This trip was to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary. We left for Dallas on the 30th to spend the night before a 7:23 am flight out. Flew American and the flight out was uneventful. The flight back was delayed one-hour dew to weather in the Dallas area.

Arrived on time and after getting luggage, caught a taxi. Line went fast and within a few minutes we had arrived at the Aladdin. Taxi cost $15 with tip I think. Very good driver, no tunnel and talked and told us what was going on in Vegas. Nice trip.

Went to check in around 8:30am and thought it might be too early. The room was in my wife’s name because she made the reservations, so I told her to do the $20 trick and let them know it was our anniversary and see if we could get an upgrade. She said she could get an upgrade without giving up an extra $20. I said ok and sent her on her way. They checked us in to our Deluxe King non smoking room on the 18th floor overlooking the pools, and if you turn your head to the right you could see the Bellagio fountains. The room was nice, clean, good maid service, but the beds were hard. I guess it was because we have pillow top matrices at home. Oh well we slept good every night.

We played all day Sunday, winning and loosing a little on the way. We had the most fun at IP on this trip because of the dealitainers. They were fun to watch and listen too. We were playing Caribbean Stud the first night at the Aladdin and met another Texan from Houston who was a fireman/paramedic. Another man sat down to play but was not putting the $1 in the bonus slot, so Houston told him that he would put the dollar in if the man would split anything that they hit. The man agreed and on the very first hand, the man hit a FULL HOUSE for $150 payout. The man did split the money and then he got up and left. We just wondered what would have happened if they had hit a Royal for $39,000.00 payout. Could have gotten real ugly. (more…)

Well, as some of you know I took a total spur of the moment trip to Vegas yesterday on about 3 hours notice after pondering it a few hours longer then that.

Meeting up with a friend here (who I’ve yet to see by the way, he went to bed about the time I arrived on the America West redeye last night). I didn’t have a hotel (could’ve crashed with him), I instead stayed up until 9:30 a.m. and at the end checked into the Orleans for $35 a night for Tue. Wed. Thurs.)

I buried the lead, I hit my first ever royal flush last night. What an awesome feeling! I’ve been playing VP for 18 years (2 years pretty intense, I used to live in Reno and played every blue moon).

It was on 25-cent DDB, at the Palms, the 100% machines right as you walk in by the sportsbook. I was dealt 3 to the royal in spades, then drew the other two and whooped it up. The machine locked up and I had to stare at it awhile.

The Palms was having problems and still is. Their computers are down they say and so the ticket in, ticket out isn’t working on very many machines. For insance, previous to the Royal, I put $100 in a machine around the corner, played it to $61.25, decided to change out and handpay celebration music came on. It took forever to get my $61, the floor lady apologized saying she’s overwhelmed as everytime someone cashes out she has to do a handpay. So I go around the corner, put in the $60 and hit the royal at $40. (more…)