Oh wait, my flight is cancelled?   Never mind…….

Thursday, July 30, 2009: New Day One!

My flight is supposed to leave at 10:18 am  It doesn’t.  I’m following up on my new tradition of taking a picture of the departures screen so you can see mine is the only flight on this board that is delayed.

I stop at the new JetBlue food court and get a sandwich, a cookie and a Diet Pepsi for $20.33.  Jesus, good thing I have last night’s budget still intact.

We ended up taking off at 11:30.  There are approximately three pages in my notes detailing how much I HATE flying to Vegas but I’ll spare you.

We land at 1:40 and I’m in my room at Harrahs at 2:45.   I asked for no tunnel and the cab driver said “Miss, I never take the tunnel” with a tone that implied how dare I even suggest he would.  Cab came to $17.80 which seemed high to me but I haven’t taken a cab from the airport in forever.

You know how when you stay at Harrahs you get a coupon sheet?  Well I got it and they all expire tomorrow.  Great!

I could have asked for a new one and I also could have asked for the coupon sheet I was due from booking my first night through Expedia (which was last night and I didn’t get to show up for since my flight was cancelled) which included a Paris buffet coupon, but I didn’t.

I got room 1742 in the Carnaval tower.

I don’t have a “Do Not Disturb” sign. This is one of my HUGEST pet peeves in Las Vegas.  And this trip is even worse because I am actually flying to California tomorrow and leaving my stuff in my room for three nights.  So I really want the damn sign.  I normally just make a fake one but sometime they pull it off the door and don’t replace it.   I don’t want to chance it.  I see a housekeeper and ask for one and she says “Noooooo, we don’t have those” and then handed me one of those “please help us conserve the environment!” signs that you see hung on towel racks and tells me to use that.

This isn’t good enough for my peace of mind so I steal one off someone’s door.   I’m sorry to whoever’s door I stole it off it.  If I had waited a bit longer, I would have picked my next door neighbors since they were loud and annoying and smoked weed in their room, but I didn’t find this out until later on tonight when I was woken up to discover this.  By then I could not remember which door I actually stole it off of.

I attempt to make my first stop Gold Coast but god help me if I can’t just walk out of Harrahs without playing something.  So I try Keno.  Why.  I lose $60.  I then walk through the monorail entrance to the Imperial Palace to avoid Carnaval Court, but the escalator isn’t working. So I make my way to Barbary Coast (don’t even try to tell me it has a new name, it is a stupid name and I refuse to acknowledge it) by walking the Strip.   This is a lot of effort to get to some stupid off strip casino. Outside is it so hot, so full of people.

Inside the Barbary Coast I start my expected losing streak.   Today it’s Reel ‘em In Community Bonus slots.   I can’t win anything on here.   I did win $40 on Wizard of Oz though.

I then go outside and take the free shuttle to the Gold Coast.  Lose and lose and lose.  I was playing nickel Double Double Bonus Supertimes Pay video poker.  I got the 10x twice and each time got zilch.  I played a Wolf Run multi play slot machine (I need to never play this again) and lost on there.   Lost on Invaders From the Planet Moolah.  Lost on a bunch of games.  Lost lost lost.  Then I accidentally ripped my last $20 in half when I was pulling it out of the envelope and kind of HAD to stop.

Ate dinner at TGI Friday.  Then shuttled it back to the Barbary Coast and got a $90 bonus on a Star Wars slot machine before putting it all back.

Made a pit stop in my room where the door to the room across from me was open and there were a bunch of security guards in the doorway.  It REEKED of weed (this is a new Las Vegas thing for me, I hate the stench of it and on my last three trips I have been bombarded with it.)   I am trying to be nosy and see what is going on.  All I can hear is the security guard ask “is this acceptable to you” and a woman says “Yes.” I can’t hear much more because I can only play the “oh hey look I can’t get my door open” game for a few minutes before I feel stupid.