As always, I am in a room with a casino underneath me so I cannot sleep.  I woke up at 4:00 and and tried so hard to go back to sleep.  I thought I was successful, but my second time awake it was still only 6:00 am.

I took my sweet time getting ready, but I was still out before 8:00.

I ate breakfast using my comps.  Trump Plaza’s regular coffee shop is closed so I had to go to their fancy restaurant, which is now their 24 hour restaurant.  The waiter paid a lot of attention to me.  I notice that at holidays.   I feel like servers see you alone, surrounded by happy families and over compensate.  Personally, I wish I were at the El Cortez in Las Vegas, where I should be at this time of year.  To any normal person, walking by and seeing all the solo diners alone on Christmas Eve may be a depressing sight.  But to all of us who are those solo diners on Christmas Eve, we appreciate the silence and lack of attention to it.  At least I do.

After eating, my plans are Starbucks and then to play $40 and go back to my room.  Not so fast.  I get Starbucks and then lose ALL my money except the $100 I won last night.   Oh this is not good at all.  It is not even 9:00 am and I am broke and full of self loathing.  Happy fucking holidays!

I go back to my room and try to go back to bed.  Doesn’t take.  I try to work on my blog, I had wanted to finish up my Europe posts before 2013 ends, but I just have no concentration.   There is nothing on television because you know, holidays. Finally I am able to nap a bit.

Time to go back out again.  It is 3:30.  I walk through Caesars.  Remember I am boycotting Caesars because they charge resort fees on comped rooms in Las Vegas.  This means I should have been happy someone was sitting on the Double Super Times Pay machine, not playing.  I should be even more glad that he has a bunch of crap on the second one’s seat.  But I am not glad, I am annoyed because I WANT TO PLAY DAMMIT.   I have no conviction.

I end up playing Ultimate X poker.   Look what it gave me!  $160.

Thank you Caesars.  I still hate you though.

I walk through Ballys.  There is a family with 982347 kids in front of me, stopping short to take pictures with an iPad every ten feet.  it’s impossible to get around them because they are such a large group and don’t respond to “excuse me”.   Why are there kids in a casino anyway?  SECURITY!

Ballys Wild Wild West:

I have a $5 free play voucher at Ballys.  It is owned by Caesars and I am boycotting, but we are now learning that for me, boycotting = opposite of boycotting.   I lost it in a Family Guy slot machine.

Walking through Ballys, passing through what used to be the Claridge casino, and is now where Ballys hides it’s low rollers away.   These rooms are like nowhere near ANYTHING.  Except the Rite Aid.

This is the big empty waste of space that used to be Sands hotel and casino, before they imploded it to make room for a new hotel and casino that was never built.

At the front of this big waste of space, is some weirdo grass hill with “positive sounding” words on it.  It’s really stupid.  I don’t even know if it’s a park.  It’s fenced in so you cannot get in there.  Like who paid for this?  It is even stupider than the empty space.

I took the Jitney from here to Resorts.  I usually walk it, but it was freezing outside.  You know, because it was 65 degrees yesterday and today is 30.

Resorts has a lot of things wrong with it.   For starters, it is designed for pedestrian traffic coming from the boardwalk.  It is not at all set up for pedestrians coming from the Jitney.  Also this place is forever mailing me offers for comped nights and after being told eleventy billion times “I am sorry, that night is sold out”, I stopped trying to book one.  Don’t even mail me offers if you are never going to give me a room.

Resorts Christmas Tree:

In this casino lives my favorite Atlantic City Super Times Pay video poker machine.   I walk over and the entire bank is empty, save for some guy sitting at a machine on the end, not playing.  I go to take my machine, which is next to him.  He tells me his wife is playing there.  Really, I don’t see her.  She is in the bathroom.  Oh so then she is NOT playing it, is she?  WHAT-EH-VER.

I play a machine near the other side of the bank.   I lost $20 and then won $40 so even!

After, I played a Frog Princess slot machine and on the first hand I get a $50 bonus.  Score!

Outside to Trump Taj Mahal.  This is the best looking casino in all of Las Vegas.  From the outside anyway.

Inside, this is the casino that time forgot.   The casino is full of games no one has seen in years.   This isn’t even a bad thing.  For example, if you are looking for that low seater Slingo game that I happen to love, or if you are looking for Super Happy Fortune cat, both are here.

I do not want to play here.  I stayed here on a comp once and I just did not like anything about it.  Unless this is your first time on my blog, you probably have figured out that I tend to stay in crappy hotels and am more than happy to do so.  So it wasn’t that the room was bad.  I just had a really miserable time and I associate it with my stay so I don’t want to stay again.  So this keeps me from playing heavy here.

I do have $15 free play, I run that through and get nothing.  I see a Life of Luxury slot machine.  On the first hand I get a $50 line pay.   I am really digging this instant $50 thing I have got going on here.

Up next is Showboat.  I go outside and take a couple of pictures of the water.

And Revel, Atlantic City’s newest casino and also newest failure:

Then back inside to play my $5 free play.  And some of my own money.  Okay almost all of my own money.   Showboat is owned by Caesars as well, so you can really see how strong my conviction is.

I take the Jitney back to Trump Plaza.

I go to my room and don’t want to go back out just yet.   I decide to watch a movie in my room.   It is $18 to watch an in room movie.  I pay it and watch “Last Vegas”, which is a terrible idea because it just makes me want to be in Las Vegas.   Kudos to the writers for knowing Binions hotel is not open.   Bah for the false hope that the rooms will reopen next year.  Although one of my Binions rooms was the worst room I have ever had in Las Vegas, I still love this place and did not hate the regular tower rooms.

Here is photo evidence of the Binions room of death:

http://iputmylifeonashelf.com/2013/08/04/best-and-worst-las-vegas-hotel-rooms-i-have-had/

I kill some time in my room and then go back out.   I have $150 left.  I am going to lose $50 and save the $100 for tomorrow morning.   Or so I say.   Until the $150 is gone.

Back to the room I go!

I consider going to the ATM but I am kind of sick of being here.  I’ve only been here like 30 hours and I am over it.  I am not sure what is bringing this on.  It’s probably a combination of holidays and wanting to be so much further away from home than New Jersey.

So I decide to spend the night researching Hong Kong for my trip in May.  I am going to get on a bus back to New York City very early tomorrow morning, making my blog post titles of “Christmas in Atlantic City” a lie since all I will be doing on Christmas in Atlantic City is getting on a bus and going home.

I have $45 in comps here.   Starbucks gives you 2:1 comps, meaning that I have $22.50 in comps usable at Starbucks.  I am going to buy myself one of those plastic Starbucks cups to take home so I can attempt to make my own green tea Frappucinos.  I am very excited about this.

As a Christmas present to you, I will be posting this before I leave.  This way you do not have to be subjected to me whining about my trip home.  I expect it to be awful.  I hope I am pleasantly surprised and there is no traffic.

Now if you will excuse me, my DK Eyewitness Guide to China is calling me and I must go pay some attention to her.