Christmas present to me was a trip to Las Vegas Christmas night for 5 days at The D. First mistake, my son and I usually fly on Southwest or Continental/United from Texas... but Spirit Airlines had real good prices... soon found out why... it cost $45 for one checked bag for the two of us... you can’t go a whole week without clothes so we needed at least 1 bag...each had a small carry on... Plane was late coming in to Houston from up north because of all the snow and resulting backups .... 2nd adventure a man on the plane was told by an armed marshall who came onto the plane as it was getting ready for takeoff... that he had to pay $50 for his bag or he could not fly... he was already on the plane in his seat... 3rd adventure a young woman 18-25 was literally dragged off the plane in Houston because she had no ticket stub and someone else had a ticket for that seat... makes you wonder how she got on the plane in Chicago before it got to Houston. If that was not enough the plane goes down the runway groaning and grunting... no one working on the plane seemed upset, but it scared the passengers... finally we are airborne and it is the noisiest, loudest sounding plane any of us have ever flown... you were glad when your ears stopped up so the noise was lower... no one working on this flight looked happy ... no smiles no friendly greeting... just let get this trip over attitude... maybe because they were working Christmas night... anyway we shaked, rattled and rolled on our noisy way to Las Vegas where we had requested a wheel chair assist because I have a bad knee and am too old to make the long trek at McCarran. There is a chair there, but when I get off the ramp into terminal... there is only 1 person to push chairs for all who requested it and I would be first to be pushed after they got all wheel chair people off the plane... weird... well, my son is eager to get to gambling, so he starts pushing my chair to luggage, carrying one carry on and the other in my lap...we finally get to the taxis and are on our way to The D. There are further adventures on the trip home... one big one... but needless to say, we will NEVER fly Spirit Airlines again... even though The D gave us $50 each for flying Spirit.
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We each had a comped room for 5 nights and it was quite nice... first rooms from the elevator, nicely appointed, attractive room, good bed and pillows, leather couch and chair and the usual tv, desk, etc. Noticed they now have 2 plugs on bedside table lamps so you can charge your cell phones, etc... a nice feature so you don’t have to crawl all over looking for a plug. Bathroom was adequate and they have upgraded the toiletries... all in all a quite pleasant room... yes, at night I could hear some of the noise from the music at the Freemont Street festivities even on the 26th floor, but it did not bother me, it was like a Las Vegas lullaby... besides you don’t usually go to bed early in Las Vegas and the noise was over about 1 a.m. The D is very generous with their room comps and other things like free play and food comps.
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The trip in general was good... I did not bring a lot of money home, but I did get to bring about half of what I took with me to play slots and table games. I do believe I hit every casino downtown except the Plaza... my first trip to El Cortez and was impressed. Since I rented a scooter this trip, it was easy to zip down there and gamble a bit. We split our time, my son does his thing and I do mine... cell phones are great for keeping up with each other... we usually meet for meals and occasionally like when his grandson was in for a day, hang together a little at slots... then they play poker tournaments.
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Played Golden Goddess and got a whole screen full of blondes... very small bet at 1x. Only got about $20... but it sure was pretty to look at the screen. Tried to send pic, but it did not come through.
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My newest favorite is hot hot habeneros with wild reels in bonus round... saw one man get humongous money when he had almost all wilds except 1st row... the game plays on small amounts also. Got a $100 in the bonus round with minimum bet and did not get very many “targets” for wilds on my free spins.
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Bonus Sevens with the bonus wheel feature is an interesting game. Up to 1000 points on low bet in bonus round with 3 bonus sevens on line... when you get 5 bonus sevens, you can try for up to 5,000 points... mostly you get only 3 but out of about 7 times I got 1000 points twice... not bad for the lowest bet.
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Best low roller win was on Stinking Rich... played $20 with no hit of any kind... not even middle-size. Going to quit but had 8¢ in the machine... tired of little bitty TITO’s so picked 1 line 3x, intending to play 5 lines 1x on the next spin. Well would you believe I finally get the bonus symbols and incredibly they were on line picked... free spins start and I expect 50¢ to $5.00... won $64 on a 3¢ bet, unbelievable! That has to be one for the record books.
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Table games were terrible this time, i.e., played blackjack and even with match play lost $200 in just a few minutes... best bet out of that was a push... the dealer never dealt me anything higher than 17... mostly 13 or 14... and she was hitting bad cards for 20 or 21. Just for the record, I play correctly... refreshed myself on the game and measured myself just before leaving on Hit or Stand.net and got a 100%. It is a blackjack game and trainer in one and quite a bit of fun to practice on... anyway I decided with that kind of luck I was off blackjack for this trip especially at $10 and $25 tables.
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Finally vacation fun is over and time to check out and wait for the midnight flight home. Got to the airport early for our 1 a.m. flight and got wheeled to the proper gate... Gate 1 luckily right next to slot area, food area and bathrooms... a great location. We played a little and ate sandwiches at Flatbread’s. As I was coming out of the restroom, my son said let’s go I heard them call preboarding...we raced to B1 and went down to the backside of the boarding pass takers and said sorry we were late... one of women taking tickets grabbed my wheel chair and started pushing it back up and said we couldn’t enter at the ticket kiosk for some reason and would have to go to the top of the aisle and come down past the waiting line... she kept pushing with her saying “make way for the chair” all the way down... they took our boarding passes and said “Did you really want to got to Detroit with a Houston ticket? All gasped and then explained... the Detroit plane was an hour late and was scheduled for the same gate as the Houston flight and obviously both could not be in the same place... so they moved the people going to Houston down to Gate 6... but we were eating and did not get the message!
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Eveyone had a good laugh and the nice woman started pushing the chair back up and over to Gate 6... I apologized that she was working so hard and she laughed and said... I just wished I had known it was the wrong gate before I mowed down the last two people with this chair.... we finally got to the right gate and had to wait for about 30 minutes... so if we had gotten the mesage, we could have leisurely made our way down.
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The people both in the terminal and on the plane to Houston were completely different from the flight in... these people were friendly, cheerful and seemed to be happier that the crew coming out. Flight home was noisy, but uneventful and the landing was as smooth as any I’ve had...but I still will NEVER fly Spirit again. By the way I forgot, both ways the seats had very little if any padding and arm rests were wobbly and some of the seats had to be pushed upright for take offs and landings because they were not working properly. And no pillows on the red eye flight... definitely a no frills airline.
---
We each had a comped room for 5 nights and it was quite nice... first rooms from the elevator, nicely appointed, attractive room, good bed and pillows, leather couch and chair and the usual tv, desk, etc. Noticed they now have 2 plugs on bedside table lamps so you can charge your cell phones, etc... a nice feature so you don’t have to crawl all over looking for a plug. Bathroom was adequate and they have upgraded the toiletries... all in all a quite pleasant room... yes, at night I could hear some of the noise from the music at the Freemont Street festivities even on the 26th floor, but it did not bother me, it was like a Las Vegas lullaby... besides you don’t usually go to bed early in Las Vegas and the noise was over about 1 a.m. The D is very generous with their room comps and other things like free play and food comps.
---
The trip in general was good... I did not bring a lot of money home, but I did get to bring about half of what I took with me to play slots and table games. I do believe I hit every casino downtown except the Plaza... my first trip to El Cortez and was impressed. Since I rented a scooter this trip, it was easy to zip down there and gamble a bit. We split our time, my son does his thing and I do mine... cell phones are great for keeping up with each other... we usually meet for meals and occasionally like when his grandson was in for a day, hang together a little at slots... then they play poker tournaments.
---
Played Golden Goddess and got a whole screen full of blondes... very small bet at 1x. Only got about $20... but it sure was pretty to look at the screen. Tried to send pic, but it did not come through.
---
My newest favorite is hot hot habeneros with wild reels in bonus round... saw one man get humongous money when he had almost all wilds except 1st row... the game plays on small amounts also. Got a $100 in the bonus round with minimum bet and did not get very many “targets” for wilds on my free spins.
---
Bonus Sevens with the bonus wheel feature is an interesting game. Up to 1000 points on low bet in bonus round with 3 bonus sevens on line... when you get 5 bonus sevens, you can try for up to 5,000 points... mostly you get only 3 but out of about 7 times I got 1000 points twice... not bad for the lowest bet.
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Best low roller win was on Stinking Rich... played $20 with no hit of any kind... not even middle-size. Going to quit but had 8¢ in the machine... tired of little bitty TITO’s so picked 1 line 3x, intending to play 5 lines 1x on the next spin. Well would you believe I finally get the bonus symbols and incredibly they were on line picked... free spins start and I expect 50¢ to $5.00... won $64 on a 3¢ bet, unbelievable! That has to be one for the record books.
---
Table games were terrible this time, i.e., played blackjack and even with match play lost $200 in just a few minutes... best bet out of that was a push... the dealer never dealt me anything higher than 17... mostly 13 or 14... and she was hitting bad cards for 20 or 21. Just for the record, I play correctly... refreshed myself on the game and measured myself just before leaving on Hit or Stand.net and got a 100%. It is a blackjack game and trainer in one and quite a bit of fun to practice on... anyway I decided with that kind of luck I was off blackjack for this trip especially at $10 and $25 tables.
---
Finally vacation fun is over and time to check out and wait for the midnight flight home. Got to the airport early for our 1 a.m. flight and got wheeled to the proper gate... Gate 1 luckily right next to slot area, food area and bathrooms... a great location. We played a little and ate sandwiches at Flatbread’s. As I was coming out of the restroom, my son said let’s go I heard them call preboarding...we raced to B1 and went down to the backside of the boarding pass takers and said sorry we were late... one of women taking tickets grabbed my wheel chair and started pushing it back up and said we couldn’t enter at the ticket kiosk for some reason and would have to go to the top of the aisle and come down past the waiting line... she kept pushing with her saying “make way for the chair” all the way down... they took our boarding passes and said “Did you really want to got to Detroit with a Houston ticket? All gasped and then explained... the Detroit plane was an hour late and was scheduled for the same gate as the Houston flight and obviously both could not be in the same place... so they moved the people going to Houston down to Gate 6... but we were eating and did not get the message!
---
Eveyone had a good laugh and the nice woman started pushing the chair back up and over to Gate 6... I apologized that she was working so hard and she laughed and said... I just wished I had known it was the wrong gate before I mowed down the last two people with this chair.... we finally got to the right gate and had to wait for about 30 minutes... so if we had gotten the mesage, we could have leisurely made our way down.
---
The people both in the terminal and on the plane to Houston were completely different from the flight in... these people were friendly, cheerful and seemed to be happier that the crew coming out. Flight home was noisy, but uneventful and the landing was as smooth as any I’ve had...but I still will NEVER fly Spirit again. By the way I forgot, both ways the seats had very little if any padding and arm rests were wobbly and some of the seats had to be pushed upright for take offs and landings because they were not working properly. And no pillows on the red eye flight... definitely a no frills airline.
