We had Southwest refunds to use by February and Total Rewards from long ago’s Great Race for Rewards so it was off to Vegas on Breeders Cup weekend. Left St Louis at 6:00 AM Friday and touched down in Vegas on schedule at 7:30 AM. Grabbed luggage and headed to rental car center to pick up our Kia Optima for the weekend at $109 after taxes and fees. After briefly waiting in line found out that I had Fastlane and didn’t have to wait in line.
Knowing we couldn’t check in until afternoon, we planned on visiting the Lion Habitat Ranch. That didn’t open until 11:00 AM so we grabbed a quick breakfast at the Munch Box in Henderson. Quick and good meal but still had time to kill so we went to the Outlet Mall by the airport before heading to the Lion Ranch.
My wife and I are crazy cat people and we loved the Lion Habitat. The similarities in behavior between the lions and our house cats are pretty amazing. The employees were very interactive as you visited each enclosure and they even have a giraffe that paints. $25 admission was well worth it in our opinion and we both would highly recommend a visit.
Next was lunch at M Buffet, which we enjoyed in the past. Still very good but I overdid it on desserts and the gelato. It was now time to get to Bally’s to check in as the Friday Breeders Cup races were quickly approaching. Check in line didn’t seem onerous but it was very slow. We had a Jubilee Tower room reserved and asked for a high floor with an odd number to hopefully see the Bellagio fountains. Was given a room on 7th floor and an odd number. We knew from previous reviews that night club noise was going to get you from either Chateau or Drai’s. They weren’t kidding about Chateau at least. Friday was not great and Saturday was awful.
Post time was fast approaching so my wife graciously told me I could go bet before we headed to the room. Took the long walk to the Bally’s race book and wagered to no avail. Returned to lobby and took luggage up to the room. Jubilee room was very nice (better than our Caesars room a couple years back in one of the cheaper towers). When betting the first race I noticed there was no seating available at Bally’s. Actually there was a lot of empty seats but they all had reserved taped on them so I was off to the Paris race book for a couple hours and right away the trip became a good one. Had a nice winner in Tamarkuz and then had to get out the ID for a W2-G with a trifecta win and exacta payoff in the Juvenile Filly Turf race. Blanked on the last race Friday but it was a great one. Total win for the day was $1451.00. That guaranteed a winning trip. The Paris book was small and had similar issues with empty seats but reserved marked on them. After being there 45 minutes I just sat down for the rest of the day.
Still relatively full from the lunch buffet, we decided to get Shake Shack for dinner. I like it but In N Out is preferred and cheaper. Walked around after dinner and then stopped at the Cromwell to play .25 9/6 JOB right near the entrance. Wife took a $100 and played slots and promptly lost it. I was down $50 on video poker so we called it a night due to our early start.
Saturday’s challenge was to find a race and sports book where I could watch the Arkansas game and bet the ponies all day. Paris and Bally’s would not fit the bill so I read that the Linq might be a good place to try. I arrived at 9:15 AM and was able to find a comfortable seat in their small book. They only have one large tv but several smaller ones around it playing college football so I was pleased with my choice. I am a rabid SEC fan so just for fun I put down a 5 team $25 parlay to give me a rooting interest in some of the other games. I missed out on including the early games, so I chose South Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia and Alabama. That left me with one more game to choose and I read a blog about Nebraska being a good bet getting 17.5 points. Needless to say I went 4-0 on the SEC and 0-1 on the Big Ten. At least it wasn’t a heartbreaker as Nebraska got annihilated. As for the horse racing on Saturday, not a lot to report. I had a small $3 win bet on the 30-1 winner of the Juvenile fillies race to start the day. I also had her in trifecta bets but her friends could only manage third and fourth. Without the run of the second place horse that would have been a bigger payoff than Friday. A couple very small winners kept the loss to $100.60 on the day. The teller I mainly bet with during the day was great so I gave him a $10 tip when playing the last race. I told him if I could hit something I would give him more. He seemed appreciative and I was hoping to be able to get lucky in the last but it was to no avail as the favorites ran one-two but it was another good race as a fan. The Linq apparently has gone to a drink ticket system in their sports book. They started giving them to me after a couple races. I don’t know the limits to get them but I was betting $30 - $40 a race. I used one for a Diet Pepsi and gave three to the people sitting next to me in the book. I finally just kindly declined the repeated offers of drink tickets for the rest of the day. They probably (as well as many of you reading this) thought I was crazy.
Saturday night we had tickets for Penn & Teller as we have seen most of the other shows in Vegas. We were short on time and traffic was a nightmare so we ate at Guy Fieri’s Mexican place at Rio. My wife liked it but it was a little out there for me as I like standard Mexican fare so I got a burger with mac and cheese on it. My meal was huge and I only made it through half of it. I was able to watch most of the Alabama second half while eating so that was good. Penn & Teller was entertaining but probably middle of the pack for shows we’ve seen. Total loss for the day was $135.60.
Sunday we didn’t have any early plans. We grabbed sandwiches for breakfast again at Nosh in Bally’s. We also had this on Friday morning. It is right by the Jubilee elevators and was reasonable as strip prices go. Used TR points directly and not charged to the room to save on the taxes. I had done the same at Linq on Saturday when I grabbed a sandwich and water for lunch. We wandered down the strip to various shopping areas and had lunch at Reggiano in Venetian. It was good but strip pricing applied here. Getting around the shops at Venetian is like running a maze. My wife wasn’t real fond of Bally’s so we decided to drop a little money at Venetian just in case they get desperate enough to send us a discounted room offer. $120 didn’t last long so I’m not expecting an offer. I haven’t seen SLS so we decided to make the long walk. My goodness the optical illusion on the strip of things being much further than they appear applied in this instance. On the walk we did get to see the new Lucky Dragon casino from a distance. The SLS is a lot nicer than I remember the Sahara to be but it wasn’t very busy which isn’t surprising based on its isolated location. I assumed we would Uber back but then remember the monorail as an option. Having never taken it, we checked off another Vegas to do item and rode all the way to MGM to stop at M&M world for souvenirs and the short walk back to Bally’s.
Dinner was at Lindo Michoacan on Desert Inn. We both loved this place and our waiter was fantastic. Earned the rare for me 35% tip because of his great service and our food was very good as well. The Neon Museum was on tap for 7:00 PM and was also a fun hour at $25 each. It is relatively small but our guide was knowledgeable and made the tour quite interesting. Since it was a Sunday I drove Las Vegas Blvd back to Bally’s. Earlier in the weekend we used a coupon to get tickets to the Fifty Shades of Grey parody at Bally’s using TR points. I will just say we didn’t like it at all. While waiting for me to grab something from the room, my wife dropped a $20 in a slot with no joy making our loss $140 for the day.
Monday was getaway day but with our flight not departing until 5:25 PM, we had time to kill. The Mob Museum fit the bill so we stopped at In N Out for early lunch on Tropicana/Dean Martin and headed downtown. We both liked the Mob Museum and it was a reasonable $20 each when buying tickets online. We added the $4 each for the audio tour, which was an added benefit but didn’t stack up to the audio tour at Alcatraz. We were left with 45 minutes to kill so we walked to Fremont. I went up to the second floor of the D to see Sigma Derby in case it’s not around much longer. Every seat was filled but I watched a few races for fun. The buskers weren’t out in full force being a Monday afternoon but we were approached by a guy looking for 40 cents for fries and we weren’t his first target. He was pretty aggressive and said if he didn’t get his 40 cents criminal behavior might come on again as he went from target to target. This was enough to convince my wife that she didn’t need to visit Fremont on future visits and I am pretty indifferent to going there as well. I did want to see the Grand so we walked through there and threw $20 into a cute puppy slot machine with the inevitable loss thus finishing the gambling with a $20 loss for the day but a trip profit of $1,005.40.
Dropped rental car after filling up with $8.00 of gas and flight to St Louis was uneventful after slight delay to fix an armrest in the exit row. We had A55 and 56 boarding passed on Southwest both ways. Some other finishing remarks. Bally’s pool was closed so wife spent Saturday at Paris pool with no complaints other than expensive drink prices. Jubilee rooms are nice but overall Bally’s is not on our list to return. The noise level warnings are very real and was a deal breaker for the wife. I was able to use up all of our Race for Reward points and get a refund of some of our deposit for the room. We paid for several small meals, drinks and show tickets with our TR points.
Knowing we couldn’t check in until afternoon, we planned on visiting the Lion Habitat Ranch. That didn’t open until 11:00 AM so we grabbed a quick breakfast at the Munch Box in Henderson. Quick and good meal but still had time to kill so we went to the Outlet Mall by the airport before heading to the Lion Ranch.
My wife and I are crazy cat people and we loved the Lion Habitat. The similarities in behavior between the lions and our house cats are pretty amazing. The employees were very interactive as you visited each enclosure and they even have a giraffe that paints. $25 admission was well worth it in our opinion and we both would highly recommend a visit.
Next was lunch at M Buffet, which we enjoyed in the past. Still very good but I overdid it on desserts and the gelato. It was now time to get to Bally’s to check in as the Friday Breeders Cup races were quickly approaching. Check in line didn’t seem onerous but it was very slow. We had a Jubilee Tower room reserved and asked for a high floor with an odd number to hopefully see the Bellagio fountains. Was given a room on 7th floor and an odd number. We knew from previous reviews that night club noise was going to get you from either Chateau or Drai’s. They weren’t kidding about Chateau at least. Friday was not great and Saturday was awful.
Post time was fast approaching so my wife graciously told me I could go bet before we headed to the room. Took the long walk to the Bally’s race book and wagered to no avail. Returned to lobby and took luggage up to the room. Jubilee room was very nice (better than our Caesars room a couple years back in one of the cheaper towers). When betting the first race I noticed there was no seating available at Bally’s. Actually there was a lot of empty seats but they all had reserved taped on them so I was off to the Paris race book for a couple hours and right away the trip became a good one. Had a nice winner in Tamarkuz and then had to get out the ID for a W2-G with a trifecta win and exacta payoff in the Juvenile Filly Turf race. Blanked on the last race Friday but it was a great one. Total win for the day was $1451.00. That guaranteed a winning trip. The Paris book was small and had similar issues with empty seats but reserved marked on them. After being there 45 minutes I just sat down for the rest of the day.
Still relatively full from the lunch buffet, we decided to get Shake Shack for dinner. I like it but In N Out is preferred and cheaper. Walked around after dinner and then stopped at the Cromwell to play .25 9/6 JOB right near the entrance. Wife took a $100 and played slots and promptly lost it. I was down $50 on video poker so we called it a night due to our early start.
Saturday’s challenge was to find a race and sports book where I could watch the Arkansas game and bet the ponies all day. Paris and Bally’s would not fit the bill so I read that the Linq might be a good place to try. I arrived at 9:15 AM and was able to find a comfortable seat in their small book. They only have one large tv but several smaller ones around it playing college football so I was pleased with my choice. I am a rabid SEC fan so just for fun I put down a 5 team $25 parlay to give me a rooting interest in some of the other games. I missed out on including the early games, so I chose South Carolina, Arkansas, Georgia and Alabama. That left me with one more game to choose and I read a blog about Nebraska being a good bet getting 17.5 points. Needless to say I went 4-0 on the SEC and 0-1 on the Big Ten. At least it wasn’t a heartbreaker as Nebraska got annihilated. As for the horse racing on Saturday, not a lot to report. I had a small $3 win bet on the 30-1 winner of the Juvenile fillies race to start the day. I also had her in trifecta bets but her friends could only manage third and fourth. Without the run of the second place horse that would have been a bigger payoff than Friday. A couple very small winners kept the loss to $100.60 on the day. The teller I mainly bet with during the day was great so I gave him a $10 tip when playing the last race. I told him if I could hit something I would give him more. He seemed appreciative and I was hoping to be able to get lucky in the last but it was to no avail as the favorites ran one-two but it was another good race as a fan. The Linq apparently has gone to a drink ticket system in their sports book. They started giving them to me after a couple races. I don’t know the limits to get them but I was betting $30 - $40 a race. I used one for a Diet Pepsi and gave three to the people sitting next to me in the book. I finally just kindly declined the repeated offers of drink tickets for the rest of the day. They probably (as well as many of you reading this) thought I was crazy.
Saturday night we had tickets for Penn & Teller as we have seen most of the other shows in Vegas. We were short on time and traffic was a nightmare so we ate at Guy Fieri’s Mexican place at Rio. My wife liked it but it was a little out there for me as I like standard Mexican fare so I got a burger with mac and cheese on it. My meal was huge and I only made it through half of it. I was able to watch most of the Alabama second half while eating so that was good. Penn & Teller was entertaining but probably middle of the pack for shows we’ve seen. Total loss for the day was $135.60.
Sunday we didn’t have any early plans. We grabbed sandwiches for breakfast again at Nosh in Bally’s. We also had this on Friday morning. It is right by the Jubilee elevators and was reasonable as strip prices go. Used TR points directly and not charged to the room to save on the taxes. I had done the same at Linq on Saturday when I grabbed a sandwich and water for lunch. We wandered down the strip to various shopping areas and had lunch at Reggiano in Venetian. It was good but strip pricing applied here. Getting around the shops at Venetian is like running a maze. My wife wasn’t real fond of Bally’s so we decided to drop a little money at Venetian just in case they get desperate enough to send us a discounted room offer. $120 didn’t last long so I’m not expecting an offer. I haven’t seen SLS so we decided to make the long walk. My goodness the optical illusion on the strip of things being much further than they appear applied in this instance. On the walk we did get to see the new Lucky Dragon casino from a distance. The SLS is a lot nicer than I remember the Sahara to be but it wasn’t very busy which isn’t surprising based on its isolated location. I assumed we would Uber back but then remember the monorail as an option. Having never taken it, we checked off another Vegas to do item and rode all the way to MGM to stop at M&M world for souvenirs and the short walk back to Bally’s.
Dinner was at Lindo Michoacan on Desert Inn. We both loved this place and our waiter was fantastic. Earned the rare for me 35% tip because of his great service and our food was very good as well. The Neon Museum was on tap for 7:00 PM and was also a fun hour at $25 each. It is relatively small but our guide was knowledgeable and made the tour quite interesting. Since it was a Sunday I drove Las Vegas Blvd back to Bally’s. Earlier in the weekend we used a coupon to get tickets to the Fifty Shades of Grey parody at Bally’s using TR points. I will just say we didn’t like it at all. While waiting for me to grab something from the room, my wife dropped a $20 in a slot with no joy making our loss $140 for the day.
Monday was getaway day but with our flight not departing until 5:25 PM, we had time to kill. The Mob Museum fit the bill so we stopped at In N Out for early lunch on Tropicana/Dean Martin and headed downtown. We both liked the Mob Museum and it was a reasonable $20 each when buying tickets online. We added the $4 each for the audio tour, which was an added benefit but didn’t stack up to the audio tour at Alcatraz. We were left with 45 minutes to kill so we walked to Fremont. I went up to the second floor of the D to see Sigma Derby in case it’s not around much longer. Every seat was filled but I watched a few races for fun. The buskers weren’t out in full force being a Monday afternoon but we were approached by a guy looking for 40 cents for fries and we weren’t his first target. He was pretty aggressive and said if he didn’t get his 40 cents criminal behavior might come on again as he went from target to target. This was enough to convince my wife that she didn’t need to visit Fremont on future visits and I am pretty indifferent to going there as well. I did want to see the Grand so we walked through there and threw $20 into a cute puppy slot machine with the inevitable loss thus finishing the gambling with a $20 loss for the day but a trip profit of $1,005.40.
Dropped rental car after filling up with $8.00 of gas and flight to St Louis was uneventful after slight delay to fix an armrest in the exit row. We had A55 and 56 boarding passed on Southwest both ways. Some other finishing remarks. Bally’s pool was closed so wife spent Saturday at Paris pool with no complaints other than expensive drink prices. Jubilee rooms are nice but overall Bally’s is not on our list to return. The noise level warnings are very real and was a deal breaker for the wife. I was able to use up all of our Race for Reward points and get a refund of some of our deposit for the room. We paid for several small meals, drinks and show tickets with our TR points.
