Tahoe great weather roads clear 3/30 to 4/3

It was the perfect weather week to be in Tahoe for us. Snow all over, except for roads. I80 and 50 were dry for drive up and return home. Left work and drove to Clovis, CA for 1st night of vacation. Stayed at a Homewood Suites(about 10 miles off highway 99) near Fresno. Nice hotel, about 1 year old, they offer breakfast each morning and a small dinner M-Th. Left for Tahoe next morning, only ran into 1 construction area on 99 that held us up for 10 minutes. It was nice to break up the drive to Tahoe into two segments.

Took the 50 from the 99 at Sacramento easy transition. 50 was dry the whole drive. Some of the unused cabins on 50 were buried in snow up to the eaves. Scenery was beautiful. Arrived Harrahs about 1pm and had no lines for check-in. Used the Diamond check-in and was able to add another night to our stay.

Our Executive room was very nice on the 12th floor with a view of the lake. Our son had a 6th floor room(not an executive room) with a great view of the Harrahs parking garage roof. Both rooms have 2 bathrooms one with a tub/shower and the other with a shower. Our room had fridge, our son's room we had to have a fridge brought up.

We of course couldn't wait to get to the casino which was not busy at all mid week. Played the slots and vp games we wanted that afternoon and evening, held our own.

Next day went over to see Montbleu casino just a little bit down from Harrahs. Hotel registration area very nice, but casino areas felt old. They do have a sports book there. Played the "American Idols" slots there as Harrahs/Harveys do not have this game. Most of their slots are older games. They have some vp machines, but pay tables no better than Harrahs. By the sports book there is one of those quarter horse race games, I think it is by Sigma, had to pick the winning 1-2 combination. My husband was happy, he finally got to use all the quarters he always lugs with him when we go to Vegas or Tahoe. We did not try any of the restaurants at Montbleu.

We used our rewards credits(rcs) to cover food costs, but the 3 food places at Harveys food court won't let you pay with rcs or charge to your room. Ate at the "American River Cafe" at Harrahs, large portions, but nothing spectacular. Tried Cabo Wabo which is in the tunnel between Harrahs and Harveys, we eat early, so we missed the fun young party groups that frequent the bar area. We had forgotten about checking out the President's Lounge at Harrahs on the 16th floor so we missed the carving station.

For any Diamond and 7 Star levels, the President's Lounge is open Friday and Saturday from 4pm - 9pm. They have the carving station open from 4pm -6pm. We got there about 7pm so the carving station was gone, but they had a veggie tray and fruit tray, 2 soup offerings, a bar, tables set with table cloths and utensils. We wish we had been there early enough for the carving station, but it was still a little better than the Diamond Lounge downstairs in the casino. Didn't go to the Harvey's Diamond Lounge.

One morning we went over to Harveys to play and were 3 of the about 10 people playing in the casino. This was still midweek. The slot attendants were overly attentive. They read us all the entertainment for the week and offered to make us restaurant reservations. It was nice to be welcomed, this sure didn't happen at Harrahs.

We tried the Red Hut restaurant by Ski Run blvd. one morning for breakfast, it was good, but I didn't find anything to rave about.

Gambling was up and down and ended up down for the trip for all of us. Never did hit anything significant on vp.

Casinos got busy late Friday afternoon and all of Saturday. Harrahs was fully booked Friday and Saturday nights.

There was a chance of rain/snow Saturday after 11pm, but it didn't happen. Left for home at 7am drove back down 50 to 99 to 5 then 405(we live in the San Fernando Valley). Took about 8 hours with a couple of stops for gas. Purchased gas mostly at Chevron stations during trip with prices varying from 3.99 to 4.09. If we had been sure we weren't going to be driving on snow we would have taken the car, we took the Explorer, about 1/2 the gas mileage per gallon of the car.

We enjoyed the trip, Tahoe was gorgeous all covered in snow and the nice clean air to breathe. Wish we had done better with the gambling, but we played many, many hours and will be back early June to visit our contribution to keeping HET Tahoe in business.

You should start getting $100 RR vouchers for Tahoe, any day now. lol

Glad you hit the good weather week. Sounds like a nice trip! Better gamblin' next time!

Tahoe gets so few reviews, which is a shame. For such a wonderful location, they just don't seem to get the business they deserve. Of course, it makes sense that it's not a "casino" destination. I certainly enjoyed my time there and especially enjoyed the convenience of the tunnel between Harvey's and Harrahs.

When I was there a few years ago, they still had 8/5 BP in quarters and nickel mulitplay, did you happen to notice if they still had those machines? I will be making a visit there again this summer and my fingers are crossed.

Didn't sound like you had food that blew you away as well. However, using RCs, the price is always right. I can't wait to see the President's Lounge again, I was so impressed with the view.

Thanks for the report...too bad there were no pictures...would have loved to see some of those buried cabins.

Raisin:

I have always enjoyed my trips up to Tahoe and you are correct about the friendliness of the Harveys staff. Although they are both Harrah$$ properties, you get a big sense from the employees that THIS is Harveys and they are a lot different from Harrahs across the street.

The pay tables are better at Harveys and they still have 8/5 bonus poker at the 25 cent and up level. You have to look around for it but is there at the main bars.

I am heading up there on April 14-15 for a Diamond renewal dinner. Free rooms for a couple of nights, a few other give a ways and a gormet dinner. Went last year with about 500 of my Diamond buddies and had a great time.

You are right about the weekends....very busy and pretty slow during the rest of the day. Kind of fun during the winter seeing people walk through the casino in their ski/snowboarding gear to get to their rooms.

Sorry you missed the Diamond Lounge at Harveys. It is worth going to as opposed to the Diamond Lounge at Harrahs. Glad you had a good time and thanks for the report.

Ted from Chico

Thanks, raisin7 for your report and sorry to read about the gaming results! I was in Lake Tahoe once before (about 35 years ago) and it was a beautiful area, but at least for me I have lots more stuff going on in LV (including seeing people).

I wish you better play next time (especially if you can find the 8/5 Bonus Poker that is mentioned here)!

RecVPPlayer

Thanks for the nice report; I hope to make it to Tahoe someday. Beautiful nature AND casinos... What more could you want?!

Raisin, thanks for your report. I love Tahoe and look forward to my Sept. trip.

Thanks for report raisin7. I will be in Tahoe for a couple days in May and looking forward to it. It will be my firs trip there.

Thanks raisin. Comes in handy as I will be going to Carson City to visit my step daughter in a couple weeks and spend a couple days in Tahoe. I used to live in Carson and worked as a bellman at the former Caesars Tahoe now Montblue.

All your comments have made me want to return to Tahoe before my early June trip. Sorry about the lack of pictures, I'm just not that good even with my digital camera so I don't take pictures and I'm usually the driver so couldn't get those snow buried cabins on 50.

I had checked vpFREE2 before we went and played some of the BP machines listed at Harrahs, best I ever got was 4 of a kind and that was only 3 times with all the vp poker I played. I didn't try the machines at the bars. I didn't notice anyone staying on the vp machines for very long. A couple played the 50 play machines in Harrahs High Limit area but only for a couple of hours.

It was different to see people carrying their ski boots and snowboards in the hotel. Everyone was having a good time with all the snow. I don't know many snowboarders, but this group of 3 guys sure gave snowboarders a bad name at least in the hotel. They left the cafe with a take out box from breakfast and as they walked away from the cafe the box slipped and opened and landed on the walkway carpeting. Scrambled eggs all over the floor-one of them told the dropper he should pick it up, the slob just kept walking and his buddies went with him. I told the cafe hostess and she got someone to come out and clean it up. That's all the guys would have had to do.

I had a reel reward ticket for $150 to play, the cashier told me she was only allowed to break it into $20 tickets and a $10 ticket. I wanted 10s and 5s, but I was able to play it through a vp machine and come out with $145 of the 150. The cashier told me if the reel reward had been for $500 she could only break it into $100 tickets nothing smaller. I didn't ask if I brought one of the $20 reel reward tickets back could I have then gotten smaller denominations for that ticket.

I keep hearing about the Diamond renewal dinners, but have yet to be invited to one at Rincon which is my home casino. I did get a survey from Rincon last month asking me which of several small kitchen appliances would make me want to come to the casino to get that item. I told them in the comments section none of those items, I come to a casino to get away from the kitchen, and they need to make their enticement to me more than my round trip gas cost at a minimum.

jcreek, we had a server at the buffet who lives in Carson City and works at Harrahs buffet and at Montbleu. He had also worked at Caesars before it became Montbleu. I can't remember his name.

Now all I need is Southwest to make sure their planes are in good condition for my flight in June. There is an invitational Millionaire maker tournament that coincides with the Harrahs flight offer I had booked. While I was in Tahoe I was able to secure an early tournament time so that I can be in Reno later that day to fly home.