Vegas XL – July 26th – 28th – Bally’s (solo trip)

WEDNESDAY

Well when we went to Vegas in May, I said that was my last trip. And for a while I was right, it was the last trip, and this was the next one. This would be my most profitable Vegas trip ever….yet at the same time I got worst beating ever from Vegas. How is that possible? Read on.

I decided to fly to Vegas this time, a decision I would later regret. I was going Wednesday through Friday, and J was going to arrive Friday afternoon. Had I driven, I could have stayed longer and hung out with him. On top of that, my friend Phrainq was talking about coming out for the weekend. The plane ticket could have been changed for a fee, but still the car would have been nice to have. I will no longer be a slave to the airlines!

But as for this story, the flight was uneventful. The elderly gentleman would not stop talking to me. He told me he was taking a break from his busy schedule to relax in Vegas. I took the bait. I asked what his busy schedule involved; he said he was on a peacekeeping mission to single handedly end the violence in Lebanon. I questioned how he would be able to do that at his age, he said it was no big deal, as he had played a key role in both Vietnam and World War I, as well as the War of 1812. Rather than question him, I changed the subject and told him how I had hoped to win money in Vegas. He told me he had the ultimate strategy for winning in Vegas, a strategy he learned from playing video poker with Frank Sinatra and Wayne Newton. As he leaned in to whisper his secrets, I realized I was sitting next to the legendary Diamond Jim.

The flight landed around noon and went to the shuttle station. I had my doubts because the last two shuttle trips took forever to get me to my hotel, but since I am still to cheap for a cab, I decided maybe the shuttle would be fast since it was day time. I lucked out, turns out they had smaller shuttles and divided the people up based on their destination, so for my shuttle it was only for people going to Bally’s or Harrah’s. I was waiting to board the shuttle and could not understand why the driver wouldn’t let us in. It turns out he locked his keys inside the shuttle. I knew at this point I had at least something amusing for the trip report. Luckily someone had small enough arms (besides me) to reach inside and unlock it for him.

Within a few minutes I had arrived at Bally’s. There were two reasons for this trip. The first one was Bally’s had sent me two free nights, and the second one was I really wanted to get trip forty out of the way so I could get started on the book. But as for Bally’s, why they sent me free nights, I have no clue. I despise Bally’s. I have had the worse luck here. So I figure either my play at Paris was good enough to get me a free stay at Bally’s, or they were impressed with my letter writing skills last year, or it was a fluke all together. But regardless, there I was.

My room was not quite ready, so I decided to take a walk towards Ellis Island with a hot tip from Diamond Jim. Along the way I decided to stop in the Westin so I could finally get a shot glass from the place. And what a great shot glass this was! It is a clear shot glass, with tiny gray lettering that says “Westin Casuarina Hotel and Casino”. It is extremely flashy and exciting to look at. Well worth the $2.99 it cost.

I finally made it to Ellis Island. I had doubts about going in there and thought could I really have luck at a place like this? I glanced over and saw Diamond Jim hanging out with the guys from ZZ Top and they motioned I go inside.

I decided to grab a player’s card. They told me to come back in 24 hours and I would have five dollars credit on the card. After I did that I went to the restaurant for their $4.95 steak special. To my surprise, I had the steak brought out to me in literally less than two minutes. The waiter came over and said, “How did you get that steak, I didn’t even get your salad yet.” He was very apologetic, I told him it was fine, I was here for the steak anyways, so I asked him if he wanted to go ahead and toss my salad that would be ok.

The meal was excellent, fast becoming one of my favorite places to eat in Vegas. While I was eating in walked a hunchback. Now I know what you are all thinking, “wow, he’s going to make a joke about hunchbacks.” Well no I’m not. A hunchback person really walked in. I was shocked. I did not know they existed. I know you are waiting for a punchline, but there is none. This person had a hump that went about 18 inches above their head. How can a person live like that! I decided if that ever happened to me, I’d want to be killed.

I finished eating quickly, and as I walked out, I noticed there was a person waiting to come into the restaurant. What kind of freak show was this? Everything was so surreal. It seemed like a dream. I was convinced it was just that.

I shrugged it off and went to the Silver Strike machine. This one was set up a little bit differently. To win the Silver Strike, you have to get two bars, then the symbol (as opposed to the symbol just being there.) This machine taunted me immensely. Oh the symbol did show up at least a dozen times on the pay line. At any other casino this would have made me a winner, but not this one. It laughed at me and proceeded to kick my ass. I did play for about twenty minutes though before finally walking away with my original $10. I would hit payouts and curse the machine for making me win! I didn’t want the money, I wanted the Silver Strike. Now I would only buy one as a last resort, but I figured since the machine is bad luck, I would just buy one from the cashier and be done with it, but they told me the only way I could get one was to win it.

Remembering the advice that Diamond Jim gave me, I went up to the bar and picked out a video poker machine. All I really wanted to do was kill some time until my room was ready. About five minutes into the game, I was dealt a Q,K,A, 10 of Spades. Wow, the closest I ever came to a Royal. I thought well isn’t this a kick in the pants. I finally get close, and I’ll hate the machine for taunting me like this.

I held the four cards and hit deal, and sat there in shock as the Jack of Spades was revealed. The machine started counting up, I looked and saw I would end up with 4000 quarters and I thought wow I bet that is a lot. I was still in disbelief, so I could not even get excited.

The bartender came over and said, “Hey you hit a royal!” I paused and said, “yeah….I guess I did. Considering how I thought I was dreaming earlier in the restaurant, I just assumed this was part of the dream. And I figured I would be waking up any moment.

He gave me $1000 cash, and I had asked if I could just get a check instead but they wouldn’t do that. I had never had this much money on me in Vegas, so I ran back to Bally’s so I could put the money away. I got back to the room and locked it in the safe and immediately called my wife and asked her to look up hotel rates for me for Friday. At this point I was excited thinking I could stay an extra day and hang out with J.

My wife called back and said that every hotel was expensive, so I began to have second thoughts. Let me just say now that this Royal Flush would be the last thing I would win in Vegas this trip. So I went from wanting to stay an extra day, to wanting to go home a day early.

With my winnings in the safe, I headed down the Strip looking for the half priced ticket places. I managed to get the last ticket remaining for Carrot Top on Wednesday evening. I headed over to the Excalibur in search of the blackjack dealer named Gay, but she was nowhere to be found. For the next hour or so I bounced around from Excalibur to Luxor to Mandalay Bay, drinking and gambling. With the exception of a $30 video poker win at Luxor, everything else was losing.

I headed over to Tropicana for another drink. They would not comp me a long island at the bar, so I settled for Jack and Coke which was fine with me. I had wanted to see the Bodies exhibit, but I was feeling a little buzzed. I decided to go outside and walk it off first. I was going to walk down to Hard Rock, but considering that it was two hundred degrees outside I decided to just stop at Hooters instead. I have finally decided that that place sucks. I thought I that was going to be my last time there, but I would later discover something that will keep me coming back. More on that later.

I went over to MGM and played blackjack for about half an hour. It was nice to see a $5 table there. In fact it was nice to see $5 tables most everyplace I went. I played for a while and ended up breaking even.

I went back to the Tropicana and went to the Bodies Exhibit. I found it very informative and interesting. I spent a good hour and a half in there reading everything. It was not gross or disturbing at all. I learned a lot from there, and I giggled at the penises. My only complaint was there were some kids there walking around aimlessly, getting in my way. There was this one kid about 9 years old; he kept walking around one of the display cases with his eyes closed. He walked right into me. I wanted to kick his ass, but I thought oh well maybe he is blind. But then I realized he was just a moron walking around with his eyes closed.

I learned that it takes your body up to twenty-four hours to complete the digestion process of food. I wondered aloud why it is that when I eat certain foods such as Chipotle or Buffalo Wild Wings, my body turns it into liquid feces within a matter of minutes. With nobody around to answer my question, I moved on.

Aside from all that I highly recommend this exhibit. I later learned that half priced tickets for this as well as Titanic are in fact available at the various half priced outlets.

I still had some time to kill before Carrot Top so I headed back over to Mandalay Bay. Well according to my notes, this was my first time at MB this trip, so either I lied earlier or was mistaken. But I was at MB, at the video poker bar again, scamming drinks when I could, but also playing extended sessions at times too. Still losing of course.

I had a nice buzz going on so I called my friend Chris from Mandalay Bay where he used to work and urged him to come hang out, but since he doesn’t live in Vegas anymore, we did not hang out.

I went on to the Luxor and saw they had Waborita’s by the yard at one of those places outside the theater. I wanted to buy one but it costs $23 for a Waborita and I didn’t want to spend that much. Looking back, I wish I bought one, but then again it probably would have wiped me out during the show. Still, I should have bought one afterwards.

I walked in the theater and my seat was in Row J. I saw Row K, but instead of going one below, I decided to walk into Row L. I cut half way across over a bunch of people and told someone they were in my seat. Once I realized I was the buffoon in the wrong row, I had to do the march of shame all the way back across while people laughed and pelted me with rocks and garbage. Finally I made it to my correct seat just before the show started. I won’t go into details, but this is a very funny show and I highly recommend it. I was laughing non-stop during the whole show. I am glad I got a chance to see this show. I wanted to go back in March with Becky and her husband but they wouldn’t give me the time of day.

After the show I stumbled on over to NY,NY. I grabbed a piece of pizza and walked around the casino for a little bit but did not play anything. I headed back north and decided to stop inside Polo Towers. I thought that the 1% chance of the lounge being open would happen so I thought I better check. Now go ahead and laugh if you must, roll your eyes, talk crap about me behind my back. But sooner or later the lounge WILL re-open. It will not be a big news bulletin, it will happen quietly and things will be back the way they used to be. But the only way we will know about this is if someone continues to check. That someone is me. So I went over this time, asked the girl at the counter if it was really closed permanently and she said yes. I was not in the mood to argue so I left it at that.

I went over to the Bellagio. I was going to go into the high roller’s bar where Frank had made the glass, but I thought that I probably couldn’t get comped drinks for putting a $5 in a video poker machine there. I found a Silver Strike machine and finally won one from Bellagio, except it sucked. It says Shadow Creek Hole #3 on the back, I have no idea what that is. I would have rather had one with the fountains. So I figured I would just trade it at the cashier’s window. After waiting in line for what seemed like thirty minutes I was told that they don’t have any. They offered me $10 for it but I decided to just keep it for my collection anyways.

I made my way back over to Bally’s and hit the bar one last time on my way up….and lost even more money. The Royal Flush I had won earlier seemed like it was just a distant memory in the past. All I could focus on now was how much I was losing, and how I could make it stop. Two drinks later I was up in my room and in bed.

I found out that Swingers was on TBS, so I left that on while I dozed off. I thought, “Watching Swingers in Vegas, it doesn’t get any better than this.”

THURSDAY

I didn’t sleep that good because I kept waking up and forgetting where I was. A couple of times I would go look out the window and wonder why I was in the room, and not out on the Strip. Each time I would just go back to sleep. Finally I woke up. Got out of bed. Ran a comb across my head. It was 8:30 AM so I decided to hit the street and make the most out of the day. I remember in the past when I would be going to bed at 8:30 and sleeping until two or three PM.

But anyways, I headed over to Flamingo because I had a coupon left over from the ACG. It was play $10 in slots, get $10 free. I had no idea what this meant and I wanted to find out. Turns out you play $10 in slots. Then if you lose, you get your money back. Simple enough, but by the time I waited in line for everything, not sure how much that was worth it. I guess it’s good to reclaim your losses.

I went over to O’Sheas to make sure the place was still open and that Vince Neil didn’t close it down. I was assured by O’Sheas President Diamond Jim that the place was in fact staying open.

I wandered back down to Barbary Coast and used up a couple of Pai Gow Poker match play coupons I had. Ended up playing the game for about an hour or so. I saw a sign that said “Craps Lessons 10:30.” Now I’ve had trouble off an on with plugging toilets, or crapping on the side of the bowl for example, so I thought maybe I was doing something wrong. I wanted to give the craps lesson a try and see if I could improve my technique. Well it turned out the lesson was really just on the dice game, so although my problem wasn’t solved, I did get a better understanding of the game of craps.

After that I played Pai Gow Poker again for another hour and it was time to meet some people for lunch. I had been in Vegas for almost 24 hours and had still not had any prime rib, so we went to the Victorian Room at Barbary Coast. I had met two women from our Las Vegas office at work. It was nice, they bought me lunch, and we talked about work, nothing too exciting.

The main thing on my list of things to do was to bid farewell to the Stardust. After lunch I decided to make my way down there. I wanted to do as many different types of gambling in the place, and get a few drinks, as my way of saying goodbye. I arrived at the Stardust soaked in sweat and one person asked me if it was raining outside, that’s how bad it was. I went to the sports book and made a three-team baseball parlay which I would end up losing. Next up was craps. Stardust kicked my ass badly at that. I decided to try my luck at Blackjack. I bought in for $50 and within minutes I had lost 6 straight hands so I decided to quit.

I was waiting for another drink so I hung around and chatted with the dealer. The drink service was a little slow because the cocktail waitress was about 90 years old. So the dealer (who was a spring chicken at 55 years old compared to the waitress) and I talked about the Stardust closing, and this and that. I told her how I was taking home a $5 chip as a souvenir and she told me there were special commemorative chips that said 1958-2006 that were hard to find, so she looked in her rack and found me one.

Finally the cocktail waitress arrived, and kept on walking. She went onto the next table with a whole tray full of drinks and proceeded to unload them. I figured she would just come back with mine, but I watched in horror as she handed my drink to this big burly biker dude.

The dealer yelled over “Hey that belongs over here.” But the biker had already taken a sip. To my dismay the waitress took the drink back from him and headed my way. I said nooooooooo no no no no that’s not necessary. The guy yelled over that he liked the drink, so I told him he could keep it, and requested another one of my own. Who would have guessed that a biker would have liked a Shirley Temple? (Thank you B7’s)

I went over to try my hand at roulette. I hit the first number I bet on, so I thought my luck was turning around, but then I proceeded to get my ass kicked the rest of the way. I had given up on gambling, but still wanted a Silver Strike from the Dust. I tried to buy one from the cashier but they told me the only way I could get one was to win one. So $20 and two drinks later I did not have my Silver Strike, so I gave up and decided to just get one off of ebay.

Next up it was time to say goodbye to the Frontier, but since the Stardust just kicked my ass I was in no mood to give money to the Frontier. I went in and played Sigma Derby for about half an hour. I put $5 in, played it all the way down to one quarter, and slowly won it all back. So that was better than losing. And then any chance of momentum was ruined when I lost $20 in three straight hands of blackjack.

So at this point the beatings had taken a toll on my moral. Forget staying an extra day, I was now considering going home early. Should I pay the $50 to change my plane ticket or should I stick it out, risk losing more money. But maybe my luck would change. While I pondered my fate I headed into the Fashion Show Mall to get out of the heat. It turned out that the Blue Man Group was doing an in store appearance at one of the watch stores, so I headed over there to check it out. I was mainly just killing time when I realized how pathetic I was. Here I was, in a mall in Vegas, just because I was afraid to lose. Surely I couldn’t spend 15 hours in the mall.

I walked by the half priced ticket place and decided to take a look at what was available that night. I figure at least let me enjoy a show and spent the money on that, rather than give it away at the tables. I decided to get a ticket to see the Fab Four at the Aladdin. I wondered out loud why I didn’t think of this sooner. I was unable to get an answer, and people just stared at me wondering why I was talking to myself.

With ticket in hand, I crossed to the other side of the Strip. The problem wasn’t that I didn’t have money; the problem was I was afraid I would lose what I had. I thought some fast $25 blackjack at Wynn or the Venetian could win my back some money and I would be happy again. But I decided that I could lose just as easily and didn’t want to risk it. By the way, the sign next to the Venetian that says “OPENING SOON: WALGREENS.” Is that legit or is that just another Coming Soon: Country Land USA deal?

I headed south down the Strip and stopped inside Imperial Palace. I wanted to get some of the 30th Anniversary chips, but was told they had sold out instantly. This was a surprise to me. When I would get home I would email Gregg about this and he pointed out that he sent me an article stating they probably would sell out instantly. I guess I should have read more carefully.

One of the main reasons I chose to take Bally’s up on their offer was so I could spend time relaxing at the pool. Instead of swimming, I had spent hours walking countless miles in the sweltering heat, so I decided pool time was necessary. I spent an hour swimming before it was time to go over to the Aladdin for the show.

As for the show itself, it was great. It seemed to go by pretty fast at just barely over an hour, but it was excellent. I won’t go into specifics, but there were several costume changes as the band progressed into the different eras. I highly recommend this show. Included on my ticket was a 2 for 1 drink coupon which I HAD to take advantage of. When I got to the show, they brought me down to the 3rd row since there was one open seat there. Unfortunately when I was getting my drinks, the show started, and there was just no way I was going to get back to my seat in the dark and having to climb over people, so I just took an empty seat near the back of the theater, which ended up being fine with me.

I had a coupon for four free cocktails from Ellis Island, so I decided to go back there and get drunk. The coupon came courtesy of Randy, so thank you very much for that. I was going to trade him my Orleans and Gold Coast coupons, however they still have not turned up even after I tore my house apart looking for them, so I am convinced they are in the rental car that we drove in May. Randy said that was ok, and that I could still have my coupon for future considerations. Now I don’t know what a “reach around” is but Randy said I will learn, and I will like it.

So I go to Ellis Island and I’m surprised to see how packed it was. I wanted a steak dinner again but they told me it was a thirty-minute wait. I put my name down and then went to the bar to use my drink coupon. So I had my drinks, one after another, and then thought I could hit another royal flush. Sure it took me ten years and forty trips to hit my first one, but I’m sure the second one was right around the corner. Four drinks and $20 later I still had not hit my second royal.

I had a few blackjack match play coupons to use so I went to try that game. I actually had to stand and wait for a seat to open up, that’s how crowded it was. I spent more time waiting, than actually playing, because when I sat down I lost 3 straight hands and was done. To add insult to injury I looked over and saw a girl had just one her third Silver Strike. I thought about asking her if I could just buy one of them but decided not too. Looking back, I wish I would have offered her $10 for one, as I came home and could not find one on ebay as of yet.

Finally my name was called and I went into the restaurant for my steak dinner, which was actually free for joining the player’s club. The first meal took a whole 2 minutes to get my steak, this time it took at least 15 minutes to get my salad. The service was quite different this time, but at least there were no freak shows to spoil my appetite. It was hear I contemplated the rest of my trip. To think originally I wanted to stay another day, even another two days. At one point I was thinking of flying home Friday and driving back to Vegas Friday night with Phrainq, creating the shortest turnaround trip in Vegas history. Sure it would have been stupid, but I liked the idea of posting two trip reports for two different trips back to back.

I originally thought that I could hang out with Phrainq and J another day or two, but that was before the losing started. And the losing didn’t end either. Now instead of staying more time, I was seriously thinking of running home Thursday with my tail between my legs. Finally I was able to talk some sense into myself and told myself to quit being a coward. So what, I’m losing, big deal, it happens. I berated myself for not being happy that I won $1000 the previous day. I reminded myself that there is no law saying I had to bring the entire $1000 home. So I made up my mind to go out and have fun, take another $100 out of the safe and quit whining if I lose. So I made up my mind, I would stay the last night there instead of running away. Besides, even if I flew home then, with my luck I would have gotten a DUI on the way home from the airport after all I had been drinking that day. Boo Hoo. I really need to quit whining. “Waah, I won $1000 but it’s not good enough. My vagina hurts. Waaaah.”

Even if I wasn’t going to gamble, I was going to drink and have fun. I went over to 7-11 and got a liter-sized bottle of Smirnoff Ice. The clerk handed it back to me in a brown paper bag. This is what Vegas is all about. I proudly walked back to Bally’s drinking from my paper bag.

Panic. It crept up my spine like first rising vibes of an acid frenzy. All of these horrible realities began to dawn on me. Here I was, alone, in Las Vegas. Completely twisted on booze. No cash. No story for the magazine. I don’t even know who won the race. How would Horatio Alger have handled this situation?

I got to Bally’s and went up to my room and shat. I apologize for that last sentence, but some of my readers may be concerned if I don’t mention that at least once in a trip report. Next I went downstairs and got a pass for the monorail, and proceeded to ride that down to the Las Vegas Hilton. Next up on my agenda was the Star Trek bar, and a drink that glowed and had smoke coming out of it.

I got to the bar and was informed I needed a warp core breach. I thought about drinking a full one but thought it would hurt too much the next morning (again, one of those things in retrospect, I wish I would have just done.) I had a coupon that was good for a free Mini-Breach with the purchase of an appetizer. I wasn’t hungry, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out it’s better to pay $8 for the appetizer and get the free drink than to pay $12.50 for the drink itself. So I got the fried pipius claws, buffalo style. They were excellent, except a little bit on the spicy side for me so I only ate half, but I did enjoy my drink.

On the way out I grabbed two bottles of Sulu’s Spicy Asian Zing sauce. I asked the woman who worked there if the sauce was spicy and I explained how much of a wuss I was. She said Sulu is peaceful, he would never hurt me. I said I agreed, but then worried if George Takai would burn me on the way out. OH MY!

I was getting ready to call it a night, so I jumped back on the monorail and road it all the way to MGM, where I expected to walk back to Bally’s. I had a match play coupon for Tropicana so I decided to go over there for my last blackjack of the trip. As I was walking over, I saw something that made me stop dead in my tracks. I saw a sign….not just any sign. Could it be? Or was this just another dream? I saw a sign that said “PRIME RIB DINNER $5.95 24/7.” This was the same sign that hung at San Remo for many years. I could have sworn this sign had disappeared during the Hooters transition, but now here it was, back again! Now I had just eaten the steak AND the pipius claws, so there was no way I could go over to have prime rib, but I vowed that next time I would check it out.

I continued on to the Tropicana and lost my blackjack bet (hey imagine that!) I got one more drink from the bar and headed back to Bally’s. Now earlier on the monorail, I had discovered that since the train passed so close to Bally’s, that I should have turned a light on in my room so I could have seen which room was mine. Oh well, too late for that. I showered and walked back into the room and saw the monorail go by. I realized that people could in fact see me if they were looking, so I spent the next half hour pressing ham every time the monorail went by, and giggling hysterically. I don’t know if anyone saw me, but I figure if they were looking in that direction, they would have seen me. I kept on looking behind me waiting to see flash bulbs, but it never happened.

I went to bed shortly after that but sleep would not come easily. I woke up several times afraid that someone had reported my mooning, and they were coming to arrest me. Yes, I seriously dreamt this. I woke up several times that night, and at 6:30 I decided to just get up for the day. I yelled out “hey! There’s still something I have to do, come on!”

I packed up my things and headed south. There was on more thing…..the San Remo Prime Rib Dinner! I mean breakfast, whatever. It was a beautiful morning and I enjoyed the walk. Even though I was battered and bruised from the gambling losses, part of me was sad that it was time to go home. I walked by the Boardwalk and noticed for the first time it is completely gone, clown head and everything. The only thing left is the sign that said Boardwalk, and I imagine that is the last time I saw that. To my left I looked up and noticed, “Hey I can see the balcony where we hung out at Palooza!” I reminisced about that night, but then reminisced about the old days when the lounge was open, and a tear came to my eye. (Hey F U!)

I finally made it to San Remo, I mean Hooters, and discovered that the Prime Rib special was in fact in The Dam Restaurant. I was hesitant. Would this be the same prime rib? Would it be any good if it wasn’t? I was happy to discover that yes, this was in fact the same meal as served in San Remo. Nothing like Prime Rib at 7 am!!! Unfortunately, I don’t know how much of a tradition this will be. The prime rib was good, and when I used to go there all the time as San Remo, it was a Vegas staple. But since then, I’ve discovered the Barbary Coast Victorian Room, which is better, so who knows.

The decision to flee came suddenly, or maybe not. Maybe I planned it all along. Subconsciously waiting for the right moment. The bill was a factor I think, because I had no money to pay for it. My room service tabs had been running somewhere between $29 and $36 per hour. For 48 consecutive hours. Incredible. How could it happen? But by the time I asked this question, there was no one around to answer. That rotten attorney of mine Dr. Gonzo was gone. He must have sensed trouble.

There is only one road back to LA. US Interstate 15. Just a flat out high-speed burn thru Baker and Barstow. Then onto the Hollywood Freeway straight into frantic oblivion. Safety. Obscurity. Just another freak, in the freak kingdom. I’d gone in search of the American Dream. It had been a lame ****. A waste of time. There was no point in looking back. **** no, not today, thank you kindly. My heart was filled of joy. I felt like a monster reincarnation of Horatio Alger. A man on the move. And just sick enough, to be totally, confidant.

A quick cab ride to the airport and it was time to go home. It is still difficult for me to think of this as a successful trip. Granted I won the $1000, but the beating I took every time after that left more of an impression. Forty trips to Vegas in ten years. How is that even possible? Am I insane? Well the trip was necessary, I wanted to get 40 out of the way so I could write a book. Unfortunately I realized I am burnt out on Vegas. I don’t know if this is legit, or I just am feeling that way because of the beating I took, but for the first time I was really glad to be home instead of in Vegas (although two days later part of me wishes I was there now!) But who knows. I can say that I am done with Vegas for the time being, but the real question is, is Las Vegas done with me? The choice is not mine to make.

Just got back late last night from 6 nights in my favorite city, Las Vegas. The weather was sunny, but a bit cool, and the nights were cold. I had expected this. This was a solo trip for me.

Flew TED non-stop from Dulles.

First 2 nights were at Harrah’s. My room was nice, but nothing special. Did have a coffee maker, however.

Harrah’s has lots of coupons available for 1/2 price shows, plus $5 off their newly remodeled buffet, Flavors. I ate a lunch at Flavors, and my food was good. Sushi and pizza have been added.

Enjoyed another lunch at Toby Keiths, I Love This Bar and Grill which is upstairs by the monorail entrance. Lots of football fans there during the playoffs. Had a 1/2 lb burger with all the trimmings.

Room and meals at Harrah’s were comped.

Met a friend and her family from Florida for dinner on two occasions at The Grand Lux in the Venetian. Everyone raved about their choice and the service was excellent.

Moved to Bally’s for day 3 and 4. I used to stay at Paris, but the last two times I have stayed at Bally’s. The decor of my Bally’s rooms resembles Paris quite a bit. My room had a light blue velvet sofa and granite desk. Very comfortable bed and pillows.

I was there for a Waterford crystal promotion. Was given a choice of Waterford, and I chose a good-size bowl. I wrapped it carefully and put it in my suitcase and it survived the trip. I believe a bowl of this size is usually $200+, so it was a nice perk.

Had a Paris buffet dinner, which I always enjoy, and a nice meal at the Sidewalk Cafe. Since the changeover to the Total Rewards card, employees bent over backward for me as a Platinum cardholder.
Showing my card at the buffet (as a line pass) I was immediately ushered to the cashier. Then I was passed off to a man who greeted me by name and shook my hand and introduced me to the woman who walked me to my table. At the cafe, at least 4 different employees checked on my well being while I was eating. Even the manager stopped by to say hello. I think because the concept of tiered cards is new I got this treatment, but it did make me feel special.

Room and meals at Bally’s were comped.

Day 5 and 6 were spent at the Stardust. This is apparently the last year for this hotel and I will miss it. But, I always like new hotels, too, so I expect I will give Echelon (or whatever it is called) a visit or two.

Ate all my meals at the cafe, seated at the counter. The counter is a perfect spot for solo diners and there is no wait ever. One night, feeling under the weather with a cold, I had the Japanese soup (sorry, can’t remember the name) which was filled with shrimp, chicken, pork, noodles and veggies in a broth. It did help me feel better. Another night, had their steak and lobster dinner (about $10) with coupon, and, although not outstanding, it was just fine.

Room and meals at Stardust were comped, plus received $100 cash at check-in.

Gambling is why I go to Las Vegas. This trip I didn’t even see a show.
I spent much time in front of penny slot machines and some nickels.
Overall, I had lots of small wins which added up and came home with me.
I did win $200 on a Hot Hot Penny machine, and $150 when 4 dueces were dealt to me on a nickel triple play. Lots of other wins were in the $50 - $100 range. My budget was $200 a day, but I didn’t spend that much.

I usually don’t schedule my trips so close together, but I will return for a 7 night stay from February 22-March 1. 2 nights at Rio to pick up a $100 Visa gift card, 2 nights at Stardust and another $100 cash, and 3 nights at LVHilton to play in a slot tournament. The real reason for going is to play in the first ever World Bunco Championship Tournament held at Paris. 1000 women from around the world will compete and the top prize is $50,000. Although I really don’t expect to win, it should be a great experience.