One of my sisters met me in Vegas for a week of good food, good shows and gambling. I flew in from Dallas about an hour before her and was able to pick up the car from Alamo and then make a few circuits of the airport before we found each other. I reserved an economy car ($116.16 all in) but was able to get a 4-door Chevy Cobalt which had ample trunk space for 2 fairly large suitcases. Our first stop was at Buzz BBQ on Tropicana for a quick dinner. It wasn’t too crowded, even on a Friday night. We took a table and immediately struck up a conversation with the people at the next table. They seemed surprised to see tourists there. Turns out one of the women was going to be performing a comedy routine in a few minutes in the adjacent lounge area for a $5 donation. We were ready to get to the Suncoast to check in, but it looked like it would have been a fun night. We loved the food (rib tip basket and a brisket/sausage sandwich – the rib tips were great and the sausage had a nice garlicky taste – ($16 using a rr.com coupon).
The Suncoast wasn’t too far from Buzz BBQ, so it was a short trip. We’ve gambled at the Suncoast before, but have never stayed there. I had an offer for free nights and since it was a rare offer (for me) that covered the weekend, we jumped on it. We checked into a large room complete with fridge and flat screen TV. The room décor was just a bit dated, but we were very happy with the large bathroom (double sinks and ample counter space) and a nice view of the golf course. We quickly settled in and then went down to do some gambling. I had a coupon for a free $25 match play which I lost at blackjack (I doubled my 11 against her 6. I made 14, she made 21 – ouch). I made my free football picks and gambled all around – slots, vp, bj. Despite being tired, we gambled well into the night. I finished down just a bit. I got a lot of gambling for my money.
Saturday we headed out to the M Resort for the seafood buffet – we both had free buffet coupons and had a great brunch. My sister had a line pass with her buffet, but there really wasn’t any line to speak of. I think we were there around 11:30am or so. The crab legs and tri-tip were particularly good. We played a few hours at M Resort (lost) and also made our free football picks there too. We picked up our free shirts and headed out to South Point. It’s too bad we had already eaten because there was a food truck festival going on right across the street from South Point – it smelled really good. I had a little bit better luck here and hit quad 4’s and 8’s to get me back to even for the trip. Time was going by fast, so we were off to the Orleans for a few hours of gambling before the 7:30 show at Big Al’s Comedy club (Ebay Vegas4Locals coupon for two, $9.50). There were 2 different comedians – a husband and wife – both were very funny. We played off our free play coupons from BConnected offers and then headed back to the Suncoast. I played some more blackjack, but lost $50 there. I was still about even for the trip, so I decided to keep it that way and headed over to the $5 Pai Gow table. Love this game. I love to be able to touch the cards and settle in to have a few drinks. The dealers and other players are always so friendly. I spent 3 hours there and ended up $50.
Sunday we checked out of the Suncoast and stored our luggage in the car until we could get over to Paris to check in later in the day. We headed over to the Border Grill @ Mandalay Bay for their brunch. We got there early so had time to gamble before our 11:30 reservation. They had the new Ghostbusters and Batman slots, so I lost a good bit there. Never hit a bonus on Ghostbusters and never got the big bonus game on Batman (I tried both these slots a few more times over the next few days and never hit anything on either one). My sister had much better luck on both games. The brunch at Border Grill was absolutely wonderful. It’s a little pricey @ $25 ($5 more gets you unlimited champagne drinks), but with a $25 restaurant.com coupon, it’s a great deal. They give you a list of “small plates” you can order from. Order as many as you want, as often as you want. The food was all very good. Some of the items we tried included the guava empanadas, coconut French toast, chorizo and egg tacos, carne asada tacos, shrimp BLT, eggs benedict w/carnitas, and biscuit and gravy with chipotle sausage gravy. The “small plates” are plenty big enough to share, so you can try a lot of things without getting too full. The champagne with pomegranate juice was pretty good too! We will definitely go back to this one again! I forgot my camera this trip otherwise I’d be posting some pictures of some pretty and tasty food!
We headed over to the Southpoint again for some bingo this time. My sister managed to yell “bingo” twice! We went to check in at Paris, but the line was pretty long, so we thought we’d go over to Planet Hollywood to try the “whammy” spin. The machine was not working that day, so we crossed over to the Cosmopolitan to do the $100 rebate deal. Good thing we checked first, because we were not eligible because we received $10 free play when we signed up for our cards back in May (this was evidently a new rule – the rep told us it was for new sign-ups only now). Poop. So we just went back to Paris and waited in line to check in. The line was still long, but they moved it along pretty fast. The room we got had a partial view of the strip (our check-in guy claimed it was an upgrade) but looked a little worn in some places. We got settled in and then took off for a walk up the strip. We were heading to the Mirage for the 7:30 Terry Fator show. We stopped at the wheel outside of Harrah’s for a free spin. We won the free gift of a Harrah’s hat, scarf and mitten set. Gambling at the Mirage SUCKED!! I have never done well there and tonight was no different – I think I will avoid gambling there from now on. The Terry Fator show was excellent. This is our second time seeing it this year. Very, very funny show – great for all ages (40% off military discount). We walked back to Paris right after the show (it was very cold). I don’t have anything in my notes, so I think we just stayed at Paris/Ballys gambling. I went up to our room and got a call from a tour operator. We were supposed to go on the bus trip to Laughlin in the morning, but they were calling to cancel. Bummer. We hadn’t been to Laughlin in many years and thought it would be nice to take a nice leisurely bus trip there and spend a few hours. I think I went to bed fairly early – lots of gambling, but just slow steady losses.
Monday we started out with BLT’s at JJ’s Boulangerie at Paris – great sandwiches at this place and we could pay with points. We played a little video poker at Ballys where I caught quad 3’s for a nice start to the day. We caught the shuttle to the Gold Coast for Senior Day. I tried to print out my coupon for my free bingo blue pack, but it didn’t print. I went to the slot club and they weren’t able to print it out either. Bingo was much better to me this time. I got lucky and got to call “bingo” twice. The first time it was with 20 other people so I just won $5 – how disappointing is that to finally get a bingo and then just hear “bingo” repeatedly called out after you? I made up for it though and bingo’d the next game all by myself for a quick $100. We also played in the Gold Coast’s free VP tournament (free entry w/200 points earned). It was DDB and you just play as fast as you can for 15 minutes. Neither one of us even hit one quad – but it was fun to try. We again spent the evening at Paris/Ballys. I think I spent a lot of time (slowly losing) at the penny 100 play VP machines at Paris. Paris serves their champagne in chilled glasses with a fresh strawberry garnish – I enjoyed several!!
Tuesday had us returning to the Gold Coast for more bingo and “kiosk madness”. You get to play a kiosk game after earning 10 points on your players card. I quickly got my 10 points playing the “Joker’s Heist” game. Lots of bonuses and they seemed to come often. We each won 1000 pts on our kiosk games (value, $1). No winners at the bingo session this time, but I did have a little bit of luck with the Alice in Wonderland slots later. We walked across the street to the Palms for lunch at Gardunos (50% off MRB coupon and points). We both had the fajita buffet but it wasn’t very good – we’ll order off the menu next time. We had each purchased the $40 slot play coupon (for $25) from slotplaycoupons.com and also had the ACG 3x points coupon and $10 match play (won that one by betting black on roulette). We walked back to the Gold Coast and hopped on the shuttle to the Orleans for their senior day. They have a wheel spin w/50 points earned. We both collected 5000 points on that one (value, $5). We shuttled back to the strip and walked across the street to catch a few Bellagio fountain shows. The evening fountain shows are just very special – I could watch them all night. We weren’t too hungry, so we stopped at Pink’s and had a hotdog (WSHP $10 coupon). The rest of the evening was pretty brutal for gambling. I went to Ballys and lost a quick $100 on 3-card poker and then did the $20 here, $20 there losses on slots. I went over to Paris and thought surely the 3-card poker would have to be a little bit better - nah, lost a pretty quick $100 there too. Very … bad… night (sigh).
Wednesday we walked down to Strip Burger for lunch. We’ve eaten there before and it’s just too much food. So this time we split everything and it was all good (bacon cheeseburger; a combo bowl of french-fries, onion straws and fried pickles; and a chocolate shake). Service was great (it always is) – the server offered to split both the burger and the chocolate shake. ($21 with a $10 rr.com certificate). We walked back to Paris and I picked up the car to go for a manicure/pedicure. My sister was thinking about grabbing the shuttle and heading back to the Orleans. I had a certificate for Angel’s Touch spa on Rainbow ($17 KSHP certificate). I got there right on time only to find the lady who was supposed to do my mani/pedi was gone for an emergency. There wasn’t anyone else to take me, so the manager agreed to extend my certificate until I could get back to Vegas in May. And I was really looking forward to that pedicure too! I drove over to the Orleans thinking I’d be able to find my sister there and sure enough, within a minute of walking into the place, I found her (this takes many years of gambling together ?). We really like gambling at the Orleans so we agreed to stay a few hours. I had my best run of luck here for the whole trip – unfortunately in was on nickel VP. I was playing a triple play machine, deuces wild. I had hit the deuces twice already. I was thinking about quitting while I was ahead, but forged on. I got dealt a wild royal for a nice payoff. The very next hand I got dealt squat. I dumped the hand and got quad deuces on one of the draws. Good stuff. About a dozen or so hands after that, I got dealt a suited AKQ10 – I pulled the jack on one hand for a $200 payday. I left that machine up about $300, so that put a nice dent in my losses. I chilled at the Keno lounge until it was time to go to dinner.
We left to drive over to the Technique restaurant at the Le Cordon Bleu school. We’ve eaten here a few times and the food is always good. With the restaurant.com coupon, you can’t go wrong (they recently stopped participating in restaurant.com, but are still accepting the coupons if you have them). We opted for the 4-course menu ($15 for 2 apps, entrée, and dessert). There’s a new chef at the school and I’ll have to say we were a little disappointed this trip. The food just wasn’t as good and the presentations were lacking too. Between the 2 of us, we sampled: cream of mushroom soup, caprese salad, shrimp risotto, nicoise salad, weiner schnitzel, short ribs, chocolate mousse and salted caramel pots de crème. A lot of the food was underseasoned. We didn’t spend the required $35 for the $25 rr.com coupon, but they still took $25 off. With a decent tip our total bill was only $12 – I think that’s cheaper than dinner at McDonald’s!
Lunch Thursday (we just don’t get up early enough for breakfast) was at Opus Too in Henderson – just across the freeway from Green Valley Ranch. This is the culinary restaurant at the Art Institute of Las Vegas. They offer a 3-course lunch for $10.95. It was excellent! The dining room is very small – I doubt they could seat more than 40 people. I started with the frisee salad with roasted chicken and my sister had the Caesar salad. I had the Cioppino – a lovely fish stew chock full of seafood. My sister had the salmon and she said it was just delicious. I had the crème brulee for dessert (a duo of vanilla and coffee flavors). My sister had the blueberry crumble. We had the prime table right at the window to the kitchen, so we could see some of the action. This will be worth a repeat visit. We stopped at Green Valley Ranch and played for a few hours. I lost a little, but got a good bit of gambling in. With the new point system at Stations, the points sure do seem to add up quickly.
We returned to Paris to drop the car and then head south down the strip. We stopped at PH to do the whammy game, but today they started requiring 25 points on your card first. My sister played to get her points, while I went back to the Earl of Sandwich for a bite. Then we started walking towards Luxor for the 8:30 Carrot Top show (it’s a lot further than it looks!). We got there in time to gamble just a bit and I grabbed a glass of champagne to take into the show with me – they have you pour your drink into a plastic cup, but otherwise they didn’t have any problem with me taking a drink in. We were both one of those “no way am I going to go see Carrot Top” people. But after reading all of the positive reviews I convinced her to give it a try. We weren’t disappointed. His opening act should have a show of her own, she was that good. Carrot Top is just rapid fire joke after joke – he paused on occasion to let us catch up ? I have to give a shout out to my husband here. While we were galavanting around Vegas this afternoon, he checked us both in for our Southwest flights home tomorrow and got us both “A” boarding passes. Atta boy!
Friday morning we walked over to the Flamingo to see what was available for the Great Gift Wrap-Up. I’ve never had enough points to get anything and this year was no different. The minimum for a $10 gift card is 3500 points – I had 3490 (they wouldn’t let me slide and I didn’t want to run down and lose $40 trying to get enough points for a $10 gift card). My sister got a few gift cards (and just got them in the mail the other day too – so they’re very quick). We crossed the street to have our final meal in Vegas with lunch at Milos at the Cosmopolitan. We went for the $20.11 3-course lunch. I took all of Westie’s suggestions and had the Greek Meze plate (3 different spreads – all awesome), Lavraki (melt in your mouth fish with a lemon/caper sauce) and the Yogurt Martini (light and refreshing). My sister started with the seared scallops, salmon for her entrée and finished with the walnut cake. She loved them all too.
We made a quick trip down to M Resort for a last bit of gambling and then my sister dropped me off at the airport. Her flight left a few hours later.
Wrap-Up: I am so mad I forgot my camera – we ate some really pretty food this trip! We decided our best meal was lunch at Opus Too with brunch at Border Grill a close second. Our worst meal was the fajita buffet @ the Palms. Our swag total this trip – we each got: 1 bottle of wine; 2 scarf/hat/mitten sets; 1 Hangover t-shirt; 2 golf shirts; $10 free play; and lots of moisturizer samples. We really enjoyed our first stay at the Suncoast and will definitely look at staying there again. Terry Fator was our favorite show this trip, and Carrot Top was a pleasant surprise. Alamo again came through with a decent price and a free upgrade.
All in all it was another great trip. We were disappointed that our trip to Laughlin got cancelled and my feet sure could have used that pedicure. Ah well, next time.
I came home with half my bankroll, so it wasn’t a disaster. A few more wins would have been nice though. My sister is going back in January to celebrate her birthday for a few days and then all the sisters will get together again in May. Let the planning begin!
The Suncoast wasn’t too far from Buzz BBQ, so it was a short trip. We’ve gambled at the Suncoast before, but have never stayed there. I had an offer for free nights and since it was a rare offer (for me) that covered the weekend, we jumped on it. We checked into a large room complete with fridge and flat screen TV. The room décor was just a bit dated, but we were very happy with the large bathroom (double sinks and ample counter space) and a nice view of the golf course. We quickly settled in and then went down to do some gambling. I had a coupon for a free $25 match play which I lost at blackjack (I doubled my 11 against her 6. I made 14, she made 21 – ouch). I made my free football picks and gambled all around – slots, vp, bj. Despite being tired, we gambled well into the night. I finished down just a bit. I got a lot of gambling for my money.
Saturday we headed out to the M Resort for the seafood buffet – we both had free buffet coupons and had a great brunch. My sister had a line pass with her buffet, but there really wasn’t any line to speak of. I think we were there around 11:30am or so. The crab legs and tri-tip were particularly good. We played a few hours at M Resort (lost) and also made our free football picks there too. We picked up our free shirts and headed out to South Point. It’s too bad we had already eaten because there was a food truck festival going on right across the street from South Point – it smelled really good. I had a little bit better luck here and hit quad 4’s and 8’s to get me back to even for the trip. Time was going by fast, so we were off to the Orleans for a few hours of gambling before the 7:30 show at Big Al’s Comedy club (Ebay Vegas4Locals coupon for two, $9.50). There were 2 different comedians – a husband and wife – both were very funny. We played off our free play coupons from BConnected offers and then headed back to the Suncoast. I played some more blackjack, but lost $50 there. I was still about even for the trip, so I decided to keep it that way and headed over to the $5 Pai Gow table. Love this game. I love to be able to touch the cards and settle in to have a few drinks. The dealers and other players are always so friendly. I spent 3 hours there and ended up $50.
Sunday we checked out of the Suncoast and stored our luggage in the car until we could get over to Paris to check in later in the day. We headed over to the Border Grill @ Mandalay Bay for their brunch. We got there early so had time to gamble before our 11:30 reservation. They had the new Ghostbusters and Batman slots, so I lost a good bit there. Never hit a bonus on Ghostbusters and never got the big bonus game on Batman (I tried both these slots a few more times over the next few days and never hit anything on either one). My sister had much better luck on both games. The brunch at Border Grill was absolutely wonderful. It’s a little pricey @ $25 ($5 more gets you unlimited champagne drinks), but with a $25 restaurant.com coupon, it’s a great deal. They give you a list of “small plates” you can order from. Order as many as you want, as often as you want. The food was all very good. Some of the items we tried included the guava empanadas, coconut French toast, chorizo and egg tacos, carne asada tacos, shrimp BLT, eggs benedict w/carnitas, and biscuit and gravy with chipotle sausage gravy. The “small plates” are plenty big enough to share, so you can try a lot of things without getting too full. The champagne with pomegranate juice was pretty good too! We will definitely go back to this one again! I forgot my camera this trip otherwise I’d be posting some pictures of some pretty and tasty food!
We headed over to the Southpoint again for some bingo this time. My sister managed to yell “bingo” twice! We went to check in at Paris, but the line was pretty long, so we thought we’d go over to Planet Hollywood to try the “whammy” spin. The machine was not working that day, so we crossed over to the Cosmopolitan to do the $100 rebate deal. Good thing we checked first, because we were not eligible because we received $10 free play when we signed up for our cards back in May (this was evidently a new rule – the rep told us it was for new sign-ups only now). Poop. So we just went back to Paris and waited in line to check in. The line was still long, but they moved it along pretty fast. The room we got had a partial view of the strip (our check-in guy claimed it was an upgrade) but looked a little worn in some places. We got settled in and then took off for a walk up the strip. We were heading to the Mirage for the 7:30 Terry Fator show. We stopped at the wheel outside of Harrah’s for a free spin. We won the free gift of a Harrah’s hat, scarf and mitten set. Gambling at the Mirage SUCKED!! I have never done well there and tonight was no different – I think I will avoid gambling there from now on. The Terry Fator show was excellent. This is our second time seeing it this year. Very, very funny show – great for all ages (40% off military discount). We walked back to Paris right after the show (it was very cold). I don’t have anything in my notes, so I think we just stayed at Paris/Ballys gambling. I went up to our room and got a call from a tour operator. We were supposed to go on the bus trip to Laughlin in the morning, but they were calling to cancel. Bummer. We hadn’t been to Laughlin in many years and thought it would be nice to take a nice leisurely bus trip there and spend a few hours. I think I went to bed fairly early – lots of gambling, but just slow steady losses.
Monday we started out with BLT’s at JJ’s Boulangerie at Paris – great sandwiches at this place and we could pay with points. We played a little video poker at Ballys where I caught quad 3’s for a nice start to the day. We caught the shuttle to the Gold Coast for Senior Day. I tried to print out my coupon for my free bingo blue pack, but it didn’t print. I went to the slot club and they weren’t able to print it out either. Bingo was much better to me this time. I got lucky and got to call “bingo” twice. The first time it was with 20 other people so I just won $5 – how disappointing is that to finally get a bingo and then just hear “bingo” repeatedly called out after you? I made up for it though and bingo’d the next game all by myself for a quick $100. We also played in the Gold Coast’s free VP tournament (free entry w/200 points earned). It was DDB and you just play as fast as you can for 15 minutes. Neither one of us even hit one quad – but it was fun to try. We again spent the evening at Paris/Ballys. I think I spent a lot of time (slowly losing) at the penny 100 play VP machines at Paris. Paris serves their champagne in chilled glasses with a fresh strawberry garnish – I enjoyed several!!
Tuesday had us returning to the Gold Coast for more bingo and “kiosk madness”. You get to play a kiosk game after earning 10 points on your players card. I quickly got my 10 points playing the “Joker’s Heist” game. Lots of bonuses and they seemed to come often. We each won 1000 pts on our kiosk games (value, $1). No winners at the bingo session this time, but I did have a little bit of luck with the Alice in Wonderland slots later. We walked across the street to the Palms for lunch at Gardunos (50% off MRB coupon and points). We both had the fajita buffet but it wasn’t very good – we’ll order off the menu next time. We had each purchased the $40 slot play coupon (for $25) from slotplaycoupons.com and also had the ACG 3x points coupon and $10 match play (won that one by betting black on roulette). We walked back to the Gold Coast and hopped on the shuttle to the Orleans for their senior day. They have a wheel spin w/50 points earned. We both collected 5000 points on that one (value, $5). We shuttled back to the strip and walked across the street to catch a few Bellagio fountain shows. The evening fountain shows are just very special – I could watch them all night. We weren’t too hungry, so we stopped at Pink’s and had a hotdog (WSHP $10 coupon). The rest of the evening was pretty brutal for gambling. I went to Ballys and lost a quick $100 on 3-card poker and then did the $20 here, $20 there losses on slots. I went over to Paris and thought surely the 3-card poker would have to be a little bit better - nah, lost a pretty quick $100 there too. Very … bad… night (sigh).
Wednesday we walked down to Strip Burger for lunch. We’ve eaten there before and it’s just too much food. So this time we split everything and it was all good (bacon cheeseburger; a combo bowl of french-fries, onion straws and fried pickles; and a chocolate shake). Service was great (it always is) – the server offered to split both the burger and the chocolate shake. ($21 with a $10 rr.com certificate). We walked back to Paris and I picked up the car to go for a manicure/pedicure. My sister was thinking about grabbing the shuttle and heading back to the Orleans. I had a certificate for Angel’s Touch spa on Rainbow ($17 KSHP certificate). I got there right on time only to find the lady who was supposed to do my mani/pedi was gone for an emergency. There wasn’t anyone else to take me, so the manager agreed to extend my certificate until I could get back to Vegas in May. And I was really looking forward to that pedicure too! I drove over to the Orleans thinking I’d be able to find my sister there and sure enough, within a minute of walking into the place, I found her (this takes many years of gambling together ?). We really like gambling at the Orleans so we agreed to stay a few hours. I had my best run of luck here for the whole trip – unfortunately in was on nickel VP. I was playing a triple play machine, deuces wild. I had hit the deuces twice already. I was thinking about quitting while I was ahead, but forged on. I got dealt a wild royal for a nice payoff. The very next hand I got dealt squat. I dumped the hand and got quad deuces on one of the draws. Good stuff. About a dozen or so hands after that, I got dealt a suited AKQ10 – I pulled the jack on one hand for a $200 payday. I left that machine up about $300, so that put a nice dent in my losses. I chilled at the Keno lounge until it was time to go to dinner.
We left to drive over to the Technique restaurant at the Le Cordon Bleu school. We’ve eaten here a few times and the food is always good. With the restaurant.com coupon, you can’t go wrong (they recently stopped participating in restaurant.com, but are still accepting the coupons if you have them). We opted for the 4-course menu ($15 for 2 apps, entrée, and dessert). There’s a new chef at the school and I’ll have to say we were a little disappointed this trip. The food just wasn’t as good and the presentations were lacking too. Between the 2 of us, we sampled: cream of mushroom soup, caprese salad, shrimp risotto, nicoise salad, weiner schnitzel, short ribs, chocolate mousse and salted caramel pots de crème. A lot of the food was underseasoned. We didn’t spend the required $35 for the $25 rr.com coupon, but they still took $25 off. With a decent tip our total bill was only $12 – I think that’s cheaper than dinner at McDonald’s!
Lunch Thursday (we just don’t get up early enough for breakfast) was at Opus Too in Henderson – just across the freeway from Green Valley Ranch. This is the culinary restaurant at the Art Institute of Las Vegas. They offer a 3-course lunch for $10.95. It was excellent! The dining room is very small – I doubt they could seat more than 40 people. I started with the frisee salad with roasted chicken and my sister had the Caesar salad. I had the Cioppino – a lovely fish stew chock full of seafood. My sister had the salmon and she said it was just delicious. I had the crème brulee for dessert (a duo of vanilla and coffee flavors). My sister had the blueberry crumble. We had the prime table right at the window to the kitchen, so we could see some of the action. This will be worth a repeat visit. We stopped at Green Valley Ranch and played for a few hours. I lost a little, but got a good bit of gambling in. With the new point system at Stations, the points sure do seem to add up quickly.
We returned to Paris to drop the car and then head south down the strip. We stopped at PH to do the whammy game, but today they started requiring 25 points on your card first. My sister played to get her points, while I went back to the Earl of Sandwich for a bite. Then we started walking towards Luxor for the 8:30 Carrot Top show (it’s a lot further than it looks!). We got there in time to gamble just a bit and I grabbed a glass of champagne to take into the show with me – they have you pour your drink into a plastic cup, but otherwise they didn’t have any problem with me taking a drink in. We were both one of those “no way am I going to go see Carrot Top” people. But after reading all of the positive reviews I convinced her to give it a try. We weren’t disappointed. His opening act should have a show of her own, she was that good. Carrot Top is just rapid fire joke after joke – he paused on occasion to let us catch up ? I have to give a shout out to my husband here. While we were galavanting around Vegas this afternoon, he checked us both in for our Southwest flights home tomorrow and got us both “A” boarding passes. Atta boy!
Friday morning we walked over to the Flamingo to see what was available for the Great Gift Wrap-Up. I’ve never had enough points to get anything and this year was no different. The minimum for a $10 gift card is 3500 points – I had 3490 (they wouldn’t let me slide and I didn’t want to run down and lose $40 trying to get enough points for a $10 gift card). My sister got a few gift cards (and just got them in the mail the other day too – so they’re very quick). We crossed the street to have our final meal in Vegas with lunch at Milos at the Cosmopolitan. We went for the $20.11 3-course lunch. I took all of Westie’s suggestions and had the Greek Meze plate (3 different spreads – all awesome), Lavraki (melt in your mouth fish with a lemon/caper sauce) and the Yogurt Martini (light and refreshing). My sister started with the seared scallops, salmon for her entrée and finished with the walnut cake. She loved them all too.
We made a quick trip down to M Resort for a last bit of gambling and then my sister dropped me off at the airport. Her flight left a few hours later.
Wrap-Up: I am so mad I forgot my camera – we ate some really pretty food this trip! We decided our best meal was lunch at Opus Too with brunch at Border Grill a close second. Our worst meal was the fajita buffet @ the Palms. Our swag total this trip – we each got: 1 bottle of wine; 2 scarf/hat/mitten sets; 1 Hangover t-shirt; 2 golf shirts; $10 free play; and lots of moisturizer samples. We really enjoyed our first stay at the Suncoast and will definitely look at staying there again. Terry Fator was our favorite show this trip, and Carrot Top was a pleasant surprise. Alamo again came through with a decent price and a free upgrade.
All in all it was another great trip. We were disappointed that our trip to Laughlin got cancelled and my feet sure could have used that pedicure. Ah well, next time.
I came home with half my bankroll, so it wasn’t a disaster. A few more wins would have been nice though. My sister is going back in January to celebrate her birthday for a few days and then all the sisters will get together again in May. Let the planning begin!
