Almost every year I go to Vegas for Super Bowl weekend to meet up with friends (in fact I think I have not been in Vegas only twice in the past 20 years). I used to go with my ex and her family and now go with my second wife...and my ex and her family still go. We all get along fine, and we still share the same group of friends, so everyone has a blast.
Wife and I didn't fly out of Dallas until Saturday due to flight costs were very high this year. We live close to DFW airport but chose to fly Southwest out of Love field as they had the best pricing. You can't fly non-stop to Vegas via Southwest due to the Wright Amendment (which expires this October thankfully) so both flights we had to stop in El Paso but without changing planes. Flights were smooth and we landed in Vegas about 6:30 P.M. My best buddy for the past 35 years Pete was staying at South Point with his GF so we went straight there after grabbing the rental car to have dinner with them. Pete had been at the South Point for several hours before we arrived and had sent me a text earlier that said "Got a royal doubt" Now Pete is blind, he has barely enough vision that he can play video poker but has to get his face about two inches from the screen to see the cards. To send text messages his phone uses voice recognition, so I often get texts from him that require some deciphering. Once we met up with him he clarified that "doubt" should have been "dealt". The lucky SOB has had two dealt royals in the past two years! Dinner at the Coronado Cafe was fine and we said goodbye and headed to Sam's Town to check in.
Sunday we had arranged to have breakfast again at the Coronado with Pete and GF and after eating we went and got in line for the free SB watching party in their events center. We do this every year and between us, my ex and my ex in-laws, and friends and friends of friends we had 26 people. Pete and I and one friend were the only ones in the 26 betting on Seattle, and this ratio was probably the same in the entire room. Before the game every time Manning was shown the crowd cheered... of course that cheering didn't continue much after the first quarter. Here is a picture of the room 4 hours before kickoff-
I had bet on Seattle +2.5 and also made a small bet on Seattle -7.5 (I would have gone higher but this was the most points I could lay at the South Point) but I felt most strongly the game would end under the total, so I lost my two biggest bets and lost a little overall on the game. At one point Pete and I were walking to the bar and a guy stops us and says "hey, I know you guys were here last year, and I can PROVE it!"...and he grabs his cell and is looking for a picture on it. Sure enough, last year there was a table near us that had a girl so wasted she passed out, and he had his friend take a picture of him, Pete and me standing behind her. Only in Vegas! After the game we played a little vp and wife won about $50 on Good Times Pay deuces wild, she really liked that game. After the sportsbook crowd thinned out we cashed our tickets and went back to Sam's Town to crash.
Monday- Pete and his GF had a flight about 1 P.M. so we offered to take them to breakfast and then the airport, so we picked them up at South Point and went to Blueberry Hill on Flamingo. Had a great breakfast (4 egg omelette with pancakes for Zimbo) and we had about an hour to kill before dropping them at the airport so we stopped at Silver Sevens. I hadn't been there since it was Terrible's, and it seemed about the same. I played some penny 50-play double double vp and twice was dealt three 3's and not once did I get a quad. Sucks to go 0 for 100! We got them to the airport and then went downtown to the California, where we ran into some friends who stay there but didn't come to the SP party. We played a little there and at MSS without luck, so we were of to Sam's.
It was about 3 P.M. and the wife felt like taking in a movie, so we decided on Jack Ryan:Shadow Recruit at 5 P.M., giving us about 90 minutes of gambling time. We are both low rollers who play for entertainment, and usually play together or nearby, but I wanted to play in the non-smoking section while she wanted to play either Spin Poker or Multi-strike over by the sportsbook. I had been playing about 30 minutes when she texts me this picture-
HELL YEAH! I cashed out and found her pretty quickly and she was flying high. She is still pretty much a novice video poker player and I kept trying to explain to her how hard it is to hit a royal on any machine much less the top line on Multi-strike...not that it made one bit of difference to her LOL. After she got paid I asked her if she still wanted to see the movie and surprisingly she did. It was fair, maybe 6/10, plot was pretty cookie-cutter. Dinner that night was TGIFriday and off to bed.
Tuesday- Flight home was at 11:30 so we headed back to Blueberry Hill for another good breakfast, gassed up the rental and made the airport in plenty of time. About 30 minutes before flight time they make the lovely announcement "Southwest is in an oversold situation..." so I jump up and we grab their offer to take a flight at 12:50 for a voucher worth $100 plus the cost of the flight ($224 total) which was about what our roundtrip cost. SCORE! Only downside, this flight would go to Wichita, then to Dallas, so it added a little over two hours to our travel time, but for $100 per hour sure I'll take that any day I can. We had also forgotten to check in exactly 24 hours beforehand so we were holding B 41 and 42 boarding passes and may not have been able to sit together on the original flight, but when you offer to get bumped they let you board between the A and B groups so we got good seats right in front of the exit row seats.
After almost everyone is onboard the attendant comes and starts her speech to those in the exit row "May I have your undivided attention. You are seated in an exit..." then she pauses and out of the corner of my eye I see a guy in the aisle seat looking at or texting on his phone. The attendant tells him "sir I am going to ask you to sit elsewhere", he says "why?" and she says "because you weren't giving me your undivided attention". He says he isn't moving, she goes and gets another attendant and returns and tells him again he needs to relocate and he stands up and says "I'll move...but I am going to file a complaint and you are going to be sorry". The attendant handled it like a champ in my eyes and I emailed Southwest this when I got home. If you are such a self-important ass that you can't put your phone down for 60 seconds, screw you I say. Then one late passenger comes on and scores the aisle seat in the exit row...guess it was his lucky day! We land in Wichita where they have 6-8 inches of snow and it is continuing to snow, and while the locals get off and new passengers board we watch first the snow plows clearing the runways and then the de-icing truck prepping us for takeoff. We land in Dallas about 7:30 starving, eat in the airport, and make it home by 9 P.M. Another fun Super Bowl trip in the books.
Wife and I didn't fly out of Dallas until Saturday due to flight costs were very high this year. We live close to DFW airport but chose to fly Southwest out of Love field as they had the best pricing. You can't fly non-stop to Vegas via Southwest due to the Wright Amendment (which expires this October thankfully) so both flights we had to stop in El Paso but without changing planes. Flights were smooth and we landed in Vegas about 6:30 P.M. My best buddy for the past 35 years Pete was staying at South Point with his GF so we went straight there after grabbing the rental car to have dinner with them. Pete had been at the South Point for several hours before we arrived and had sent me a text earlier that said "Got a royal doubt" Now Pete is blind, he has barely enough vision that he can play video poker but has to get his face about two inches from the screen to see the cards. To send text messages his phone uses voice recognition, so I often get texts from him that require some deciphering. Once we met up with him he clarified that "doubt" should have been "dealt". The lucky SOB has had two dealt royals in the past two years! Dinner at the Coronado Cafe was fine and we said goodbye and headed to Sam's Town to check in.
Sunday we had arranged to have breakfast again at the Coronado with Pete and GF and after eating we went and got in line for the free SB watching party in their events center. We do this every year and between us, my ex and my ex in-laws, and friends and friends of friends we had 26 people. Pete and I and one friend were the only ones in the 26 betting on Seattle, and this ratio was probably the same in the entire room. Before the game every time Manning was shown the crowd cheered... of course that cheering didn't continue much after the first quarter. Here is a picture of the room 4 hours before kickoff-
I had bet on Seattle +2.5 and also made a small bet on Seattle -7.5 (I would have gone higher but this was the most points I could lay at the South Point) but I felt most strongly the game would end under the total, so I lost my two biggest bets and lost a little overall on the game. At one point Pete and I were walking to the bar and a guy stops us and says "hey, I know you guys were here last year, and I can PROVE it!"...and he grabs his cell and is looking for a picture on it. Sure enough, last year there was a table near us that had a girl so wasted she passed out, and he had his friend take a picture of him, Pete and me standing behind her. Only in Vegas! After the game we played a little vp and wife won about $50 on Good Times Pay deuces wild, she really liked that game. After the sportsbook crowd thinned out we cashed our tickets and went back to Sam's Town to crash.
Monday- Pete and his GF had a flight about 1 P.M. so we offered to take them to breakfast and then the airport, so we picked them up at South Point and went to Blueberry Hill on Flamingo. Had a great breakfast (4 egg omelette with pancakes for Zimbo) and we had about an hour to kill before dropping them at the airport so we stopped at Silver Sevens. I hadn't been there since it was Terrible's, and it seemed about the same. I played some penny 50-play double double vp and twice was dealt three 3's and not once did I get a quad. Sucks to go 0 for 100! We got them to the airport and then went downtown to the California, where we ran into some friends who stay there but didn't come to the SP party. We played a little there and at MSS without luck, so we were of to Sam's.
It was about 3 P.M. and the wife felt like taking in a movie, so we decided on Jack Ryan:Shadow Recruit at 5 P.M., giving us about 90 minutes of gambling time. We are both low rollers who play for entertainment, and usually play together or nearby, but I wanted to play in the non-smoking section while she wanted to play either Spin Poker or Multi-strike over by the sportsbook. I had been playing about 30 minutes when she texts me this picture-
HELL YEAH! I cashed out and found her pretty quickly and she was flying high. She is still pretty much a novice video poker player and I kept trying to explain to her how hard it is to hit a royal on any machine much less the top line on Multi-strike...not that it made one bit of difference to her LOL. After she got paid I asked her if she still wanted to see the movie and surprisingly she did. It was fair, maybe 6/10, plot was pretty cookie-cutter. Dinner that night was TGIFriday and off to bed.
Tuesday- Flight home was at 11:30 so we headed back to Blueberry Hill for another good breakfast, gassed up the rental and made the airport in plenty of time. About 30 minutes before flight time they make the lovely announcement "Southwest is in an oversold situation..." so I jump up and we grab their offer to take a flight at 12:50 for a voucher worth $100 plus the cost of the flight ($224 total) which was about what our roundtrip cost. SCORE! Only downside, this flight would go to Wichita, then to Dallas, so it added a little over two hours to our travel time, but for $100 per hour sure I'll take that any day I can. We had also forgotten to check in exactly 24 hours beforehand so we were holding B 41 and 42 boarding passes and may not have been able to sit together on the original flight, but when you offer to get bumped they let you board between the A and B groups so we got good seats right in front of the exit row seats.
After almost everyone is onboard the attendant comes and starts her speech to those in the exit row "May I have your undivided attention. You are seated in an exit..." then she pauses and out of the corner of my eye I see a guy in the aisle seat looking at or texting on his phone. The attendant tells him "sir I am going to ask you to sit elsewhere", he says "why?" and she says "because you weren't giving me your undivided attention". He says he isn't moving, she goes and gets another attendant and returns and tells him again he needs to relocate and he stands up and says "I'll move...but I am going to file a complaint and you are going to be sorry". The attendant handled it like a champ in my eyes and I emailed Southwest this when I got home. If you are such a self-important ass that you can't put your phone down for 60 seconds, screw you I say. Then one late passenger comes on and scores the aisle seat in the exit row...guess it was his lucky day! We land in Wichita where they have 6-8 inches of snow and it is continuing to snow, and while the locals get off and new passengers board we watch first the snow plows clearing the runways and then the de-icing truck prepping us for takeoff. We land in Dallas about 7:30 starving, eat in the airport, and make it home by 9 P.M. Another fun Super Bowl trip in the books.
