e Feb 2018 ti & Cosmo : Enter the Night

Day 1

Since I'll have the full family with me, I'll have to be a Night Gambler for most of the trip.

Less time in the casino means I can bet a bit higher when I do play. After all, my money won't lose itself!

Fly out early from Chicago via Spirit. Yes, I know, they are a garbage airline. Round Trip for all 4 of us was $150 with all taxes and fees. That's less then $20 each to get there. For a deal like that, I'll take 4 hours of uncomfortable horror on a plane.

The week before Vegas weather was a nice in the low 70's mid 60's. We flew out of 50 degree Chicago and landed in 35 degree Las Vegas. Sadly, it never got much warmer then that our entire trip.

Every time I travel with the wife and kids, without fail, the cabby smells a family and assumes they can dick us with a long haul.

We get loaded up, and he asks:

"First time in Vegas?"

"Nope" I say.

"Where to to then?"

"Treasure Island my good man, via Swenson"

"You sure? Lots of construction going on by Monte Carlo, might take awhile..." "Since when does Paradise run near Park MGM on the way to Treasure Island?"

"OK then Boss"

Just shy of noon we pull up to the Pirate Ships.

My offer came with a suite for the next 2 nights and $650 in Free Play.

Invited guest check-in had just one cat in front of me. The rest of the animals were all corralled like cattle waiting for their turn. To make matters worse for those poor souls, it looks like Treasure Island now has a "Skip the line for a fee" policy in place.

If you blow up my below picture (Just click on it) You'll see the "Express" Fee is $30. Every time someone opts in to that fee behind you, you are now waiting in queue that much longer.

I guess to some, it is not a bad deal. What's $30 to save an hour of time in Vegas? I've pissed away $30 in one push of a slot machine button before.

Get my keys and right away and head up the the room. I know someone fucked up when I noticed only one door to get in my room. A suite this was not! If I was just riding alone, I would toss my bags and gamble. But with 3 girls in tow, I needed that larger room.

I call my host, but she is on vacation. I head down to the hosts office, and leave the girls to bed jump all they want, as I go find someone to hear me bitch.

I get the typical line about room types not being guaranteed from the host on duty, and I explain that my host has always given me the same room and I always stay with them midweek to insure that's where I'm sleeping. And I show her my offer on my phone with a suite upgrade for booking early.

She puts down her glass of water, types my name in and sees I was coded wrong. A few clicks of the mouse, and a trip back to check-in for me, and I get my suite on the same floor. So an easy move.

Only 1 bed, like most standard suites nearly every where, but a pull out coach in the living room area. I refuse to pull out though. I haven't done so since High School and I'm not about to start again!

Two shitters, which is nice. One of them is big enough to act as a baby's room. So we eventually wheeled the crib in there, the same as we did the last time we stayed here as a family.

The big jetted tub is nice, but sort of gross when you think about it. So much dead skin and human hair sits in those jetted tubes.

Since we are now on hour 6 of not eating anything, we gather the troops and head next door to the Fashion Show Mall.

An easy stroll in thanks to the skybridge that is connected to the resort.

The dining options here, as I lamented previously, are pretty shitty. No real chains like they used to have, Taco bell, Wendy's, KFC ETC. But the girls settle on some Japanese noodle place and they seemed happy enough with it.

From there, we head down to the Disney Store. Unlike most of these joints in your "Average Mall USA", the Vegas DS has an interactive wardrobe display, a table set up with arts and crafts plus the ubiquitous large TV with Disney stuff playing on a loop.

We color a bit, and each girl gets a new stuffed friend they can tag along with in Vegas. Then we head back out into the mall to stretch our legs a bit from that shitty flight in.

By now it is about 5PM Vegas time, which is 7PM "Our Time" so we head back to the room. Here is where the first crisis of the trip comes in.

Remember that shitty first room we were given? The wife took off her wedding and engagement rings near the bathroom sink, to wash up after the flight. And now we assume they are still sitting over there.

In one of my older Trip reports, I told the tale of when my wife just straight up lost her wedding band somewhere, never to be seen again. I went on a heater on Fremont shortly after and I bought her a new one back then. She will get no such Mulligan out of me the second time.

We call the front desk, no one has checked into that room yet. Great! We get a security guard to come up and let us in to look. No rings, turns out a maid cleaned up the joint after our 30 minute stay. Not Great!

We open a claim with Lost and Found and hope it gets turned in "after shift" like they say.

The view from the "new" room pretty much sucked. We had a view of Dick's Sporting Goods and the Trump International Hotel. I'm sure this is not the first time "Dick" and "Trump" have been typed out in the same sentence.

No need for ME to wait on a call from Lost & Found. So I head on down to convert that Free Play. Turns out I had a Birthday Month bonus of $45 as well. All told I was sitting on $695 in Free Play. Not too shabby to start a trip.

But I fucked up converting it. It's been awhile since I gambled, I was in town for about 6 hours by now and I was extra horny to gamble. So I was playing $9 a spin on these two random slots.

The top one, Texas Tea, should have been a low volatility game. Usually I could grind that Free Play into normal money. I had a pocket full of 20's from the ATM, so I started with $200 of my money. I ended up turning about $300 in Free Play there into like $100. Not a single bonus or decent line hit playing 9 lines X $1.00 each.

So I moved on to this shiny new game that they just finished installing and turned on in front of me. It had that new machine smell, and I was literally the first person to play it here.

It had everything I liked, a decent sized bet, multi-line mechanical and some progressives to boot. I settled in and planned on playing out the last $400 on this thing. Bad move. The below is the best I could muster.

The smart move is to turn THEIR Free Play into MY money so I could then recycle that into more coin-in, which makes me look like I have a bigger bankroll and by extension, a better player.

Instead I turned $695 into $337. Normally I just sit at a Video Poker Machine and convert it all. In my face I guess.

I play that down to about $500 on my ticket and go cash out. I stick a new Benny into a Pinball slot in the same area, and I get the bonus about 5 spins in for $300. I consider this redemption for my earlier failures.

I stick that same TITO into the Blazing 7's machine right next door, and within a few spins... $1,000! I love Vegas!

I cash that sucker out and head over to the latest Ghostbuster Slot. I hit this...

And then this...

Turned that $100 investment into $350 in a blink. I wander around a bit and play until I finally get the call to go fetch the wife's now found rings. Thank God! I'd hate to have to deal with a mopey wife for the rest of our trip.

Everyone at ti was very helpful getting us the rings back. Since I didn't want to be the dumb shit that loses these again, I decide to run back up to the room. Where I handed the Mrs her rings and showered the big kid with hundos that I now had.

This proved to be my high water mark on the day. By the time I got back up to the room, after about 45 minutes of playing, I was up $1,600.

But I cant stop there, not when ti is shitting out money left and right. I lose $200 farting around before I hit a $100 bonus on the below.

I then took that $260 TITO all the way down to $20 before finally getting a bonus of just $105 on Money Storm.

But not to worry, I shitted away the rest of that ticket shortly after. There was a bank of Marilyn Monroe slots that I used to play here. Those have now been replaced by some Fleer Bubble Gum machines.

They looked like a game I would enjoy, but man did they steal my money fast. I was down almost $300 in one before getting the bonus... for just $100.00. Sucks on a $7.50 bet

But I turned things around on this new (to me) Cashman slot. I got myself all the way back up to almost $300 before finally cashing out and moving on.

I have been watching a bunch of YouTube videos with these Fire Link slots. Seems like every fucking slot maker has a Lighting Link clone out there. Even IT, which really really sucks. They have one of those at ti if really want to be mad playing one.

That $280 TITO above? I had that down to just $9.00 betting $6.00 a spin before getting the bonus on Fire Link. Which ended up being a wise investment and a payout of $423.00.

There is a certain satisfaction pulling yourself out of a hole like this.

Sadly, that was the last of my luck tonight. I played on until I hit my self assigned $10,000 coin-in, which should be enough to keep my offers up, but I ended up pissing away just over a Grand after my hot streak ended.

Still up! Just up $500ish now. Ive often been on the shit end of this stick, so I'll take it!

Day 2

The "Tram Broken" sign is up, which sucks since that is our fastest and easiest way over to Mirage. Turns out, it looks a lot more then broken. It looks like it is going away.

You don't put up such fancy walls for a "fix". Steve Wynn built the Tram connecting ti to Mirage back when he owned both places. MGM continued to carry the torch once they bought old Steve out.

Once MGM sold off ti years ago, I always wondered how long two competitors would share the honor of linking competing resorts together.

Maybe the answer is "Up to February of 2018"?

I print out a couple of Buy One Get One Free buffets from MyVegas. The plan is to use one pair for breakfast and the other for dinner.

The Mirage buffet is not good, but it is not bad. It's food. And with the kids eating free, $20 using a BOGO for all of is a steal.

To be fair, it is a nice enough space and the price is set reasonably considering they do have a pretty complete open bar included in that $20.

No complaints from these two. And since we got there right when it opened at 7AM (notice all the empty chairs) it was a steady stream of omelettes at that station for us. No lines no waiting.

We head out of the Mirage and head over to the monorail. While many have a certain deep-seeded hatred for the monorail, the kids (both of which have done Disney) seem to enjoy it as a ride.

Since the plan from here is to get down to Shark Reef (also free from MyVegas) it makes sense to cruise the strip in style.

So we grab a pair of 24 hour passes, which would have been BOGO with MyVegas but no one was at the booth this early, and we shoot all the way down to the MGM station.

The Monorail dumps you out into your choice of MGM malls. You can get off at the back mall, with the food court. Or the front mall, near the lobby.

We scooted through the front mall...

As everyone knows, Vegas has a huge boner for Asian Gamblers. So they always roll out the red carpet for the Chinese New Year. For those of you not of Chinese descent, or who have not been in a Vegas casino lately, 2018 is the year of the Dog.

So I'm sure you can guess what lovable animal is all over the MGM resort... That's right, Pandas!

I can't make sense of it. Panda's in the lobby, in the gift shops, Panda statues scattered everywhere. Not a single smelly dog to be found.

To be fair, I know next to nothing about China. Outside of the fact that they seem to make nearly everything I own. Maybe Pandas are like dogs there, and everyone has one in their home. And that could explain it all. Not entirely sure.

We stop for some more shopping here at MGM, we have to kill time before Shark Reef opens at 10AM anyway.

If you look really hard, you can still see some remnants of what the good old Metro Goldwyn Mayer used to be decades ago. I miss the loving nod to Hollywood theming, those stupid shitty wax figure looking Wizard of Oz cast out front to greet me. The almost always empty MGM Grand Adventure theme park that no one went to.

The new MGM is a casino with rooms and clubs, really nothing more. When they booted out the last of those playful Lion Cubs, really not much reason left for me to visit here.

Speaking of themes, New York New York still has that in spades!

We stop in Hershey World above before eventually heading over to the last Monorail leg of this mornings journey.

We pretty much had our own private ride all the way down to Mandalay Bay.

We did have to wait about 10 minutes for them to open up the Shark Reef. But that just gave the kids time to talk about how many Stingrays they were about to pet.

We pretty much end up here nearly every trip. It is a nice space with enough to see and do to kill a good hour. We have one of the worlds largest Aquariums back home, the Shed. And yet we spend more time here every year then we do there.

And....... There they are! Real Live Stingrays!

I honestly dont see a child's fascination with touching such a gross animal. And most of what is in this tank are Horseshoe Crabs, not even Rays. But both kids love it.

The big kid even got to be a Junior Explorer, or something, and helped teach the rest of the fish shoppers all about Stingrays. She honestly knew more about them then I did.

But this place is not called Stingray Reef. Bring on the Sharks!

Being from the Midwest, we have no Palm Trees. At least half a dozen times since we landed the big kid has told us how she was going to climb a coconut tree and drink a coconut.

We told her good luck cracking one of those things open. But she insisted it would only take "A screwdriver and a rabbit gun". Not sure what a rabbit gun is, but look at what I found in the MGM Food Court on the way back to the monorail!

I thought it would be fun for her to finally get a coconut to drink. And no rabbit gun needed! I shit myself when I got the bill. $13 for a fucking coconut with a hole in it? But it was too late to go back now.

She drank it, and she did share with her little sister. I don't think either one of them liked it all that much. But they pretended to. Maybe out of guilt for me pissing and moaning about how much I spent on it. Who knows.

Back on the monorail and back to ti for a much needed girls nap. Mom never gets naps at home, so she likes these time outs as well. I've certainly asked before.

I ended up sitting on this Pharaoh game for awhile. Every time I'd be down $100 it seemed to give me enough to get back to even.

See...

Played this one right next door and did OK. But it seemed like really shit pays considering the bet level, so I doubt I'll be back. Plus the bonus game, of knocking down buildings, just looked lame.

I snuck into the High Limit Slot Area, but the pickens are slim in there. I did get a $92 bonus game on Wheel of Fortune, and I'm actually sitting up $100 for this session.

And then everything turned to shit. I lost that $300 ticket, plus another $200 after that. It was bound to happen sooner or later.

Since I was already sucking on the MGM Corporate Tit, by using the MyVegas BOGO buffets this morning, I decided to walk my big ass back to the Mirage. They had the new Bachelor Slot over there, and I have been meaning to play it.

I dont watch the show, but I love the platform the machine is on. The same as the 3 reel Lord of the Rings, Wizard of Oz, Godfather, Willie Wonka and so many other reskins.

I was $1,200 coin-in shy of hitting Gold after my last 2 night trip at Luxor. So I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. Play in a new environment and get my gold card, which would now be good til September 2019. Having to use that "Pearl" level card this morning made me feel so poor.

The Bachelor? It fucked me. $5.00 max bet, next to no play on my $200 investment, and I'm officially down $100 for the trip by now. Took me long enough I guess, but I'm still a bit sad.

Plus it was a stupid "specialty game", which means it takes more than triple the play to earn my points. God Dammit. I'm usually so good at this Comp Whore game too. I knew better, I was just playing stupid.

Well, I didn't walk over here for nothing. Slip $100 into a Flippin Out machine. Just a Barcrest Slot knock off of the old IGT Pinball. $90 in and I hit the bonus. I ended up doing well, with a couple extra balls added in to pad my score. Now I'm just down $20 on the trip after a solid $170 bonus round.

Right next door to that, I played some old school Mystic Lamp slot. These are a dying breed. $260 hit and now I'm up $300!

Slide one seat left and I hit again. Now I'm up $450 on the trip! Gambling is so easy! Why do people even have jobs in Las Vegas? Don't they know there are slot machines all over town?

I cash out that big ticket, and start with a new Hundo on my all time favorite, Instant Spin. And I Instant Spun my way to a double up!

So I then play the Instant Spin next door to that, and I quickly take it for a $90 spin.

I dick around some more and give some of it back, but I do walk out of MGM back up $500 for the trip.

I stop to admire some of the new "People Savers" that have been installed up and down the Strip in any open areas. I know there are problems in Europe with crazy fucking people driving trucks through crowds. I assume this is Vegas's counter measure.

I put the over/under on 6 months before these things are covered in club stickers or graffiti directing you to a cell phone number to buy some cocaine.

And for those of you that keep emailing me saying it should be T.I. for Treasure Island, and not ti like I keep typing it. Look at the sign above you dicks and stop with your lies! But don't worry, we are still pals. There are plenty of grammatical errors in these stupid reports for you to shit on still. ti is just not one of them.

Back at ti, I lose $200 on a few games before scoring a $300 victory on a nickel Hot Roll.

The below Godfather game was one of the reasons why I dropped $1K last night. I just couldn't hit anything worth a shit. But on my first spin today, I Vito Corleoned the shit out of it!

When the smoke cleared and the dust settled on this session, I was up about $700 for the trip by the time the girls woke up.

Still needing to get use out of those Monorail passes, we decided to head down to Excalibur and spend some time in their arcade. Formidably known as "The Fun Dungeon".

For those of you with wee ones, they have an entire kiddie ride section here. My kids probably spend half of their arcade time going in little circles, but they love every minute of it.

The Big Kid is not too Cool for School. Well, at least not yet... She still rides like a toddler.

Mom says she lets them win, but I'm not too sure about that. Those kids have some spry reflexes to them.

We end up at Mirage for the last of our BOGO buffets and it goes much the same as breakfast. It's cheap and it's food. And every one leaves satisfied.

Day two ends much like day one did. I took some chances and I chased some loses. I ended up losing some of my gains but I do end the night $200 ahead for the trip. Well under my $1,600 bench mark, but up is up!

They also had a Treasure Chest bonus game going. Earn something like 6,000 points and swipe at a kiosk for Free Play. I won $45 there, and turned that into $60 on Texas Tina.

I then convert my point play playing Video Poker, like a good boy, and turn $80 in point play into $60ish before calling it a night. I end up with just over $19,000 coin-in at ti and $2,000 coin-in at Mirage with my flyby. Not too bad to still be up a few bucks.

Day 3

The kids, still on Chicago time, wake up at the ass-crack of dawn once more. By 6AM local time, they were ready to explore.

Past Mirage, and we head over to McDonald's. We are fancy like that.

A couple of Big Breakfasts later, we were headed over to the Flamingo Habitat, via the Linq, which opened at 8AM.

While passing through the Linq casino, I stop to grab my Diamond BOGO for the High Roller. This is another one of those things we seem to do every trip. For those of you playing at home, it does NOT count as your 2 free show passes. So you can have both. I heard you can also pull a BOGO to the Eiffel Tower at Paris, my kids are just too little to enjoy that, so I can't confirm.

If you haven't spent any time in this free exhibit, its worth your time if you are nearby. And being there this early, we pretty much had the entire "Bird Zoo" (That is what my kids called it) to ourselves.

Notice the warm jackets, still pretty fucking chilly here.

I swear, they would rather throw pennies in a fountain than nearly anything else that could be had in life.

The game plan for today is to kill time in the morning, enjoy our late checkout at ti, and then eventually head over to The Cosmopolitan for the last leg of our trip.

Plenty of people on some of the Vegas Message Boards I frequent told me to always book Cosmo last. That way, no one is disappointed when you downgrade rooms in order to move.

It was good advice. After staying at Cosmo for the first time a few months ago, I couldn't wait to get back there. But first things first.

We cross over from the Flamingo, and head into Caesars Palace to wander the Forum Shops, and kill some more early morning time.

I stop to have a smoke just outside the mall, and now that I'm sucking on the Total Rewards Tit, in thanks to my High Roller Passes, so I'm trying to get some points here as well.

500 points is $2,500 of coin, and that will also trigger my bonus Tier Credits. So that is the plan before we can get over to Cosmo.

It was a good smoke break, sans me poisoning myself with a filthy habit. 5 Line Instant Spin for a fast Triple up. Adding this $180 takes a bit of the sting out of last nights demise.

We do some shopping in the stores that opened early, before meandering over to their large central fish tank.

What can I say, they love animals...

They even have some of those Stingrays the Big Kid knows all about. But they did chop all of their tails off, which seems safe for the other aquatic life, but a shit deal for the poor Stingrays.

Back through the mall and I send the girls off to ti while I hit up Harrah's so I can play up my Total Reward card some.

Things start off pretty solid. I land the below hit for $111, which nearly doubled my buy-in. But I soon shit all of that away...

Start with another hundo and I finally bonus on this Goldy Locks game. I expected more from my $7.50 bet, but $115 is respectable. But I soon shit that away as well...

I might be the only sucker that likes these Marilyn Monroe slots, since they seem to be disappearing everywhere. $9.00 a spin, I get a bonus pretty fast. For $32. I lose another hundred trying again. Get a second bonus, for $0.00. 10 free spins of nothing.

Like a fool, I try on, and finally land a bonus for $388. I played on, by the end of my run I did get my 500 tier credits for the day. But I lost the $200 I was still up last night, plus the $200 I was up this morning. I purposely stopped at even for the trip by now.

That means I'll be walking into Cosmo with 100% of my bankroll intact. Really not a bad position to be in. Well, considering I was betting like a fool this entire time!

It is not that I'm too cheap to pay for a cab from ti to Cosmo. When you travel with 6 pieces of luggage, 2 little kids, a stroller and however many snack traps and juice boxes, it is easier to just load up the stroller once in the morning verses packing all that for the cab and unpacking again at your destination 10 minutes later.

So a nice brisk walk it is. Plus I have a pair of buffets under my belt that need to be worked off.

The host I was assigned at Cosmo on my last trip was pretty awesome. Fast with a reply, friendly to chat with and after I explained my needs this trip, she told me she had the perfect setup for us.

My offer for this leg was the mystery suite for the last 2 nights of our trip + $200 in dining credit + $525 in Free Play.

Pretty damn solid for me!

Invited guest check in was a breeze, and they told me I could have used the High Roller Lounge to check in next door, that was how the host coded me. Free drinks and snacks in there, but I didn't know!

Plus I would have felt out of place. I gamble OK enough, but I'm pretty Blue Collar and I'm sure I would have been the only one with tattoos, that you could see, in there.

We get up to the room, and it is pretty nice. But only 1 bed? I see the couch, and plan on crashing there yet again (I'm used to it) but my host did confirm 2 beds and they told me 2 beds at check in.

Living room...

My "bed" for tonight?

First order of business would be to move this long ottoman thing out of the hallway...

The lone bedroom, fantastic view of Bellagio though!

You walk through the shower to get to the tub. But once you get to said tub, you can jet your way to an awesome view of the Strip and Bellagio Fountains!

Sink in the bathroom.

From the bedroom side, you have your choice of watching someone shower OR bathe!

And that rocking view from the balcony!

But wait! There's more! Open the door next to our wet bar and there is an entire bonus suite waiting for us!

I present to you, shitter number two...

And shower number two...

A nice dining room, very handy with sticky kids.

A full blown kitchen, full size fridge and stove. Not sure if I'll be needing two microwaves, but I gots em!

Living room number two...

And there it is! No couch for Grid! Bedroom number two is pretty damn large to boot.

Bathroom number three. These jetted tubs shoot out air, not water. So no smelly former bather residue to be squirted out at you like ti.

Shitter number three.

The master bedroom has its own walkout to the balcony, as does both living rooms.

And the view from THAT side of the suite.

One hellofva suite, my host done did good. I'll make sure I hunt her down and "Thank" her for the accommodations.

Learning from my last mistake at ti, I make sure I don't play idiot with my $525 in Free Play here. Seeing a line a the players club desk, which I need to hit in order to activate my Free Play, I try playing the new 3 reel Mechanical Buffalo 7's I've been eyeballing.

Big mistake. $200 went poof pretty fast. Usually mixed bars on a 5 line game like this pay you your total bet back. On this fucker it got me 2 credits back. Lame.

I finally get my free play loaded, after losing $300 of my money waiting for the line to get better. And I grind that away on a 5 credit $2.00 denom video poker machine. $10 a spin and I turn all $525 into like $490.

Much better return rate!

From here, I play the Johnny Cash slot I did so well on my last trip, not long in and I get the bonus, but only land the Mini.

Not happy with that, I play on. I usually cash out after a bonus, but I love this game so much, and this is the only casino I know I can find it. Almost immediately, I hit another bonus, and end up with $87.

The wife texts me and says the room service she ordered was there. Gotta spend that resort credit somehow!

I went from -$300 here to +300 after converting my Free Play and dicking around on a few machines. A $600 swing, at just the right time.

Room Service wasn't cheap, about $70 for what you see on the table. We ordered everything cheese. Mac and Cheese, Cheese Sandwich and Cheese Nachos. The $70 included the delivery fee and tax.

It ended up being more than enough for lunch, and we have a fridge and microwave(s) to make use of leftovers later!

After lunch, we headed over to the Linq to use those High Roller passes I collected earlier.

Pretty easy walk from Cosmo. Skybridge from the resort to Planet Hollywood. And sneak along that side of the Strip and you are there in a good 20 minutes.

I think the below was a hat store the last time I was here. Now its a pretty useful, to us, Toy Store. Everything was priced reasonably, for Vegas standards, and it was located right next to the potties, which are a must before taking a 30 minute spin in a ball.

Yup, they loved it just as much as the last time. It helps when you have your own pod. I assume the glass is the same as in a Gorilla tank at the zoo. Since they seemed to bonk into it while acting like fools with no noticeable harm to our ball.

By now, it is getting pretty late. After the Bird Zoo, The Forum Shops, The walk over to Cosmo, running around in the giant room AND doing the Ferris Wheel, both kids were fairly tuckered out.

And "Enter the Night" for Dad!

First victim, Betty Boop. Can't say I'm a fan of hers, but I have yet to play a Betty Slot I didn't enjoy. $97 hit on a $2.50 maxy pad bet is pretty damn good.

I pass by my beautiful 3 reel Buffalo Thundering 7's slot once more, and once more it fucks me in the ass and takes all of "Betty's" money.

I start anew, betting $10 a spin on their Money Vault, and this was my best hit. Still, $120 comes in pretty handy after Buffalo kicked me square in my balls.

I take that $154 TITO over to Johnny and he Cashes me once more with a $112 line hit.

Being a gluten for punishment, I avoid my "Cash out after a Bonus" rule again. Johnny was on Fire, and I got a $100 bonus yet again.

Another game I was looking forward to playing was Jurassic World. I've said it before, and I will say it again, my buddy Kevin (the Slot Director at Cosmo) does a bang-up job getting good games in.

Cosmo has a great mix of old and new slots. Nearly everything I play is here. So if there was a game I was waiting to see, chances are I wouldn't be disappointed once I got here.

And with that, I did OK on JW.

Back to the Man in Black, and he was still shitting out money.

The below games are a cheap way to earn some points. Just a $2.00 Max Bet and I probably ground away on them for a good 30 minutes without losing any money.

See! It sure helps when you are chasing points, to prove to your host buddy that she didn't over comp your room too much!

At this point, I'm sitting pretty much dead even for the trip. The wife texts me that the kids are asleep, in their own wing, and that she was hopping in the shower *kissy face emoji*.

I took the hint and headed back to the room!

After... That... Mrs Grid headed down to try her luck. Trust me, I don't mind being stuck up here on the 37th floor with all of Las Vegas outside my window.

Took her a bit to before she came back up to tag me back into action, all sexed up and recharged, I headed down to hunt some more points.

I was down to my last $13 of my $100 buy-in before Elvis gave it all back!

Over to the New Big Lebowski, and I eventually got a bonus, which was OK. The base game is super boring, the music it pretty shitty, but the bonus games do have some serious potential.

And some more, you guessed it, Johnny Cash!

The below two hits are not monstrous by any means. But I sat on this pair of Elvis slots (Is it Elvi for more than one?) and was grinding out points like there was no tomorrow.

But I can only bet $2.50 for so long before getting a little frustrated. So I moved on to this piece of shit below. Not only did it take all of my Elvis earning, but I fed it 2 more hundos as well.

After this shit storm, I was officially down $300 for the trip. Can't blame Cosmo, I had a great run and I'm earning slot points pretty fast, thanks to my Sterling Tier which earns me double.

But all is not lost! I ended up the night on a decent streak and take down the below pretty much in succession.

This was a fun game, and almost $200 after the bonus.

I thought for sure I would hate this one, but the 4D worked well and the bonus was fairly solid.

There is a bar at Cosmo called Bond. It sits at the front of the resort facing the Strip. All of the slots in this little area have a free bonus game attached to them. 1,000 slot points earns you a free spin of a random wheel. I think you can win between $2 and $500 or something.

Since I earn double points, I was able to rack up 3 wheel spins playing over here with little effort. $20 the first time. Then $5 and finally $3.

It's a nice unexpected feature for playing games you would have played anyway.

I take a break to play in the free slot tournament they had going. By now I had earned almost 7,000 points. Each 500 points get you one turn in the daily tournament. I think the top prize was $500 in free play, but 5 winners each day.

Instead of playing 14 times I chose to double my entries, which means 1,000 points per turn BUT if I won anything, it would be double the base Free Play.

I did not win after the 9:30PM postings, but I did win on these!

The below fucked me twice in the bonus. Once I won $15 and the other time $22. This time I spun the wheel for $25 with a 10X multiplier.

And here is a game you just don't see very often. Sticky Wild bonus and it could be HUGE. I did OK on my $2 Max Bet

As the night winds down, so do I. I earn just over 8,000 slot points, which is just over $10,000 of coin-in. In the end, I'm down on the trip $500. But I'm having a blast!

Day 4

We wake up, too early as usual, and we head down to the Wicked Spoon to burn some more resort credit.

I heard good things about it, but I have never been much for fancy buffet food. I do have a BOGO that comes with being Sterling with their players club, my kids eat free so it is only a $30 room charge. A good value for that.

They had what you expect to see at a Vegas buffet. Omelette station, breads, breakfast meats and such. It was actually a brunch, so they had some lunch type things out.

Standard fair, mashed (but no gravy) grilled sausages, fried chicken, pizza and a decent sized Asian food area.

It was good, but not as good as Bacchanal at Caesars. Not for the money. A step up from Mirage, but not worth twice as much AS Mirage. And no open bar.

Back through Cosmo as we head over to Bellagio.

A Rare Grid sighting since I'm usually the one taking the pictures.

These guys understand that Year of the Dog should feature a fucking dog or two. In this case, 7 dogs (I think).

We hop on the free monorail here at the B and get off at Park MGM, formally Monte Carlo. It looks more like a casino now, from the inside at least...

This is where you now exit, it dumps you out the side near a CVS and not on the Strip. Very Rapey!

And this is why you can't exit to the Strip. It is a complete shit show. To think they just redid the front of this place not long ago. Now it is all a mess of sand and mud.

What? You think I wont climb behind a fence for a better blog picture? You guys act like I don't care about your curious natures!

Getting back on track, and the reason why we free Monorailed all the way down here. We shortly end up at New York New York. One of the last great arcades on the famous Las Vegas Strip.

Their claw machines really suck here. For those of you that do not own your own claw machine (we actually have one at home) most of them work much like a slot does.

They have a random number generator and you can set that for a "tight" grip, say, 20% of the time. Leaving a shit grip the other 80%. So it is not all skill. Whoever sets the dial can give you a fair shake or make sure that most of the time those claws will only pick up air.

Here, the claw machines are as tight as their casino!

But my crew still has fun. And we actually played awhile on just $10.

Big Sister gave her prizes away to the wee one.

Not wanting to waste time on this end of the Strip, we head over to M&M World.

This Racist fucking Blue Bastard flashed the Chinese "V" sign at my wife. We are from Chicago you prick, save that for the East Asian tourist from abroad. Not to mention my wife, and half of each kid, are of Japanese descent.

If you have yet to catch their free 4D movie, I Lost my M in Las Vegas", make sure you watch it the next time you are near by. It's a good 10 minutes and the effects are solid, for free.

You might get stuck with a shitty real life actor, but everything in life is a gamble.

Exit through the Gift Shop and connect over to the Coca-Cola Store. Really not that much for kids in here. Except for...

This big cuddly prick! He doesn't just take a picture with you, he moves and dances and goofs around. The Big Kid spotted that the racist M&M was a person in a suit right away. But she asked me if this was a "Real Polar Bear". So take that at face value.

Back to Home Base for some naps, but not before burning more resort credit for some Miso Soup for the girls lunch. I dont need any sustenance, and I get back to work in the casino.

First stop was to finally visit my host. She was off the night before. After chatting her up for a little while, giving her her well earned "thank you" tip for the digs. I head off to seek my fortunes once more.

I'd like to say I was killing it, but I was slowly getting killed.

Hit this for almost $90, after I was $300 in to it...

This was less than $80, after I was $200 into it...

I lost the above money and then some. After a good hour of slotting, I was suddenly down $800, which is -$1,300 for the trip.

I was playing the last $100 bill I allowed myself this session below. If you look closely, I was down to just $0.82 before hitting for $169. This would be the start of one of my greatest comebacks ever...

Took that over to Wonder Woman, and nailed her for a $120 bonus.

So I just rolled 82 pennies into $228.11. I was pretty well vested in the below, before landing a crazy bonus games. My first 6 spins I was at $1,026.70 won. Solid on a $5.00 bet. With 9 spins to go, I was sure I just hit my 1st Hand Pay of 2018. I ended up winning... $1026.70

9 spins of $0.00 after that. Not that I'm bitching about going from under a buck to over a Grand in under 20 minutes.

Not trusting myself with that big of a ticket, I cash out and start fresh. Some decent luck on the below animal flavored slot.

And some major luck playing with Britney.

I was just about to head back up when I thought, what the hell. One last smoke and slot. I was skunked by Lord of the Rings at least 6 times this trip. Even my Frodo Free Spins were shit. I usually get fucking Smeagol and like $10. Not even 3 times my bet.

Not this time, not while I'm on a streak! Usually the Nazgul Bonus pays $0.00. Today it was good for $180.00 on just mixed bars.

Since I could do no wrong, and that tight ass Buffalo Thundering 7's was directly behind my LOTR machine, I figured I'd give the big prick one last shot at redemption.

If I dont get a wheel spin or bonus on the next $100, I'm done with it forever. Well, it sure wasn't a cooler. Hardly any time in... SPIN! And not just any spin, it was max credits, $1,000!

Here is the strange thing about holding a TITO valued over $1,200. I went to 3 redemption machines, and all of them spit of my ticket and directed me to the cage.

I walked to the cage and there is a huge line. It is Friday after all.

So I assume it was some sort of tax trigger safety, and I decide to play it down to $1,100 and try cashing out again.

No such luck, I actually won on my next machine, and now I have even more then the last time I tried to cash out!

So I end up pissing away $200 on Johnny Cash and had zero issue cashing that ticket out.

After this wild streak, I managed to go from down $1,800 to up $500 on the trip. A $2,300 swing, and it came just at the right time, since we were heading home in the morning.

Have I mentioned I fucking Love Las Vegas?

The sleeping crew is back in action as I walk in to the room. We decide to head over to the Miracle Mile shops @ Plant Hollywood.

It is a decent mall, no super high end fancy stores for us to walk by, we had seen enough of those passing through Crystals at Aria earlier in the day. I hear that joint makes a ton of money, but I don't think I have ever seen anyone actually shopping in there. I guess all it takes is a few big spenders.

One of the old hold-overs from the former Aladdin mall, Desert Passage, is their indoor storm show. It's a nice distraction for 5 minutes and a chance to toss a few more pennies in some water.

And yet another penny sucker! The fun you can have with 2 kids and some loose change.

We pack up the crew and head back to Cosmo. The skybridge dumps you off right into the second floor, non-gambling section, of the Cosmopolitan.

It wouldn't be a Cosmo Trip without a "Someone in a Shoe" pic.

At this point, we only had $50 or so left to burn in Resort Credit. The kids were getting restless, so we opted for the Wicked Spoon once more instead of room service.

$50 each adult for diner! Not worth it at all. It was nearly the exact same spread as brunch, only twice the price now. It had some different meats at the carving station, and the omelette station flipped into some sort of fish fry and shellfish bar.

So I over spent my resort credit, but the wife actually eats the fishy stuff. The kids, we really had to search to find them something. Well, for the older kid anyway.

The little one eats nonstop. She is like a human garbage can, if she can chew it she will eat it. Even if its not really food. I once had to pull a lady bug out of her mouth.

I go up and get everyone tucked in, I ask the wife if she wants to play, but she is bushed once more.

I do OK on Anchorman for a short spell, before it eventually cleans me out of a couple hundred bucks.

Same goes for Jurassic Park. I was up, then robbed. After that I lost on the Bachelor, finally got a bonus after pissing away a couple hundred, for a whopping $35. Not sure I'd be back to this one.

More chasing and more losing. I was getting play, I was just over kicking my coverage with big bets and shitty bonuses. The below was the last of my decent hits.

After a few more hours of play, with not much to report, I called it a trip.

Physically drained and nearly at my self imposed goal of $10K coin in yet again. I'm beat.

With those 2 X slot points, the point play adds up fast at Cosmo. I converted $160 in point play, to go with my earlier instant free play of $28. It really is a solid return.

For comparison, being Diamond with Total Rewards earns me $40.00 in reward credits for $20K of coin in. And that converts to $20 in Free Play. $20! I think $160 is a better deal..

I decided to throw in the towel, down nearly $400 for the entire trip now. Not bad at all, and it would have been much worse had I not gotten so much in Free Play to keep me going. All told, I was able to collect over $1,500 between my up front Free Play, bonus Free Play and Free Play earned by converting my points. Without that haul I'm sure my final loses would have been much worse. But that is why I only do Vegas when I can angle my punts a certain way!

Day 5

Flight out early, so I checked out and noticed my sweetheart of a host cleared off the extra buffet charges I went over AND took care of my resort fees. Did I mention she was awesome?

Had I stopped after the first hour at Treasure Island, I'd be going home with an extra $1,600 in my pocket. But I'm sure I'd never be invited back to either one of these places again.

In the end, an entire vacation for all four of us cost something like $600 for flight, cabs, entertainment, rooms, shows, food ETC. So everything worked out well. I got to play like the fiend I am, we all got to see lots of cool stuff and we survived yet another vacation!

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