decent chunk of my winnings. At about 2 am we are hungry to we go to the Luxor Café again, food and service is once again good. I decide to call it a night, and my other buddy went to a club with his sister and her friends. I forget which one they went to, think it was at TI but he didn’t get back till like 8 am.

Sunday
Superbowl Sunday has arrived! It is sad how fast these days go bye, we all wake up and of course we are all tired. We decided we needed to get to the sports book to get our bets on the games. The Luxor sports book is packed; we decide to try the Luxor deli while we look over some of the lines and prop bets. The sandwich and soup were not up to par, I would avoid this place. Overpriced and quality was bad.

Our other buddy says that we should go to the Mandalay because they have a bigger book and it might be easier to place a bet. We walk to the Mandalay and it is packed too, we wait in the line and finally made our bets. I don’t remember my exact bets, but I had the Steelers, under, Antwan Randel El to score first, and total points to be between 29 and 34 or something like that. After we bet, we did a little walking through the shops between the Mandalay and Luxor. There wasn’t a Super Bowl party at the Luxor, so we were trying to decide where to watch the game. We all agreed to try Hooters.

We walk to Hooters about 30-45 minutes before the game started, and of course it is packed again. At first we find a couple seats for slot machines that had a TV right near them, but decided that wouldn’t be a good idea for a whole game. We then agreed to try the Hooters buffet, it is a little different because it looks like a restaurant/diner, but is actually a buffet. The food was decent, and the price was fair ($12.95). We had a good view of the game and watched the first half there. At half time we decided to head back to the Luxor and just watch it in our room. This was a bad idea. We get back to the room and all of us lay down, watch the game, but nobody wants to get up after the game. We were all exhausted. I was falling in and out of sleep for the next 6 hours and we kept telling each other we would “get up in one more hour”. Before I knew it, it was about 4:00 am. My flight leaves at 7:00 am, so I get in the shower and get dressed. My two other buddies a get up so that we can have a nice gambling session before I leave. We head directly to the Pai Gow table but them mins are $25 and I am on a limited time. I decide to try the roulette table. I couldn’t get anything going. The dealer kept hitting around the 5 and my numbers but never in them. I then try a few hands of Pai Gow, and get smoked in that. I couldn’t win anything at the end there. It was time for me to go, so I quickly grab my bags and head to the airport. McCarran security was nice and fast and I am on the plane without any problems. Flight back was long.

Overview:
It is hard to explain in detail, but this was one of the best trips. We had a blast at the Pai Gow tables telling old stories, jokes, etc.. Of course we didn’t cover much ground, but that usually happens. I enjoyed Hooters a lot, and will definitely return. Vegas does really wear you down, all the drinking and eating like one meal a day can really destroy the stomach. It took a couple days to recover, but I was fine.

I love Las Vegas!