Today is Christmas yay! Oh wait, I don’t care. BAH HUMBUG.
I woke up at 5:00 am because duh. I am in Las Vegas. I am at Orleans and they have a point multiplier promotion today so I must go gamble. I walked over to Terribles for coffee. I have to say, their coffee is pretty damn good.
Sunrise outside the Orleans hotel and casino.
Then I played.
I had left the room with $120 and played all over the damn place. I hit four of a kind fives to start.
Thursday, December 24, 2015
This morning I woke up at 4:00 am in my comfortable bed at the Orleans Hotel and Casino in beautiful Las Vegas. I could not fall back asleep so I got dressed and went to gamble. Obviously.
There is a Starbucks near Orleans but I do not know if it is open 24 hours so I settled for gas station coffee from Terribles next door. Yes I know you can get coffee for free while playing. No, I would rather not have to be at someone else’s mercy for coffee.
I wanted to play the nickel Keno machine I had won $940 on a year ago TODAY. But it is taken. Because it is 5:00 am so obviously that one machine would be taken. So I settled for the Double Double Bonus video poker machine that had been kind to me last night. She was kind once again.
Wednesday, December 23, 2015
Today kicks off a twenty day trip to fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. But not before I work a half day, as a reminder of why I need to win eleventy billion dollars and never come back.
That global warming shit meant that I was leaving New York City when it was 70 degrees, and arriving in Las Vegas when it was in the 30’s. The past couple of years, it has typically been colder in Vegas than back home, but this was a huge first world problem. I did not want to wear my winter coat in 70 degree weather, I needed it for Vegas. Luckily, I am an expert packer and not only did I only need a carry on for twenty nights in Vegas, I had enough room in there for my winter coat. Score!
I was selected for pre-check, which I absolutely love.
I ended up gate checking my bag for free because I wanted to make sure I did not get stuck having to keep my laptop bag under the seat in front of me. I hate having things under there, I feel like it constricts the flow of oxygen.
My flight was delayed, but it was nowhere near as much doom and gloom as the news was reporting. I guess all the fog in the city was really messing up flights. My flight only arrived in Vegas a mere fifteen minutes late. We had no form of entertainment on this flight, unless you consider an announcement asking if there was a doctor on board, entertainment. I don’t know what was going on, but whatever it was, caused the flight attendants to have to make several announcements for people to stay in their seats. I assume it ended fine since we were not met by medical or a coroner upon arrival. Delta if you are reading this, next time I would prefer an individual television.
I am leaving tomorrow for twenty days in fabulous Las Vegas, Nevada. This trip is slightly different than previous trips because my trip style has changed.
For the past couple of years, I keep insisting I am never going back to Las Vegas. I truly believe this every time I say it. I want to use my time to visit the rest of the world. It is cheaper seeing the rest of the world. I am serious. I used to do that thing “Where else can you go and get comped rooms and comped meals and blah blah blah?” It turns out that is a trick question. Because you do not need comped rooms and comped meals to spend less per day in China, than you would in Las Vegas, for one random example.
Do not get me wrong, I am not telling YOU that YOU should stop going to Las Vegas. I have been around Vegas message boards long enough to know that this is how it goes:
Me: So on my trip I….
The Internet: OH MY GOD WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO DO THAT ON VACATION
Me: Well it is MY vacation so…
The Internet: I WOULD NEVER DO THAT ON MY VACATION.
Me: Well I am not suggesting…
The Internet: BLAH BLAH BLAH I WOULD NEVER DO THAT SO I DON’T WANT YOU TO DO IT EITHER. LA LA LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU.
Me: Sigh…
So when we last left off, I was in hour nine (thank you Royal Flusher!) of a 37 hour trip to Las Vegas. Since I am the world’s worst blogger, you may not remember part one since it was posted so long ago. You can find that here.
I took a nap, with the alarm set obviously. No time for over sleeping.
I got dressed….wait no I didn’t. I didn’t need to because I never got undressed. I just rolled out of bed, put on shoes and went back down to Main Street Station. I stopped at Lapperts for another iced chai latte. These things are SO GOOD.
I stopped at a Friends slot machine, with the full expectation that I would lose my money. This seemed fair since I deserved to for playing slot machines. But I hit a bonus and won. SURPRISE!
I posted this on Instagram and paraphrased Joey with “YEAH I did” and had an influx of people texting me to ask how much I won. $101.70. Nothing more than penny slots for this old lady.
So I explained my logic for taking this trip here. Now here is the report!
I had originally booked Southwest, leaving San Francisco at 8:00-ish AM and arriving at 11:30-ish AM. I booked it because I had flight credit from a trip to Atlanta, where the airfare kept going down so I kept rebooking. I did not like this flight at all. It had a layover which made the flight too long. But the first direct flight of the day only landed half an hour earlier and was like three times the price. What to do, what to do…..? Ah fuck it. I ate the Southwest ticket and booked a brand new ticket on United, arriving at 7:40 am. I now have $42 in Southwest credit. But they go literally nowhere from NYC that I would be flying Southwest for. So unless a surprise trip comes up…..well whatever.
I was super, insanely excited to go to Vegas. I ended up upgrading my seat for $24 and ended up with my own row. I was like the tenth person off the plane. This was so exciting! The flight went so fast! What time is it? 7:11! This is an omen!
Look at pretty Las Vegas! I never arrive in the daytime so this made me excited.
Here is something you should know about people who frequent Las Vegas: They all love to talk about how cheap a trip is, and how you will never find another city in the world where you can go and stay in beautiful hotels and eat fine dining, for even a fraction of the cost as Las Vegas. Note that I said “they” and not “we”. I used to be part of that group. I used to love the idea of staying in a nice hotel that I was comped in, versus paying $150/night for some shitty motel in Anywhereelse USA.
But then something happened. I started traveling outside the United States. Guys, I have to tell you something. The world outside of the United States is so much cheaper. Sure there are lots of countries you can travel to where the cost is relatively the same, or even higher than travel in the States. But then I went to Eastern Europe. And China. Suddenly, that “Wow, this is such a great bargain!” Las Vegas trip morphed into “Wow, for less than the cost of a two week trip to Vegas, I can spend six weeks in China!”
So I began vowing that every trip to Las Vegas would be my last. But see, I didn’t tell anyone this, except for my cute little stuffed dog. He doesn’t judge or hold me accountable for things I say, so I was free to break that vow at will.
December 28, 2014: Day Thirteen of Thirteen
I woke up very early to try and get the most out of my last day. Here is a picture of my last view of the sunrise over Las Vegas:
So pretty.
I woke up at Four Queens very early this morning. I had originally planned to go to Sunset Station for breakfast since I have a free buffet from MyVegas. But I kind of didn’t want to go. But I kind of felt like I should go. I have not left downtown since arriving here Thursday. Today is Saturday. I do need to go to the Strip and take photos. I sit around trying to decide what to do and my final decision is to go outside and take pictures of Fremont Street before all of downtown wakes up. Then I will figure out what I want to do after.
This morning I wake up at Orleans. I have a little bit of time to go gambling between Starbucks and checking out.
Orleans now has one HUGE Ultimate X video poker machine. It is enormous. I have wanted to play it the entire time I have been here, but it was always taken. Not today! I played a bit and doubled $40. Then I went off to play the nickel Keno game that gave me $942 yesterday. Some girl was sitting at it, on her cell phone, talking to whoever about “I am already in the casino, hurry up and come meet me!” Yes please. Hurry up so youse guys can take off and do whatever and I can have my machine. I eventually grew tired of losing money while waiting so back to my room I went.
I packed up and got ready to move. Today’s hotel is my last one of my stay. Four Queens. I booked this through Priceline Express Deals. It is easy to pick out the downtown hotels on here based on resort fees. Or lack of, like the Four Queens. So you can pretty much figure out what you are getting. Three nights, which include Christmas and a weekend came to $180 with tax included.
