Trip Report 1/17/2013 - 1/20/2013
Started by Skywise on Sunday, 20th January 2013 10:25 pm
Got away from corn country to some warmer weather (relatively speaking, that is) with a relative to part-ay.
We headed out late Thursday morning, arriving in Vegas at noon (gotta luv time travel). Now that cabbing it from the airport to the strip without incident has about all the luck of playing slots I had thought about getting a limo but got lazy about it and never did it. So I hopped into the cab, gritted my teeth and pulled the lever "Bellagio, no tunnel please" - Fortunately luck was with us from the start and we got a decent cab driver who patiently chatted with us through several painfully long traffic lights directly to the B.
Checked into the Bellagio where my "deluxe lakeview room" was "upgraded" as a courtesy. Whoo-hoo! Score. So we headed up to the room to drop off our carry-ons to discover a "deluxe lakeview room"... Turns out the Bellagio has divided their lakeview rooms into 2 types, "deluxe" and "premium" with "premium lakeview rooms" having higher floors. The room was done up in a (new?) orange/fall motif which I actually like better than the new blue rooms and certainly better than the holiday inn green rooms.
Let the festivities commence -
First hit the Petrossian bar for our celebratory kick-off Cable Cars. We both agreed that they must've kicked up the alcohol because we were both seriously buzzing after just the one drink.
The plan was to hit Wazuzu's for dinner. We picked up the monorail from the Flamingo (yes, we were one of about a dozen people using the monorail this weekend - we justified it because the plan was to hit MGM later on in the day and it'd be a simple ride there from the Venetian plus we were going to be north and south over the next several days) (I prefer grabbing the monorail from the Flamingo as opposed to Ballys because the walk to get to the monorail in Bally's practically negates the point of using the monorail to cut down on walking to begin with). Played a few slots at Harrah's and after grabbing a drink at Numb my travelling companion discovered he had dropped the payout slip from his last game. Some frantic searching turned up nothing so he went to the Cashier to see if some kind soul had turned it in (yeah, right!). Suprisingly, because my friend had played with his Total Rewards card, they verified that he had collected the slip and the amount and that the slip had not been cashed out yet. So they voided the slip and gave him the cash right there. Kudos to the Harrah's casino for that.
I wanted to introduce my relative to the Drunken Noodles at Wazuzu. We ended up sharing a bowl along with a red dragon roll and pork BBQ buns. The Drunken Noodles were fantastic but the roll was just so-so in my opinion. The portion size and quality were fine but the taste just wasn't there.
We played at Encore for awhile (I found the slots at wynncore to be very loose this trip) then walked back through to the Venetian/Palazzo and tried gaming there (slots NOT so loose) and I, once again, gave wayyy too much money to that inspid Star Trek slot machine... Then on to the MGM. And after some gaming here called it a day.
Friday had us out for breakfast at the Bouchon. At the Flamingo to the monorail we stopped and played the KISS slots for a bit and I scored a minor bonus game which was entertaining to watch (by the time it was over I had a small crowd behind me). Breakfast Americanne at the Bouchon plus pecan roll... excellent. Back to the Wynn where I scored a sizable jackpot off a slot machine and then off to the Encore where I parlayed that into another win on the SuperHeroes slot machine with a lucky bonus spin that covered almost the entire screen with wilds. My companion reported that he was having decent luck with blackjack at the Encore as well. Back to the Bellagio for Noodles' Dim Sum brunch (Baked BBQ Pork Buns, get them, eat them, that's all I gotta say) then hit Aria (no luck at slots at all) and the Cosmopolitan. My companion in the meantime had gone to old vegas to see the sites. We met back up and hit the Cosmopolitan Ice Rink for drinks and then the Vesper bar (I found the Vesper drink just OK) for more drinks while crowd watching, then back to Bellagio and the Petrossian for more drinks and late night gambling. This is called "fun".
Saturday we were both nursing hangovers so it was breakfast at the Bellagio buffet - Platinum M-Life card baby... let me through... Then a walk through Planet Hollywood. My companion wanted to check out the HRH and see if we could see any interesting people from the adult entertainment expo there so we headed out but, alas, we got better views from people watching at the Vesper bar!
Back to Mandelay Bay to hit Red Square (my choice) only to discover they weren't open yet. So we hoofed it up to NYNY to get some beers at Nine Fine Irishmen but the bar was completely packed. No seating anywhere at 5pm on a Saturday night. We headed back to the Bellagio for dinner at the Fix. I had the tuna sushi and my companion had the Kobe sliders which he thought were fantastic and wants to hit it again when we come back. (I may join him as the tuna roll was just so-so). From there we hit the skybar at Mandarin Oriental (Awesome... just awesome... and suprisingly no wait to get in on a Saturday night?) and then I hit the Chandelier Bar to, once again, try to get the Fire Breathing Dragon martini WITH the frozen raspberries and was denied again. Although the bartender had pity on my and she comped my drink after hearing my sob story... Finished the trip out with one more night cap at the Petrossian Bar and this story - So we're waiting for our drinks and this older couple comes in - I'd put them at late 50's- mid 60's both with white hair and they're about to sit next to us at the Petrossian when the guy says "This is our first drink of the trip, let's do it at a classy place like Hyde". I swear if I had had a drink I would've done a spittake right there.
Aside from the hangovers, great trip!
And now my typical M-Life rant:
After the Great Reset(tm) - I went out to Vegas on my own at Christmas - Deluxe Lakeview room - 2 nights. I started with 0 points and ended with 15000 points which given the 30-1 ratio of tier points per dollar spent was reasonable although I gambled a LOT on slots and almost all on mgm properties and used my M-Life card whenever I ate at MGM restaurants...
So I started the trip with 15000 points and had the same lakeview room (style) for 3 nights and gambled alot less... But THIS trip I earned 65000 points!!!!! Okay, the room rates were $50 more a night... I got to get credit for my companions' eating too but we didn't eat $2000 worth of food and drink (at best we did a quarter of that and that wasn't all at MGM properties!) I don't get the disparity...
Has anyone ever tried to make sense of it?
Be the first to respond
