Note:  This is an older Las Vegas trip report that I am posting for the entertainment of Las Vegas addicts and anyone else who loves fun.  It was written back in 2008.  Most of this information is now outdated and some places mentioned no longer exist.

Monday, December 22, 2008 – Day Eleven of Twenty One

I am up at 9:00 and there is more whining about my trip being more than half over.

The Golden Gate is one of the few hotels left that gives you a free daily newspaper. USA Today. Did I mention that I really like this hotel?

I get breakfast and do some playing. Reel Rich Devil gives me nothing, as does Crystal Forest. Hitchcock however, gives me an $81.90 bonus. I love this game.

I play nickel Double Double Bonus video poker and hit 4’s with a kicker. Yay!

I go back to Hitchcock and turn my first $10 into $10 and then my second $10 gets me a $88.40 bonus. Then I get a $73.20 line win. How great is this? Two straight days of big wins, both at the Golden Gate, both at the same Hitchcock machine.

I go back to the room up $250. Excellllllllllent.

It’s 11:18 am. I rest a bit and then pack for my one night stay at the Palazzo, during which I keep my Golden Gate room.

On my way to the Deuce bus, I stop and play Hitchcock one last time and get nothing. Once on the Deuce, I stop at the Sahara and do their daily free slot pull and get nothing. I reward their generousity by losing money on both Star Trek and Invaders From the Planet Moolah.

I decide to walk to the Palazzo from here, just because it’s probably faster than the bus. It’s incredibly windy out. So windy in fact, it blew one of my contacts off the center of my eye.

I stopped and took this picture of Encore, which shows the clouds behind me reflecting on the building. I love this picture.

Then of course I have to take a second picture of the “TONIGHT AT 8 PM” part lit up, because taking one picture with both of these things in it, would have been too much to ask for.

Hello Palazzo!

I get completely lost looking for check in. I finally find it after asking two different people.

Reception area:

I booked this room through Priceline. I was trying for Trump, got the Palazzo. I was pissed because my room was $99 and I could have gotten it for $119 with $50 free play if I had booked it direct. However at check in, I discover I get $50 free play even though I had booked via Priceline. Really??? Awesome!

The check-in-ling asks me why im in town for only one day. I tell her I’m not, but I’m just doing one night here because I want to stay in every Las Vegas hotel. However more than one night at Palazzo is out of my budget. She then tells me she can give me a free upgrade to a strip view room because I’m only here for one night. Dear Palazzo check-in-ling, I love you.

My cute little stuffed dog who goes everywhere with me is psyched! He sat in the window for hours.

Room:

First course of action is to shower. I skipped this at the Golden Gate this morning. No need to shower in a tomb when I can shower in a bathroom that is the size of my entire Golden Gate room.

I am positive I won’t win any money here or anywhere near here so I check out the in-room movie prices. $10.99 – making it cheaper than the Riviera. I hold off on renting one though because I have $50 free play to burn through. I plan to do this and lose it immediately and then spend my night relaxing in this nice room.

The slot club line is insanely long, with everyone with their $50 vouchers. We all know the Palazzo is doing terribly, and I can’t even guess if EVERYONE staying there getting $50 free play is harming them or helping to make their profits go up.

I play the $50 around, $5 at a time. My first $5 gets me $10 in a slot called “Pair ‘em Up”. I then go to a Monkees slot machine, which sucks and I lose $5, put in $5 more and win $15.

A Poppit slot steals my money.

Then I find a Survivor slot machine. I get the bonus a few times and work my way up to $75. I am out of free play so I put in $10 of my own and get the $75 up to $115. So all totaled, I turned my $50 free play into $100 and then upped my cash by $30. At the Palazzo. Who would have thought it?

Lunch/dinner- whatever it is, is at the Grand Lux Cafe at the Palazzo. Typical – the great burger I had the other day is only so-so today.

After eating, I walk across the street to Treasure Island to revisit my Slingo game from the other night (Or was it the other week? Time is weird to me now). It’s open but I need coffee. I stop at the restroom and I find a digital camera in the stall. Hey – the last time I was right here was when i decided I desparately needed a new one and it was top priority to buy one when I get home. Right here is a very very very nice and out-of-my-price-range digital camera for me to find! It’s the actual perfect camera. Perfect size, large viewing screen…

Of course, I don’t keep it. Credits left in machines, sure. That’s luck. But an actual expensive object? That’s flat out stealing. I turn it into the bathroom attendant. I’d love to know if the owner claimed it or not.

I stop at Starbucks and go back to Slingo. Now my machine is taken. I try the one two away from it and while the girl on my machine is getting the bonus a million times, I am not.

I go to leave and on my way out I play some bonus game and it sucks. It seems like a near impossibility to hit a BIG bonus so I quit that and then find some old school nickel Monopoly machines that I have not seen in years. They give me nothing.

It’s getting close to the time for the Encore grad opening so I walk over there. There is a ridiculous line of people waiting for doors to open. I tried to take pictures but my camera HATES night time. I bet that fancy camera didn’t steal at Treasure Island would have taken great pictures!

They have us lined up at one entrance and I am close to the front of the line.Then they open and start letting people in only at an entrance behind me so I am now at the end of the line and I don’t get in. We are stuck waiting outside because the casino is at maximum capacity.

After about an hour of this, I have had it with people cutting me and trying to stand inside of me, or and bumping into me.  Lest we forget that one baby that clearly needs a diaper change.  Or it’s parents who are just being loud and annoying and let’s face it – everything a human being can possibly be to remind me why I hate being around people.  I mean are you seriously standing outside with a fucking BABY waiting to enter a CASINO?  PLUS the fact that there are news cameras everywhere.  I’m terrified my job will see me on the news and figure out I LIED and told them I wasn’t going to Vegas.  I am sick sick sick sick sick of hearing “it” when I admit I am going to Vegas, so now I am a liar.  I give up and leave and never go inside.

Back at the Palazzo, I quickly lose $100. I console myself by telling myself it’s all money I won on the free play. So it’s “free” money and not my money.

I go back to the room where I find the radio is on and my bed is turned down with chocolates left. I’m not sure why the radio was on. I am really not at all familiar with turn down service at hotels.

I turn on the television to watch the news in hopes of seeing Encore, which is like ten feet from me and yet I cannot get inside. They show what is presented as a “happy ending” human interest story. It’s about a very cute dog who had been adopted after being thrown down a sewer grate by some waste of life human being. The poor dog had every bone in it’s leg broken and it had to be amputated. What the…. This isn’t a happy story. ACK. TURN IT OFF. TURN THE CHANNEL. WHERE IS THE REMOTE? I CAN’T FIND THE REMOTE. HELP. THIS IS NOT A HAPPY STORY. The dog was thrown down a sewer grate and left to die by some future serial killer who’s punishment SHOULD be death but instead will probably be nothing because (a) he is a kid and (b) committed a crime against a dog, for which the laws are only about .000000001% as harsh as they should be.

I hate human beings.

I go to bed completely disgusted.