We are off to Vegas for the SEMA show and some R&R - a week of fun, sun and gambling!
Flying out of rainy Vancouver on Monday morning I couldn't wait to get there! Who would have thought that a 2 1/2 hour flight could take soooo long (are we there yet,are we there yet???)
Arriving at the LAS airport, we had our first look at the new Terminal 3 - very nice! Heading for the taxi line, which only had a handful of people waiting, hubby says "Let's take a Limo - my treat!". Okay, twist my arm!
So into a waiting limo and off to Bellagio for a 3 night comp. Made it there in record time, breezed up to the check-in and even though we were quite early to check in, we were able to immediately get our room.
We even managed to get one with with a spectacular view of the fountains! First score of the trip!!
Off to Margaritaville for lunch, a tradition we have on our first day in town. Awesome burgers, yummy Margaritas and a great waiter made this a perfect start to our stay!
Since Monday is a "free" day for us prior to SEMA we decided to just meander through a few of the casinos on the Strip and play a couple slots in each. Hit a "Treasures Of Troy" machine in Caesar's for a 10 spin bonus with 7 retriggers!! 80 bonus spins later I cashed out $350 and moved on. This day is just looking better all the time! Shortly after we hit a "Forbidden Dragons" slot at Bally's. Admittedly, not my favorite slot here in Vancouver since I never hit the bonus rounds (grrr...) , but hey - it's Vegas, maybe it will be different here. Popped in a $20 and hit the Bonus round on my first spin!! This slot is called a Colossal reel - it has two sets of reels, normal size on the left and an extended size one on the right. Any bonus wins on the right pay at 5x. Second spin of the bonus I hit the highest paying dragon full size on all 5 lines on the 5x side - an $869 hit!!! Cashed out at the end of the bonus spins with $1012 - not bad for a $1 bet!!! Already up quite a bit on today's budget we spent the next few hours around the center strip area, enjoying some smaller wins and actually remaining well ahead of the game for our day's budget!! Finally headed back to Bellagio around midnight, with wallets a bit thicker than they were when we started the day. Off to bed to rest up for hiking the SEMA show tomorrow.
Tuesday morning wakeup call at 7:30 am was a rude jolt of reality. The Bellagio bed was so comfy it was tough to get out of it!! Off to breakfast and the first day of SEMA. For anyone who hasn't been, it is HUGE!! Takes up the entire LV Convention center, including some of the parking lots. Good walking shoes are a MUST for hiking over several million square feet of buildings filled with cars and anything related to the automotive industry! The morning flew by, between all the walking and catching up with friends and business associates throughout the show. Before we knew it we were well into the afternoon and our feet were saying "Enough for today!", so we took the hint and headed back to Bellagio. Housekeeping had left us a note on the bed saying there might be some noise outside between 10 pm and 4 am due to a movie filming some scenes on site tonight around the fountains, involving late night fountain activity and low flying helicopters. Hmmm... So we headed down for a late lunch and hit a few machines at Bellagio before going out to watch the lights on the Strip and have a fun evening out. Lot's more play at the machines through several of the casinos, and still way ahead of the game for the trip. Back to the hotel earlier tonight since we had had a long day, our feet were tired and another early morning wakeup call was looming. At about 2 am I awoke to the fountains outside going through their paces. Then I heard the distinctive 'Whop Whop Whop" of helicopter blades so I walked to the window to see what was taking place - just in time to see several stuntmen parachuting out of the helicopters and onto the strip, which was temporarily free of traffic for the filming. Quite a sight to see from our room, I have to admit! Not sure what was filming, we heard two different possibilities: "Hangover 3" or "Last Vegas" with Robert DeNiro. Either way, I'll be watching for that scene when I see these movies!
Wednesday morning - up at 6 am and off to the LVH for our favorite event of the SEMA show - the NHRA breakfast. As long time Drag racers, we always enjoy this event! This year the guest speakers were none other than the great Don "The Snake" Prudhomme and Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen, along with the Alan Paradise & Robin Broidy who are part of the team behind the upcoming "Snake and Mongoose" movie. Bob Frey was the emcee and the entire group kept the huge audience enthralled for an hour and a half with all the stories they had to share. They also showed a promo trailer for "Snake and Mongoose", which looks great and is on our must see list when it gets released in 2013! Enjoyed a quick meet & greet and autograph session with the drivers then headed off for another long day of SEMA.
Wednesday night we shared a quick bite with some "car buddies" at Margaritaville, watched all the freaks and weirdos dressed up (or down) on the Strip for Halloween then headed out for some gambling on Fremont street. Enjoyed seeing some great live bands along Fremont in between our casino stops, the light show was fun as always (everyone singing along to Monster Mash was hilarious) and some absolutely stunning costumes! Unfortunately, the casinos were not paying out for us tonight so we headed back to the Strip. Bellagio was feeling particularly generous, with several decent slot wins before finally calling it a night. Woo-hoo - halfway through the trip and still haven't had to spend any of my own cash! Life is good!!
Thursday morning - time to checkout of Bellagio and move on to Palazzo for another 3 night comp. We were too early to get our room, so left the bags with the Bell desk and headed out for another day at SEMA. First order of business was to get registered to go for a ride in the Ford Mustang drift cars on the test track set up in front of the Convention Center. What a blast! I don't think it's something I would want to foot the bill for, though. I complain enough about the cost of Drag racing, but at least we can make a set of tires last for most of a season. Those drift guys go through them like popcorn!!! Back to Palazzo to get our room and clean up after another long day. My host had snagged us a beautiful suite overlooking the TI and it's Pirate show, and a lovely bottle of Wine with a fruit and cheese platter all set up and waiting for us in our room when we got there. She knew my birthday was coming up at the end of the month so she wanted to do a little something special to acknowledge it (aside from the comp room, food&bev, and freeplay!!). Very sweet! We put our feet up and enjoyed this treat while we waited for our evening activity to roll around. We had tickets to see Human Nature, which I've enjoyed on previous occasions, but hubby had never seen. So off to the IP (Quad) to enjoy the show. I'd highly recommend it if you haven't seen it before. Those Aussie boys do a great job with all the Motown music. I understand they are looking at moving out of the tired old showroom at the IP, possibly to the Palazzo, and that can only be a good thing. The IP will never be my favorite place to spend any time in, although with all the renos going on I have to admit that the entrance to the casino is the cleanest and brightest I have ever seen it - which is kind of sad when you consider that it currently consists of nothing more than a carpeted construction tunnel winding through from the sidewalk to the casino floor! Back to Palazzo after the show for a few hours of play - no early morning for us tomorrow as we have no plans until the afternoon!!! Woo-Hoo!! Lots of decent hits on the machines here tonight - nothing big enough to kick in a tax form, but lots of good sized cash out tickets. I like to think I personally ran one of the ticket cashing machines out of money since after hitting one of them up several times during the evening for a few hundred at a shot, it took a $400 ticket and flashed a message on the screen that said "Insufficient Funds available to pay ticket at this time" - hubby had a good laugh about that one and said I had actually succeeded in breaking the bank!!! Played till sometime around 4 am and finally went back to the room, still ahead for the trip. This is good!!!
Friday morning - headed down for a leisurely brunch at the very busy Grand Lux. Thankfully, my Grazie Gold got me to the front of the line and we were seated and drinking Mimosas in no time. After brunch we headed back for the last day of SEMA, and snagged a prime spot to watch the parade of show cars exiting the site late in the afternoon. Afterwards, we headed to the Monte Carlo for a visit to the Hit Bar to check out their Classic Cocktail Happy Hour, which was mentioned in a post here on LVA a while back. What a great bar! The drinks were spectacular, the bartenders were a blast and this is now on our "must visit" list for any of our future trips. The menu of classic cocktails shows the history of each drink, along with the recipe. They have sourced as many of the original recipes and exotic ingredients possible to make some outstanding cocktails. These drinks take a little longer to make them properly, and outside of Happy Hour they are $14 each - but if you're into the golden age of cocktails this is THE place for you! It's located at the High Limit pit area in the Monte Carlo if you're trying to find it! After enjoying a few of these, we headed back to the Palazzo for our late dinner reservation at Delmonico. I've always enjoyed Emeril's restaurants, and the food tonight was up to the usual standards. I wolfed down the evening special of a rare Bone-In Filet and hubby thoroughly enjoyed the Three Peppercorn-crusted American Buffalo Ribeye. Only downside was that the service was a bit of a disappointment. We had two waiters working our table, which should have meant we would be wanting for nothing. Instead, we found ourselves having to flag them down to even get a refill on our drinks - I've never had that happen in Vegas before!! However, we left the restaurant well fed and hoping to have another winning night of it! We headed to the Venetian and spent several hours there, cashing out over $1500 in wins at the end of our visit. Then it was back to our room at the Palazzo to work out my Saturday Breeder's Cup wagers. Finished up my list of bets in about a half hour and was ready to head down for some more gambling. Hubby bailed at this point, deciding to rest his feet and watch some TV for the rest of the evening. So off to the casino I headed, and my streak continued. Hit several bonuses on L'il Red and Spartacus machines, then headed to a Pompeii machine where I proceeded to clean up, hitting bonus after bonus for almost two hours - cashing out a ticket for $2595 when it was all over! Called it a night and headed back to the room looking forward to our last full day in town tomorrow.
Saturday morning - woke up at 9 am and headed downstairs to Lagasse's Stadium to place my bets at the sportsbook. Placed was packed with College ball fans, but was able to place my bets quickly and head back up to the room to drag hubby out for our annual brunch at Lombardi's in the Miracle Mile shops. I love their Orange French Toast with Mascarpone & Fresh fruit - and the Mimosas with the $1 refills can't be beat!!! We hit this place at least once every trip and are never disappointed! Headed through the mall to do some shopping, then on to the Fashion Show mall to visit my friends at the Centaur Gallery. Found a couple pieces that I seriously considered adding to my collection there, but couldn't decide so headed back to Venetian Box office to pick up our tickets to Tim Allen. Headed back to the Sports book at the Palazzo to see how I had fared with my bets, and found to my delight that I cashed on every race except one! Since it was a day of "upsets", the payouts were hefty and I claimed over $1200 in winnings on just over $150 in bets! The guy at the bet window loved my happy dance as the winning tickets kept adding up! Added the cash to my winnings wallet and then we were off to the show. Tim was nothing short of hilarious and the Venetian Showroom is a perfect place to enjoy his standup routine - the theatre only holds about 750 people, so every seat is great! We had a great time, and will go see him again if the opportunity arises! Afterwards, we were off to Grimaldi's in the Palazzo to grab a pizza for dinner. The coal fired ovens they use create the tastiest crust on the pizzas, and we enjoyed a Pepperoni, Italian Sausage, Roasted sweet red pepper, and Jalapeno pie that was out of this world. Back to the Palazzo to gamble away my last night in town which, thanks to the end of daylight savings, was an hour longer!! Used that extra hour to finish padding the winnings wallet with another few hundred dollars, then finally dragged myself off to bed for the night.
Sunday morning, up early to pack and head to the airport. Everything went smooth, cab was quick getting us to the new terminal and curbside checkin was rocketship fast! From leaving our room to passing through security it took less than an hour! Sweet! Enjoyed a leisurely lunch at the Pub in terminal 3 and headed for the Departure gate, feeling down for the first time all trip since we were heading home to the non-stop rain again after a week of gorgeous, hot and sunny weather. However, that down feeling was quickly erased when we did a final "audit" of our finances. Turns out we didn't spend a dime of our own budget for the entire week, and had a profit of almost $6500!!! That means I'm heading back as soon as I can! Just working on my best friend to find a set of dates that works for us between now and Christmas! I love Vegas!!!
Flying out of rainy Vancouver on Monday morning I couldn't wait to get there! Who would have thought that a 2 1/2 hour flight could take soooo long (are we there yet,are we there yet???)
Arriving at the LAS airport, we had our first look at the new Terminal 3 - very nice! Heading for the taxi line, which only had a handful of people waiting, hubby says "Let's take a Limo - my treat!". Okay, twist my arm!
So into a waiting limo and off to Bellagio for a 3 night comp. Made it there in record time, breezed up to the check-in and even though we were quite early to check in, we were able to immediately get our room.
We even managed to get one with with a spectacular view of the fountains! First score of the trip!!
Off to Margaritaville for lunch, a tradition we have on our first day in town. Awesome burgers, yummy Margaritas and a great waiter made this a perfect start to our stay!
Since Monday is a "free" day for us prior to SEMA we decided to just meander through a few of the casinos on the Strip and play a couple slots in each. Hit a "Treasures Of Troy" machine in Caesar's for a 10 spin bonus with 7 retriggers!! 80 bonus spins later I cashed out $350 and moved on. This day is just looking better all the time! Shortly after we hit a "Forbidden Dragons" slot at Bally's. Admittedly, not my favorite slot here in Vancouver since I never hit the bonus rounds (grrr...) , but hey - it's Vegas, maybe it will be different here. Popped in a $20 and hit the Bonus round on my first spin!! This slot is called a Colossal reel - it has two sets of reels, normal size on the left and an extended size one on the right. Any bonus wins on the right pay at 5x. Second spin of the bonus I hit the highest paying dragon full size on all 5 lines on the 5x side - an $869 hit!!! Cashed out at the end of the bonus spins with $1012 - not bad for a $1 bet!!! Already up quite a bit on today's budget we spent the next few hours around the center strip area, enjoying some smaller wins and actually remaining well ahead of the game for our day's budget!! Finally headed back to Bellagio around midnight, with wallets a bit thicker than they were when we started the day. Off to bed to rest up for hiking the SEMA show tomorrow.
Tuesday morning wakeup call at 7:30 am was a rude jolt of reality. The Bellagio bed was so comfy it was tough to get out of it!! Off to breakfast and the first day of SEMA. For anyone who hasn't been, it is HUGE!! Takes up the entire LV Convention center, including some of the parking lots. Good walking shoes are a MUST for hiking over several million square feet of buildings filled with cars and anything related to the automotive industry! The morning flew by, between all the walking and catching up with friends and business associates throughout the show. Before we knew it we were well into the afternoon and our feet were saying "Enough for today!", so we took the hint and headed back to Bellagio. Housekeeping had left us a note on the bed saying there might be some noise outside between 10 pm and 4 am due to a movie filming some scenes on site tonight around the fountains, involving late night fountain activity and low flying helicopters. Hmmm... So we headed down for a late lunch and hit a few machines at Bellagio before going out to watch the lights on the Strip and have a fun evening out. Lot's more play at the machines through several of the casinos, and still way ahead of the game for the trip. Back to the hotel earlier tonight since we had had a long day, our feet were tired and another early morning wakeup call was looming. At about 2 am I awoke to the fountains outside going through their paces. Then I heard the distinctive 'Whop Whop Whop" of helicopter blades so I walked to the window to see what was taking place - just in time to see several stuntmen parachuting out of the helicopters and onto the strip, which was temporarily free of traffic for the filming. Quite a sight to see from our room, I have to admit! Not sure what was filming, we heard two different possibilities: "Hangover 3" or "Last Vegas" with Robert DeNiro. Either way, I'll be watching for that scene when I see these movies!
Wednesday morning - up at 6 am and off to the LVH for our favorite event of the SEMA show - the NHRA breakfast. As long time Drag racers, we always enjoy this event! This year the guest speakers were none other than the great Don "The Snake" Prudhomme and Tom "The Mongoose" McEwen, along with the Alan Paradise & Robin Broidy who are part of the team behind the upcoming "Snake and Mongoose" movie. Bob Frey was the emcee and the entire group kept the huge audience enthralled for an hour and a half with all the stories they had to share. They also showed a promo trailer for "Snake and Mongoose", which looks great and is on our must see list when it gets released in 2013! Enjoyed a quick meet & greet and autograph session with the drivers then headed off for another long day of SEMA.
Wednesday night we shared a quick bite with some "car buddies" at Margaritaville, watched all the freaks and weirdos dressed up (or down) on the Strip for Halloween then headed out for some gambling on Fremont street. Enjoyed seeing some great live bands along Fremont in between our casino stops, the light show was fun as always (everyone singing along to Monster Mash was hilarious) and some absolutely stunning costumes! Unfortunately, the casinos were not paying out for us tonight so we headed back to the Strip. Bellagio was feeling particularly generous, with several decent slot wins before finally calling it a night. Woo-hoo - halfway through the trip and still haven't had to spend any of my own cash! Life is good!!
Thursday morning - time to checkout of Bellagio and move on to Palazzo for another 3 night comp. We were too early to get our room, so left the bags with the Bell desk and headed out for another day at SEMA. First order of business was to get registered to go for a ride in the Ford Mustang drift cars on the test track set up in front of the Convention Center. What a blast! I don't think it's something I would want to foot the bill for, though. I complain enough about the cost of Drag racing, but at least we can make a set of tires last for most of a season. Those drift guys go through them like popcorn!!! Back to Palazzo to get our room and clean up after another long day. My host had snagged us a beautiful suite overlooking the TI and it's Pirate show, and a lovely bottle of Wine with a fruit and cheese platter all set up and waiting for us in our room when we got there. She knew my birthday was coming up at the end of the month so she wanted to do a little something special to acknowledge it (aside from the comp room, food&bev, and freeplay!!). Very sweet! We put our feet up and enjoyed this treat while we waited for our evening activity to roll around. We had tickets to see Human Nature, which I've enjoyed on previous occasions, but hubby had never seen. So off to the IP (Quad) to enjoy the show. I'd highly recommend it if you haven't seen it before. Those Aussie boys do a great job with all the Motown music. I understand they are looking at moving out of the tired old showroom at the IP, possibly to the Palazzo, and that can only be a good thing. The IP will never be my favorite place to spend any time in, although with all the renos going on I have to admit that the entrance to the casino is the cleanest and brightest I have ever seen it - which is kind of sad when you consider that it currently consists of nothing more than a carpeted construction tunnel winding through from the sidewalk to the casino floor! Back to Palazzo after the show for a few hours of play - no early morning for us tomorrow as we have no plans until the afternoon!!! Woo-Hoo!! Lots of decent hits on the machines here tonight - nothing big enough to kick in a tax form, but lots of good sized cash out tickets. I like to think I personally ran one of the ticket cashing machines out of money since after hitting one of them up several times during the evening for a few hundred at a shot, it took a $400 ticket and flashed a message on the screen that said "Insufficient Funds available to pay ticket at this time" - hubby had a good laugh about that one and said I had actually succeeded in breaking the bank!!! Played till sometime around 4 am and finally went back to the room, still ahead for the trip. This is good!!!
Friday morning - headed down for a leisurely brunch at the very busy Grand Lux. Thankfully, my Grazie Gold got me to the front of the line and we were seated and drinking Mimosas in no time. After brunch we headed back for the last day of SEMA, and snagged a prime spot to watch the parade of show cars exiting the site late in the afternoon. Afterwards, we headed to the Monte Carlo for a visit to the Hit Bar to check out their Classic Cocktail Happy Hour, which was mentioned in a post here on LVA a while back. What a great bar! The drinks were spectacular, the bartenders were a blast and this is now on our "must visit" list for any of our future trips. The menu of classic cocktails shows the history of each drink, along with the recipe. They have sourced as many of the original recipes and exotic ingredients possible to make some outstanding cocktails. These drinks take a little longer to make them properly, and outside of Happy Hour they are $14 each - but if you're into the golden age of cocktails this is THE place for you! It's located at the High Limit pit area in the Monte Carlo if you're trying to find it! After enjoying a few of these, we headed back to the Palazzo for our late dinner reservation at Delmonico. I've always enjoyed Emeril's restaurants, and the food tonight was up to the usual standards. I wolfed down the evening special of a rare Bone-In Filet and hubby thoroughly enjoyed the Three Peppercorn-crusted American Buffalo Ribeye. Only downside was that the service was a bit of a disappointment. We had two waiters working our table, which should have meant we would be wanting for nothing. Instead, we found ourselves having to flag them down to even get a refill on our drinks - I've never had that happen in Vegas before!! However, we left the restaurant well fed and hoping to have another winning night of it! We headed to the Venetian and spent several hours there, cashing out over $1500 in wins at the end of our visit. Then it was back to our room at the Palazzo to work out my Saturday Breeder's Cup wagers. Finished up my list of bets in about a half hour and was ready to head down for some more gambling. Hubby bailed at this point, deciding to rest his feet and watch some TV for the rest of the evening. So off to the casino I headed, and my streak continued. Hit several bonuses on L'il Red and Spartacus machines, then headed to a Pompeii machine where I proceeded to clean up, hitting bonus after bonus for almost two hours - cashing out a ticket for $2595 when it was all over! Called it a night and headed back to the room looking forward to our last full day in town tomorrow.
Saturday morning - woke up at 9 am and headed downstairs to Lagasse's Stadium to place my bets at the sportsbook. Placed was packed with College ball fans, but was able to place my bets quickly and head back up to the room to drag hubby out for our annual brunch at Lombardi's in the Miracle Mile shops. I love their Orange French Toast with Mascarpone & Fresh fruit - and the Mimosas with the $1 refills can't be beat!!! We hit this place at least once every trip and are never disappointed! Headed through the mall to do some shopping, then on to the Fashion Show mall to visit my friends at the Centaur Gallery. Found a couple pieces that I seriously considered adding to my collection there, but couldn't decide so headed back to Venetian Box office to pick up our tickets to Tim Allen. Headed back to the Sports book at the Palazzo to see how I had fared with my bets, and found to my delight that I cashed on every race except one! Since it was a day of "upsets", the payouts were hefty and I claimed over $1200 in winnings on just over $150 in bets! The guy at the bet window loved my happy dance as the winning tickets kept adding up! Added the cash to my winnings wallet and then we were off to the show. Tim was nothing short of hilarious and the Venetian Showroom is a perfect place to enjoy his standup routine - the theatre only holds about 750 people, so every seat is great! We had a great time, and will go see him again if the opportunity arises! Afterwards, we were off to Grimaldi's in the Palazzo to grab a pizza for dinner. The coal fired ovens they use create the tastiest crust on the pizzas, and we enjoyed a Pepperoni, Italian Sausage, Roasted sweet red pepper, and Jalapeno pie that was out of this world. Back to the Palazzo to gamble away my last night in town which, thanks to the end of daylight savings, was an hour longer!! Used that extra hour to finish padding the winnings wallet with another few hundred dollars, then finally dragged myself off to bed for the night.
Sunday morning, up early to pack and head to the airport. Everything went smooth, cab was quick getting us to the new terminal and curbside checkin was rocketship fast! From leaving our room to passing through security it took less than an hour! Sweet! Enjoyed a leisurely lunch at the Pub in terminal 3 and headed for the Departure gate, feeling down for the first time all trip since we were heading home to the non-stop rain again after a week of gorgeous, hot and sunny weather. However, that down feeling was quickly erased when we did a final "audit" of our finances. Turns out we didn't spend a dime of our own budget for the entire week, and had a profit of almost $6500!!! That means I'm heading back as soon as I can! Just working on my best friend to find a set of dates that works for us between now and Christmas! I love Vegas!!!
