Destination: Las Vegas
Start date of trip: July 16 to the 24th 2005
Traveling companions: My husband Mario and son Mike
Goal of trip: FUN! And showing Mike the sights

Day 1

I had promised my son that I would take him to Vegas as soon as I came into a little money that I was inheriting. In spite of my husband’s declarations that only CRAZY people go to Vegas in July, I went ahead and booked…. Saturday and Sunday night at the Golden Nugget, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday nights at the Mirage, and Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at MGM Grand. I figured my 17 year old would get a good look at least 3 different areas that way. Of course it would turn out to be record-breaking temperatures this week and so we experienced the first 117 F day we have ever had in our lives. But oh well……hot or not…I was going to have fun!

We flew out of Detroit on America West at about 7 AM and landed in Vegas around 9 AM. Taxi to Golden Nugget cost $30 with a $5 tip. (Too much, I know, but WHO CARES…I AM IN VEGAS AGAIN!!!) Can’t check-in to the Nugget so early so we went and had breakfast and came back at 11AM. Received a very nice standard room in the South Tower. We took our son for a bit of a walk around the shops downtown and bought some cheap pop and beer. ( A bottle of Diet Coke cost $1.39 downtown and $2.25 in Mirage’s gift shop and $3.00 in Mirage’s vending machine!) Went back to check out the Nugget’s pool. Very hot…very crowded. The water in the pool needs ice cubes or something. Coming from Canada, swimming in water that warm is like swimming in pee. It was not very refreshing…so we gave up after a short while and went back to the room and cleaned up. At check-in the Nugget gave us a book of coupons which included a 2 for 1 dinner/lunch buffet and a 2 for 1 breakfast buffet. We used the dinner buffet one and found it to be very tasty and a good value…even without the coupon. Walked down to the Plaza to take in the Larry G. Jones show from 6 to 7. You get in for the price of an (over-priced) drink. An entertaining way to spend an hour. He is very good. My husband went back to the room and my son and I spent most of the night walking in circles under the canopy, taking in the light shows and bands and street performers. Also shared a football of beer with him and he was quite impressed with the entire Fremont atmosphere and the fact that no one seems to care about how he was drinking underage! I attempted to gamble for a while after he went to bed but I couldn’t get anything going with the Nugget slots so I called it a night.

Day 2

Location: Golden Nugget
Sunday
I decided since there are a limited amount of things to do with a 17 year old downtown during the day that I would take him over to the Rio today. My husband is a Trekkie and he wanted to check out the Hilton so we cabbed over there. Had a bowl of fruit in their coffee shop and discovered that everything in the Star Trek area didn’t open till after 11AM. We tried the monorail for the first time and rode over to Harrahs and took the free shuttle over to the Rio. I had the coupon for $5 off the buffet but, even with all my research, I had forgotten that Sunday has that darn Champagne brunch that costs an arm and a leg. I was thinking I would be paying $10 a head and it was going to be around $23 instead so we left there and hopped back on the shuttle back to Harrah’s to try their buffet and darn if they don’t have a Champagne brunch too!~ WELL….the Imperial Palace next door does NOT have a Champagne brunch so we ended up there. It was edible but the fish sure tasted funny. To their credit they had fabulous lime cheesecake. The best cheesecake of all the buffets I tried…amazingly enough.
After lunch we took the shuttle BACK to the Rio and bought tickets to the Ronn Lucas show. Again for the price of even more over-priced drinks. It cost $31 for the 3 of us and he was excellent! Very talented performer. By the time we got out of there we were in time to watch a Show in the Sky. My son refused to dance and wiggle so the girls would throw beads at him….but my husband had no problem doing this. So he caught lots and beads and gave them all to my son.
Mike wanted to spend the evening the same way we had the night before, so my husband went to sleep and we wandered, this time with Margaritas in hand. I managed to get in another try at the slots but again strike out. I concur with other posters opinion about the Nugget’s slots They are TIGHT. I even tried at Binion’s but not much luck there either.

Day 3

Location: Move to Mirage
Monday
Today we packed up and moved to Mirage. Mario and I had found the casino so dismal at the Nugget that we didn’t qualify for any comps. I hoped Mirage would be kinder. We tried to check in around noon. They did all the paperwork but told us to check back later. As part of our package we were given 2 passes to the Secret Garden. Mike and I checked that out to kill some time. It was very enjoyable…but you couldn’t linger for long in that heat. I called to see if the room was ready at 1 pm and it was, so we moved in. I was surprised to discover that the rooms at Mirage were identical in layout and decoration to the rooms at the Nugget. I guess that is the “Steve Wynn” influence. Anyhow, I really appreciated the makeup table and lighted mirror outside the bathroom when I was trying to get ready for the day.
Mike and I decided to visit this pool that we had heard so much about. Let me preface this by saying that I have only done Vegas trips in the spring, never when school was out, so I found the huge number of children at the pool to be annoying. I mean…I enjoyed myself regardless…..but there were hundreds of rugrats there. WAY too many for my taste.
We cleaned up and I wanted to try the Grande Lux that I had heard so much about so we went over to the Venetian for dinner. The food was great, the portions were huge, but I was disappointed in the cheesecake. We made the mistake of ordering the 6 carb, diet cheesecake…which was good but no different from what I make at home. (I made a mental note to have the “real thing” next time.) Mario wandered off on his own. Mike wanted to try the “Haunted Vegas Tour “ that night. I called around 6:30 pm and was stunned to discover that it was sold out. I figured something at the Greek Isles wouldn’t be that big a draw but I guess I was wrong. So we jumped in a cab and headed up to the comedy show at the Riviera, for which I had 2 for 1 coupons. That turned out to be a great idea because the headliner was Joey Cola who I recognized from TV and he is an excellent comic. We had a wonderful time. Once again my son was impressed by the fact that I could go over to the bar and buy him a drink and no one batted an eye about it. Mind you…he is 6 foot 2 and 180 pounds so he looks fairly mature…but I still think if you look at his face you can tell he is not 21.…but as long as they are making money they don’t seem to care. Mike just loved all of this…..and he wanted to try Pina Coladas that night.

Got back to the room around 10:30, tucked my son in…and went to hit the Mirage casino. Finally……a decent slot machine or two. I was playing a very nice Double Double Triple Somethingorother and darned if I didn’t get a Double Triple Red Seven line up for me for about 1400 quarters. Then…about two seconds later I got a Double Double Double Bars line up too! So the machine was up to about 1700 points and everyone was glaring at me with ill-disguised envy! Whoo Hoo! I love those moments. Of course, by around 3 am I had put it all back in various machines…but hey…that’s gambling for you. Oh…I had mentioned to all of the hotels that it was our 25th (actually August 9th …but close enough) and Mirage is the only place that did anything. They sent up a free bottle of champagne for us…..which was much enjoyed and appreciated.

Day 4

Location: Mirage
Tuesday
Charged 3 breakfast buffets from Craving to our room because I knew I had a $20 food credit as part of my package. Great buffet but ugly décor in my opinion. Wandered thru Caesar’s and Bellagio. Crossed the street at Harrah’s to hit Mac King’s 1 pm show. He was out of town but his replacement was still enjoyable. I am not much impressed by magic…you can only watch knots fall off of ropes so many times……but I like the comedy part of the show. My son decided he liked Mudslides at this show. (I know…corrupting a minor…but he only had one drink a day….he can handle it….I’d rather he learned how to hold his liquor with me…than without me)

Went back to Mirage to rest until dinner. Went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner to make another stab at getting this fabulous famous cheesecake. This time we succeeded…but it was kind of TOO MUCH! LOL…what is with the 45 pounds of whipped cream they put on the thing?? We liked it but we all ended up feeling slightly nauseous after we shoveled it all down. I guess there can be “too much of a good thing”.

Mike and I had bought tickets for We Will Rock You from Goldstar.com for $26.50 a piece. I must say that when I am sitting at home in Ontario clicking buttons online to buy things down in Vegas I am afraid that I am just buying air. I was terrified that I would get to the box office at Paris and they would laugh in my face and say “ Yeah…that Goldstar thing is a big scam!” BUT, happily, it all worked out fine. Mind you…we were in the very last row…but we could see and hear just fine. The guy to my left paid $53 dollars for his ticket and the lady to my right had bought hers that day for $80!!!!! And we are all in the same row! Weird eh?? Needless to say I was very pleased with my price. The show was 2 hours long but we loved every minute of it and my son said it was his favorite part of the trip. That lead singer was fabulous…I hear he is leaving…that is a real shame.

After the show I wanted my son to see the lights from the top of the Eiffel tower. Which is again OVER-PRICED, $27 for 3 people, and a long wait even at 10:30 on a Tuesday night. I had kind of forgotten that Mike is not all that fond of heights. Actually I am not either…so although it was pretty ..I would have to say that we didn’t enjoy it that much. Mike didn’t like that it was open to the air…he feels safer when it is enclosed. Back to the Mirage and husband and son go to bed and I was up until 4 am trying to duplicate my luck of the night before. I had fun but no big hits. ( Or what I interpret as a big hit, ha ha!).

Day 5

Location: Mirage
Wednesday

Decided to try the lunch buffet over at TI for our first meal of the day. Actually, there were a lot of days that we only ate one buffet and maybe a handful of nuts before we went to bed. I liked TI buffet better than Mirage’s. The food was similar but the desserts and décor were better at TI. Actually I went to the slot club desk to ask for free buffets and apparently this is not the best thing to do. She told me it would be better to just charge it to Mirage and see if they would comp it at the end of my stay. She said taking the comp now would affect my bottom line totals. This was very confusing to me because last year the One Club people at Luxor told me the exact opposite of this. I guess the slot clubs must work differently. Anyhow…I asked to have it free then…so maybe that is why I didn’t get much comped when I checked out.

My husband said he wanted to give me a day to myself and that he would take Mike to the Star Trek attractions and to the Rat Pack show that night. I seemed to recall reading here that those tickets were usually available at the half-price places so we walked next door to the Fashion Show mall and got both attractions for 2 ppl for $100. So that saved us some money.
With the fellas taken care of I was free to explore. I spent another 2 hours losing money at Mirage, then I moseyed over to a “In the Money” machine that had been kind to me another night. And darn if I didn’t get Five times, Five times, Triple bars after just a few spins. This turned out to be 1000 quarters ..so now I was up $250 so I decided to go back to my old stomping grounds where I had played a lot last year. Luxor and Excalibur.
My favorite machines at Luxor had been moved to the lobby. It took me a while to find them. They weren’t co-operating as well as last year so I returned to my favorite Blazing 7 over at the EX. It was as good as before and I played that machine for about 6 hours straight. At about 11 pm I decided to take a stroll down the strip to enjoy the lights on my way back to Mirage. That was one of the highlights of my trip… It had cooled down to 95 (!!??!!) so the walk was bearable and I never get enough of those gorgeous, twinkling lights and the crowds and the fountains and all the other things that make VEGAS…VEGAS!!

Day 6

Location: Moving to MGM Grand
Thursday
This AM I went to the slot club desk to see if they would comp anything and all he would do was take off about $20 of food. (In addition to the food credit I had already with the deal) He also gave me the lecture about not taking comps as I go….to leave it all on the room bill till the end. Then he saw I was from Ontario and started talking hockey to me. So, while there were 50 people behind me in line we stood there talking about the draft and who should get Sidney Crosby etc etc etc ……After a few minutes of hockey talk he comped us three more lunch buffets for that day so I was happy for that. Hockey knowledge comes in handy after all!

Cabbed over to MGM Grand and checked in…but once again had to wait awhile for the room to be cleaned. (Please remember people, when you book these special deals online at the hotel’s site…make a print-out of all things your package includes. Mine had 2 $50 flight vouchers, a premium view etc. The clerk at the front desk looked at me like I was from Mars and said “Who did you book that with…America West?” and I said “No…this was your website.” Finally he figured out that I had to deal with the slot club for those perks. But if I hadn’t had it all there in black and white I don’t think he would have believed me.) Also I would like to mention that at none of these hotels did I mention that I had a third person with me. My son and husband just went and sat on a bench while I checked in for us. These places are so huge they never clue in to it. And it is a big chunk of change that is better left in my pocket to gamble with.

Mike and I wanted to check out the Shark Reef at Mandalay Bay so we took the Tram over. I would advise against doing this attraction at all costs. The ad says it will kill an hour…..more like 15 minutes for $15.95 per person. The only way it could take that long was if you stood in one place listening to the recording of everything every fish ate, and where they lived and how often they mated, and who with…..…and blah blah blah. Also I assumed it would be air conditioned and it was not comfortable down there at all. My son and I agree that this was the biggest RIP-OFF of the trip. It should cost $5 instead. Don’t go!

We walked back though the Luxor so I could show him how cool it was in there. We went back to MGM to get cleaned up for Blue Man Group that night. What can you say about this show. You have to do it once. I don’t want to give it away….but I laughed so hard I cried. (and peed…a little) What a hoot! Part of the time you are wondering what on earth these twits are doing…and part of the time you love it. It is just something everyone has to experience for themselves!
Tried to talk Mike into taking another walk down the strip so he could see the fountains up close, but he was tired and he knew I wanted to hit the slots. So he went to bed and I actually managed to find a Blazing Seven that kept me even for the next 3 days. LOVE THAT MACHINE!! I would go up and down…but after 3 or 4 hours I was always back where I started financially, so that was just peachy with me. Even my husband played a little more here. He found their slots to be looser as well.

Day 7

Location: MGM Grand
Friday
Went to have the Breakfast buffet at MGM Grand. Great food…charged it to the room. We walked over to the Coke Bottle to see if I could get half price tickets for Haunted Vegas that night and succeeded. You people on Las Vegas Talks would have been very proud of me in that line-up. As we stood there for about an hour it became clear to everyone around me that I knew a lot about Vegas and the shows …so I had about 20 people asking me questions. My husband said I should work there. One of the things I was advising them on was which shows had nudity and which didn’t. There really should be a rating system up on the screen so that parents would know. Sometimes you can tell by the name…but sometimes you can’t.
We walked through the Desert Passage shops. I have a favorite jewellery store there and I bought a garnet ring to match a necklace and earring set I got there last year. Also stopped at Sephora and bought some Lip Venom to try. It burns but I love it!!
My son wanted to see Madame Tussaud’s before we left on Saturday so next we hopped on the monorail down to Venetian. The clerk let me use my 2 for 1 coupon for after 5 pm even though it was only 1 pm. I practically KISSED him!!! (So nice when they let you save a little money! We both got in for $23) We really enjoyed taking goofy pictures with all the wax works. We even loved the silly haunted house. We wandered around the shops at Venetian afterwards then we took the Monorail to the Greek Isles to pick up out Haunted Vegas tickets.

We were way too early so we decided to eat there. The Chicken fingers were fine but we were the only people in the restaurant! We still had time to kill so we walked towards the strip and stumbled across this store called Ross. We don’t have these in Canada. No offense to anyone intended…but I have never seen such a messy store in my life! Half of the merchandise was on the floor and it didn’t seem to be anyone’s job to pick it up! Well…even though it was messy and the clientele was kind of scary…they had some good deals. So both Mike and I got two shirts each for about 40 bucks. Then we wandered around Walgreens. Also exciting for us… we don’t have these either.

Then it was back to Greek Isles. The Tour starts with a goofy little show which is just killing time. Then they load you on a bus and drive you around Vegas pointing out sites. My son liked this but to me most of the information was old news. I know all about Bugsy Siegel and the MGM fire etc. But I was happy if Mike was happy. Home to bed for Mike and back to that same Blazing Seven for me till 4 AM.

(I am functioning on about 4 hrs sleep a night thru most of this trip….YAWN>>>>but the middle of the night is the only time I get to gamble.)

Day 8

Location: MGM Grand to HOME!
Saturday
Mike wanted MGM’s buffet again and whoops..another one of those Champagne buffets. This time I just didn’t care and just charged it to the room. This was the only place where anyone said anything about Mike having a drink. I was letting him take a sip of my champagne and the waitress came over and asked me not to. I assume the only way she knew was because I didn’t pay for a champagne buffet for him. Funny…they finally said something on the last day.

We walked over to see the free Museum of Gambling at the TROP which was really quite interesting. My son liked watching the film of the implosions and the MGM fire etc.
We decided to do Titanic too…which was cool but we were just too tired to absorb it. Mike went back to the room to rest and I put in my last 2 hours at “MY” machine. Then I went to the slot club to see what they could do for me before I checked out. I had already paid $59.00 for Thursday’s deposit. I was thrilled to have them comp Friday and Saturday night. Also we had $100 worth of food charges on the bill and they took off $60. And he gave me $60 cash back! So all I put on my credit card there was $40 of food. Very pleased with MGM. Room was great (No make-up mirror though) food was great…slots were great….comps were EXCELLENT! I’ll BE BACK!

Staggered to the airport and took the redeye back to Detroit where it was pouring rain. The only good thing about coming home to me (other than to see the rest of my family of course) is to HAVE MOISTURE IN MY NOSE AGAIN! Geez that air in Vegas is dry!
That’s it, boys and girls! Until the next time!

Posted by Blonde4ever_in_Canada on LVTalk