Y June 2011 4th of July Fireworks & Suites

Notice I didn't add Jackpots to the title. Wins were not plentiful this trip. But the fun was! We scheduled our stay around who was having fireworks. Saturday/Sunday July 2nd & 3rd at the Rio with a strip view facing Caesars. Monday/Tuesday July 4th & 5th at Mandalay Bay.

The Players, Mr. & Mrs. Grid. Both very early 30's.

Saturday fly in and get to the Rio pretty fast. I've never stayed or played here much but I had no plans of standing on the strip to see the fireworks at CP. I heard all kinds of horror stories about crowd control and the cattle crush. Add in a dose of 100+ degree heat and I'd much rather watch from my suite.

Day 1

Rio's rooms are pretty big. But dated. Kinda like a 70's porno set. A huge fabric headboard.

Cheesy mirror in the bed area that lets you peek in on whomever is in the shower/toilet. Kinky to say the least.

A nice couch and sitting area but the rooms is pretty bare. Old TV, older wallpaper in the John with polished brass everything. But very very clean.

The strip view was great. I could see everything from Mirage down to Excalibur.

We hit up the Gold Coast and Palms since we are staying in "locals" territory. Palms was nice, great food court. Gold Coast was mostly video poker and very Senior oriented. Not really our scene. You could hear a pin drop in there. Back to the Rio! Carnival in the sky was pretty nice, they also have a huge 2 level stage right on the casino floor where they put on a free show. It seems they are really trying to be hip. It was pretty fun.

Played through a few hundo and no big wins, but no loses so not too bad. Day 1 ends with a push. I keep my bankroll.

Day 2

Sorry in advance I did not take pictures of all of my decent slot wins this trip. Used Mrs. Grid's camera phone and took a picture with my camera after that, so they look pretty shitty. Enough with my excuses on with the show!

We wake up and find the elevators at the Rio are down. I guess it happens a lot since the staff knew exactly what to do. We found a few other stranded guests and formed a posse. We found a Maid, Pho, who was very nice. She would not let anyone use the stairs since it would trip the alarm and lead directly outside any way. Not that I would climb down 30 flights of stairs anyway. Down through the employee elevator and through a storage corridor and we were on the casino floor. Kinda weird.

Sit down at a $2.00 slot and after 5 pulls Triple Diamond + Triple Diamond + Double Bars = $360.00. So after the 1st slot of the day I'm up.

The buffet is nuts. The wait to get in is well over an hour. I know its 4th of July weekend but that's insane! So we pass it up and head out to the free shuttle that gets us to the strip. A woman falls off the last step, it looks like a flop to me. I wont get into much more and paint myself a dick but now that shuttle isn't going anywhere. We all have to stand in the heat and wait for a new bus. They wont even let us in the waiting bus since its now a crime scene.

So we wait, for about 15 minutes for them to get a shuttle up and running. The EMT comes out to check on the "injured" woman but he cant find anything wrong. So he hands her a cold-pack and fills out some forms. I'm hot, hungry, a bit annoyed by now. But here comes the new bus and within 10 minutes we are at Harrahs. Man, that place is a zoo. I know its cheap to stay there but it seems every mullet in the county is walking around there. I have to fatten up my Total Rewards card but after blowing a quick $80.00 and getting nowhere with it we head to the Venetian.

I never win there, but Mrs. Grid does so we play and both lose. Head into the mall and check out the food court and decide we will try Canonita Express. It was awesome. Cheap. Authentic. Very good. I'm adding this place to my regular visit list. Great Cheese on the nachos, the ground beefs was not greasy. And they make their own hard shells for the tacos!

Plazzo is all dressed up for the 4th. Nice. But those bastards took our money as well.

Hit up the Wynn/Encore and don't do bad, but we sure didnt leave rich. I always feel like I should gamble there more but we like to bounce around so CET & MGM Resorts gets most of our play.

Stop in at TI & leave with a hundo from them. Walk over to Caesars and take $50.00 off them. Ballys & Paris take back the money I took off CP but I ran about $800.00 through my card for the day so I paid off the Rio they comped me. Back on the shuttle just in time to get up to our suite for the CP fireworks. High winds force the starting time to 10:00 but I'm in my room, not boiling in the crowds and heat on the strip so I don't care.

It was a pretty good show. And we had a great view. Nothing like watching fireworks from a couch, in an air conditioned room!

Day 2 ends with me up $200.00 for the day.

Day 3

Its the 4th of July and we check out of Rio. I actually had fun there. Too bad they didn't have many games that I play or else I would have given them some more love. Today we check into Mandalay Bay. 2 nights comped. We were supposed to be in the 750 LR suite but that wasn't available yet. I'm not going to force the issue with the check-in girl. She was very nice and the place was an absolute zoo. Hundreds of people checking in/out when we got there just shy of noon. The basic room was nice, a "strip view" doesn't mean much at MB since you cant really see anything. I did have a great view of the old Hot Air Balloon ride location.

Since we were switching rooms I don't have much to show for the standard room. It was nice, big bathroom with a separate tub. The water closet had a shat-phone in it. I guess Mandalay thinks some people need to talk on the toilet, but not use their own cel phone. I just have this lovely pic of me on the couch in there.

Today we are hitting up all the MGM props. I do well at MGM, I don't play many penny slots but I love this roller coaster game. I feel like an idiot for only playing it at $0.80 since I ended up getting the bonus round after 3 whacks. I still walked away with almost $170.00 from it. It should have been over a grand if I played it for $4.00 but who knew.

I end up leaving MGM up over $200.00 after a couple hours of play. All of my favorite games are here and yet I never stay here. I walked up to a Monte Carlo $1.00 machine and put in 3 bucks ( 1 max bet) and get the instant spin. Its only 30 bucks from the wheel but still. My wife scratches her head, I had her convinced that's how the machine works. She calls me a liar so I put my TITO in another one on the bank and sure as hell, 1 whack = instant spin! But alas it only gave me $20.00. Now Mrs. Grid is watching other people play and they aren't spinning so now she knows I just pulled a rabbit out of my ass twice. We finaly do the studio walk shops in their basement. I knew of the shops off the casino in the back with the big food court but after playing here for 10 years + I never knew about their other mall off the lobby!

We stop in the Trop since I talked it up after my last visit in May without her. The high winds from the night before wreaked havoc with their giant sign.

And the waterfalls still are dirty and broken.

Their everything White motif looks great. Until you figure in the dirty people that actually stay at the Trop. Stains, fingerprints etc are all over the place now. Its a shame. But I guess there are good reasons why casinos don't paint their walls white.

Bellagio, Aria, Monte Carlo, Luxor & Excalibur all gang up to take my money. I still got a ton of play but end up down $400.00 for the day.

Back to Mandalay Bay for their fireworks show down by their pool. It was rocking! Good music, great show. Well worth the effort to stay there.

And after watching the show we went back to the room where that strip view actually paid off. We were able to watch another 5 firework shows at once out our window! I think they were the stations casinos which started at 10:00. They were far away but you could still see. Pretty neat.

Then settle in for some fireworks of our own. If you know what I mean! And if you don't know what I mean, I got laid...

Day 4

The last full day. We fly out early on Wednesday.

I have a bunch of express comps to blow so we head down to the Bayside Buffet in MB. Very good. But the line stretched forever! It looked like a good hour plus wait to get in. But I'm not a lowly sapphire player. So I get to cut to the front of the line. For once, no matter how many free suites or shows I get for being a gambler, my wife finally is thankful for me being a compulsive gambler.

After eating I take 600 quarters off a wheel of fortune machine in the back near the monorail. It was something like double bar, WOF symbol and another multiplier.

Back to the grind, I need 75,000 points to hit Gold at M Life and I'm sitting on 40K as of this morning. So I'm rushing to hit it before 15K points drop off my account on July 29th. I want that gold card dammit! So its the last day here and I'm gambling like a mad man. Pissing away money left and right chasing the big one. I'm actually up at Luxor after a nice 5 line Double Diamond Double Diamond Triple Bar Combo with Double Diamond Double Diamond Double bar hits.

But that was short lived

I dumped a lot at Aria since I'm trying to get their attention. Probably more than I should. I was all geared up to head home with about 75% of my bankroll in the morning. By the time the carnage was over on day 4 I'm down to about 20% of my stake left. I was doing so well too dammit! Oh well.

At least I didn't come home broke!

But I just missed out on the 75K points by the end of the night. Good thing I'll be back to take that Gold card off them in November!

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