Trip report

Arrive Sun Jul 26 - 10:30PM
Depart Friday Jul 31 - 10:30PM

Arrive on Sunday after finding experience on Spirit Airlines lacking. The people working the desk in Detroit were totally incompetent. Thankfully the line was short, because it took about 5 min per passenger.

Get to Vegas and jump in cab. Tell cabbie that I want to take strip to hotel. This is the wife's first time in Vegas and I wanted her to get a look at all of the hotels on the way in. This pisses off cab driver who grumbles about construction on blvd. and what a dumb idea it is. In my research I had already discovered that the cabbies want to take a longer route which ends up being a $30 cab ride that takes less time. We were staying at the Palazzo by the way, with more details to follow about the hotel of course.

So after my insistence on strip route, driver never says another word for the whole trip. We breeze through the construction, it is practically 11:00 PM on a sunday after all. We still got tied up in some heavy traffic on the strip. End up getting to the hotel for around $20. I don't remember the specific amount.

Walk into Palazzo, wow what an absolute beautiful hotel. We are paying $119 per night, and I've been in hotels in other parts of the US where for $119 you are lucky if there is enough room to walk around the bed. I haven't been to Vegas in close to 10 years, so its still a marvel for me as well as the Vegas virgin wife. I had decided to try a $20 sandwich at the front desk to see if we could upgrade to a better suite. So I hand her the sandwich and she proceeds to direct me to VIP check-in area, plus she gives me my $20 back. I think I'm golden at this point and give her back $20 as tip.

Here is where I have to tell you that I'm in Las Vegas for business as well as pleasure, with two days of meetings scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday. It turns out that one of the guys I'm meeting with is a high roller who stays at the Palazzo/Venetian more than 10 trips per year and all of the rooms were booked in his name. (There were around 8-9 people in total staying for various parts of the week for the meetings) I get room assignment from the clerk at the VIP check-in and I think I rocked the sandwich. It dawns on me later that VIP check-in was due to my room being associated with this guy and had nothing to do with sandwich. So the sandwich was really a total failure.

The room (34822) was awesome anyway. Looking down at the pool and directly at the Treasure Island show, with Trump and Wynn off to the right. About the only negative I can possibly think of is that it was slightly too high for a good view of the show and the ladies at the pool.

This is a long report, but I'll start with the poker first. I enjoy reading all of the trip report details, but if you want to just hear about poker I'll make it quick.

--- POKER ---

Only played one night of poker, and that was at O'Sheas because that is where the wife felt most comfortable playing BJ. I really wanted to play more, but I had a hard time carving a 5 hour block of time for a game. For me, sitting down to play poker for an hour isn't really worth it. I am bummed that I stayed at the Palazzo and never even played in the beautiful Venetian room. At O'Sheas, I sat at the 1-2 NL game across from the dealer and one to the right and it was terrific. I love the fact that you are playing practically right on the strip. Not to mention 5 feet from the bar. It was an absolute parade of drunk women wearing very little clothing the entire night. I don't know what more you can ask for.

There seems to be a couple of locals playing there. One I called homeless guy. he had a scraggly beard, hardly any teeth and would have looked completely normal 10 feet out the door with a cup in his hand. Seems like he plays there all the time and might even be a "Professional" since it looked like playing poker was his only job and was on a first name basis with every employee there. Not a bad choice to play to take money from the drunk tourists. His biggest flaw was that he was really tight. He pretty much only played when he knew he was the winner.

There was another local there I will call "Crabby Patty". This guy was one of the most miserable MFers I have ever met. He was nitpicking every move the dealers made and complained about all of the players. I was sitting to his right and he kept telling me how poorly the other players were doing. He was pretty selective about who he played against, I think I played one hand against him and took $50 off him and he was never in another hand with me the rest of the night.

The other two guys on my side of the table were both Canadians. They were pounding drinks like crazy but were really decent poker players. I was happy that I was on the left of the aggressive one. He would raise everything constantly and would play a lot of different cards. I just tried to make sure that I had decent cards before jumping into a pot with him.

When I sat down, there were two memorable guys on the other side of the table. One was a muscle head who thought he was a great poker player while feeding the rest of the table his money. There other guy could have been Stephen Root's brother. (Office space, Newsradio, etc). This guy was one lucky SOB who stayed to long after his luck dried up. I think he mistook his luck in getting cards for skill. Before I sat down, I stood behind muscle head and watched him play. He would raise $30 pre flop with K4. I'm not sure if he was that clueless or if he was trying to impress his lady. Unfortunately he only lasted another 30 min or so after I sat down. Milton, as I'll call the other guy, would call everything, but he was winning every hand for a while. I watched him take his stack up to about $600. He should have walked, instead he not only gave back all $600 but also threw in another $200 buy in before making an exit.

My very first hand I had 77 in the pocket, went with the traditional $15 raise and ended heads up with a guy. Another 7 peeled off on the flop with some other junk cards, I went with another $15 continuation bet and got called. Turn card was a queen I think, and although I didn't know it at the time ended up giving the other guy a set too. Now I bet something like $30 and got called again. The river card turns a 7 giving me quads on my first hand, and giving the loser a nice looking boat. I only bought in for a hundred and went all in with the rest and got called of course. So I doubled up immediately, and I wasn't even aware that I was getting a high hand bonus until someone mentioned it. That turned out to be another $60.

After that my cards went completely dry for more than an hour. Just a parade of junk. I didn't even try to bluff because muscle head, Milton and the Canadian to my right were all playing everything so there was no way to bet anyone off a hand. I just bled off $60-80 bucks splashing a few pots looking to turn my junk into something on a flop. It was effective in giving me a tight table image, which ended up being a good thing. Then finally the cards took a turn in my favor. I had back to back AA KK, rolled another pocket pair into a boat and went on a run where I played probably 8 of 10 hands. I probably peaked with my stack at around $500.

I ended up playing until 4 in the morning, when the wife stumbled over extremely drunk. I ended up leaving the table +260, but my 5+ hours of poker cost me $300 in BJ entertainment for the significant other. That $300 was pretty much a fixed cost anyway, so I don't really see it as a loss. Now I'm back home wishing I played more poker and thinking about a trip to Detroit to play some there.

--- HOTEL/CASINO RUNDOWN ---

This would be a good time to talk about our observations from people watching at many various casinos over the course of the trip. In short, if you are a hetero male, you should be no where else but the Palazzo.

Here is a summary of all the casino's visited.

Palazzo - Frickin' hot babes every where you turn. It doesn't matter what flavor of girl you prefer, the hottest of all nationalities is here under one roof. As a special bonus, the guys are all very ugly (according to my wife). The Palazzo is obviously the choice of the business elite and their trophy wives. Palazzo has best looking casino on the strip too. Later in the trip, I decided its because the Palazzo has the highest ceilings of all the casinos, which really gives it a open and airy look, plus lots of room for the sounds to run away to instead of bouncing back on you in that annoying casino slot noise.

Venetian - Pretty much the same as the Palazzo because of the cross breeding, but maybe slightly skewed a little older. The casino is not quite as nice as Palazzo. A little darker and gloomier.

Wynn - Home of the oldsters and gay guys. Hotel looks nicer than than the Palazzo or Venetian but the casino was a total bore. Didn't even want to put a dime on the tables. Went to the buffet, which was great, but the service and the organization was horrible. The Wynn buffet was probably the only place we went on the entire trip where we received poor service. I really don't see myself going back to the Wynn.

Bellagio - I remember when the Bellagio was the shit. The awning over everything doesn't look elegant or eye pleasing anymore, just gimmicky. The newer places of similar quality (Wynn/Venetian/Palazzo) achieve their beauty through quality of materials and construction, not gimmicks. The Bellagio has the best looking men, according to wifey, but the women there are more blah. I've tried to develop a theory, but I don't really have one. I'm thinking maybe the Bellagio clientele is mid western up and comers, who are becoming wealthy enough to enjoy a nice vacation, but aren't the upper crust that the other Luxe casinos are now getting.

Harrah's - What a total joke. We used to stay there when coming to Vegas because of its central location and decent quality. Since then, its obvious that Harrah's has not spent ten cents on their flagship (in name) casino. I don't think there has even been a fresh coat of paint or carpeting since I was there last. On top of that, they have people accosting you on the way in to sell you some crap timeshares or something. What in the hell has happened to Vegas where a mainline strip casino tolerates/sponsors that kind of shit? In short Harrah's is for losers. The only thing it's good for is cutting through to avoid some of the heat.

Planet Hollywood - Nicer than Harrah's but also pushing the BS timeshares. It's just not acceptable behavior for a strip resort hotel. The eye candy here is ok. There were a lot of women which might qualify at 8 or 9s back home, that are pushed down to 6 or 7 under the harsh glare of the premium Palazzo women. However, I still enjoyed my job examining them all. Maybe the funniest story of the trip happened at Planet Hollywood.

When we first walked into the casino after extracting ourselves from the time share sellers, the casino was deathly quiet to the point of being creepy. What was strange though was that it wasn't empty, just quiet in an unsettling way. We weren't there to gamble, we were just cutting through on the way to the stores, and the creepiness just reenforced our thinking that we didn't want to hang there. As we were walking through, I noticed a guy who looked just like the Cromartie terminator sitting at a slot machine, and I poked my wife and said that guy looks just like a terminator.

We did our shopping and we were walking back through the casino when we noticed a huge crowd gathered around one area. It turns out that they were shooting an episode of CSI and the guy I thought looked like a terminator is actually a terminator! (I just looked in IMDB and the actor's name is Garret Dillahunt) We also saw Marg Helgenberger who looked pretty good in person. I've never watched the show.

Caesar's - Blah, knock it down and start fresh with a more modern take. Here is a phrase I think I invented, but maybe its been said before. I would rather watch humans pretend to be statues at the Venetian than watch statues pretend to be human at Caesars. Just horrible corn ball stuff which. When you look at what Caesar's did with the cloud ceiling and the airport style moving sidewalks, you have to give them credit for being innovative. But now most of those features have been copied by the other casinos and what's left is just cheese. If you think Caesar's is elegant then you probably also think lawn gnomes and gazing balls enhance your garden.

Casino Royale - I intended to spend some time there playing the super cheap craps, but they have proceeded to make their casino unusable. My wife has never really gambled in a casino before, and I was intending on getting her set up for black jack while I did my thing. I thought I could probably find a $5 BJ table in the Royale and maybe even less. Nope. The only $5 tables they had are the switch tables which require you to play two hands. If we wanted to bet $10 per hand, we could have stayed at the Palazzo getting fair odds and nice scenery rather than in their tiny place.

O'Sheas - After the unsuccessful trip to Casino Royale, we proceeded to O'Sheas in our search for reasonably priced gambling. We found $5 BJ and $5 craps here and this is where we did most of our gaming. My discussion of the O'Sheas "Poker room" will follow later. We had a ton of fun here, although I'm beginning to really dislike Harrah's as a company. The $5 BJ table only pays 6/5 for a black jack rather than the expected 3/2. It didn't even bother me so much at the $5 table in O'Sheas as kind of a cheapness tax, but the $10 tables in Harrah's proper were the same setup. I felt like informing every idiot sitting at a $10 table in Harrah's that they could play for the same money in a much nicer casino with much nicer "views" and get better odds at the same time.

O'Sheas also tries to screw you on the craps table by only paying double on a 6-6 field payout rather than the expected triple. I don't play the field when playing craps, so it didn't affect me at all, but I felt sorry for the poor fools who do who aren't smart enough to understand the overall effect on the odds on an already poor odds bet. I didn't even bother to check, but I'm thinking that Harrah's screwed the customer in the same way on the $10 craps table. By taking advantage of their customers in this way, Harrah's is taking strip gaming to a seedy and creepy place. People gamble money on the strip because they are counting on being dealt with fairly. Letting Harrah's get away with it will degrade all of the hotels on the strip.

Enough about the gambling, great fun can be had at O'Sheas. It's a real party place with lots of attractive and inebriated ladies wearing very small amounts of clothing. If you are a single guy looking to make a hook up, I would think that this would be a prime spot on the strip. If you aren't in the market but still want to enjoy bountiful breasts spilling over too little clothing, this is still a good choice. The women might not be quite as hot as the Palazzo women, but they make up for it in attitude. It may be a reflection of my advancing age, but you could not pay me enough to play beer pong there. The places where those ping pong balls end up is disgusting. Think of playing craps but rolling the dice by inserting them into your mouth and spitting them out. That would be just as clean as the BP game, maybe cleaner since in craps the dice only hit the carpeting once in a while instead of almost every toss.

--- FOOD RUNDOWN ---

Dos Caminos

We had one dinner here. It very surprising. It looks like a small little eatery off the casino floor. In reality, this restaurant is HUGE. My wife thought the Chilean sea bass was terrific. I had the tacos and be warned, the tacos are very small. If you are like me and you fill up on chips and salsa, it might not be a problem. Its billed as casual dining on the Palazzo website which I think is not correct. I think our bill without drinks was around $50, which is pretty high for casual dining. The tacos were $17 and the portion was small at best. It was still a good meal.

Grand Lux

We ate here most of the time. Had the breakfast buffet at both the Palazzo and Venetian location. Its been stated repeatedly, but the buffet at the venetian is much better. I had a club sandwich, the pizza and a steak there at various time over the trip and they were all pretty good. Had really good service every time except one event that was average at best.

Canaletto

A very nice meal with a fixed price dinner special. I had the lasagna, which I didn't like at all. They used shredded beef which just didn't taste right. Think mixing a roast in with lasagna ingredients. I can't blame them for the meal not agreeing with my tastebuds, and other than that the experience was very good

Noodle Asia

Had the most unusual dinner experience here. We noticed that it seemed like we had a different waiter coming to the table each time, so we started keeping track. In the end, we counted 7 different employees who helped serve our dinner. I wanted to hit a noodle place after reading an article about all of the noodle places popping up to serve the asian clientele. We only had a chance to visit this one and I'm really interested to know if this is prevalent everywhere.

Puck's Postrio

Dropped in for a quick lunch. I wasn't hungry but wife had English Pea Soup and another dish that I can't remember, neither of which she was that happy with. The service was great though and had we been there longer we might have tried it again.

Wynn Buffet

I mentioned this in the overall Wynn review, but the service at the buffet was crappy. The hostesses were disorganized and the line to get a chair was longer than the line to pay, and neither line was that interested in moving very fast. Once seated, we were not immediately approached for drink orders like most quality buffets. We got sick of waiting and went up for food first. After almost finishing our first plate, we finally got a waitress to take a drink order. The food was good though.