As with all my trip reports, I’m writing it as much for me as for you. I want to be able to remember some of these details a few years from now. So if it’s a little verbose, I apologize. If you want to know more about anything specific, please ask.
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3 years ago, my wife and I went to Vegas to meet up with my best friend from college and his (then) girlfriend. Well, Scott proposed to Zaira on that trip, and we made some awesome memories with some great surprises for our girls. I’d been back once with just my wife, and once with just Scott, but a few months ago we all decided that a reunion trip for the four of us would be what we needed.
Our stay, as with our last 3 trips, was at Southpoint. Since we were told about that place by a former LVA member (Amytim), we’ve really fallen in love with it. They’ve been incredibly accommodating and EXTREMEMLY generous with comps. For this trip, they comped us front with one of the 2200sqft suites up at the top. Room 2531, specifically. To surprise Scott, I had worked with a company in Minnesota that distributes specialty pops and candies, and the host at SP helped my get some Pop Shoppe Pop shipped to the hotel and put in our room along with a nice note for Scott. Also gave us 4 comped buffets, and a couple other treats in our room. They offered us the suite for the entire week, but our stay was only going to be Wed-Sunday.
Flew down on Alaska Airlines (trying to rack up those miles for a surprise 15th anniversary trip to New Zealand), and Scott and Zaira were coming up from Dallas. Arrived 9pm Wednesday, picked up the rental car from Alamo after we met our friends, and made it to Southpoint by about 10:30pm. Checked out the room and chilled with some drinks for a few minutes while we caught up on life, the universe and everything. We were all hungry, and by that point the dining options are pretty limited on a Thursday, so we hit the Steak n’ Shake. I gotta tell you, I don’t know if it was because I was starving, or had just the right amount of alcohol, but I swear that $4 burger and fries was some super tasty Sh!t. I could have eaten 2 of them, and frankly I would have had time to because I was done with mine before everyone else was halfway done with theirs.
Everyone else (since they have “real” jobs during the week) was tired, and it was midnight so they went to bed to rest up for the week. I stayed up to play some VP, which is pretty much all I played all weekend. My happy place is the bank of 5 Super Times Pay Machines that is directly across from the bathrooms near the Italian place and the stairs to the Mexican joint. I typically play 5cent, 10-play, Double Double Bonus. This late Wednesday session was nothing to get excited about. I was there until about 4am, but the slow drain ended up putting me down a couple hundred at least. Finally up to bed…..
Thursday
Was up pretty early on Thursday, probably 8:30, and went back down to my machine. Scott and Zaira were on Dallas time so they were already up as well. We grabbed the girls a muffin and some yogurt from the coffee shop, but didn’t want to eat too much since Scott and I were planning to have crab legs while the girls were in the spa. We had called ahead and made arrangements for a 50-minute massage for them, and the Southpoint spa manager also offered to give them complimentary champagne as well as a gift basket of goodies. Love these people.
They went into the spa about 10am, since they had the run of the place and wanted to enjoy all the amenities like the steam room, showers, etc. They said the massages were awesome (Suzi’s had quite a few at different places) and were treated exceptionally well….like royalty. Well good, cause that’s what we were going for. While they were in the spa, Scott and I played VP and drank and caught up on our family and kids and a bunch of other crap we didn’t want to talk about with the girls around.
At noon we headed over to the seafood bar, and plopped down for the $26 crab leg special, plus a cup of chowder. That’s 1.5lbs of king crab legs. I gotta say, we have a place out here on the Oregon coast called Mo’s which is supposedly world famous for their clam chowder. Personally, I think what I had at Southpoint is better. The crab legs were warm and sweet and I used way too much butter. It was a nice 3000 calorie episode. Back to the room with the girls, to have some shots and chat more.
Now, by this time I’m starting to feel sick. Not like too much food or alcohol sick, but my nose is plugging, I’m starting to feel weak and my throat hurts. It’s more like, I caught something from someone on the plane. Dammit.
Our plan for the evening was to head down to Fremont St. and check out the light show, and watch the Seahawks/Cardinals at MSS while getting some grub. Made it down there a little late for the game (was near halftime) and the 777brewpub was packed. Still, they were getting people moved quickly and the food was every bit as good as I remember. I had buffalo wings, and helped Scott with his nacho. After seeing that the Hawks had the game well in hand, we headed out to Fremont St. It hasn’t changed too much I used to stay down there at MSS. Stuck our heads in a couple of the older hotels, walked around Binions, checked out some of the street vendors, and waited around for one of the light shows. Bon Jovi. Pretty cool, but if you’ve already seen it there’s nothing too exceptional about it. We were on that street for maybe an hour and decided that was enough.
Neither we, nor Scott and Zaira have much time for movies when we are home. At least, movies that aren’t made for children. So we had planned to see a couple movies in the theater while we were at SP. I really enjoy the movie theater at SP. It’s clean, and well-run. We had all waited to see “Gravity”, so we made it to the 10pm showing. Definitely an interesting movie, although perhaps I had read too many reviews and I just wasn’t as BLOWNAWAY as I was expecting to be. Worth the time and money, for sure.
By this time, my sickness is really catching up to me, and since I felt like my gambling budget was going a little too fast, I agreed to just go to bed and try to get a good night’s sleep. Kind of tough for me to sleep when my nose is completely plugged, but somehow I managed. Think I actually got about 7 hours (which I was going to need the next night)
Friday
Big plans for the day were a nice dinner and the Le Reve show at the Wynn. We had originally discussed hiking at Red Rocks this morning, but with the weather being a little colder than we expected and me being sick, we bagged it. Bascially, Friday was gambling and drinking. I literally forgot to eat. By the time we got to the restaurant at 5pm I realized I had not put a thing in my stomach all day. Unless bloody mary’s count. Suzi went upstairs to pass out about 3pm, and told me to be sure she was up by 3 so she could get ready. Well, when I went up there it was like trying to wake the dead, and I *thought* she was up after I pulled the covers off. I got myself ready and went back downstairs to wait. About 4:20 I started to get worried so I went back and she’s still snoring in bed. I gotta say I was impressed at how quickly she got ready (being pretty groggy) and we made it to the Wynn by 5 anyhow.
Dinner was at La Cave in the Wynn. I thought the setting and service was exceptional, as was the food. They have 6 flatbreads (think pizza) and we tried three of them. Best things I’ve eaten in a looooong time. About $13 each, but if you order 3 of them it will feed your table well. We also had a couple other pastas and appetizers to go with everything. I had onion soup which was AMAZING. All told I think we ordered 8 different things off the menu, plus a smores flatbread for dessert. Total bill with 3 gin and tonics and a glass of wine was $180. We had the perfect amount of food. Nothing but great things to say about this place.
Show was Le Reve, at 7pm. Had seats 2 rows from the front, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Right before the show started, one of the employees came up and gave us a gift bag with 2 Le Reve calendars and a program, complimentary. Another little thing Scott had arranged (and some free gifts for people back home). Le Reve is basically a Cirque show, and every bit as good. I’ve seen Mystere and O and it is right on par with them. Completely captivating. Worth every penny of the $125 per ticket.
Back to Southpoint, just in time to change clothes and catch a 9:30 showing of “Captain Phillips” with Tom Hanks. We all enjoyed it immensely, although we also felt like they could have cut about 15 minutes out and it would have been just as good. Scott went off to play some 3-6 Texas Hold ‘em, I went over to my poker machine, and the girls went to bed.
Epic gambling session. I don’t normally write about my gambling, just because for a lot of people that’s not particularly interesting. But I had an AWESOME session from about 12:30 to 5:30am that night. I sat down with about $200 in my Super Times Pay machine, and at this point in the trip I’m probably down $400-$500. Within the first half hour of sitting there, I was up to $500 (on nickels). I couldn’t lose. I was pulling out straight flushes, got 4 aces with kicker a couple of times, 4oak while on a multiplier. Evertying. Made up $300 in about a ½ hour.
Now, I kinda hate it when that happens. I don’t like getting up big at the BEGINNING of a session, when I’m hoping to play and relaz for a while. It’s happened before, and what usually ends up happening is I play all my winnings off over the next 4 hours, and end up losing $400 when if would just quit a the beginning, I could have been up $400. But who wants to quit after a 1/2hour???.
Anyhow, so I’m up really good. Keep playing, back up and down a little. Eventually, the Royal shows up (only $200 on nickels though). Unfortunately, my phone was charging in the room so I couldn’t take a picture of any of this. Finally about 3:30am I’m up to about $550 and decide to take that out, put $350 in my pocket and then play the $200 on dimes instead of nickels. Well, that was going nowhere for quite a while, until out of the blue I get DEALT FOUR ACES (I’m on DDB). Not with the kicker, but still. I actually said out loud “No…..fu$%ing ……way”. And I stared at it for a while. Eventually drew the rest of the hands and got one of them with the kicker. That’s a $920 pot. Obviously at that point I take the money and run, up about $1100 from when I sat down at midnight. It’s now 5:40am.
I go back upstairs and try to sleep, but my nose is so plugged it’s impossible. So I take a hot shower thinking that will help. Well it did help my nose but then I was wide awake again. So essentially I didn’t sleep at all that night. Got to tell Suzi the good news about us now being up pretty significantly for the trip.
Saturday
Not a ton to report on this day. We all had the breakfast buffet on the comp that the host had left for us. Gambling throughout the day (Suzi was good about making me cash out when I’d get ahead, and then pocketing the money). Watched a little football, had some chips and salsa and bean dip outside the Mexican joint. More drinks. Had the crab and chowder again……which I THINK was really good, except at this point my nose is so plugged and I’m so sick that I can’t really taste anything. Ended up back in the room, passed out around 11pm. Scott and Zaira had an early flight, so they took a cab, we returned the rental car about 8am on Sunday. Southpoint wrote off about $180 in food charges for the room, which only left a couple hundred. Exceptional stay there, and a great time with our friends.
Chasing Amy
So I mentioned early about Amytim from the LVA board. We met on the board 10 years ago, and have maintained a good “friendship” ever since then. We have girls that are exactly the same age, and boys as well. Lots to talk about. So we’ve continued to text and talk off and on for those 10 years. It just so happened that she was in Vegas on Saturday, so she was kind enough to drive out to SP and meet with Suzi and I. Was great to see her and actually put a face to this person I’ve been talking to all this time. The three of us talked about football and life and kids for a good 45 minutes. Was nice for all of us.
Anyhow, that’s my story. Again, it got longer than I intended. Oh well. If you want to know any more specifics about anything, please ask. Cheers!!!
C
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3 years ago, my wife and I went to Vegas to meet up with my best friend from college and his (then) girlfriend. Well, Scott proposed to Zaira on that trip, and we made some awesome memories with some great surprises for our girls. I’d been back once with just my wife, and once with just Scott, but a few months ago we all decided that a reunion trip for the four of us would be what we needed.
Our stay, as with our last 3 trips, was at Southpoint. Since we were told about that place by a former LVA member (Amytim), we’ve really fallen in love with it. They’ve been incredibly accommodating and EXTREMEMLY generous with comps. For this trip, they comped us front with one of the 2200sqft suites up at the top. Room 2531, specifically. To surprise Scott, I had worked with a company in Minnesota that distributes specialty pops and candies, and the host at SP helped my get some Pop Shoppe Pop shipped to the hotel and put in our room along with a nice note for Scott. Also gave us 4 comped buffets, and a couple other treats in our room. They offered us the suite for the entire week, but our stay was only going to be Wed-Sunday.
Flew down on Alaska Airlines (trying to rack up those miles for a surprise 15th anniversary trip to New Zealand), and Scott and Zaira were coming up from Dallas. Arrived 9pm Wednesday, picked up the rental car from Alamo after we met our friends, and made it to Southpoint by about 10:30pm. Checked out the room and chilled with some drinks for a few minutes while we caught up on life, the universe and everything. We were all hungry, and by that point the dining options are pretty limited on a Thursday, so we hit the Steak n’ Shake. I gotta tell you, I don’t know if it was because I was starving, or had just the right amount of alcohol, but I swear that $4 burger and fries was some super tasty Sh!t. I could have eaten 2 of them, and frankly I would have had time to because I was done with mine before everyone else was halfway done with theirs.
Everyone else (since they have “real” jobs during the week) was tired, and it was midnight so they went to bed to rest up for the week. I stayed up to play some VP, which is pretty much all I played all weekend. My happy place is the bank of 5 Super Times Pay Machines that is directly across from the bathrooms near the Italian place and the stairs to the Mexican joint. I typically play 5cent, 10-play, Double Double Bonus. This late Wednesday session was nothing to get excited about. I was there until about 4am, but the slow drain ended up putting me down a couple hundred at least. Finally up to bed…..
Thursday
Was up pretty early on Thursday, probably 8:30, and went back down to my machine. Scott and Zaira were on Dallas time so they were already up as well. We grabbed the girls a muffin and some yogurt from the coffee shop, but didn’t want to eat too much since Scott and I were planning to have crab legs while the girls were in the spa. We had called ahead and made arrangements for a 50-minute massage for them, and the Southpoint spa manager also offered to give them complimentary champagne as well as a gift basket of goodies. Love these people.
They went into the spa about 10am, since they had the run of the place and wanted to enjoy all the amenities like the steam room, showers, etc. They said the massages were awesome (Suzi’s had quite a few at different places) and were treated exceptionally well….like royalty. Well good, cause that’s what we were going for. While they were in the spa, Scott and I played VP and drank and caught up on our family and kids and a bunch of other crap we didn’t want to talk about with the girls around.
At noon we headed over to the seafood bar, and plopped down for the $26 crab leg special, plus a cup of chowder. That’s 1.5lbs of king crab legs. I gotta say, we have a place out here on the Oregon coast called Mo’s which is supposedly world famous for their clam chowder. Personally, I think what I had at Southpoint is better. The crab legs were warm and sweet and I used way too much butter. It was a nice 3000 calorie episode. Back to the room with the girls, to have some shots and chat more.
Now, by this time I’m starting to feel sick. Not like too much food or alcohol sick, but my nose is plugging, I’m starting to feel weak and my throat hurts. It’s more like, I caught something from someone on the plane. Dammit.
Our plan for the evening was to head down to Fremont St. and check out the light show, and watch the Seahawks/Cardinals at MSS while getting some grub. Made it down there a little late for the game (was near halftime) and the 777brewpub was packed. Still, they were getting people moved quickly and the food was every bit as good as I remember. I had buffalo wings, and helped Scott with his nacho. After seeing that the Hawks had the game well in hand, we headed out to Fremont St. It hasn’t changed too much I used to stay down there at MSS. Stuck our heads in a couple of the older hotels, walked around Binions, checked out some of the street vendors, and waited around for one of the light shows. Bon Jovi. Pretty cool, but if you’ve already seen it there’s nothing too exceptional about it. We were on that street for maybe an hour and decided that was enough.
Neither we, nor Scott and Zaira have much time for movies when we are home. At least, movies that aren’t made for children. So we had planned to see a couple movies in the theater while we were at SP. I really enjoy the movie theater at SP. It’s clean, and well-run. We had all waited to see “Gravity”, so we made it to the 10pm showing. Definitely an interesting movie, although perhaps I had read too many reviews and I just wasn’t as BLOWNAWAY as I was expecting to be. Worth the time and money, for sure.
By this time, my sickness is really catching up to me, and since I felt like my gambling budget was going a little too fast, I agreed to just go to bed and try to get a good night’s sleep. Kind of tough for me to sleep when my nose is completely plugged, but somehow I managed. Think I actually got about 7 hours (which I was going to need the next night)
Friday
Big plans for the day were a nice dinner and the Le Reve show at the Wynn. We had originally discussed hiking at Red Rocks this morning, but with the weather being a little colder than we expected and me being sick, we bagged it. Bascially, Friday was gambling and drinking. I literally forgot to eat. By the time we got to the restaurant at 5pm I realized I had not put a thing in my stomach all day. Unless bloody mary’s count. Suzi went upstairs to pass out about 3pm, and told me to be sure she was up by 3 so she could get ready. Well, when I went up there it was like trying to wake the dead, and I *thought* she was up after I pulled the covers off. I got myself ready and went back downstairs to wait. About 4:20 I started to get worried so I went back and she’s still snoring in bed. I gotta say I was impressed at how quickly she got ready (being pretty groggy) and we made it to the Wynn by 5 anyhow.
Dinner was at La Cave in the Wynn. I thought the setting and service was exceptional, as was the food. They have 6 flatbreads (think pizza) and we tried three of them. Best things I’ve eaten in a looooong time. About $13 each, but if you order 3 of them it will feed your table well. We also had a couple other pastas and appetizers to go with everything. I had onion soup which was AMAZING. All told I think we ordered 8 different things off the menu, plus a smores flatbread for dessert. Total bill with 3 gin and tonics and a glass of wine was $180. We had the perfect amount of food. Nothing but great things to say about this place.
Show was Le Reve, at 7pm. Had seats 2 rows from the front, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Right before the show started, one of the employees came up and gave us a gift bag with 2 Le Reve calendars and a program, complimentary. Another little thing Scott had arranged (and some free gifts for people back home). Le Reve is basically a Cirque show, and every bit as good. I’ve seen Mystere and O and it is right on par with them. Completely captivating. Worth every penny of the $125 per ticket.
Back to Southpoint, just in time to change clothes and catch a 9:30 showing of “Captain Phillips” with Tom Hanks. We all enjoyed it immensely, although we also felt like they could have cut about 15 minutes out and it would have been just as good. Scott went off to play some 3-6 Texas Hold ‘em, I went over to my poker machine, and the girls went to bed.
Epic gambling session. I don’t normally write about my gambling, just because for a lot of people that’s not particularly interesting. But I had an AWESOME session from about 12:30 to 5:30am that night. I sat down with about $200 in my Super Times Pay machine, and at this point in the trip I’m probably down $400-$500. Within the first half hour of sitting there, I was up to $500 (on nickels). I couldn’t lose. I was pulling out straight flushes, got 4 aces with kicker a couple of times, 4oak while on a multiplier. Evertying. Made up $300 in about a ½ hour.
Now, I kinda hate it when that happens. I don’t like getting up big at the BEGINNING of a session, when I’m hoping to play and relaz for a while. It’s happened before, and what usually ends up happening is I play all my winnings off over the next 4 hours, and end up losing $400 when if would just quit a the beginning, I could have been up $400. But who wants to quit after a 1/2hour???.
Anyhow, so I’m up really good. Keep playing, back up and down a little. Eventually, the Royal shows up (only $200 on nickels though). Unfortunately, my phone was charging in the room so I couldn’t take a picture of any of this. Finally about 3:30am I’m up to about $550 and decide to take that out, put $350 in my pocket and then play the $200 on dimes instead of nickels. Well, that was going nowhere for quite a while, until out of the blue I get DEALT FOUR ACES (I’m on DDB). Not with the kicker, but still. I actually said out loud “No…..fu$%ing ……way”. And I stared at it for a while. Eventually drew the rest of the hands and got one of them with the kicker. That’s a $920 pot. Obviously at that point I take the money and run, up about $1100 from when I sat down at midnight. It’s now 5:40am.
I go back upstairs and try to sleep, but my nose is so plugged it’s impossible. So I take a hot shower thinking that will help. Well it did help my nose but then I was wide awake again. So essentially I didn’t sleep at all that night. Got to tell Suzi the good news about us now being up pretty significantly for the trip.
Saturday
Not a ton to report on this day. We all had the breakfast buffet on the comp that the host had left for us. Gambling throughout the day (Suzi was good about making me cash out when I’d get ahead, and then pocketing the money). Watched a little football, had some chips and salsa and bean dip outside the Mexican joint. More drinks. Had the crab and chowder again……which I THINK was really good, except at this point my nose is so plugged and I’m so sick that I can’t really taste anything. Ended up back in the room, passed out around 11pm. Scott and Zaira had an early flight, so they took a cab, we returned the rental car about 8am on Sunday. Southpoint wrote off about $180 in food charges for the room, which only left a couple hundred. Exceptional stay there, and a great time with our friends.
Chasing Amy
So I mentioned early about Amytim from the LVA board. We met on the board 10 years ago, and have maintained a good “friendship” ever since then. We have girls that are exactly the same age, and boys as well. Lots to talk about. So we’ve continued to text and talk off and on for those 10 years. It just so happened that she was in Vegas on Saturday, so she was kind enough to drive out to SP and meet with Suzi and I. Was great to see her and actually put a face to this person I’ve been talking to all this time. The three of us talked about football and life and kids for a good 45 minutes. Was nice for all of us.
Anyhow, that’s my story. Again, it got longer than I intended. Oh well. If you want to know any more specifics about anything, please ask. Cheers!!!
C
