We had such a good time in August that we literally planned the same exact trip for September. We again booked simultaneously at the Stratosphere and Gold Coast.
We live in the mid-west and have to drive to Cedar Rapids to catch the bargain Allegiant Air flight directly to Las Vegas. On the way, we saw a dark wall of clouds in the distance, the wind picked up and suddenly it was raining heavily. It got so heavy that I couldn’t see out the windshield and pulled over.
The wind gusted even more rocking my little Toyota back and forth. Holy Smokes I thought, Hope we don’t miss the flight, let alone drown on the drive to the airport.
As fast as the storm came on, it blew over. We made it to the airport and checked in. We decided to get an early start on alcohol and cholesterol and had a beer and burger in the airport restaurant. There were still bands of the weather coming through and some flights were canceled and delayed.
Our flight was slightly delayed but then again, I should have expected this. Two of my staff had been sent to attend a conference in Vegas and we hoped to meet them for cocktails. I pulled out my phone to let them know we would be late-the phone was dead naturally.
The flight was uneventful and we made our way to the taxi line which was as crowded as I had ever seen it. It was actually backed up into the terminal building with people milling around. We got in what turned out to be the right line, snaked our way around the stanchions and eventually got a cab. Great driver and didn’t use the tunnel to get to the Stratosphere.
By now it was late but VIP services were mercifully open. We were given an envelope with instructions on how to attend a special birthday party honoring two of the hosts including our own Ron Guse.
Ron Guse is a great host. Always answers his phone and email. Always contacts us when we visit. Always offers some nice treat or event. He is always friendly and professional. Ron is a primary reason that we keep coming back.
We get up to our room and Ron has a treat for us; a carafe of milk and assortment of big cookies. How cool is that?
We’re up early for our usual Roxys breakfast of too much food. I like the “full house”, a riot of fattening bacon, ham, sausage, pancakes, home fries and three eggs jostling for room on a plate. I can’t quite finish it but it is always enough to hold me until dinner and makes a safe harbor for the Heinekens to follow. My wife had something far healthier, yogurt and sawdust I think, but I catch her occasional lustful glance at my plate.
Unfortunately the Strat has messed around with what used to be fair video poker. You can play 8/5 BP but not earn any points or play an assortment of shorter pay stuff. We found some three/five and ten play games outside of the high limit area that seemed to do OK even with pay outs in the 98% range. We banged on these for a while until early afternoon and decided to go check into the Gold Coast. We threw one day’s worth of clothes into our duffel and grabbed a cab. My wife has better offers than I do here so she has booked the room that comes with some food and some free play in modest amounts.
We like to Gold Coast- nice assortment of restaurants and video poker. I saw that they had a barbershop and since my hair (the part that doesn’t cut itself by falling out) needed trimming, I searched the place out. You have to go past the bank of elevators to the rooms and take a left down a hallway. There was plastic on the floor and a loud banging noise coming from somewhere. We saw the barbershop and both barbers looked busy so I decided to come back. We saddled up to a couple of uprights with dollar NSUDs and started playing. This was one of those happy times where we were both doing well. Before too long we both bumped up to $2 and then were north of a thousand on our hundred dollar buy in- thank you very much. We both cashed out and redeemed our tickets in the little kiosk thing. When someone is in front of you do you try to see what they are cashing out without looking like someone who plans to rob them? I checked out the older woman pulling the oxygen tank; $7.50 cash out. More power to her cashing out something.
My wife wanted to finish up a nice wall hanging she was making for Ron over at the Stratosphere and I thought I would go get a haircut. When I went back to the barbershop there was only one barber who was busy. He said to hold for a minute and he would call the other barber. In a few minutes an older but dapper gentleman comes limping in with a cane. Sure he can take me. He was an interesting man who had emigrated from England in the 1950s and came from a family of barbers. He was able to hop around
and tend to my balding graying mess ineffectually colored with Grecian formula, and did a fine job. He had worked at a barber college at one time in Pasadena where we used to live so we had a good time talking about how much things have changed. The haircut was only $20 and I beefed that up with a fin for the entertaining hair cut.
My wife had done a great job creating fabric representation of the Stratosphere bordered by squares showing different sports team from the Chicago area where Ron is from originally. By now it was time for dinner so we went down to the Cortez room. We ordered crab cakes (fair) and a shrimp cocktail (good) to split after some cocktails. I went for the filet served with lobster tail (excellent) and my wife had a chicken imperial (very good) served with crab meat. At the Cortez Room, salad and sides come with the meal which meant a nice chop salad and baked sweet potato served with cinnamon butter. We were stuffed but decided to have some coffee in the high limit area and play $5 9/6 JOB with a $500 buy in. We call this home run play- swing for the fences and hope to hit something. It was fun but futile as we returned some of the earlier winnings to the casino.
Oh well, we went outside to the dollar machines where we belong apparently and played without any big wins or losses. We were on central time and the anesthetic effect of too much food made our eyelids heavy. I had intended to play some black jack but decided to go up the room- all the better to get an early start on the day.
The following day I was up early once again- around 4:00 am. I tried to quietly take a shower and dress so as not to wake up my wife. “I’m going downstairs to get some coffee and play at the bar I announced.”
“Mmmmfffff?”, she said in return.
I was surprised to find the table game area busy and fully occupied. I thought I might play some black jack but the tables were populated by power smokers faintly visible through the haze, so I went to the bar near the sports book.
I got my coffee and settled into some dollar 9/6 JOB and started following a fascinating discussion between two drunks a few stools away. Way back in the day I was a bartender and can usually decipher “drunkese” pretty well. Here is the conversation;
Drunk One, “You know what I’m gonna tell you…?”
Drunk Two: “You can’t tell me anything…”
Drunk One: “But I am going to tell you and you’re going to listen…”
Drunk Two: “I’m not going to listen and you can’t make me…”
Drunk One: “But I am going to tell you….”
Drunk Two: “No you are not…”
This went on for a long time and was fascinating- many words with no meaning all in that exaggerated pronunciation and slow drawn out style of heavy drinkers everywhere. Let me confess, been there and done that.
By then my wife had joined me and we sipped coffee, played JOB and waited for the buffet to open.
The Gold Coast buffet is reasonably priced and somewhat middle of the road. I can always make up a good breakfast and since it had just opened, the food was fresh and hot. I like to have some fruit along with the grease and settled on some mandarin orange slices. Hmmmmm, what is that little tingle like carbonation taste? They were past their date but everything else was fine.
We packed up, checked out and cabbed back to the Strat with a cab driver who literally did not say one word during the ride. We pulled up to the Strat and he simply pointed to the meter. Well- OK, everyone can have a bad day sometime.
We went back to the room and resettled in. My wife had a few last touches to make to the gift for our host so I decided to go to the casino and find a source of amusement. Oh look- mutli-hand video poker in short pay denominations.
I played for a while and managed to hit four aces on three play 7/5 dollar BP. That gave me the juice to keep playing for a while, sipping Heinekens and enjoying life.
My now my wife has wrapped up the gift, attached a card and we are to meet someone in the VIP area who will take us all up to the area where the host birthday celebration is being held.
As I recall, we go to the 107th level with a several other couples to a room with a great view all set up with tables, plates, silverware and a specialty menu.
The dinner was attended by the hosts, director of player development and was great fun. We especially enjoyed getting to know our table mates and more about our host. He explained that to get work in a casino you really need to know someone.
We went down to the casino again, played for just a bit and then called it a night. We had an interesting experience when there was a partial power failure and our bank of machines went dark. Other areas of the casino remained lit and eventually our bank of machines blinked and came back to life. They were doing some kind of start up routine and we both wondered if they would “remember” that we had money in there. Eventually they came back on to include our money.
The next day, Sunday was our return to Iowa day. We had a mid afternoon flight so plenty of time to have breakfast and play. Roxys once again and I decided on something healthier; prime rib hash with three eggs. Once again way too much food and I gobbled my way through about half of it. My wife had an egg white omelet with essence of parsley. Later I was watching local news in our room when the little scrolling banner at the bottom said something about Allegiant Airlines canceling a bunch of flights. What!!??
I pulled out my tablet and reluctantly paid for the internet access and went to the Allegiant website. All sorts of flights had been canceled but not ours. Our flight back home was uneventful and we ended up with a minor hit to the bankroll.
When I got home a friend emailed me and asked if I would be interested in making it three months in a row to Vegas. What kind of question is that- all booked for October 11-13.
We live in the mid-west and have to drive to Cedar Rapids to catch the bargain Allegiant Air flight directly to Las Vegas. On the way, we saw a dark wall of clouds in the distance, the wind picked up and suddenly it was raining heavily. It got so heavy that I couldn’t see out the windshield and pulled over.
The wind gusted even more rocking my little Toyota back and forth. Holy Smokes I thought, Hope we don’t miss the flight, let alone drown on the drive to the airport.
As fast as the storm came on, it blew over. We made it to the airport and checked in. We decided to get an early start on alcohol and cholesterol and had a beer and burger in the airport restaurant. There were still bands of the weather coming through and some flights were canceled and delayed.
Our flight was slightly delayed but then again, I should have expected this. Two of my staff had been sent to attend a conference in Vegas and we hoped to meet them for cocktails. I pulled out my phone to let them know we would be late-the phone was dead naturally.
The flight was uneventful and we made our way to the taxi line which was as crowded as I had ever seen it. It was actually backed up into the terminal building with people milling around. We got in what turned out to be the right line, snaked our way around the stanchions and eventually got a cab. Great driver and didn’t use the tunnel to get to the Stratosphere.
By now it was late but VIP services were mercifully open. We were given an envelope with instructions on how to attend a special birthday party honoring two of the hosts including our own Ron Guse.
Ron Guse is a great host. Always answers his phone and email. Always contacts us when we visit. Always offers some nice treat or event. He is always friendly and professional. Ron is a primary reason that we keep coming back.
We get up to our room and Ron has a treat for us; a carafe of milk and assortment of big cookies. How cool is that?
We’re up early for our usual Roxys breakfast of too much food. I like the “full house”, a riot of fattening bacon, ham, sausage, pancakes, home fries and three eggs jostling for room on a plate. I can’t quite finish it but it is always enough to hold me until dinner and makes a safe harbor for the Heinekens to follow. My wife had something far healthier, yogurt and sawdust I think, but I catch her occasional lustful glance at my plate.
Unfortunately the Strat has messed around with what used to be fair video poker. You can play 8/5 BP but not earn any points or play an assortment of shorter pay stuff. We found some three/five and ten play games outside of the high limit area that seemed to do OK even with pay outs in the 98% range. We banged on these for a while until early afternoon and decided to go check into the Gold Coast. We threw one day’s worth of clothes into our duffel and grabbed a cab. My wife has better offers than I do here so she has booked the room that comes with some food and some free play in modest amounts.
We like to Gold Coast- nice assortment of restaurants and video poker. I saw that they had a barbershop and since my hair (the part that doesn’t cut itself by falling out) needed trimming, I searched the place out. You have to go past the bank of elevators to the rooms and take a left down a hallway. There was plastic on the floor and a loud banging noise coming from somewhere. We saw the barbershop and both barbers looked busy so I decided to come back. We saddled up to a couple of uprights with dollar NSUDs and started playing. This was one of those happy times where we were both doing well. Before too long we both bumped up to $2 and then were north of a thousand on our hundred dollar buy in- thank you very much. We both cashed out and redeemed our tickets in the little kiosk thing. When someone is in front of you do you try to see what they are cashing out without looking like someone who plans to rob them? I checked out the older woman pulling the oxygen tank; $7.50 cash out. More power to her cashing out something.
My wife wanted to finish up a nice wall hanging she was making for Ron over at the Stratosphere and I thought I would go get a haircut. When I went back to the barbershop there was only one barber who was busy. He said to hold for a minute and he would call the other barber. In a few minutes an older but dapper gentleman comes limping in with a cane. Sure he can take me. He was an interesting man who had emigrated from England in the 1950s and came from a family of barbers. He was able to hop around
and tend to my balding graying mess ineffectually colored with Grecian formula, and did a fine job. He had worked at a barber college at one time in Pasadena where we used to live so we had a good time talking about how much things have changed. The haircut was only $20 and I beefed that up with a fin for the entertaining hair cut.
My wife had done a great job creating fabric representation of the Stratosphere bordered by squares showing different sports team from the Chicago area where Ron is from originally. By now it was time for dinner so we went down to the Cortez room. We ordered crab cakes (fair) and a shrimp cocktail (good) to split after some cocktails. I went for the filet served with lobster tail (excellent) and my wife had a chicken imperial (very good) served with crab meat. At the Cortez Room, salad and sides come with the meal which meant a nice chop salad and baked sweet potato served with cinnamon butter. We were stuffed but decided to have some coffee in the high limit area and play $5 9/6 JOB with a $500 buy in. We call this home run play- swing for the fences and hope to hit something. It was fun but futile as we returned some of the earlier winnings to the casino.
Oh well, we went outside to the dollar machines where we belong apparently and played without any big wins or losses. We were on central time and the anesthetic effect of too much food made our eyelids heavy. I had intended to play some black jack but decided to go up the room- all the better to get an early start on the day.
The following day I was up early once again- around 4:00 am. I tried to quietly take a shower and dress so as not to wake up my wife. “I’m going downstairs to get some coffee and play at the bar I announced.”
“Mmmmfffff?”, she said in return.
I was surprised to find the table game area busy and fully occupied. I thought I might play some black jack but the tables were populated by power smokers faintly visible through the haze, so I went to the bar near the sports book.
I got my coffee and settled into some dollar 9/6 JOB and started following a fascinating discussion between two drunks a few stools away. Way back in the day I was a bartender and can usually decipher “drunkese” pretty well. Here is the conversation;
Drunk One, “You know what I’m gonna tell you…?”
Drunk Two: “You can’t tell me anything…”
Drunk One: “But I am going to tell you and you’re going to listen…”
Drunk Two: “I’m not going to listen and you can’t make me…”
Drunk One: “But I am going to tell you….”
Drunk Two: “No you are not…”
This went on for a long time and was fascinating- many words with no meaning all in that exaggerated pronunciation and slow drawn out style of heavy drinkers everywhere. Let me confess, been there and done that.
By then my wife had joined me and we sipped coffee, played JOB and waited for the buffet to open.
The Gold Coast buffet is reasonably priced and somewhat middle of the road. I can always make up a good breakfast and since it had just opened, the food was fresh and hot. I like to have some fruit along with the grease and settled on some mandarin orange slices. Hmmmmm, what is that little tingle like carbonation taste? They were past their date but everything else was fine.
We packed up, checked out and cabbed back to the Strat with a cab driver who literally did not say one word during the ride. We pulled up to the Strat and he simply pointed to the meter. Well- OK, everyone can have a bad day sometime.
We went back to the room and resettled in. My wife had a few last touches to make to the gift for our host so I decided to go to the casino and find a source of amusement. Oh look- mutli-hand video poker in short pay denominations.
I played for a while and managed to hit four aces on three play 7/5 dollar BP. That gave me the juice to keep playing for a while, sipping Heinekens and enjoying life.
My now my wife has wrapped up the gift, attached a card and we are to meet someone in the VIP area who will take us all up to the area where the host birthday celebration is being held.
As I recall, we go to the 107th level with a several other couples to a room with a great view all set up with tables, plates, silverware and a specialty menu.
The dinner was attended by the hosts, director of player development and was great fun. We especially enjoyed getting to know our table mates and more about our host. He explained that to get work in a casino you really need to know someone.
We went down to the casino again, played for just a bit and then called it a night. We had an interesting experience when there was a partial power failure and our bank of machines went dark. Other areas of the casino remained lit and eventually our bank of machines blinked and came back to life. They were doing some kind of start up routine and we both wondered if they would “remember” that we had money in there. Eventually they came back on to include our money.
The next day, Sunday was our return to Iowa day. We had a mid afternoon flight so plenty of time to have breakfast and play. Roxys once again and I decided on something healthier; prime rib hash with three eggs. Once again way too much food and I gobbled my way through about half of it. My wife had an egg white omelet with essence of parsley. Later I was watching local news in our room when the little scrolling banner at the bottom said something about Allegiant Airlines canceling a bunch of flights. What!!??
I pulled out my tablet and reluctantly paid for the internet access and went to the Allegiant website. All sorts of flights had been canceled but not ours. Our flight back home was uneventful and we ended up with a minor hit to the bankroll.
When I got home a friend emailed me and asked if I would be interested in making it three months in a row to Vegas. What kind of question is that- all booked for October 11-13.
