May 2011 40 Casinos in 6 days

Flight out on Sunday May 15th. Spirit is a dirty little plane, but for $230.00 round trip, I can suffer through it. Boys trip this time, just me and my brother. He has only been to Vegas 3 times before, so we had a lot of ground to cover this trip.

We would hit:

Aria

Bally's

Bellagio

Bill's Gambling Hall

Caesars Palace

Casino Royale

Cosmopolitan

Encore

Excalibur

Flamingo

Harrah's

Imperial Palace

Las Vegas Hilton

Luxor

Mandalay Bay

MGM Grand

The Mirage

Monte Carlo

New York New York

Palazzo

Paris

Planet Hollywood

Riviera

Stratosphere

Treasure Island

Tropicana

Venetian

Wynn

Sahara

Rio

Palms

Gold Coast

Binion's

California

El Cortez

Fitzgeralds

Four Queens

Fremont

Golden Gate

Golden Nugget

Vegas Club

Main Street Station

Average age of the 2 of us is 28. So with that being said no shows, no fancy eats, just wall to wall gambling. I don't bore my younger brother with video poker. Nothing worse for a companion gambler than to sit and watch the JOB grind for hours on end. So we decide to only play slots. Go big or go home.

4 Days at Planet Hollywood's Hollywood Hip room comped. Switch over on Wed to Treasure Island comped. Nothing fancy, but I like staying at both ends of the strip. Plant Ho room overlooked the Bellagio fountains, Cosmo & City Center.

Nice, but with just 2 Dudes we are not planning on staying in the room much.

PHo view. We landed the coveted McHales Navy room featuring Tom Arnold

Day1

Keep it local. Feed the Total Rewards casinos to pay for the free digs. Not much at home base, so we headed over to Paris. Took a beating there, but I always liked the place. Lots of older .25 games like Top Dollar, King of Cash & Money Mad Martians to keep me happy.

Truth be told, I don't think their inventory ever changes. But I don't complain since we don't play many of the newer pennies that are consuming casino floors everywhere. Connect over to Bally's and I finally hit something on a Quick Hits 5 line .25 game. Cash out my $80.00 profit and then blow it all at the Flamingo and Bill's playing 100 hand video poker. Get back to PHo and hit decent on a Phoenix Gold $1.00 slot. End the night up $80.00 Bro is down a hundo.

Day2

Its monorail day. Pick up our 24 hour passes and head over to Sahara for its final few hours. The place has plenty of lookey-lous, but no one is daring the slots. I figured I'd give the old girl a $20 and turned that into $30 and considered myself lucky.

The place was actually cleaner than I remembered it being last year. The restroom didn't stink, the floors were clean and the place smelled OK. Outside of that, nothing to report. We had full access to everything we wanted to see. No one tried to stop us from peeking into dark rooms.

The pictures of that are here.

https://sites.google.com/site/lvgrid/things-i-want-to-see

Since we are so far along the strip, we dropped in on the Stratosphere. I heard they pumped money into the place, and its been a few years since I saw it. Pretty nice. It still smells like a basement when you first walk in, but plenty of shiny slots and Roxie's Dinner looked pretty fun. Maybe it was because it was noon on a Monday but we were pretty much alone in the joint. At least they are trying.

Back on the rail with a quick stop at Hilton. Its sad to see they just abandoned what was left of Star Trek. It looks so stupid just sitting there by itself. The place now looks like Tomorrowland with lots of metal and futuristic buttresses. But without a reason for it being there. They tried to dress up that area by putting in a cheap little dance floor down, but that just made even less sense.

I found a Twilight Zone slot with a wheel so I gave it a $20 and it ended up paying out $140.00 after a very nice and fun bonus round. Lil Bro jumped over to a Bombs Away slot and went into the longest bonus round I have ever seen. I think he flew 7 missions blowing up amounts and ended up with over a hundo.

Sadly, since he won on this, he thought he would play it at every other casino he found it at. He ended up never winning again.

Back to the rail and we hit the MGM/Mirage trail! I'm just an Mlife Pearl and they haven't sent me many good offers lately, but they are always my Fav's. Hit a few decent wins there and over to the Trop. I like what they have done with the place. Very clean and everyone is very friendly. I almost felt bad fleecing them for $150. So I watched their little building show for a few minutes to make up for it.

Head into Excalibur and I was trying to get me a SpongeBob but some lady was cleaning the Claw Machine. So I put in my dollar and clonked her in the head a few times, just for fun, and a nice picture. She did not think it was nearly as funny as we did.

Mandalay-Luxor-Excalibur-NY NY- Monte Carlo round out the night. Few decent hits on $1.00 Instant Spin slots put me up $150.00 for the night. Bro is down another 2 bills.

Day3

We head out to Bally's to jump the free shuttle to The Rio. Plenty of room on the mini bus and we get there pretty fast. I haven't been there for a few years and my little Brother has never seen it. I like the place, they keep sending me free offers to stay there, but since its so locals oriented there is not much for us to play.

I hit for $250.00 on a $1.00 Big Monte wheel spinner and we walk over to the Gold Coast. I've never been there before and we were just going to use them as a stepping stone for the Palms. But we ended up staying for a little while. I have never seen that many video poker machines in my life! The average age of the place was about 70 so we felt a little out of place.

But money is money and they have a decent "in house" progressive that I just couldn't lose money on. .75 for max bet and it had little "Gold Coast" symbols on the reels but I didn't catch the name. Old School Reels is what I like, and these were pretty decent. Play some video poker with a wheel for $1.50 a shot and end up leaving there with about $80.00 of their money. I'd go back.

Nest stop, The Palms. It is always fun and I was racking some decent money of the new $1.00 Mega Millions slot. Its an IGT slot and has the same little guy that shows up on the new Top Dollar video hybrids. Three Reels for $3.00 and if you get a Megabucks icon or Multiplier symbol on any of the reels it throws those up to the top reels for some major action. I was up and down for about 10 minutes but cashed for $ 60.00 up.

We took a cab from there to Fremont St. I swear I couldn't hit for anything down there. I ended up dropping a $20.00 at every casino and only hit for $30.00 on an Elvis .25 machine at Mermaids. Man I miss the sound of quarters filling a pan!

Ended up pissing away a fast $50.00 at the Golden Nugget and we went back to home base. Ended the night down $200.00 same as my brother. After doing well all morning, it was Fremont Street (of all places) that did me in.

Day4

We pull a robbery on PHo and walk out on our room early to stay at TI. I took a beating all week at the Total rewards props, so no hard feelings there. I did get to see Holly Madison sitting at a Black Jack table with her entourage. She wasn't playing, just texting and ignoring anyone that had the gumption to say "Hello" to her.

My treasure Island offer was for 2 nights, $40 in Free Play and $25 in food. That's usually not enough to make me stay somewhere, but they offered an upgrade to their Petite Suite if I booked in a 72 hour window. So I pulled the trigger.

After taking the CET piss-on during the morning, I just wanted to start fresh somewhere new. I was already down about $150.00 when I checked into TI. The fine print on the free upgrade was "subject to availability". Considering I booked the offer almost 3 months ago, and I confirmed a week before we flew out that my reservation was still good, I figured no problems.

I was wrong. Basic room and no amount of bitching to to the receptionist or the players club booth would make them change their minds about dissing us. I took my free play and turned it into $50.00 cash on a 5 line .25 per Munsters slot. The last one in Vegas. And we bounced over to the Mirage.

I wasn't about to give TI my money after all this. Mirage was good to me and I was feeling the MGM roll, so we headed over to Aria. I didn't like it when it first opened, but now that I see everything complete, I'm in love.

Much better than Cosmo (which I lost at). I'll recap my Aria play at the end of my report. Walking by a $1.00 WOF machine on our way back to the room at TI, I drop in a 20 spot and Bam, wheel spin and I land the $1,000! End the night up $800.00 and I'm now out of the hole for the trip just like that!

Day5.

Our last full day. My kid brother has successfully pissed away his $200.00 daily budget and I only lost money on 1 day so I'm feeling good. So far I'm up about a grand with about 10 hours of non-stop gambling each day.

Now we do the walk of shame. I have never hit at the North End big 4 of Venetian/Plazzo & Wynn/Encore. But they are all so sexy and my brother wants to play them. I get killed at each, as usual. With the exception of $1.00 Pinball's at the Wynn joints. I played on 4 of them and within 20 bucks on each I got to play the bonus for no less than $60.00 a pop. That helped a little, but I still dropped $400.00 on that run alone.

I make him walk with me all the way back to Aria where I stumbled on a new 5 line .25 game earlier in the trip. I played through some comp dollars, $20.00 worth the last time, but I sat there for about 45 minutes on that 20. Turned it into $115.00 and cashed out. We were both sure we found the cash cow machine we have been searching for, and we were sure we could turn our money into some serious coin on that game.

We go back to her again, I drop in a $20.00 and about an hour later I'm only at about 30 bucks, but I have 300 MLife Session points! That's $600.00 through on one machine on a 20 spot! It runs out, so I drop another 20 in the same type of machine next to it. Sure as hell almost another hour and 300+ points later I cash out up $60.00.

I move to the next one, and I hit for another $80.00 right away and since it was already late, and our flight was leaving at 9:00 AM the next morning, we walk away. But I know I can milk that bank for huge points my next trip. I wont give away which ones they are. I don't want them to get wise since this is the only bank in Vegas I saw these new games at. But if you stumble on them you'll know right away that you'll stretch your buck! You wont get rich, but you wont get killed either.

Stop in at the Bellagio gardens on our way back to TI.

So trip results were me Up Almost $800.00 after all that gambling. Little Brother down his 1K bankroll. Lots of good hits on $1.00 Wheel of Fortunes & $1.00 Instant Spin Monte Carlo spinners. Godfather pennies gave me $125.00 the 1st time I played it, but killed me the rest of the trip. Kid brother had a few nice ones for around $150 a pop. And my $1,000.00 hit of $1.00 WOF was my biggest of the trip. Thanx for reading it guys!

I almost forgot to report the Vegas Happenings while I was out there. The De-Themeing of Luxor continues. They were chopping out the Egyptian Bazaar facades in the food court. Those were the little building you sit in when you eat. Sad since I love themes.

Also, Treasure Island, after chopping off the Spanish style fake balconies not too long ago, have graduated to killing off more Pirate stuff from the resort. They have the front entrance boarded up where there used to be a little bridge with water to short cut to the Pirate show or strip from the lobby. Its all gone. The water, the bridge all of it. You pretty much have nothing left all the way down to where Gilley's starts now. There is a sign there saying Starbucks coming soon.

Downtown, the Plaza was closed. I heard the casino would be open during the remodeling, but it looked like it was all shut down when we got there.

In Luxor, where they have a handful of stores on the Casino level, right next to Cris Angels store, there have an outlet store. I'm not sure if this is new, I've never seen it there before. It all of the clearance merchandise from all the other MGM resorts. Huge markdowns. Fluffy Mirage towels for 10 bucks, Big Dragons from Excalibur for 5 bucks etc. Worth your time.

A few more pictures I took.

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