Q April 2013 The Almost Free Trip

Wednesday

The almost free trip begins, as most Vegas trips do for the Grid Clan, with a shitty plane ride out on Spirit. $320.00 round trip for the Mrs. & I. Outside of our gambling budget this would be our biggest expense. I have plenty of comps stacked for this little 4 day endeavor. We have been playing MyVegas ferociously on facebook since X-Mas. I burned through a few comps on my last trip out in February from this boring little game. 2 Free Buffet’s at Luxor and a $50.00 dining credit at the Signature Deli in MGM Grand. But I saved most of my points for this spin through town.

The following is a list of Vegas hospitality we are set to fleece.

Aria, Corporate offer of 2 comped nights + $75.00 in Free Play.

New York New York. Host comped for 1 night (Friday) + $75.00 in Free play.

Express comps earned from past trip. Totaling just over $50.00.

Buffet of Buffet passes for 2 at the Caesars Ent. Inc casinos. A $99.00 value. Free from opening their credit card.

2 Cirque tickets for Love at Mirage, Gold Circle seating, $177.50 a pop with taxes. Free from playing MyVegas on facebook.

2 Cirque tickets for Zarkana at Aria, Gold Circle seating, $165.00 a pop with taxes. Free from playing MyVegas on facebook.

$75.00 dining credit at the Sporting House (the old ESPN Zone) at NY NY.

Free from playing MyVegas on facebook.

2 Free passes to the Auto Collection at The Quad

With all that swag in tow we’d be losing money if we didn’t make another trip. We were supposed to fly out at 10:00AM but Spirit decided that was too good of an idea so we had to move our flight to 4:00PM. We didn’t land until 6:00PM Vegas time. The airport was dead on a Wednesday evening so we flew to Aria and we were in our room by 6:45. It was pretty nice. Strip view, well what you could see of the strip with all of the other towers in front of you. The wife was like Ozzie Osbourne trying to turn on his own TV with the iPad remote for the room. She'd hit a button for the TV and the curtains would open. She'd try to shut the curtains and the hallway lights would turn on. Once while we were trying to sleep she touched the damn thing and turned on the TV.

The room was nice. Not the biggest I stayed in, but obviously everything was pretty new.

It was a little dark in the room sans the giant windows. The bathroom you had to walk through the shower to get to the tub. Since its such a large yet enclosed space it smelled a little moldy in there. I guess that’s why more people don’t bother to stack a tub within a shower!

But the pillows were soft, the bed was comfy, the TV was large and the shitter was tall. Plus I’m in Vegas so how can I not like my new digs? But my gambling tank is telling me I’m on low. So we toss our shit and hit the casino.

First stop the Mlife booth to activate my free play. The idea is to convert this 1st $75.00 into enough money to last the trip. That way the whole affair is free! Machine one was a skunk. I end up turning $15.00 in free play into like a buck.

Machine two was even worse, this is why I usually play video poker when converting free play but I was trying to strike it rich right out of the gate! So for my first $35.00 I only get like 5 bucks of real money.

Not the start I expected at all. I usually do well at Aria. So I switch over to the next machine and it says I have zero left in Free Play. MGM casinos don’t really like you hopping around and I’ve seen this happen before. So I have to walk all the way back to the club booth. Unlike CET properties, MGM ones do not have a Platinum or Noir line. So I have to wait behind 4 people from Kansas waiting to get their first cards before they high tail it over to the penny slots. Finally I get up to the desk, she clears my card. Confirms that I still have $40.00 left and off I go.

Next machine…… $0.00 in Free Play. Now I’m pissed. I abandoned the wife on the far end of the casino. I’m sure she thinks I’m off on a gambling binge and I left her behind. Back to the desk to bitch and she says everything looks fine but will walk with me to a game to confirm its on there. The Mlife booth is next to the High Limit slots. And not wanting to walk too far I pick a game right there.

One of my all time favorite slots is a game called Diamond Queen. You can play for pennies, which I normally don’t. I like to switch to nickels and bet $1.00 per spin. Thats the minimum to cover all lines. It takes awhile to get the bonus game but its well worth it. You get 3 spins. Spin 1 you get the 2nd real wild. Spin 2 you get the 2nd & the 3rd. Spin 3 gets you the 2nd, 3rd & 4th so no matter what you will get at least 4 of a kind, with a possible 5 of a kind on every line. I turned my $1.00 investment into over $300.00 on one of these last month at my local casino. And usually I average about a 100 X pay back on the bonus game. The only problem is, they only have this out as a $.25 game. So $5.00 a spin.

What the hell right? I already pissed away $35.00 of their money why not shoot for the fences. Spins 1-5 were shit. I maybe won a dollar or so. Spins 6-8..... Even shittier! So I turned $75.00 in free play into like $6.00. In my face!

I'm starring at the machine, still with the hundo I slipped in to start my free play. And think to myself one more spin. Sure as shit, bonus game. This should be a hand pay at this level! Spin one sucks, spin two sucks, but that fatboy spin 3 should be money! But I got skunked. All shitty symbols with only 1 line 5 of a kind. Oh well, still got me $200.00 in profit.

I’d be more pissed if I had sat and plugged away on the game and THIS was my final result. But since I bonused so fast I was OK with it. From here on out I was on fire. Next game, Eskimo Money got me $50.00 in the bonus round.

So now I have a $337.00 ticket. Jump over to a $0.02 Diamond Queen and get skunked again in the bonus, just $50.00, but it came fast as well so now I am sitting near $400.00 ($300.00 in profit)

By now its 10:00PM Vegas time, midnight Chicago time. So we head over to the Pub in Monte Carlo for dinner. It was great! We split a Kobe Beef burger, this thing was pretty big, and added their French fry sampler. One batch of Mesquite BBQ fries, fantastic! One batch of Sweet Potato fries with marshmallow dipping sauce. These were OK, they put cinnamon on the fries so it was more like a dessert. And a batch of house fries. All excellent. For the 2 of us with drinks it was around $30.00. Slap down some express comps for our first free meal and head back to gambling.

We played on for another 2 hours and the wife ends up losing almost $200.00 and I’m left with just $100.00 in profit when we poop out. Its not hard to win money in a casino, its hard to keep the money when you win! But I didn’t come here to nurse a few hundred bones worth of winnings. I came to hit it big so I keep chasing! Get to bed after midnight and call it a day.

Thursday

Normally I am the one that wakes up at 6:00AM in Vegas. I like to hide in the shitter, text my kid brother about the previous days events. Sometimes I’ll pull a Griswold and run off to the casino while the wife is sleeping. Imagine my shock when I wake up at 8:00 and the wife is sitting at the side of the bed fully dressed and made up, ready to go! I hop in the John, drop off the Kobe beef burger, take a fast shower and we are off to the races. Today we plan on redeeming our Buffet of Buffet passes. Unlimited, 24 hour passes to every buffet that CET has.

Well every one but Caesars’ which is the best of the bunch and Rio which is too far to hit anyway. Getting in and out of the room is a snap at Aria. All of the elevators are in the same area. Walk through the casino, and the dead mall known as Crystals.

They tell me the above is supposed to be a bird’s nest. But it looks like a travel pee bottle to me! Cross the new pedestrian bridge over to Planet Hollywood to kill some time. This way we can use the buffet passes the next morning for Breakfast. The very first game we play is Wicked Witch Wizard of Oz. I got a lot of play out of the ones at Aria. But the wife was too broke to play them with me last night. So now she is in. I plug away betting $1.20 per spin, she starts off playing for $0.80. I get nowhere and lose my $20.00 fast. She hits the bonus game and now its on. She starts picking all the right crystals and the bonus round keeps retriggering for her. Once the smoke settles she now has all her money back from last night.

She keeps on winning with every game she touches. But I’m assuming she is sucking her luck from me since everything I touch here is turning to shit! She leaves up almost a hundo, along with all her money back from last night. I leave down a hundo with very little play. So seems the way I roll at CET casinos. Over to Paris to redeem our offers. They actually have a Platinum on up line so I jump in there. The guy there seems to know what he is doing and hands me a piece of paper that says 2 free Buffet of Buffet passes. So we head over to the buffet at Paris.

The line is around the block. But we get to cut in line and head into the Diamond line. Hand over the piece of paper and she looks at me like I have a dick sticking out of my forehead. She asks what it was and I read it to her. She says she needs something with a code on it to enter into the system so I just say “OK” and look at her. Like I care what they need to do in order to feed me. She tells me to walk all the way back to the Total rewards desk and get her a code. I tell her no, and ask her to just call them. She wants to know who gave it to me but I don’t fucking know. It isn’t like I was having beers with the guy. I describe him the best I could but after a phone call they still wouldn’t cough up the passes.

So now I’m pissed. I drag the wife out of the line, through the mall, through the casino back to the desk. I jump right in line and slap the worthless paper they gave me down and say “what’s up?” He runs off and gets his manager and he loads everything there.

Guy number one was supposed to hand this slip off to his manager instead he gave it to me. He said he was sorry so I accepted it and went off to eat. The Paris buffet is good. But not really the type of food I eat. I’ve eaten there before and I usually just fill up on frozen custard. But the wife likes it so everyone is happy by default.

From here we head over to Ballys. She doesn’t play much but I lose another $100.00. Over to Flamingo to check out their Wildlife Habitat. I was promised there would be penguins here based on everything I read. Nope. It was nice, some Koi, Flamingo (obviously) Pelicans for some reason and plenty of ducks.

These poor guys ended up getting tagged on. I heard about some drunk dicks killing a bird here last month, looks like Barb got her hands on a turtle and tagged him up!

Barb, if you are reading this, and you like to write on poor widdle turdles, you are a cunt and should be ashamed of yourself!

The FH was a nice diversion. Not much to see, but for free its worth it. A couple of waterfalls and a nice place to take some pictures. You wont be able to spend more than a half hour here. Unless you are more of an animal lover than I. I drop off another $100.00 in the casino for good measure. Now down $300.00 and it isn’t even noon yet.

We leave here and enter the IP… I mean the Quad. What a stupid fucking name for a casino. And what was once a smelly, dirty little casino is suddenly bright alive and awesome! Maybe it was the shock when I walked in. I remember gambling in here when it looked like and smelled like a basement. WOW! Good work CET, I still wouldn’t stay here since I hear the rooms are just as shitty as always. But the casino is very playable.

We wander around a little and take it all in. Every few feet we point at something and say “Remember when we watched a guy barf there?” or “Remember that time the hooker was passed out there?” All distant memories now.

Here is a little trick for you car lovers. You can go to the Auto Collections website and print out free passes to the… well.. Auto museum. We did, and I’m glad we went. Its hard to get to. You have to walk through the casino, all the way back to the monorail. Hang a right near the parking garage find a bank of elevators and go to the second floor. The signs were posted like shit and we just figured it out on our own. Thinking this place would just be a little shithole I was surprised to see it was pretty huge! They have the cars set up in little displays, a firehouse, a gas station etc.

For some reason they had a western bar.

From here we head over to the Buffet at Harrah’s I think its called Flavor’s. I guess shit itself has a flavor, so they weren’t lying. By far the worst buffet I’ve had in Vegas. They did have cotton candy, which was cute. But outside of that it sucked. The food was dry. The selection poor. The seafood smelled like an old whore house. There was nothing here for me to eat. I did have some ice cream which was actually good. And some mashed & gravy. But everything else I tried did not make me happy. Since this was the end of my CET run we cross over to Mirage to pick up our Cirque tickets. I’m now $300.00 poorer thanx to Caesars casinos.

But now that I’m back on the MGM track I’m sure I can turn things around. It took about 20 minutes to finally get up to the front of the line. I knew I would have to wait with everyone picking our their tickets. I cant blame them. If I was going to pay $400.00 to see some French clowns I’d want to make sure I had the most bang for my buck.

With MyVegas we booked the seats almost 90 days in advance. That’s what you have to do to get the best available. You’d think since they are free they would put you in the nose bleed sections. Nope. They give you the best they have at the time. Since we booked 3 months before hand we got some pretty awesome seats. Gold Circle, about 5 rows from the center of the theater. About $180.00 face value each. Great score! More on the show later.

Gamble around Mirage for a little while, and I’m getting hammered. I’m only playing dollar games at this point since I am chasing my losses by now. But it’s a no go. The wife losses a few bucks but she is still well ahead for the day. I start slow playing a Wolf game just to sit next to her and bitch about me losing when I hit a bonus.

The bonuses on this game usually suck. I just play it for the awesome 3-D graphics. I’m at like $25.00 after 9 of my 10 free spins when I retrigger for 10 more. And another 10 more shortly after that. By the end of the bonus I get back all the money I lost at Mirage plus a little more.

Walk through the Forum shops on the way to Bellagio. Don’t buy anything, we never do. But its hot outside and nice inside so we take the stroll. End up losing another $40 here so we high tail it to the B. Very disappointed that their atrium is just a rehash of older props. I’ve seen all this stuff before in years past. It seems like Steve Wynn would throw away a display when he was done, but MGM just keeps recycling it. The butterfly house was new, but you couldn’t go inside it.

Very boring. We head to the snack shop on the casino floor and get a nice frozen orange drink. I prefer the Cherry but today was mango & orange. For $5.00 these gourmet ice’s are great and pretty decent sized cups as well. I hit the slots and start winning. $20.00 here, $40.00 there. This was the best hit here on a Superman slot. Just over $100.00. I normally don’t play “specialty” games at MGM casinos since it takes $10.00 of coin in to get 1 point (1 penny of free play and 1 penny in express comps) It used to be $2.00. Now its $3.00 on an older slot and $10 on newer ones. Its such a scam I am no longer going to chance comps with this club so I don’t care.

We end up leaving Bellagio up. Well I’m up, the wife dumped almost a hundo here. But she is rich so it doesn’t matter much. I took them for about $200.00. So I’m just down $100.00 for the day. This would be the end of my run. The show starts at 7:00 and its about 5:00 now so we freshen up and head on over. You cant take pictures inside during the show. Flash photography and acrobats don’t mix well. So it’s a good rule. I snapped this one on the way in.

The view from our seats. If you sat any closer you would be on the ground level and not able to watch everything that happens. We were about 6 seats left of perfect.

I won’t ruin the show for anyone. I’ve seen most all of them. Ka was good. Zumanity was silly. This was Awesome! I’m a big Beatles fan, I mean the White Album is only the greatest peice of music ever. Huge cast, great stage effects. And probably the best opening of any Cirque show, hell any show in town. Well worth the money!

The only shitty part was ½ way through they had some guy come out in galoshes and stomp around. It stopped the flow of the show dead in its tracks and made no sense. Everything else was pretty easy to follow. Lucy in the sky with diamonds? Yup a woman flying around the theater in a diamond studded outfit. Octopus Garden? Yup sure enough, a Giant octopus in a fucking garden. This was probably the one Cirque show I could understand without having to read the play bill.

This would also be the highlight of the night since I crashed and burned gambling after this. I just couldn’t catch a break and go to bed down about $400.00 for the trip. I was doing so well too! We did run down to Planet Hollywood after the show to hit the Spice Market buffet. It was OK. It might just be the fact that we got there an hour before it closed but the food seemed cold and didn't look too great. But I'll give it another try the next morning.

Friday

Wake up insanely early again, about 8:00 and out the door. Back through the casino, through the mall and the giant pee bottle and back to Planet Ho. Since I wasn't happy with Paris for breakfast I figured PH should have something I'd like. We were both impressed. Krispy Kreme type donuts. Chocolate milk. About 6 different types of scrambled eggs. I left full and happy.

Check out from Aria and into New York New York. The last time we stayed here was years ago. I really like their casino and we both love eating there. So we were pretty excited when a host reached out to me and offered us a stay. The room was just as small as I remembered it. Clean with a decent view.

Safely checked in we go off to conquer the world. Walk to Excalibur and hop on the monorail down to Mandalay Bay. Play a Red Hot Fusion game and win $30.00, over to Instant Spin for another $20.00 play some old nickle slot called Great Scott and won. Tried to win a car, didn't, but I did get $50.00 in the bonus game. I started on a $20.00 and left with a hundo. Over to Luxor and lose said money. What can you do. A bit dejected that I started to climb out of my hole from last night and blew it. I slip one more $20 into a dollar Pinball Game. And pull out $115.00.

So I get it all back for the day! Feeling lucky I hit the closeout store in Luxor's shitty mall area and buy me a new green shirt to wear. But it turned out to be a jinx. We play a little at MGM. But it doesn't take me long to blow over a hundred bucks on their stupid Lion's Share $1.00 slot machine. I start chasing that loss & another hundo gone. And another. This goes on all night. It wasn't that I was playing shitty games I was just getting horrible bonuses. I was betting over a buck per spin on Godfather and get the Vito bonus of just 5 spins. Could have been 15. No retriggers and I end up with 30 cents. It was that kind of day. We did get some nachos at MGM with express comps but that was the highlight of my day so far. Head back to the room to freshen up before we hit Aria to see Zarkana. Face value about $160.00 each, again free from the facebook game.

Great seats once again. Right up front and super comfy chairs.

The show itself was shit. Well shit for what they charge and where it is. If this was in a High School auditorium in Wisconsin I'd say it was great. But in Vegas, with the other Cirque shows in town, it kinda sucked. I have no idea what I saw. I read the back story on what the show was supposed to be about on wikipedia before we left. So I KNEW what they were doing, but still couldn't put it together. Its just random circus acts that have nothing to do with the theme, the backgrounds or the story.

At one point a man came out in a leotard and spun on his hand. Thats it. He spun and he danced. For 15 minutes! ALL BY HIMSELF. I guess this was a traveling show at one point. And it seemed that way to me. No great props or sets. They actually resorted to fart jokes. Two of them in fact. I guess thats what they had to do to keep the audience involved. They even had two clowns make jokes like lubricating their assholes. I swear to God that was one of the punchlines!

Unlike Love at Mirage where the performers got, and deserved, a standing ovation. The audience here just lightly clapped at the end of this farce. I'm not saying that these people aren't talented or don't work hard. But their show was a mess. The only good thing I could say was the seats were comfy. Even if I was given free tickets again I wouldnt waste time on my vacation sitting through this shit brick again.

After the shitty show my shitty luck continued. The wife is doing OK but I'm self destructing. Another $400 gone. I even turned my $75.00 in Free Play into just $30.00 playing deuces wild video poker. It was that kinda day. We still have a $75 comp at the Sporting House at NY NY. So we go do that before bed. It was great. The service was great and everything we tried was top notch. Their chili cheese waffle fries are fantastic. Our bellies full we head to bed.

Saturday

Our last day in town. We are actually leaving at 5:00PM so we start off early again. Track back down the strip to pick up some stuff the wife eyeballed during the trip, but waited to buy in case she went bust. She didnt so we shop for awhile. I give gambling one final go. I went on an insane run at Monte Carlo. Started off small winning $30.00 on some 7's game. Moved over to Lord of the rings and hit it big. Well big for this trip anyway.

Cash that ticket out and start with another $20.00. Up and down playing Star Wars, never played it before but I loved it! Took me back to my childhood. Do well on those and play some Billy Goat game that I have been meaning to play. Snapped this picture late but I got a ton of wilds in the bonus game. I thought I struck it rich but it was just $80.00

Now up $200 for the day. I play on. Start with another $20.00 and double up again. Nothing crazy. I see Happy Days, and I've never played it before. I figure why not, I'm up. Minimum bet was $.35. I played it at $1.20. The game said I could get free games but they were mystery free spins. You didnt know when or why they hit. They just trigger. I had a 6 X multiplier, if I won these games. A few fast slaps later and I was up to 12 times. Sure enough. Free games. I get the gold record and that gets me 15 free games. The 1st 13 were kinda shit the 14th was money.

At the end of it all I had $35.00 X 12!

Walk out of the Monte with about $600.00 of their money. Just enough to get me over half my bankroll back. And sometimes in Vegas, that's winning! The wife goes home just down $50.00. So a good trip for all.

A note of Mlife players, I know exactly how to spot their "Specialty" games. Its whatever game you actually want to play! Every new game that wasn't an IGT multi-game seemed to be specialty. Normally at the end of a 3 day trip I score about 2,000 points per day so I get $60.00 in Point Play to burn at the end. This time around I had like $30.00. What once would have been $120.00 in express comps was now $30.00. This is why I have no problem taking advantage of them on their facebook game. They take from me, I'll take from them! Thanx for the read!

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