Day 1 Aug 3
We left our small town of Girard, KS at 7:45 am in order to make it to Wichita for our 1 pm flight plenty early (since we've never flown out of there) Google has it a little over 3 hours, but I new it was more like 2:45. Anyway, the normal 2:45 trip ended up about 30 minutes longer due to some "shovel ready jobs" on the highway. We met three separate work crews that had single lane roads with pilot cars. Each were over 2 miles in length. I thought that they weren't allowed to stop traffic on highway that long, but evidently I was wrong. A little over ten minutes for each stop. We still couldn't really figure out what the heck the were doing. This highway was just completed about five years ago....it looked like they were tearing out the little reflectors in the middle and replacing them with small concrete patches about 3 inches by 3 inches. Looked like about 20 per crew x 3....
I've driven that highway many times & have never seen any problems with road....maybe those really DID need to be replaced....anyway I'll stay off my soapbox on road crew waste.
Arrive at airport around 11:15. This is our first time flying Allegiant Air as well.
Parking easy very easy and the shuttle prompt. Meet two ladies on the shuttle that were making their third trip of the year. They said that the was "the only way to fly to Vegas." OK I'll trust them.
Got to the terminal and the check-in counters literally are 20 feet from doors.
Check-in, bags checked & security took a total of 15 minutes tops! OK, now I'm believing them more now.
Since I didn't bother to pay the extra $11 per seat to choose, our seats were not together. Lady at the counter was very accommodating & seated us together without us even asking!
Allegiant Air Smooth flight from Wichita. Arrived 20 minutes early!!! We treck down to luggage which is already waiting on us. ...there's a first!
Overall impression of Allegiant air was good. Granted they now charge for carry-ons & flight is just the basics...seats don't recline, no music & headsets, no onboard entertainment and you have to pay for snacks and drinks. That stuff doesn't really matter so awesome flight experience for us! Plus it was about $200 cheaper than our usual Southwest fare from KC. $59/ticket + baggage & fees x2 = $150 for the two 1-way tickets. I definitely plan to fly again with them. 5 out of 5 jets!
Quick trip to Alamo kiosk to grab out car.
Used Costco discount code that I found on LVA Transportation thread. Also, gave me a American Airlines discount stacked to get a weekly rate of $54 plus taxes. I am a Alamo Preferred (which is free for sign up) that has all my travel information profile. Evidently I entered my American Airlines FF number years ago and it's saved in my profile. Cool beans!
Total damages $106! I am still impressed with the rental car system here in Vegas every time go come.
(5 cars) for service and ease.
Compared to cars in the past not impressed with the Chevy Aveo. I always book economy, but have always been able to choose from anything in the ecconomy/compact class rows. The last two cars have been outstanding. We had a Kia in March was loved it. Power everything with lots of zip. The trip before was a Chevy Cobalt. This Aveo pretty much sucks! No power locks, mirrors, doors...nothing. Absolutely no zip with the AC on & the AC hardly cools. (2 honks) for the car.
I've heard stories of In and Out burger for years, but have never tried one. We've been by the one off of Tropicana several times on our way to The Orleans, but it was always crazy. This time I did my research and saw that there was one just across from Silverton on Blue Diamond. We are already out that way with the rental car facility so way not?
Five minutes later we are there to see what is all the hype. Amused with the simple menu. Burgers, fries and shakes....that's it. Tried the double double cheese....Mrs. M the single. Didn't realize that they put the nasty thousand island dressing like McD's special sauce...uhhhh. Anyway Mrs. M and myself scraped the sauces of and replaced with a dab of ketchup. Impression.......good stuff! What was more impressive is that there was no one here.
(4 spoons) just 'cause no line and I love a good burger.
TOTAL.....$11.89
First meal of the trip!
No Line!
Off to The Orleans to check in. Check in was fine. We're here on 2 night comp w/ $10 food & then I booked 3 rd night at online summer rate of $26. I'm double booked starting Sunday at The Flamingo for 4 nights at comped rate, but love The Orleans so I'll pay $26 to stay one more night & just check in The Flamingo very late while we are on the strip Sunday night. This way we can just head over to our room once we check out Monday at The O.
Our room 822 has the best view we've had...center strip! Awesome!
The room is showing a little wear...carpet dirty but still love it here.
4 out of 5 stars for The Orleans...I'd give it 5 but these rooms need updated soon.
It's about 4 pm, down for drinks and a little gambling. Remember that Coasta Cantina has 99 margaritas for happy hour so we swing by. Mrs. M has a strawberry and I have a peach. Awesome! Be back tomorrow.
We find the 99.8% BDW games that I looked up on vpFree. Played for about 90 minutes down $40
We needed to run out to Red Rock to hit their buffet and Costco for some G2 so we can stay hydrated on the trip. So off we go.
We've never been to Vegas on Friday or Saturday as we always stay Sun-Friday......Seems much busier than normal. The World hip hop competition is here & thousand of teenies running around.
Very beautiful place but too loud and crazy for our taste. I must be getting old.
Stood in line for 35 min for buffet. While in line meet a gentleman who just moved to Vegas from China...... lived in Asia for 22 years working for state dept. He didn't know how player card systems worked. So we walked him through the basics of comps and points.
I've really been dying to try RR buffet after hearing all the talk. guess my expectations were to high. I found the buffet to be average. Sunset, GVR & Silverton have been favorites in the past and I felt this one didn't measure up to those. Most everything was acceptable, but nothing was memorable.
I will say the fried clams were completely hard and dry as if they'd been there for hours....bbq ribs & shredded pork were fair but I'm biased as we've ran a bbq business during our summer breaks for over 10 years. Dessert was probably the high light for myself, I really over did it.
Overall I was really disappointed, but for the money can't complain too much. $14 w/ LVA 2for1
(3 spoons) just because i'm a dessert lover...otherwise 2.5 due to all the hype of how great it was supposed to be.
TOTAL...$15.12
Back to Orleans for gaming.
Activated our play $10 get $10 coupons & exchanged our MP coupon for my $10 MP voucher. We received another $10 at check in so wife & headed to roulette table. Same strategy as last year. I bet on odd/even wife beats on red/black. if we both hit we're up $40 if only one we're still up $10. We did this same thing the past 3 years with much success (or I guess statistically speaking...luck.)
(Funny note: The first time I talked Mrs. M into MP, we were at Sunset station & used this strategy ....first hit ZERO..bust. The next day round 2...ZERO...bust again. She then announced that she was through with MPs....she's finally came around after netting $80 last year on MPs. )
Anyway, I bet even, Mrs. M bets black.....hit 17 black. she wins & I loose...still up $10.
Found our our BDW games and played til about 1 am (3 our time). Very poor VP session....both of us drop $80, but put plenty of points on our machine. Had several rounds of drinks and called it and evening.
After getting up at 6 am and pulling a 21 hour day we retire to the room.
First day damages.... -$200 VP +$10MP
Day two coming up.......
We left our small town of Girard, KS at 7:45 am in order to make it to Wichita for our 1 pm flight plenty early (since we've never flown out of there) Google has it a little over 3 hours, but I new it was more like 2:45. Anyway, the normal 2:45 trip ended up about 30 minutes longer due to some "shovel ready jobs" on the highway. We met three separate work crews that had single lane roads with pilot cars. Each were over 2 miles in length. I thought that they weren't allowed to stop traffic on highway that long, but evidently I was wrong. A little over ten minutes for each stop. We still couldn't really figure out what the heck the were doing. This highway was just completed about five years ago....it looked like they were tearing out the little reflectors in the middle and replacing them with small concrete patches about 3 inches by 3 inches. Looked like about 20 per crew x 3....
I've driven that highway many times & have never seen any problems with road....maybe those really DID need to be replaced....anyway I'll stay off my soapbox on road crew waste.
Arrive at airport around 11:15. This is our first time flying Allegiant Air as well.
Parking easy very easy and the shuttle prompt. Meet two ladies on the shuttle that were making their third trip of the year. They said that the was "the only way to fly to Vegas." OK I'll trust them.
Got to the terminal and the check-in counters literally are 20 feet from doors.
Check-in, bags checked & security took a total of 15 minutes tops! OK, now I'm believing them more now.
Since I didn't bother to pay the extra $11 per seat to choose, our seats were not together. Lady at the counter was very accommodating & seated us together without us even asking!
Allegiant Air Smooth flight from Wichita. Arrived 20 minutes early!!! We treck down to luggage which is already waiting on us. ...there's a first!
Overall impression of Allegiant air was good. Granted they now charge for carry-ons & flight is just the basics...seats don't recline, no music & headsets, no onboard entertainment and you have to pay for snacks and drinks. That stuff doesn't really matter so awesome flight experience for us! Plus it was about $200 cheaper than our usual Southwest fare from KC. $59/ticket + baggage & fees x2 = $150 for the two 1-way tickets. I definitely plan to fly again with them. 5 out of 5 jets!
Quick trip to Alamo kiosk to grab out car.
Used Costco discount code that I found on LVA Transportation thread. Also, gave me a American Airlines discount stacked to get a weekly rate of $54 plus taxes. I am a Alamo Preferred (which is free for sign up) that has all my travel information profile. Evidently I entered my American Airlines FF number years ago and it's saved in my profile. Cool beans!
Total damages $106! I am still impressed with the rental car system here in Vegas every time go come.
(5 cars) for service and ease.
Compared to cars in the past not impressed with the Chevy Aveo. I always book economy, but have always been able to choose from anything in the ecconomy/compact class rows. The last two cars have been outstanding. We had a Kia in March was loved it. Power everything with lots of zip. The trip before was a Chevy Cobalt. This Aveo pretty much sucks! No power locks, mirrors, doors...nothing. Absolutely no zip with the AC on & the AC hardly cools. (2 honks) for the car.
I've heard stories of In and Out burger for years, but have never tried one. We've been by the one off of Tropicana several times on our way to The Orleans, but it was always crazy. This time I did my research and saw that there was one just across from Silverton on Blue Diamond. We are already out that way with the rental car facility so way not?
Five minutes later we are there to see what is all the hype. Amused with the simple menu. Burgers, fries and shakes....that's it. Tried the double double cheese....Mrs. M the single. Didn't realize that they put the nasty thousand island dressing like McD's special sauce...uhhhh. Anyway Mrs. M and myself scraped the sauces of and replaced with a dab of ketchup. Impression.......good stuff! What was more impressive is that there was no one here.
(4 spoons) just 'cause no line and I love a good burger.
TOTAL.....$11.89
First meal of the trip!
No Line!
Off to The Orleans to check in. Check in was fine. We're here on 2 night comp w/ $10 food & then I booked 3 rd night at online summer rate of $26. I'm double booked starting Sunday at The Flamingo for 4 nights at comped rate, but love The Orleans so I'll pay $26 to stay one more night & just check in The Flamingo very late while we are on the strip Sunday night. This way we can just head over to our room once we check out Monday at The O.
Our room 822 has the best view we've had...center strip! Awesome!
The room is showing a little wear...carpet dirty but still love it here.
4 out of 5 stars for The Orleans...I'd give it 5 but these rooms need updated soon.
It's about 4 pm, down for drinks and a little gambling. Remember that Coasta Cantina has 99 margaritas for happy hour so we swing by. Mrs. M has a strawberry and I have a peach. Awesome! Be back tomorrow.
We find the 99.8% BDW games that I looked up on vpFree. Played for about 90 minutes down $40
We needed to run out to Red Rock to hit their buffet and Costco for some G2 so we can stay hydrated on the trip. So off we go.
We've never been to Vegas on Friday or Saturday as we always stay Sun-Friday......Seems much busier than normal. The World hip hop competition is here & thousand of teenies running around.
Very beautiful place but too loud and crazy for our taste. I must be getting old.
Stood in line for 35 min for buffet. While in line meet a gentleman who just moved to Vegas from China...... lived in Asia for 22 years working for state dept. He didn't know how player card systems worked. So we walked him through the basics of comps and points.
I've really been dying to try RR buffet after hearing all the talk. guess my expectations were to high. I found the buffet to be average. Sunset, GVR & Silverton have been favorites in the past and I felt this one didn't measure up to those. Most everything was acceptable, but nothing was memorable.
I will say the fried clams were completely hard and dry as if they'd been there for hours....bbq ribs & shredded pork were fair but I'm biased as we've ran a bbq business during our summer breaks for over 10 years. Dessert was probably the high light for myself, I really over did it.
Overall I was really disappointed, but for the money can't complain too much. $14 w/ LVA 2for1
(3 spoons) just because i'm a dessert lover...otherwise 2.5 due to all the hype of how great it was supposed to be.
TOTAL...$15.12
Back to Orleans for gaming.
Activated our play $10 get $10 coupons & exchanged our MP coupon for my $10 MP voucher. We received another $10 at check in so wife & headed to roulette table. Same strategy as last year. I bet on odd/even wife beats on red/black. if we both hit we're up $40 if only one we're still up $10. We did this same thing the past 3 years with much success (or I guess statistically speaking...luck.)
(Funny note: The first time I talked Mrs. M into MP, we were at Sunset station & used this strategy ....first hit ZERO..bust. The next day round 2...ZERO...bust again. She then announced that she was through with MPs....she's finally came around after netting $80 last year on MPs. )
Anyway, I bet even, Mrs. M bets black.....hit 17 black. she wins & I loose...still up $10.
Found our our BDW games and played til about 1 am (3 our time). Very poor VP session....both of us drop $80, but put plenty of points on our machine. Had several rounds of drinks and called it and evening.
After getting up at 6 am and pulling a 21 hour day we retire to the room.
First day damages.... -$200 VP +$10MP
Day two coming up.......
