The Penthouse Party Feb 25

Saturday, Day one

A fresh snowfall here in Chicago. Temps are around 7 degrees at home. But a sunny 70 in Las Vegas! We typically fly Spirit, cause I'm cheap. But they filed for bankruptcy  around the time I booked this one. So I audibled, and booked United like a rich person.

My kids didn't know what to make of it. The United terminal at O'hare was bright, clean and had real shops and restaurants. A stark departure from what they were used to at Spirit. Where you were lucky you didn't slip on feces at their gates. 

TV's built into the seats? Snacks and pop, for free? Room to actually cross your legs, and flight attendants without facial scars? Normally I'd try to sleep during my flight. But this one is too fancy!

That 4 hours goes by in a blink. And we actually get out at the much cooler Terminal 3. So this is how the other half lives? I'll take it!

We have been trying out different suites lately. As I have been on a roll in Vegas, my play has gone up. And that has unlocked some much better rooms with MGM. 

25 years of going to Vegas. And all that time, stopping by New York New York. And I had no idea they even had Penthouse Suites. They don't offer them on their site. I had to stumble across a random video of one on YouTube, and reached out to my host. The selling point was that they had balconies! 

You know those skyscraper facades? The very top of those buildings, are the Penthouses. Who knew? Well, not me!

VIP check in was smooth and easy. We loaded up on snacks, and headed up to the room. VIP check in is in the Noir lounge right across from the Empire Elevators. Which is right across from the poor people check in counter. That makes going in there so much more fun. You get to turn up your nose, as you march past the commoners. 

One Bedroom Penthouse Suite

Ultimate VIP Living

Experience the ultimate in VIP living in this incredible 1,400 SQFT suite at New York-New York

Room Amenities

• Separate master bedroom

• Wet bar

• Living and dining room table

• Flat screen cable TV

• Electronic safe – laptop compatible

• Internet access

• Spa tub

• Oversized shower

• Upgraded bathroom amenities

• Balconies facing the Strip

• Robes and slippers

• Coffee pots are available upon request

• Turndown service

Modern, bright and well laid out. While not the same showstopper we had at Bellagio last year. Very nice indeed! Full living and dining room. 

A wet bar, fully stocked with drinks. 

Decent enough master bed and bath. With a massive 4 person Jacuzzi tub. The shower looks small in the picture. But only because it runs way along towards the back. It was pretty big. 

Not sure what was up with the seatless toilet above. The normal one worked just fine. But when I went to flush the one without a seat, it just sprayed my shit in to the air. Best not use that one again. The poor maid already has enough to clean up now. 

My "balcony" was a total rip-off. It was the one main selling point for booking this room. I mean, it technically had one. But you couldn't go out there, as it was locked off. What the fuck! The pictures my host sent me, showed a table and chairs out there. How did I get the one Penthouse, without a working balcony? 

On the flip side, there are only 2 rooms on our entire floor. The Pierre across from us. And the Essex, where we are staying. The elevators were nice and fast. And no one ever rode with us going up or down in the Empire Tower. From elevator to room, it takes about 5 seconds. 

And there she is! Man, I just love New York New York! I am so glad they haven't fucked with that awesome Disneyesque food court!

We have $500 in resort credit to use over the next 4 days (3 nights). So naturally, the family picked the one place to eat where we couldn't use it. Shake Shack. Their shakes are very lackluster, and even more so for $12. Small, and they charge you extra if you wanted whipped cream. But their burgers are on point!

We wander and shop a little. Before I got too twitchy and needed to gamble. I cant even fathom all the money I am not winning, by shopping for bath salts. 

And... I lost. It was only $300, but off to a rocky start. Little shop of Horrors, -$100. Wonder Woman, -$100. It went quick.

I got a below average bonus on the above $8.88 bet. But it helped slow the bleeding. Now only down $170.

World of Hershey? Sure, why not. The kids seemed to love it. They also have a Hello Kitty Cafe in back. We all loved staying at Bellagio, but it really isn't kid friendly. NY NY is. Not over the top, like Circus Circus or even Excalibur. Just enough. 

I send them back to the room to unpack. So I can go burn off my $600 in free play. 

So far, so good! I turned $200 of that, in to $200 of real money. 

$100 more in free play, turned in to $200 on Top Dollar. $410 now. 

$200 more, in to $515 above! 

I turned their $600 in free play, in to $960 of real money. I then donked off a $280 wheel spin above. And a $200 line hit all within minutes. From down a couple hundred, to up almost $1200. Vegas comes at you fast!

I cashed out that $1300 TITO. And you know you are on a roll, when even stoopid Sea Monkey's pays you. 

With the exception of the above $218 bonus. I shit away some of those winnings. And by the time I met up with the girls, I was "only" up a grand. 

A little back story here. My youngest just had a birthday, and since we share the same birthday month. This was considered a birthday trip for us. I tried getting our old Chicago friends, who moved to California, to meet up with us. But that didn't get off the ground. But my brother and his fiance were able to make it. And they would be our surprise guests for the Penthouse Party.

I ditched the girls in the arcade, and told them I had to go take a shit. But I was really sneaking these 2 up, to help me decorate the room. 

Mission accomplished! They were all surprised, including my wife.  It will be nice having some help with the kids this trip. They say you cant take kids to Vegas. Which is wrong. You can! They will just ruin everything. 

We all order up room service, and have a family style meal in the suite. The food was, edible. 20% adder to anything you buy. $5.00 delivery fee, which doesn't count towards room credit. Thankfully we had free drinks in the mini bar, as a Dr. Pepper would be almost $9.00 on its own. 

We all head back down to their arcade, which is massive by the way. The girls watch the kids, and I sneak off with my brother to go play some more. 

And I mostly got insulted. $10 bet on "Piggys" and I only got a double mini for $200. $15 bet on "Hens" and I only won $150. $6.00 bet on Money Mansion, and only a lousy $100. Big enough bets, for shit wins. I started bleeding out my winnings from earlier. 

My girls went back up to the room. And his fiance joined us, but it was just more of the same for me. I was getting bonuses, just nothing big. Well, except for that last picture of the train game. It took forever to trigger that bonus. But it was worth $624!

When the smoke settled, I gave back half of my winnings. About $500. That still leaves me up $500, with about $7,500 worth of coin in under my belt. Not too shabby! Day one is in the books, and so far so good!

Sunday, Day two

Per usual, my body doesn't care that I am in Vegas. I wake up at 6AM CST no matter what. Which sucks, as that is 4AM local. I take a shit, and try laying in bed but with Vegas just 44 stories below me, I gotta go play. 

And I have the entire place to myself! 

I got a pretty good look at the slots here at NY NY last night, so I wandered over to MGM. Which, if you have followed this blog over the past 15 years. I never win at. You'd think I'd learn. To quote Joe Pesci as Nicky Santoro in the movie Casino. "Cause I'm fucking stupid. I don't give a fuck. That's my business. That's what I do."

Ghost town over here as well. 6AM, you'd think at least a few bums would be walking around. Nope. Just me, and the cleaning crews. 

I played this below Cannonball game a bunch at Bellagio my last trip. And it absolutely destroyed me over there. I couldn't get a bonus to save my life. 

But here at MGM, it loved me! 1st bonus was only good for $107. But I was up. Next one was $450. Then $331. then $276. I rode my hundo all the way up to a grand!

And farted around on that TITO for a while. Before finally cashing out up $900. I just couldn't lose here!

I love the above format. They make a bunch of different flavors of the "money machine" games now. But I never saw a Whammy version before! The game works the same way they all do. $1 bet buys you one window. $5 buys you 1 and 2. $10 buys all 3. What you see, is what you get. But this one had a bonus $5 bet ($15 max bet) and that unlocked the Whammy! 

That clever little shit caused all kinds of mayhem. He would drop credit values as free wins. He would turn losing spins in to winning ones. And when I finally got the bonus wheel, he stretched it from one opening to 3! Considering I was betting $15 a whack, these were not big wins. But very frequent. And I ended up making about $500 off this slot. I didn't want to Press My Luck too much. So I moved on. 

KA is a great show BTW. Highly recommended. Don't ask me what its about, I didn't have a clue. But it was visually spectacular. 

Back to the show. I had my Whammy money all the way down to $62, before I hit on this old classic for $300. All in all, I played through almost $4,000 at MGM. And I walked out with $700 of "their money".

MGM Grand Coin Out $4,508.66 Coin In $3,807.75 Win +$700.91

I think I mentioned this in a past report. But you can log in to your MGM Rewards account through their site on your phone. And see almost real time how much coin in you have done. It doesn't work on the app, but the site is great for that. Good way to keep track of your tier score as well. As those Bonus Tier points in Vegas come in handy!

I get the "Dad we are hungry" text around 8AM. Which is perfect timing, as my big ass was just walking back any way. I give the wife my room service order. And I tell her I'll be up in 30 minutes. 

With just enough time, to slip a hundo in to Top Dollar. 9 spins of nothing. Last spin for $400! Boom! Up a grand on the day now! And Plus $1,500 on the trip! We eat, we digest and we meet up with my brother and his stuff. 

They are taking the kids out for the morning. Some Sea Quest thing he heard about. Where you can feed and play with animals. And not just ones from the Sea. I heard they had an armadillo. And according to one of my kids, it felt like petting a coconut. 

Well, we have time to spare and all. Might as well slot. I was down to $20 on the above, before a decent $278 bonus turned my luck around.

I pissed away most of that, before landing a $104 bonus on this oldie. But was way too deep in to crazy money. Before a $155 bonus got me back to $200

My brother was just texting me, as he walked in to NY NY. And I told him I was sitting on "Space Cows" which made it easy to find me. I sat between two burly older guys, who were hammering away on their machines. They were nice enough guys, but I just don't make friends with strangers. 

One of them turned to me, and was chatting me up about this being their daily routine. And told me I could consider myself an honorary "Cow Wrangler" and I could join their club. I smiled, cause it was a weird way to greet someone. And told him no thanks, I ride alone. They both laughed for some reason. 

Anyway, I don't play this game very often at all. Its much more my brothers game than it is mine. But sure as shit, I landed the mythical Unicow. Which had Dingus One and Dingus Two of the Cow Crew mooing up a storm! The game went hay wire. Cows started shooting out of places, my free game counter went to 100. And after a few retriggers, I turned my $3.75 bet in to $720!

Moo indeed! At least everyone in my clique was there to see me win. 

They take their cab to animal land. And the wife and I, Alpha Team, have a romantic date at Resorts World. 

I bemoaned Resorts World in my last report there. I like the place, but I hate that you are pretty much on an island there. The casino is fair, but even though my play keeps going up. They keep trimming back my offers. Not just my offers. But offers overall according to my host. As she put it, they are cutting back on their player redevelopment. IE, being cheap.

I cant stay in a semi-basic room with them. And be OK with $600 in free play and $100 in resort credit. Not when I can get so much more bang for my buck in town. They do have a no stay system in place. Where you get your offers, without having to book a room. The same set-up at Rio.

Fuck them, if my offers go down. I'll play through my free play and see what happens. And take the wife out for a free lunch. 

Resorts World being Resorts World. They have a player club booth in the actual casino. But seemingly no one to staff it. 11AM on a Sunday, Presidents Day weekend no less. And the booth was empty. I had to stand in line at the cashier, to get my fucking card. 

I flipped $300 of that free play in to $415 playing video poker. And without fail, I always get excited when I land a Royal Flush with Deuces. And immediately disappointed when it turns out to be worth just a hundred bucks. 

I turn the next $300 in to nearly nothing betting $15 a spin on Lobstermaina. But land a $127 line hit on the above shortly after. 

And no tour of the RW High Limit room would be complete, without throwing a hundo in to $10 den Top Dollar. Plenty of big hits on this machine since I started playing here. And Top Dollar has been working for me all trip. First Spin Johnson! $450 offer. I gotta take that. 

I worked that TITO up to $964, after a $293 bonus above. Had it down a little, and then back up to $986. I finally cashed out at a grand. All found money. But then pissed away $500 of that, farting around. With only this last hit of $105 to show for my hard work. Still, I didn't completely dick them. I did play through about $4,000. Still well off of my average in a day there, which is triple that. Lets see what happens. 

With $500 of their money in my pocket, we head over to Wally's Steak House to burn the $100 in resort credit. 

It is a good looking space. I guess the original is in Beverly Hills. I ordered the Wago Burger, and it was meh. As were the fritz AKA fries. The wife had some sort of club sandwich and salad. Meh from her as well. Service was great, but we were not impressed. And certainly less so, for the price they charged us. $70 for lunch, on the house. But still. 

Pro Tip here. You don't have to spend that $100 all at once. We ended up buying $30 worth of candy in the food court as well. 

We head over to Bellagio from RW. With the plan being to meet up with the group in about an hour. And unlike Resorts World, Bellagio was jam packed!

By now, I am up over $2K on the trip. My heater from night one. Plus the MGM robbery. Add in that Unicow and the RW heist. And I am sitting pretty. Plenty of money to take some big swings with here. My last trip to Bellagio, I had a $7500 handpay. What could go wrong?

I hit for $165 above. And rolled that in to $400 after a $262 win shortly after. And then...

An hour of losing went by. No pic worthy hits. No big bonuses. No nothing. I completely shit the bed. How bad you ask? Well, lets check that Win Loss Report!

Bellagio Coin Out $2,814.49 Coin In $4,655.00 Loss-$1,840.51

Yeah, that was ugly! $1800 *POOF* Well, at least I am not down on the trip. But that hurt. Now I am only up a few hundred bucks. 

Reunited with Beta Team, and we squeeze our way in to the atrium to see what they are doing with the "Year of the Snake"

We hop the tram from here over to Park MGM. And my brother and I sneak off to play a little, while they shop at the Haus of Gaga

It was the right move. $145 bonus on a $9 bet is shit. But a $300 line pay, on a $3.00 bet is not. All in all, I take $330 off them. Which levels my Bellagio losses down to -$1500. Wah Wah. 

Eventually we make it back to NY NY, and I head over to Excalibur to see what is going on in the crappy castle. 

It started off well! I hit a $275 bonus on whatever the fuck this game was. But then tried building up tier credits on Rembrandt. But that stole my money. 

I was holding my own on Ghostbusters 4D. But I was already bleeding out. I went from winning thousands, to losing hundreds really fast. It happens. But that doesn't mean I have to like it. 

Excalibur Coin Out $1,846.75 Coin In $2,646.75 Lost-$800.00

And with that, I am officially down on the trip. Fuck me.

We all meet up to go play at the arcade. And hit up room service once more for dinner. Ive gotten a ton of play in, and to only be down about $500 isn't too bad. And I still have plenty of time to get my money back! Between RW and these MGM joints, I did almost $15,000 worth of coin in today. Which aint nothing!

Monday, Day 3

Another early rise and shine for me. Today's loner trip, has me walking next door through Park MGM. And over to Aria. Aria is my Ace in the Hole. I usually win there. And now, I need to in order to right the ship. 

From an empty Park MGM to an empty Aria. Lets do this!

Right away, the plan is working!

$320 wheel spin, helps a ton! $105 on Casper if fine, But I was invested more than that. Maggie and the Martians for $100? That doesn't hurt. I'm grinding up valuable players club points. And treading water just fine!

I was down a little, before I pulled off this 3rd spin Triple Pop on whatever this pinata game is. $6.00 bet = $371 win. But to be honest, that mostly put me to even for the day. 

Every place was still closed. And the only way to get something to drink. Sans the sink in the shitters. Was via cocktail waitress. I was small betting Monopoly Railroad here, waiting on my "free" Red Bull. Man, was that a mistake! I had my $480 ticket down to $1.00 before I finally got the bonus. I got almost half that money back, but still a kick in the dick. 

And then I really fucked myself. I normally don't fall for these sucker games, with a "Must ht by feature. I know better, yet here I am! I found one with 1,100 Phoenix's and it must hit by 1,888. Still far away, but doable in my estimation. Man, when I am wrong I am wrong!

I gave it all of my Monopoly money. Plus I kept feeding it more and more. I cycled all my wins until they were gone as well. I pushed that meter up to 1600+ fucking birds. And still no pop. I just gave up. Look at the damage here!

Aria Coin Out $3,602.80 Coin in $5,543.75 Lost -$1,940.95

Yeah, I fucked that up bad. Almost $2K gone in 90 minutes. And now down -$2,500 on the trip. Mind you, this time yesterday I was +$1500

I make the walk of shame back to NY NY, where we room service again for breakfast. And head out to meet with team Beta. Today, we play tourist. Take the clan over to M&M World. And then head over to the World of Coca-Cola for some flights. 

My youngest is all in to skin care. No clue why. She is just obsessed with it. Clearly its working. As she has the skin of a 9 year old. We hit the Flagship Sephora store in the Planet Hollywood Mall for her. 

We planned on walking all the way down to the High Roller at the Linq. But the girls started to peter out a bit. And that's a long ass walk!

For those of you that don't know. You can ride that Ferris Wheel with a BOGO, just by swiping your Caesars Rewards card. It used to be a perk for Platinum. Where as Diamonds got 2 free passes. But they have since dropped the BOGO down to everyone with a pulse. If you don't have a Caesars Rewards card, its free to get one. 

So we switch plans, and  head across the street to Cosmo instead. The girls can get lunch, and the boys can go play. 

We walk right in to the High Limit room, and just 3 spins in on a $10 denom Pinball. I Pinball the shit out of it! $950 win, gets me back half the money I pissed away at Aria this morning. And now I am back in business! 

Or so I thought! I dropped half of that playing around over the next hour. With zero big wins to show for it. Still, I leave Cosmo up. We then take the new walkway over to Vdara, and end up in Aria looking for milk shakes. But all they have there, are weird grown up flavored ones. Like coffee, prunes and the like. Nothing my kids will eat. 

Shake Shack it is once more! I do play a bit in to the night. And I lose another grand or so. And end the night, down $3,000 for the trip. 

Tuesday, Day four

Last day in Vegas. And we have a late flight out. Team Beta is on their own, and fly home well before us. Our flight out isn't until 5PM. I'm up and gambling by 8AM, and figure I have at least a few hours to get my money back. We have a late checkout at 1PM, which helps fill in the day. 

And things started off well enough! No huge wins. But more importantly, no huge losses. I also no longer have the bankroll to make $15-$20 bets

In years past, I wouldn't think about gambling on check out day. The old Vegas rating system was to base your comps on your Average Daily Theoretical losses. The ADT was set on the days you played. And since I could never get a full day in on check out day, me playing less then. Would hurt my averages and bring down my comps. 

But new Vegas is greedy. And most every place has switched to your "Trip" average. And that is to say, how much in aggregate you played in total, during your stay. So that check out day works its way in. This new rating favors those that stay and play longer. Where I had always been a 2 night player by design. And hopped mid trip to stay with a different club. Now that works against me.

I manage to make a decent little run on that last $1,000 I had to play with. But flew a bit too close to the sun, and lost that as well. 

We decide on an actual sit down family breakfast. But at 10AM on a Tuesday, only the America Cafe was open. And that's the place that provides the room service we have been living off of all week. It is what it is. And it was just average once more. 

To kill some time after we checked out at 1PM. We walked over to Excalibur. Which would also save us some cab money, as they are Zone one on the flat rate system. NY NY starts Zone 2, which ends at Bellagio. Caesars Palace starts zone 3 BTW. The lower the zone, the cheaper the flat rate fare. 

Whats Vegas with kids, if not yet another arcade? While they both voted the Big Apple arcade at NY NY was better. They still had plenty to play at the Fun Dungeon. We wasted another hour here, before heading to the airport. 

Speaking of the airport. I actually won something there! The airport had a lot of new machines, that MGM didn't. How the fuck does that happen?

From sunny and 70's back to snowy and 0 when we landed back home. All in all, I ran $35,000 through the slots at MGM at a cost of -$4,000. While not ideal, is still fair play with a little variance. I was wining for a couple days, so that's something! The room was valued at $2200. We ate $600 in free food. And I had over $1,200 in free play. All in all, still not bad. But it does end my streak of not going belly up in Vegas.