Tuesday, January 1, 2008
Today I am traveling to Atlantic City, to catch a flight on Spirit Airlines to Las Vegas. The total cost of the flight was $81 round trip. I have never in my life paid that little for a one way, let alone a non-stop round trip. What a great deal.
Another monumental event in today’s trip is that I had ZERO problems at all getting to the airport/getting to Vegas. This has never happened to me before. What a smooth trip.
So, shortly after booking my December trip to Las Vegas, I read that the Westward Ho would be closing their doors on November 17. I wanted to go, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to have two trips so close together. I’d have to fund this trip with my December Vegas funds and I didn’t really want to do that. Of course, I didn’t abandon the thought. I checked my Harrahs offers and found I had two free nights at the Rio. Well that was it, I was going to Las Vegas to say goodbye to the Ho!
Thursday, November 16, 2005 – Day One of Four
I left work at 5:00 and took the air train to JFK. I wouldn’t do this if I had luggage with me. Most subway stops in NYC (including the ones at my home and my job) don’t have escalators. But since I just had a small bag, it was okay.
JetBlue flight departing at 7:15pm. Or it was supposed to be. We boarded and the doors were shut the door at 7:10. At 8:00 we got an announcement that it would be another 45 minutes. I hate that. I also couldn’t get my two favorite channels (Travel Channel and VH1 Classic). That sucked too.
After sitting on the plane for about seven hours, we’re in Las Vegas!
I took a shuttle to the Rio. I have two nights comped here. I’m supposed to have a premium “suite” with strip view, but I don’t. No complaints though as it’s free. I get room 471 in the Ipanema tower. The bed was so comfortable. I love the Rio rooms.
Awhile back, I was dead asleep sitting at my desk at work. I made a post about “Ode to Hotel Beds” that I don’t even really remember typing, because I was dead asleep. This hotel bed made the cut as the absolute worst. But since I had limited the post just to beds, it was not allowed a chance to shine in full glory. So now here it is, getting full credit for being the most gross hotel I have ever slept in.
I am working on a project of uploading all my old Las Vegas trip reports (there are somewhere between 200-300 individual days). I am right now up to November, 2003. These pictures are all from that one trip. I was kind of surprised when going through the disc these are saved on. I have been going to Las Vegas so regularly that I have seen all the changes as they happen. But to suddenly look back and see all the changes at once kind of astounded me.
Here are things that either no longer exist, have changed, or were just being built nearly a decade ago. I have plenty more pictures to share, many of things that no longer exist. Be patient and you shall see them all as I get further into this project.
I have been to Las Vegas more times than I have been anywhere else in the world. I don’t keep a running count, but if you held a gun to my head and made me answer, I would yell out “THIRTY! DON’T SHOOT!”
I am in the process of a very intense project of uploading so much Vegas stuff on here. But in the meantime, I will be doing some shorter posts.
Today, we will visit the top best and bottom worst rooms I have stayed in. Please keep in mind, I am not stating these are the best and worst in the entire city. Just out of what I personally have experienced.
Just about every trip I have ever taken has revolved around either bands or casinos.
A few years ago, I was booked for a fest in Austin. Shortly before, I ended up backing out. But I did not want to undo my vacation time, so I had to find somewhere else to go. Armed with a free roundtrip Greyhound bus ticket to anywhere Greyhound travels to, I decided to take a long distance bus trip to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Why Milwaukee? Who knows. I wanted to go somewhere around 20 hours-ish away so Wisconsin won. It’s really that simple.
I had booked two nights via Priceline at the Hilton City Center. Gorgeous hotel. Just in case you are unaware, www.biddingfortravel.com is the most useful tool when Pricelining a hotel.
When I was researching things to do in Milwaukee, I stumbled upon a bed and breakfast inside a mansion. This looked so cool! So I extended my trip to leave a day earlier so I could spend one night here.