Day 1: We packed on Monday so we could leave on Tuesday morning and get to Vegas by lunch. My wife, Jan, had to teach a class from 8:00 – 10:00 am so we decided I would drive her to work (15 minutes away) so that I could just pick her up at 10:00 and leave straight from there. After all, it’s 15 minutes closer to Vegas so I’m all for it. I wake up not feeling well but it’s travel day so I’ve got to buck up! The whole drive there I am starting to feel worse and worse. We arrive around 1:15 and head over to Pai Wai for lunch (right across the street from Red Rock) and I won’t go into details but this is when my sickness (flu bug?) manifests itself in all ways.
After my family finished lunch, we check in at Red Rock. This is my first time checking in at the President’s level so I’m using the VIP check-in. My son thought this was all just too much. He was very impressed when I gave him the card key that said “VIP” that allowed us to use the VIP set of elevators. Little did he know that we had much bigger plans for the evening for him to enjoy.
There were no suites available in the first half of the hallway on any floor (really?) unless we wanted to wait an hour (which my sick self was not up for AT ALL) so we got a suite on the 17th floor with a canyon view (17132) just on the other side of the pool elevators. I lay down immediately hoping for sleep but instead was up and down every 15 minutes with one sickness or another. Now I’m starting to get worried because our plans for the evening are to take our 11-year-old son, Jesse to see The Lion King. At this point, I wouldn’t even be able to make it from Red Rock to Mandalay Bay, let alone sit in a theatre for 2 hours. I had arranged with my host to secure a comped limo ride to and from the show (this would be the first such ride for our son) and now I’m thinking they are going to have to go without me!
Jan and Jesse ordered room service for dinner (mediocre pasta) and I slept. Luckily, I was able to rally at the last minute and so we get dressed and head down to our limo at 6:30. This is all a surprise for Jesse (an early Xmas gift) as he loves live theatre. The look on his face when we walked out to valet and we were directed over to the limo where our driver, Ian, greeted us, was priceless. Ian was a pleasure. I’ve never been so happy to have a driver as I was on this night due to my illness. Here's a picture the valet at The Hotel took when we arrived:
We had seats in direct center a few rows up from the sound/light director, which were quite good. I brought binoculars for Jesse so that he could check everything out. He LOVED it. We saw The Lion King many years ago in L.A. and both Jan and I agreed that the Vegas LK was not up to the quality of the L.A. one (there were some sound issues and the performances were good but not spectacular). Even still, we certainly enjoyed it. Once the show was over, I let Jesse know that there was one more surprise. My best friend from my youth is a professional violinist who spent a few years touring with one of The Lion King groups and knew several of the musicians in the Vegas show. She was able to arrange for her friend, Karl, the music director, to give us a back stage tour after the show. Seeing the costumes and sets up close was a special treat for all of us!
We finished with the tour a few minutes earlier than I had anticipated so we had to wait a few minutes for the limo but it arrived at the designated time and we were off to our home away from home for the next 3 nights. After our big night out, it was straight to bed for me. The casino would have to wait until tomorrow when I just knew I would be feeling much better.
Day 2: I wake up nice and late (I love sleeping in even when I haven’t been sick) and feeling great (yay!) but Jan doesn’t want me to take any chances so we order room service for breakfast and I just have vanilla yogurt. This is disappointing to me because I absolutely love an indulgent breakfast and I only have them when we are on vacation. I’m thrilled to be feeling good so the disappoint at not having eggs, pancakes, or something else yummy is not too bad. Unfortunately, my family is now starting to feel under the weather (uh-oh) so we caution Jesse to not eat all of his cereal just in case.
Since they are not feeling well, they are going to stay in the room and I make plans to go downstairs to gamble for awhile. I normally don’t gamble during the day but since I didn’t get any gambling in the night before, I’m determined to put in some hours to make up for that. Best. Decision. Ever.
I’ve mostly played craps over the last 10 years or so that we’ve been visiting Vegas on a regular basis, but I have to admit that this year, I have been lured to spend more and more time at the slot machines for two reasons. 1) Some of them are entertaining. I enjoy the interactive video slots with various bonus rounds – especially those where you get to make choices and 2) I have been extraordinarily lucky in my slot play. I realize that is likely to change but until then, I’m happy to win and add up my comp dollars faster on the slots.
So I head down at around 10:45 am and plan to gamble for around 90 minutes or so. I go look for the new Ghostbusters slot machine because I heard it was fun but the two spots are filled so I head over to my 2nd favorite slot, Alice in Wonderland Mad Tea Party. I’m hitting some bonus rounds but not picking very well so after a bit, I decide to try out my all-time favorite slot, the Wizard of Oz Ruby Slippers. There are two different banks of Ruby Slippers (2 on each bank) and I’ve had great luck at one bank and not so much at the other so I head to my lucky bank and sit down for what I hope is an hour of play at the maximum bet ($4.80). I’m doing well with several bonus hits including one for $352 I recently started videotaping all of my bonus rounds as they begin so that I can post the big wins on YouTube so here’s my first one of the trip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd9i83WdMt0 . And then the real excitement begins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qiQy_gyJ9U For those of you who don’t want to watch the 1 minute video, I will tell you that the Ruby Slippers bonus hit, gave me 4 out 5 reels wild with a multiplier of 10X (which I’ve never seen happen) for a payout of just over $11K! This is my largest jackpot and 2nd hand pay ever! On the video, you can hear me and the nice woman sitting at the machine next to me (but mostly me) exclaiming “Oh my God!” over and over again. By the time the machine locks up, I have already drawn a small group of people behind me from all my hollering!
While I am waiting for the hand pay, my wife calls me to tell me that our son has just vomited half-way across the suite on his way to the bathroom and demands that I get upstairs right away. In our relationship, I am the parent designated to deal with everyone’s vomit. I try to explain that I am waiting for a hand pay and will be up as soon as possible. It doesn’t really register with her what that means as she is not a gambler and she is extremely stressed out by the situation in the suite. So I don’t even have time to revel in my success. The Red Rock employee with the cash offers to count out the $10K that is packaged. She mentions that the three of them have already counted it so I tell them that I trust them on that so they just count out the other $1200, I tip the floor person $100, cash out my other winnings and race up to the room.
By the time I get to the room, towels have been thrown down on the floor and everyone is calmer. I comfort my son who is laying on the cool tile in the bathroom with his skin looking altogether the wrong color. Then I escort Jan into the bedroom and whip out the packaged $10K. I didn’t want my son to see or hear about my win as I don’t want him to get the wrong idea about gambling and think that it’s easy to win big money. So we do a quiet little happy dance. I put the money in the safe, do most of the clean up from the mishap, call housekeeping to service the room, and then we all sit on the couch together and watch the beginning of a Harry Potter movie. When the housekeeping person arrives, we explain the situation and that we will be staying in the room but out of her way as she services the suite. So while she works in the main room, we hang out in the bedroom and vice versa. I tip her $20 for dealing with the extra mess of towels and mopping the tile floor.
Since Jan and Jesse aren’t going anywhere, it is decided that I should go ahead and go get a bit more gambling in so I head off again for the slots. Ghostbusters is busy again but I jump around a few different machines before I find myself drawn back to Ruby Slippers. I’m not expecting another massive win, but it’s my favorite machine to play so why not? I put in a few hundred dollars and had several good hits including https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X74k3Bd1m3k. for $603.
I head back up to the room after 90 minutes or so. Jesse is feeling better but still doesn’t look quite right. Jan and I go to dinner at Terra Rossa, leaving him in the room to watch the Disney Channel (a big treat because he rarely watches T.V. at home). We eat a delish salad and spinach pizza and then I’m off to the tables and slots. I finally got a go at the Ghostbusters slot. I hit two bonus rounds in 10 minutes. It’s actually a lot of fun. I roamed around playing different machines and then headed to the roulette table. I hit one number for a net of $500, and then tried for one more with no luck so I left +60 up. It was time to hit the craps tables. I was up and down and up and down for about an hour. Then I just had to find my way back to my winning Ruby Slippers. I was able to play for about an hour and ended up a bit up. Then I headed back over to the Mad Tea Party and did some awesome picking in the super mad respin bonuses to leave up $400.
Day 3: Thursday everyone is feeling good again. Jesse had been begging to go to Kids Quest so he finally got to go while we went to the Spa and Salon where we had 2:00 appointments for pedicures. We enjoyed the spa before our appt. We have been to the spa lots of times but this was our first visit to the Salon. We enjoyed it as well. We host a dinner for 20+ on the Saturday after Thanksgiving so we enjoy relaxing in the spa on the day when most people are cooking all day.
My cousin lives in Vegas and he joined us for dinner at Terra Rossa (our favorite restaurant, as you can tell). They had a special menu for Thanksgiving that included pumpkin ravioli that was delish. As we were walking to the restaurant, I couldn’t help but notice the giant lines at both the café and the buffet. Who knew that many people eat Thanksgiving dinner at restaurants???
After dinner, it was back on the casino floor for me. I lost at craps, won some at roulette, and then spent the rest of the evening (until about 1:00 am) on the slots. I tried to get on my favorite bank of ruby slippers but they were taken so I headed over to the other bank and hit for $600 in the first 5 minutes. Then I played it down to $300 before I decided that was that. I then headed over to Capriotti’s in the food court to order our veggie turkey sandwich for the ride home tomorrow (We would be leaving before they would be open in the morning) and took that up to the fridge in the room. Then it was back down to my favorite winning machine which was now open and I began another winning streak. I had several good bonus rounds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyFSoeT3D2w and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocN6LP6M22g), turned my $300 into $1,400 and then I hit a $1,224 jackpot. (I had 5 progressive symbols on two lines) My phone battery died so I didn’t get that one on video. Of course, this was just large enough to require a W2 hand pay. I got paid for that and then cashed out the other $1,400 (which also required a hand pay b/c apparently any cash out over $1,000 on the WOO machines locks the machine). On my way to the room, I passed the Dark Knight group video slot. I hit a couple of bonuses on this one but ended up losing $100 and decided to call it a night.
Day 4: My host is not in today but she told me to talk to another host named Dave. I call him and he says he can cover all the food but not the salon pedicures. I’m surprised by this as I think I’ve put quite a bit of money through the machines. He suggests I contact Valery (my host) when she gets back. I emailed her yesterday and she responded today (Monday) saying that she kind of over-comped me last visit and doesn’t want to raise any red flags by doing it again so the pedicures are our only cost for the trip. I’m not going to complain since I’m coming home $11K richer. We are driving off the property at 9:30 am and get all the way home before Jan realizes that she’s left her very expensive pillow in the suite. It’s one of those memory foam pillows that keeps her from getting a sore neck. I immediately call housekeeping. It turns out the room has not even been cleaned yet so I’m sure they will locate the pillow. I was supposed to get a call later that day (I didn’t) so I called that night and they promised to call me the next day (they didn’t) so now I’ve emailed my host to get to the bottom of this pillow situation. The pillow is now waiting for us in lost and found.
All in all – everything was fabulous except for feeling ill that first day. But I’d be sick all over again if it meant I was going to hit for $11K the next day! I'm looking forward to another trip on Dec. 13 where I'll have $750 in promotional chips or slot play (I was planning on taking the chips, but maybe I should take the slot play given my crazy luck at the slots)!
After my family finished lunch, we check in at Red Rock. This is my first time checking in at the President’s level so I’m using the VIP check-in. My son thought this was all just too much. He was very impressed when I gave him the card key that said “VIP” that allowed us to use the VIP set of elevators. Little did he know that we had much bigger plans for the evening for him to enjoy.
There were no suites available in the first half of the hallway on any floor (really?) unless we wanted to wait an hour (which my sick self was not up for AT ALL) so we got a suite on the 17th floor with a canyon view (17132) just on the other side of the pool elevators. I lay down immediately hoping for sleep but instead was up and down every 15 minutes with one sickness or another. Now I’m starting to get worried because our plans for the evening are to take our 11-year-old son, Jesse to see The Lion King. At this point, I wouldn’t even be able to make it from Red Rock to Mandalay Bay, let alone sit in a theatre for 2 hours. I had arranged with my host to secure a comped limo ride to and from the show (this would be the first such ride for our son) and now I’m thinking they are going to have to go without me!
Jan and Jesse ordered room service for dinner (mediocre pasta) and I slept. Luckily, I was able to rally at the last minute and so we get dressed and head down to our limo at 6:30. This is all a surprise for Jesse (an early Xmas gift) as he loves live theatre. The look on his face when we walked out to valet and we were directed over to the limo where our driver, Ian, greeted us, was priceless. Ian was a pleasure. I’ve never been so happy to have a driver as I was on this night due to my illness. Here's a picture the valet at The Hotel took when we arrived:
We had seats in direct center a few rows up from the sound/light director, which were quite good. I brought binoculars for Jesse so that he could check everything out. He LOVED it. We saw The Lion King many years ago in L.A. and both Jan and I agreed that the Vegas LK was not up to the quality of the L.A. one (there were some sound issues and the performances were good but not spectacular). Even still, we certainly enjoyed it. Once the show was over, I let Jesse know that there was one more surprise. My best friend from my youth is a professional violinist who spent a few years touring with one of The Lion King groups and knew several of the musicians in the Vegas show. She was able to arrange for her friend, Karl, the music director, to give us a back stage tour after the show. Seeing the costumes and sets up close was a special treat for all of us!
We finished with the tour a few minutes earlier than I had anticipated so we had to wait a few minutes for the limo but it arrived at the designated time and we were off to our home away from home for the next 3 nights. After our big night out, it was straight to bed for me. The casino would have to wait until tomorrow when I just knew I would be feeling much better.
Day 2: I wake up nice and late (I love sleeping in even when I haven’t been sick) and feeling great (yay!) but Jan doesn’t want me to take any chances so we order room service for breakfast and I just have vanilla yogurt. This is disappointing to me because I absolutely love an indulgent breakfast and I only have them when we are on vacation. I’m thrilled to be feeling good so the disappoint at not having eggs, pancakes, or something else yummy is not too bad. Unfortunately, my family is now starting to feel under the weather (uh-oh) so we caution Jesse to not eat all of his cereal just in case.
Since they are not feeling well, they are going to stay in the room and I make plans to go downstairs to gamble for awhile. I normally don’t gamble during the day but since I didn’t get any gambling in the night before, I’m determined to put in some hours to make up for that. Best. Decision. Ever.
I’ve mostly played craps over the last 10 years or so that we’ve been visiting Vegas on a regular basis, but I have to admit that this year, I have been lured to spend more and more time at the slot machines for two reasons. 1) Some of them are entertaining. I enjoy the interactive video slots with various bonus rounds – especially those where you get to make choices and 2) I have been extraordinarily lucky in my slot play. I realize that is likely to change but until then, I’m happy to win and add up my comp dollars faster on the slots.
So I head down at around 10:45 am and plan to gamble for around 90 minutes or so. I go look for the new Ghostbusters slot machine because I heard it was fun but the two spots are filled so I head over to my 2nd favorite slot, Alice in Wonderland Mad Tea Party. I’m hitting some bonus rounds but not picking very well so after a bit, I decide to try out my all-time favorite slot, the Wizard of Oz Ruby Slippers. There are two different banks of Ruby Slippers (2 on each bank) and I’ve had great luck at one bank and not so much at the other so I head to my lucky bank and sit down for what I hope is an hour of play at the maximum bet ($4.80). I’m doing well with several bonus hits including one for $352 I recently started videotaping all of my bonus rounds as they begin so that I can post the big wins on YouTube so here’s my first one of the trip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wd9i83WdMt0 . And then the real excitement begins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qiQy_gyJ9U For those of you who don’t want to watch the 1 minute video, I will tell you that the Ruby Slippers bonus hit, gave me 4 out 5 reels wild with a multiplier of 10X (which I’ve never seen happen) for a payout of just over $11K! This is my largest jackpot and 2nd hand pay ever! On the video, you can hear me and the nice woman sitting at the machine next to me (but mostly me) exclaiming “Oh my God!” over and over again. By the time the machine locks up, I have already drawn a small group of people behind me from all my hollering!
While I am waiting for the hand pay, my wife calls me to tell me that our son has just vomited half-way across the suite on his way to the bathroom and demands that I get upstairs right away. In our relationship, I am the parent designated to deal with everyone’s vomit. I try to explain that I am waiting for a hand pay and will be up as soon as possible. It doesn’t really register with her what that means as she is not a gambler and she is extremely stressed out by the situation in the suite. So I don’t even have time to revel in my success. The Red Rock employee with the cash offers to count out the $10K that is packaged. She mentions that the three of them have already counted it so I tell them that I trust them on that so they just count out the other $1200, I tip the floor person $100, cash out my other winnings and race up to the room.
By the time I get to the room, towels have been thrown down on the floor and everyone is calmer. I comfort my son who is laying on the cool tile in the bathroom with his skin looking altogether the wrong color. Then I escort Jan into the bedroom and whip out the packaged $10K. I didn’t want my son to see or hear about my win as I don’t want him to get the wrong idea about gambling and think that it’s easy to win big money. So we do a quiet little happy dance. I put the money in the safe, do most of the clean up from the mishap, call housekeeping to service the room, and then we all sit on the couch together and watch the beginning of a Harry Potter movie. When the housekeeping person arrives, we explain the situation and that we will be staying in the room but out of her way as she services the suite. So while she works in the main room, we hang out in the bedroom and vice versa. I tip her $20 for dealing with the extra mess of towels and mopping the tile floor.
Since Jan and Jesse aren’t going anywhere, it is decided that I should go ahead and go get a bit more gambling in so I head off again for the slots. Ghostbusters is busy again but I jump around a few different machines before I find myself drawn back to Ruby Slippers. I’m not expecting another massive win, but it’s my favorite machine to play so why not? I put in a few hundred dollars and had several good hits including https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X74k3Bd1m3k. for $603.
I head back up to the room after 90 minutes or so. Jesse is feeling better but still doesn’t look quite right. Jan and I go to dinner at Terra Rossa, leaving him in the room to watch the Disney Channel (a big treat because he rarely watches T.V. at home). We eat a delish salad and spinach pizza and then I’m off to the tables and slots. I finally got a go at the Ghostbusters slot. I hit two bonus rounds in 10 minutes. It’s actually a lot of fun. I roamed around playing different machines and then headed to the roulette table. I hit one number for a net of $500, and then tried for one more with no luck so I left +60 up. It was time to hit the craps tables. I was up and down and up and down for about an hour. Then I just had to find my way back to my winning Ruby Slippers. I was able to play for about an hour and ended up a bit up. Then I headed back over to the Mad Tea Party and did some awesome picking in the super mad respin bonuses to leave up $400.
Day 3: Thursday everyone is feeling good again. Jesse had been begging to go to Kids Quest so he finally got to go while we went to the Spa and Salon where we had 2:00 appointments for pedicures. We enjoyed the spa before our appt. We have been to the spa lots of times but this was our first visit to the Salon. We enjoyed it as well. We host a dinner for 20+ on the Saturday after Thanksgiving so we enjoy relaxing in the spa on the day when most people are cooking all day.
My cousin lives in Vegas and he joined us for dinner at Terra Rossa (our favorite restaurant, as you can tell). They had a special menu for Thanksgiving that included pumpkin ravioli that was delish. As we were walking to the restaurant, I couldn’t help but notice the giant lines at both the café and the buffet. Who knew that many people eat Thanksgiving dinner at restaurants???
After dinner, it was back on the casino floor for me. I lost at craps, won some at roulette, and then spent the rest of the evening (until about 1:00 am) on the slots. I tried to get on my favorite bank of ruby slippers but they were taken so I headed over to the other bank and hit for $600 in the first 5 minutes. Then I played it down to $300 before I decided that was that. I then headed over to Capriotti’s in the food court to order our veggie turkey sandwich for the ride home tomorrow (We would be leaving before they would be open in the morning) and took that up to the fridge in the room. Then it was back down to my favorite winning machine which was now open and I began another winning streak. I had several good bonus rounds (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyFSoeT3D2w and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocN6LP6M22g), turned my $300 into $1,400 and then I hit a $1,224 jackpot. (I had 5 progressive symbols on two lines) My phone battery died so I didn’t get that one on video. Of course, this was just large enough to require a W2 hand pay. I got paid for that and then cashed out the other $1,400 (which also required a hand pay b/c apparently any cash out over $1,000 on the WOO machines locks the machine). On my way to the room, I passed the Dark Knight group video slot. I hit a couple of bonuses on this one but ended up losing $100 and decided to call it a night.
Day 4: My host is not in today but she told me to talk to another host named Dave. I call him and he says he can cover all the food but not the salon pedicures. I’m surprised by this as I think I’ve put quite a bit of money through the machines. He suggests I contact Valery (my host) when she gets back. I emailed her yesterday and she responded today (Monday) saying that she kind of over-comped me last visit and doesn’t want to raise any red flags by doing it again so the pedicures are our only cost for the trip. I’m not going to complain since I’m coming home $11K richer. We are driving off the property at 9:30 am and get all the way home before Jan realizes that she’s left her very expensive pillow in the suite. It’s one of those memory foam pillows that keeps her from getting a sore neck. I immediately call housekeeping. It turns out the room has not even been cleaned yet so I’m sure they will locate the pillow. I was supposed to get a call later that day (I didn’t) so I called that night and they promised to call me the next day (they didn’t) so now I’ve emailed my host to get to the bottom of this pillow situation. The pillow is now waiting for us in lost and found.
All in all – everything was fabulous except for feeling ill that first day. But I’d be sick all over again if it meant I was going to hit for $11K the next day! I'm looking forward to another trip on Dec. 13 where I'll have $750 in promotional chips or slot play (I was planning on taking the chips, but maybe I should take the slot play given my crazy luck at the slots)!
