ES
New Year's Eve at Caesar's Palace
We flew in from Chicago on NYE around 11am and took a shuttle to Caesar's. I had booked a classic room through the Harrah's website with an offer I had gotten from my Rewards card. Our total rate before tax was around $750 for 5 nights, Dec 31-Jan 5 so that was pretty good. I tipped the check-in guy $20 and we received an upgrade to a Palace Tower room at no additional charge, it would have normally been an additional $60/night, $300 total for our stay. The room was great and we had no problems. We had a partial view of the strip, mostly the volcano at Mirage and the Wynn.
This was our first time in Vegas for NYE. We had only made dinner plans and didn't have any evening/midnight plans which I now regret. We ended up just shuffling around between the casino in Caesar's and the outside area and it was just too crowded and not a lot going on.
We did some shopping the next day and played some blackjack and Texas Hold'Em Bonus poker. I lost a few hundred but my boyfriend was up a few hundred. I decided to get into the midnight tournament for $70 at Caesar's which they max out at 50 players. It paid the top 6 spots and I of course finished in 8th grrr. Same story the next day, lost on the tables, played in their $120 9pm bounty tournament, I won 1 bounty for $50 but finished in 12th place outside the money. I tried again with the midnight tournament and finished around 20th place or so.
Saturday night came around and I was still losing on the tables so I figured I would give the midnight another shot. This time I was on fire. Within the first round I knocked out 10 players, 2 with a straight flush. I went on to win 1st in this one for $950 which I really needed as my ATM withdrawls were maxed out for the weekend. Then I did the 7pm $160 on Sunday and placed 8th for $437. Overall not too bad for playing in just a few tourney's. I really liked the tournaments there, if you get knocked out early there is usually another tournament starting soon. The buy-in are reasonable but they get a nice turnout for bigger payouts. The atmosphere is laid back and welcoming. I will be staying at Rio in May and plan on playing at Caesar's again. Oh and the day of check out I took both my card and my boyfriends card to the casino host and they took another $200 off our room so that was a nice bonus.
That's great! Glad to hear u like the tourney.
How was the fireworks? I heard this year is not too good. Last year, they had fireworks right above the casino buildings.
Word on the street was that ever since the Monte Carlo fire (which I guess was started from fireworks for the Chinese New Year) the casinos could no longer set off fireworks on their roofs and that the fireworks were still going to be done but off of the parking garage roofs. Well we also had a direct view of the parking garage at Caesars from our bedroom window but when I came up to change my shoes around 10:30 I didn't see any people or equipment to do so and figured this wasn't the spot. After getting pushed around the crowd for a few hours and watching 21 year old vomiting on every corner we decided to go up to the room until the crowd eased up. At midnight it sounded like a machine gun was going off in our room. I looked outside and the fireworks were being let off right under our window. Being so close it's hard to say if they were nice. They did last for about 10-15 minutes but being set back so far I can see how no one was able to enjoy them.
Oh and we had some travel plan changes for our next trip. My boyfriends card now has enough comp credits on it that we can stay at any Harrah's property for free (except caesar's which was $200 for 5 nights) when we come back in May so we are going to stay at Paris. I still plan on playing at Caesar's poker room again. Oh and I forgot to mention Mel from their poker room. He was a dealer some nights and floor supervisor other nights. He was really great, friendly, courteous, and accommodating. We had a problem during one of the tournaments with a players drunk friend hovering around the table and making comments about peoples hands, Mel got him escorted out ASAP no questions asked.