h Sept 2017 Vegas Just Wont Let Me Lose Part II

The Saga Continues... Part II

Day 4

My turn to wake up early with the kids. The Strip is in full glow at 5AM local time. We head down to Walgreen's for snacks and drinks while Mom sleeps in a bit.

Since we are next to the Venetian, we stroll around there for a spell.

The Hulkbuster Ironman suit was pretty neat. The Octopus was the third grossest thing we saw, the second was watching a Bum, through the side window of a bridge elevator, piss into a Sunny Delight bottle. And it didn't look like he got it all in there!

We took our chances on the escalator instead of riding down in the bums personal urinal.

For the second leg of the trip, I have made amends with Total Rewards. I would always lose hard at their casinos. Coupled with teh fact that they slashed my comps in half, post bankruptcy, so it has been years since I stayed/played with them.

But they have been rolling out the red carpet for their formal players as of late. They ended up matching me to a Diamond card, and prorated the points I needed to keep it through 2018 at just 6,250 tier credits.

I ended up booking an offer for 2 nights in the August Suite at Caesars Palace, with $190 in cash + $100 in Reward Credits + $95 on a resort portfolio. Why the weird numbers? Who knows. But it was good enough to bring me in the door.

I set the girls free, they wanted to go shopping and eat. I was going to get everything set up at Caesars for the move over.

First stop, Harrah's, since I haven't played there in years. Well, that and the proximity to Treasure Island.

In short order I drive my $100 buy-in up to $527 on the below hits.

Once again, all my money for the trip back!

I cash out that ticket, slip $400 back in my wallet and briefly get up on the new Penn & Teller slot.

But that was the beginning of the end for me here. I dropped all my winnings on stupid Penn & Teller, Anchorman and a series of bad choices. Fucking CET. When will I learn?

I hop on the monorail, I still have that 24 hour pass you know, and end up at Bally's.

The word online was that they have a series of machines that earn double Tier Credits. And since I need 6,250 by the end of the year, I'm going to plug away on them!

The entire back wall in the High Limit room has a sign saying "Double Reward Credits Here". Those are those machines that ALSO earn double TC's.

I got my ass handed to me on them. I dropped $300 in a blink. I have to think they tightened the shit out of them in order to pay off the double point deal. Big mistake on my part.

They have another bank of Blazing 7's on the main floor across from there, same double point deal. And the same result. I was bleeding fast, and it wasn't even breakfast time yet!

So I do what any rational gambler would do. I upped my bet to get out of a hole and..............

Jackpot! I fucking love Vegas!

Sure, it took a $20.00 bet. I was going to run my last $70 through betting like a champ. Either I would be a winner, or a degenerate loser.

Total after the bonus round was done, just $1,020.50. Why that was a Handpay I cant say. But tax free!

I tip the cat that paid me the $21 in garbage bills and I head back to Harrah's to get the rest of my money back from them.

Not much to report at Harrah's. After Zorroing the fuck out of Bally's I did manage to take almost $100 back from Harrah's. I'm now safely back up for the trip by a couple hundred dollars.

It was a gut wrenching swing! I pissed $800 in a blink, then up $200. Vegas just wont let me lose!

Checking in at Caesars was a breeze. The room was ready early, but I had to jump through hoops to get all of the other comps added. The desk had to call a player development person to activate my $95 portfolio.

Second stop was the Hosts office. He had to walk me over to the cage to sign for the $190 in cash. Then I had to go to the Rewards Booth for my $100 in Reward Credits.

All in all, it took nearly an hour to get everything done and added, and I had to talk to three different people (who each had to talk to yet another person) in order to do so.

CET is always so weird. With their $190 cash, I'm now up $400 for the trip. So I try my luck in the Forum Casino.

I did manage a decent $200 win by the time the wife said they were ready to move over.

With only the Mirage between ti & CP, we make it over to our new home base in no time.

The Augustus Suite is very nice. Plenty of room to throw our shit around. But with only one bathroom, I'm not sure how we would survive the next 3 days

Now that is the view I had hoped for in Vegas! I had a clear shot of the Bellagio fountains to boot.

With half the day wasted away already, we gather up the kids and hit the Forum Shops. For those of you that have never been, shame on you! It is a Vegas must do. Boasting of 635,000 SQFT of Retail, Marble and Vegas charm.

The do still have the "Fall of Atlantis" show running, but with shows every hour on the hour, we kept missing it.

Not sure why there is a fish tank in nearly every hotel, mall or bathroom in Vegas. But my girls always like to stop and tap on the glass. I really should think about buying them a real pet at home.

Grab diner in the Forum Food Court at Caesars, always good and always pricey. They have an Earl of Sandwich here, to match the one that has been at Planet Ho for years. I coughed up the $6.99 for one of those delicious tiny sandwiches in the past. But I nearly shit myself when I saw they were $9.99 now.

I still ate them, just charged to the room to burn some comps. But if I was spending MY money, no fucking way!

Back to the room for the girls for the night, and they got to watch the water show all they wanted.

One of the most underrated things about a family trip to Vegas, is the fact that you can look around and soak things in. When I'm in town without the kids, its usually just hopping from machine to machine. But when you get to play tourist, you can really soak in all that there is to see.

Like these three fucks. I never noticed them before in all the times I walked through the casino here.

Speaking of three Roman fucks, I hit this almost immediately after taking that picture. Just adding to my pile of cash on the trip.

Sadly, I pissed away most of that $400 chasing on a new Elvis machine. It sucked my money fast, but when it was hitting, it was a ton of fun!

And with that, I cash out on Elvis with nearly my full $400 back. Thanks to the King, my "Cant Lose" streak continues...

But I almost pissed all of that away, until I got a $150 hit on whatever the hell this game is.

But it was just the beginning of the end tonight. I end up losing that TITO as well, plus another $400 of my money.

I cant really take all the blame here. I was playing the right games, my bonus rounds were just shit. If you have read any of my recent trip reports, I like playing the game "Aftershock". 5 lines, $5 max bet and the bonus rounds are usually good for a hundo or so.

So help me God, I had to have had 5 or 6 bonuses this trip where I won under $25. That's just 5 times my bet. The biggest shit pile of them all was a $6.00 bonus here.

It usually triggers bonus every 20-30 spins. You can get lucky and hit one right away. My bonus were coming on schedule, but being $100-$150 in and "winning" $10 in a bonus started to hurt.

Not feeling the vibe at CP any more, I head over to the Linq. I like the casino space since they remodeled. And it looks like they have a lot of good games I like here.

Man, did that piss in my face really fast. Dropped a hundred playing the new Harley Davidson slot. Moved to the machine next to it and dropped another $100. That makes 5 attempts on Harley this trip. Negative $500 and not a single bonus. I've since moved on from that trashbag.

I played around and lost some more. By the time I walked out of the Linq, I was now down $400 for the trip. So what do you do when you are losing? Start chasing!

So I head over to the Flamingo, and lose $200 playing games like stupid Aftershock, before finally getting a decent bonus to pull back to even..

I skip over the Cromwell, it just isn't the type of space I like playing in, and head back to Bally's. I lose a couple hundred more playing those shit double point slots.

I start max betting on some nickle machines, I was $150 in when I hit for a hundo below, so I took it and ran.

What a sad state of affairs. I went on tilt and had no one there to snap me out of it. I should probably go back to the room by this point...

But what am I? A quitter? The goal was to earn 1,000 Tier Credits today. That would get me a 1,000 TC bonus. Do that again tomorrow and I'd have 4,000 points towards my goal of 6,250 to stay Diamond in 2018.

The machines absolutely suck balls when telling you your tier score. Some are outdated, others only show you the points earned at THAT casino, but not in total for ALL linked casinos that day.

So I head to Paris next door and check with them at their booth. I toss the kid my card and ask for my point total on the day. The answer, 1,900.

So I over kicked with about $10,000 of coin in. I do the math, and if I earn just 600 points more, that would trigger a 5,000 tier credit bonus. Giving me a total of 7,500 and goal reached.

Always a sucker for value, I just plan on throwing more money in the air and hope for the best. Even if that means I have to sit out gambling tomorrow. I'm too close to walk away now.

So I hunker down to a quarter version of my BFF Texas Tea. And I went on a tear!

I end up with just over 600 more points, and I head back to the same kid at the booth to confirm. "2,514 points Sir." So I'm now in the clear!

But this past 4 hours ends up costing me a total of $900 of my original bankroll, plus whatever winnings I had today.

Not sure if those shitty dry wings in the Diamond Lounge was worth roughly $1,500. But in all fairness, I didn't go into the day planning on losing. The way this trip was going, I planned on shitting out another Horseshoe to bail myself out.

But alas, I head back to the room for the night. Somewhat sad that I lost my mojo. But still also pumped at just how much fun I was having.

All told, after 4 days of gambling, over $30,000 of coin run through the machines, I was only looking at a $900 hit to my original bankroll. And that is more than fair.

Day 5

Last full day in town, flight out early tomorrow. I split what was left of my bankroll and hand half to the wife. If I go home with some money, as far as I'm concerned, that makes me a winner. I'm fully prepared to lose the cash I bring with on vacation. So going home with a dollar means I won a dollar in Vegas.

I told you guys, it's a sickness!

I take the kids on an early morning stroll again so Mom can sleep in one last time, like she never gets to do at home.

The oldest kid is sick of hearing about how I kept my Diamond status after just one night. I needed someone to talk to, and my youngest just makes pig noises when I try to talk to her.

I grab my lose change and tell the big kid to ask this deity for Daddy to get his money back... Can't hurt right?

If Hell's Kitchen is going to open this winter, they better speed the fuck up! As of right now it is nothing more than steel and noise.

Typical Vegas breakfast of chips, juice and sightseeing.

We head over to the Bellagio to see what is going on there at 6AM. Turns out they were still setting up their fall display.

The kids love trucks and trees, so a good time was had by all. The talking tree, and his tree demon buddies, didn't seem to freak my girls out at all. But I thought they were a bit creepy.

We start to head over to the Bellagio-Aria-Monte Carlo Monorail, just to fill in time. When we spot a huge Christmas display. Shame on you Bellagio. The middle of September, over a month away from Halloween, you are still putting up your fall display but have the gull to sell Santa Toys?

Turns out the Monorail was down for scheduled maintenance. In all fairness, I'm sure we would have been their only shoppers this early anyway.

Mom finally wakes up, and we head over to the buffet at Paris to piss away some more comp money.

The buffet is good, as always. And I love being in this space. I love me a good theme and the Paris buffet was certainly not lacking there.

Breakfast Ice cream can win you some fans really fast...

I skip out on the buffet a little early to smoke, while the wife cleans off our filthy sticky kids. And I slip $100 into a dollar quick hits machine in the High Limit Lounge. Why a $2.00 max bet machine is in there? Who the Hell knows. But once again Vegas has saved my ass!

Before I can put out my dirty cancer stick, I'm watching $1,000 count up in front of me with 3 Quick Hits! Just like that, I'm back up! Vegas just wont let me lose!

But I will give some credit to the 36 cents the big kid put in the Four-Faced Brahma Shrine in front of CP this morning. I knew it couldn't hurt!

With that, I hand the wife some more money, enough to cover what I took out of the bank to start the trip with. I did have some petty cash of my own to increase my seed money. But that was mostly from past local casino wins. So from here on out, I'm playing with found money.

We stop in the Paris gift shop to see if we can piss away any rewards credits. Nope, but these guys have Christmas on the brain as well.

I follow the girls back up to the room, but now I'm horny to gamble again. The euphoria of losing, winning, losing and winning is so intoxicating. When things are going your way, Vegas is just about the best place on the planet for a Bloke like me.

I lose a couple hundo between Caesars & Paris, so I head over to Bally's. I'm doing OK here and get back my money within an hour. Those hits are below. I started with a fresh Benny and cash out with 3 of them.

Right back to what I started with this morning.

The wife texts me where I was hiding, and said they were up from their nap. I tell them to head out and I'd meet them on the bridge. We were all heading to Bally's any way for their Real Bodies exhibit.

I ended up getting 2 free passes for being Diamond. It was pretty much the only thing we could do with the kids from their list. The youngens get to go in for free, so it cost nothing.

It's OK. It is pretty much a smaller version of the one from Luxor. And much smaller than the traveling exhibit we saw in Chicago years ago. That one had a giant skinned Horse!

But it does rank as the #1 grossest thing we saw this trip, if you ask the kids.

To me, you see one split open plastinated cock, you have seen them all.

From what I can understand, these were all sliced up Chinese Prisoners. So if the corpses look Asian to you, now you know why.

The little kid thought this was a clown. It doesn't take much of an imagination to see what she saw. By and large, both kids thought all of this was a little lame.

Not that I thought they would be fascinated by it, I just thought the gross factor would have kept them some what engaged.

It only took about 30 minutes to see/read most everything in there. If you have ever been to the basement shopping area of Bally's, they converted the sundries shop down there into this.

It was OK, for free. No way in Hell I would pay $30 each to go see this. If you dont gamble enough to score free tickets, it looks like it is popular on Groupon.

They really only needed to have a man and woman on display. Just to see the insides of their naughty parts. It's not like the submandibular glands look different from one body to the next. Am I right?

From there, we head over to Flamingo for a nice palate cleanser in their Flamingo Gardens.

It is a great little free attraction, fish, turtles, birds and a nice Tropical setting. If you have never dropped in, you should plan to do so. Its in the far back area just past the casino, and across from their Diamond Lounge, by the pools.

Head out the side door of the Flamingo and into the Linq. Its now a great space to meander, and much more useful than the old Hooker Alley it once was.

Next stop, a spin on the High Roller. I tried scoring free passes from my host. No dice. They used to give these away if you drew a Black Jack at the old Quad (before renaming it the Linq). Hell, with the Diamond card you used to get a free pair of passes.

These days, I guess it is a hot commodity. If you are Diamond, you can go to the Reward Desk at the Linq and get a BOGO pass. Don't listen to the lies at the other Rewards Booths. Two of them told me to go directly to the box office and show them my card.

No dice, they needed the comp slip, with a code specific to you, to get the BOGO deal.

For $22.00, and the kids riding free, I'm a rider. Add in me paying with the Reward Credits they gifted me, and its free once more.

People have asked me if it's worth it. I guess it depends on what you like. For us, for 20 bucks, yes. It gives the kids the chance to act like fools in a bubble for 30 minutes. And it is a neat view of Vegas from above.

If you are doing the bar cabin with your buddies at night, it might be worth it to you as well. It costs more dough to take a spin in the dark. But the views of the Strip are a little sexier.

If you and 3 friends just want to kill some time, take the $100 you would piss away on this and group play a slot in the HL room. That would be more interesting then going in a circle and mostly seeing parking garages.

Family Shot!

We cross back over to CP and head into the Bacchanal Buffet. We have had it before, and the wife likes herself a fancy meal. Me and the kids? Not so much. We lived off of mashed potatoes, fries and some Chinese food.

We didn't pay for it, or use our comps. I had a $100 Diamond Celebration dinner I had to waste somewhere. And this was pretty much $100 on the money.

The space is massive, the selections are huge and the line to get in are always long. If you have at least a Platinum card, you can skip the lines.

Everyone full, we head back up for the night. I get them settled in, and I head down to see what I can do with a few hundred bucks.

I lose $150 on Woman Woman without a single bonus, but I do get a line hit for $300 so I forgive her.

A rare Aftershock bonus that didn't suck balls this trip. But that was about it for me. I dropped a couple hundred playing Elvis, I bet big on a few nickle machines looking for one last score. But it wasn't to be.

I never kissed ruin this trip, and I pulled myself out of a hole way too many times. All told, I paid cash for most things I didn't have a comp for, add in my gambling loses for the trip and an entire Vegas Vacation cost me around $600ish.

Almost all week, Vegas just wouldn't let me lose!

Head back up to the room, tell the wife I'm going to re-pocket the last of my cash. And we sit back on the couch and watch the fountain show from the comfort of our room.

One of the best trips I have had in awhile.

I went from never winning at a Total Rewards Vegas casino in years, to holding my own for a couple days. I did manage to earn another 1,000 Tier Credits tonight, giving me a 1,000 bonus as well.

I flew into Vegas with 500 or so points, and I flew home with almost 10,000.

Total comps for this trip, 3 nights in a suite at Treasure Island + $575 in total free/point play.

2 nights in a suite at Caesars + $190 cash + $300 in funny money to piss away + 2 free show tickets. So for $600, I feel pretty good about things.

Last Day

Normally I dont do a last day if it is just a trip to the airport. But when we got on our flight, we ended up with the Spirit "Lucky Seat". Good enough for 2 round trip tickets on a future flight!

200 people on board, and Vegas picked us to win!

Like I said, Vegas just wont let me lose! Well, this time at least...

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