TR for Vegas march 28 to april 2nd at Harrah's

[grogbc]

Howdy folks. Here is my trip report for Las Vegas. Saturday the 27th had to put my moms 2 labs in the kennel a 5 year old black lab and a 3 year old chocolate lab. A first for both of them and I think it was harder on us then them. (when mom travels i keep them at my house usually so they are kinda my dogs to and we baby them pretty good)

March 28th Me and mom go out for a late breakfast at a local restaurant (Sylvia's in the mill mall in Ellsworth Maine) and had a very nice Breakfast. then drive to the Bangor international Airport for a 1pm departure to JFK New York. JFK is a busy airport anyway and they have one of their main runways down for repair, It was a bit chaotic with tons of people but i have to hand it to them , they move alot of people around. If i was gonna do it again i would probably try to see if we could get a connecting flight elseware atleast until they have that runway usuable again. My middle brother met us in JFK and he flew from Washington Dulles, and we all flew together to Vegas from there. ( thank you Emily Muise from Hewens travel) Emily has always done a nice job with getting us all together from 2 locations over the years no matter where we were traveling.

Ok on to Vegas! we get in to Mccarin at about 9:30 Vegas time (12:30am Maine time) Get our bags and to the taxis for a very short wait and on to Harrah's . We get to the check in and only had a short line. We had two rooms reserved but they were over booked so we got upgraded to a suite for the night and we would move the next day. We didnt have much of a view but we had a fridge, and connecting rooms, 3 tvs, a shower with 2 shower heads, a jackuzi, so it was kinda nice , so the next day we went down to see how bad expese wise it would be to just keep those rooms for te week. It was $50 more per night per room so we just stayed put. She said normal rate would have been $150 more per night per room so maybe we did ok. ( I realize alot of things are comped but we hadnt been back to vegas in 5 years so given that i think we did ok)

So we get settled and go out and get a quick bite. basically a burger and fries in between Harrah;s and Imperial Palace , think it was called Barts, not a gourmet meal but it filled the void for a late night bite. Played a little but basically filled the void and hit the sack.

March 29

Up at 5 am Vegas time ( 8 maine time) Got situated and dressed to go to breakfast probably around 6 am at that point went to Dennys near casino royale and after we were seated , we were entertained by people in the next booth that had not been to bed and were continuing to have a great time! A fair ammount of flirty fun and a fair ammount of exagerated stories from both sides were fun to see. Not a bad start for our first morning there.

I went up to the monarail and got a 3 day pass. I think thats a pretty good deal for 30 bucks. Last time i was in Vegas the monarail only went to the hilton so i wanted to go to the sahara to get a card and just check it out. did that Played a little and saw the one and only Marilyn monroe slot machine. I hit for $100 on it, we used the monarail quite a bit that day and explored new to us places but no big wins or losses slot machine till later in the day. then mom hit for $300 on a Harrah's up to 98 % group of blazing 7s machines then a few pulls later hit for a hand pay of $1500!

I ended up about $100 up that night, Mom was way up and my brother was down a little.

Ok wil continue the trip report tommorow , getting late here now.

[slots4me]

Sounds like a great trip at this point, till tomorrow I will be waiting for what comes next.

[Deb]

Sounds good to me !!! I can't wait for more! I am surprised about one thing... that you are having your meals outside of the casino. Honestly we have never done that. Not that I can remember anyway!!! lol Our eating schedule gets all screwed anyway when we are there. So how long was the total travel time? Just curious. Fabulous about your mom's big win, that is awesome!

[treyster]

You are living the same trip my wife and I leaving for in a few hours. We will be eating at Dennys next to Casino Royale tomorrow morning. I'll be sure to try out the 98% bank at Harrah's, I know exactly where it's at, thanks.

[grogbc]

It was a long day of traveling in both directions. We were on our way at 9:30 am sunday morning to get breakfast, then on to the airport. We got into Las Vegas at 9:30 Vegas time, so with a 3 hour time difference that was 15 hours. we had a pretty long lay over in JFK in both directions. It was longer than I would like but better too much time then not enough.

Eating at Denny's has become a tradition for us. We have always been happy with the food and compared to other places the prices are pretty good. We always start the day after breakfast and play a little in Casino Royale. (not really sure why since i have rarely won anything in there lol) Im not sure you will read this before your trip but the Blazing 7's that she hit on is the one that if you were sitting down your back would be to the strip. I think that machine must be pretty hot, because it almost always had someone playing it when no one else was on the rest of the bank of machines. My Brother and I also played on it a bit with no luck. I did see another $1500 handpay on the machine exactly opposit to it as well.

March 30

Tuesday was the worst gambling day for all 3 of us.
Started out at Denny's again and again were entertained by people in the next booth that hadnt been to bed yet. One of the guys was telling the girls that he made up alot of his stories and was critisizing her about not telling about someone running into her with a boner lol. I hope that isnt offensive to anyone, We just found it to be comical.

Used the Monorail to go down and get a free spin at the Sahara played a around a bit more. I played the Marilyn Monroe slot again and got the bonus a couple times but ended up putting it all back in. Hit the bonus for $30 the first time and $75 the 2nd time. It is a $1 machine and max bet is $5 so it doesnt take too long to work back down to zero lol.
Hit the monarail and stopped at the Hilton because I wanted to see what they had put in place of the Startrek ride. Looks Like they just added more slot machines there. My old card didnt work so got a new one and got a key chain with a light on it. My brother did the same but he didnt get a key chain. I asked him did you get a free gift? He was like No!! lol so that was a point of comical contention for the rest of the trip. (the next moring i used it to find something from my suitcase so i didnt have to turn the light on and wake him. He chuckled and said is that your free gift? lol Ok im sure you had to be there to appreciate the humor but it was funny to us.)
Back on the Monorail and back to Harrah's and to our rooms, occasionally we become parched and have to remedy that situation. My personal choice is Bourban and water, Brother and mom have Vodka and coke. After the remedy we hit the monorail again and go down to MGM and walk over to Hooters Casino. It wasnt there the last time we were so i wanted to go and get a card. They offered $100 in free slot play for signing up. It was a little bit bogus they put you on designated $5 machines and the only way to win was to hit the 2 bigest pay outs or if you accumulated a certain ammount of credits they would give you $50 in cash, But hey it was free. We had lunch at Hooters restaurant and the meal was very good. If you are a guy the scenery is pretty nice to. Left Hooters and Mom took the monarail back to Harrah's. I wanted to check out Planet hollywood. It wasnt there the last time either. Got there and had a hard time finding the players club to get a card but eventually found it. Apparently they are becoming part of Harrah's total rewards. Between that and some CBS news report alot of the machines were out of service to be changed over to total rewards. That was supposed to take place on April 1st so hopefully anyone that goes there now wont run into that. We walked back to Harrah's from there with the idea that by the time we found the monorail for 2 stops we might just as well walk it. (in hindsight finding the monorail may have been the better choice lol) We got Tickets to Jubilee that evening and it was a very good show! At one point 2 guys come out and just do feats of acrobatic strength that boggles the mind. I told my brother im pretty sure we could do that. Back to Harrah's for some more parched remedy and a little more play but the slots were not nice that day. I was down about $300 for the trip tuesday night. Brother had never been ahead so im not sure how down he was, but he did wonder if he should visit the Tattoo place and have them put the "L" on his forehead. Mom was down for the day but was way up with her wins from the previous day.

[treyster]

Thanks for the tip on the blazing sevens, we'll give it a whirl tomorrow sometime. There are no Denny's within about 40 miles from our house, so we always eat at one when we can. The Strip has 2 now, a new one across from Monte Carlo. I won a pretty good chunk of change last year at Casino Royale while waiting for a table at Denny's. I've been thinking that buying some of their stock-might not be a bad long term investment, but I haven't made up my mind.

I'm a beer drinker so being near Casino Royale makes sense to me. We've also seen Jubilee and it was a very good show. I'm trying to talk my wife into 'Price is Right'. Sounds corny, but she is the type of person who could very well be selected. If I see someone getting at forehead tattoo at O'Shea's, I'll know who it is!

[grogbc]

March 31

Denny's first thing again, a little later in the morning and alot busier. A good breakfast as always though a little slower to be waited on.

I headed over to treasure island and apparently is its own entity now. They didnt even have me in the system. got a card and played a little. then took the tram over to the Mirage. Up and down at various slots. Headed to Caesars to try and find a New york style deli that was there last time and had great food for a lunch. It is no longer there so i was a little disapointed. Caesars is huge. Went back across the road to Harrah's and walked down to the Wynn got a card there played a little then back to the Venition. Pretty much just winning and losing to maintain my Bankroll. Did the occasional remedy and played moslty at Harrah's Then I sat down at a $1 Wheel of fortune with a $2 max bet first spin i got the spin and hit for $100 played that for a few more spins and hit red white and blue 7's for a win of $800. I was pretty happy with that and that put me back up a few hundred for the trip. I think Mom stayed about even that day though she hit several 100plus wins though out the trip. Up to this point my brother had just been on a downward slope.

We went to Evening at the Improv that evening. This is something we have done on everytrip and if you like to laugh I reccomend it. We have never been disapointed. There was a couple of newlyweds in the audience that were so drunk they could barely walk and they thought it was nessesary to try and talk to the comedians. That was a nuisence but they handled it and still put on great show.

April 1st

Our last day. Mom and my brother went to Denny's I wasnt really hungry so i didnt go with them. I stayed fairly close to Harrah's so i wouldnt be lame for our flight home. Mom and my Brother took the Monorail to Sahara and he hit for $1800 on a dollar machine that was on the row of the 97.4% machines. we were very happy for him since he had been on a downward spiral since he got there. This was the first time where all 3 of us hit something, I think i ended up about $300 down for the whole trip, that includes meals, shows,taxi's etc so I really won more than I lost and the last day I played quite alot. Both mom and brother went home with more than they went with so that in itself makes for a great trip!

April 2nd

Wake up call at 3 am to catch a 6 am flight for my brother and a 7 am flight for mom and me. we get checked out and with comps from our play got $80 off the bill. Taxi to the airport and we are there at 3:30 am the self service kiosks were not operational to 4:05 am and we didnt see any ticket agents until 4:30 am (this seams a bit odd to me, they want the customers to be there 2 hours before their flight time but the ticket agents are not on duty and i dont see any reason why the kiosks are not turned on until then. if you didnt have bags to check it would eliminate a good portion of the line i would think. Then when the ticket agents did show up they told everyone to use the kiosks to get there boarding passes before they would handle them for checked bags. One there is no reason the ticket agents couldnt handle distributing boarding passes since you had to go through them to check bags anyway, and two they could have atleast put a sign up to inform people to go through the kiosks instead of just waiting until there were a mass of people that needed to be processed. On top of all that the woman that was supposedly in charge was simply rude. i was not very impressed but we dealt with it and got to our gates without much trouble. It just could have been handled better. Flight to JFK left on time but we circled for awhile before landing. Not a worry for us because we had a long lay over there before our flight to Bangor. No one else seamed to be nervous about connections so i guess we were all in the same boat. We get boarded on our next flight and we sat on the plane for awhile becuase they have so much traffic that they couldnt be pushed back until some other planes were moved. If we have to travel again in the near future i would make sure that other runway is operational again or atleast try to have a different connecting airport. Other than that bit of rudeness and JFK being a mad house we had good flights. Basically another 15 hour of travel day. Got home about 10:30 pm and went and got the dogs the next morning. I gave them baths since they were pretty doggy smelling lol and i think they were happy to be home too.

We had a great trip! I have some pictures of us i will post on my face book page. I will add a link to it if anyone is interested when i get them there.

One other thing i forgot to mention. a couple machines down from the wheel of fortune machine that i hit the $800 on I saw a $1500 hand pay . These are in the dollar world area over on the wall nearest the imperial palace. there are 5 machines 4 that take $2 dollar max bet and one on the end that takes $5. the one i hit $800 on is next to the one that takes $5 and the one that the other guy hit $1500 is on the other end.

Hope this report didnt bore anyone to tears.

[CennPennTraveler]

Hope this report didnt bore anyone to tears.

Hey not at all, I enjoyed all the details!

[grogbc]

here is a link for a few pictures if anyone is interested.

http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?aid=2059299

[Deb]

Great report! Thanks for the details. Hey I can see your pics but people who don't have FB cannot as you have to log in with your link. I will go on FB to check out your pics and comment of course! I think the Denny's deal is great! I LOVE their club sandwiches! I could live on them :) Sounds like you had a wonderful time. I LOVE Marilyn Monroe machines but you are right about the $5 max bet your money does go quick if you don't get the bonus on a good combo on the reels. I keep hoping for that progressive.. lol :) Thanks for taking the time to do your report. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Not bored to tears one bit! Glad your mom and bro came home with money that is always a good sign for a next trip!

[grogbc]

Im open to suggestions as far as the pictures are concerned. I tried to post them here but they are in bit map format and it doesnt allow much for file size here for that format.

[FL Mary]

Nice report! Thanks for posting.

[Lucy]

Another great detailed report; thank you! I tried to get on FB and see your picture album, but it said the page was not available. Maybe it's just me. In any case, would love to see the pics.

[Huss417]

Another great detailed report; thank you! I tried to get on FB and see your picture album, but it said the page was not available. Maybe it's just me. In any case, would love to see the pics.


I had the same issue. But nice Report with or without the pics. :)