LONG overdue Trip and Meet & Greet Report - Dec. '07

Well, I know I%26#39;ve been MIA around here for a while, but I want to make amends and get caught up, and I finally have somewhat of an evening where the planets and stars aligned to give me the opportunity to submit this long overdue TR...

I did my annual December pilgrimage to Vegas and L.A. and this time was able to convince my buddy Mike to join me. Mike had never in his life been out west, so it was fun for me to see in him the same kind of eye-opening amazement that I felt my first time out west. Growing up on the East coast all our lives, and never being west of the Mississippi, it is quite an eye-opener to be in the West, a land we%26#39;ve always heard about and read about and seen on TV and in movies to the point it was almost mythical. So to be there is amazing, and then add to that the whole spectacle of Vegas... So this was an especially fun trip for me as I got to introduce someone else to Vegas, and to the West in general.

WARNING: Yes, I am WAY over-detailed in the beginning, describing my travel to Vegas. I have labeled that part of my TR ';The Trip Out';. Please skip that part if it bothers you. For me it is part of re-living the experience. It%26#39;s one of the most exciting parts of the trip, because I actually love flying and I love the anticipation in flying to Vegas as opposed to the many business trip flights I%26#39;ve done in my life. So please don%26#39;t criticize me or complain, I%26#39;m giving you fair notice! Anyway, I%26#39;m sure many of you can relate! :) Just skip the beginning part of this TR if you want to get to the actual Vegas part.

TRIP REPORT (w/ M%26amp;G): Dec. 10-12, 18-23, 2007

MONDAY, DEC. 10:

THE TRIP OUT

After sleeping a few hours Sunday night, I woke up at about midnight, to begin what I call my ';reverse red-eye';, where I sleep a little at home, then pack and get to the airport during my normal sleeping hours, and then sleep on the plane during the morning hours on the way out... This works great for me because I%26#39;m so excited the night before I can barely sleep anyway, and I relish ever delightful moment of the ANTICIPATION of flying to Vegas!!! :)

3:30 AM - It is COLD, damp, drizzling a bit...I drive to the AirBrook shuttle near my home

4:00 AM - Board airport Shuttle

4:50 AM - Arrive at Terminal C in Newark Liberty Airport

5:15 AM - check in bags, kill a little time, and go thru security...

7:00 AM - I board the plane, coach, towards the back of the plane, where I selected a window seat with an empty middle seat next to me. Nobody ever takes the middle, so I stretch out my legs a bit more and enjoy having my own armrest! lol

7:25 AM - Plane pushed back RIGHT on time - we didn%26#39;t even have to wait in a long line of planes, which is usually the case at Newark - we were in the air within 10 to 15 minutes of leaving the gate!

After take-off, and watching the Manhattan Skyline (a foreshadowing of the NYNY in Vegas, perhaps?), Staten Island, and then Sandy Hook and the Jersey Shore disappearing beneath cloud cover, my bleary-eyed tiredness caught up to me, and I dozed off...so easy to do when the plane is ascending. After about 45 minutes, my well-trained ear heard the flight attendants coming down the aisle with breakfast, and I woke up. I actually love the cereal/milk/small banana and muffin breakfast Continental serves - hits the spot.

They announced that the normal movie was ';broken';, so they were substituting it with Oceans 11. Fine by me!!!!!! I started watching, then dozed off again. Woke up to catch the ending. No big deal that I slept through it, I%26#39;ve seen it before...but good to get more foreshadowing of Vegas! :)

I looked out the window, and I could see a patchwork of snowy farmland give way to snow-capped mountains, which in turn gave way to smaller brown mountains in a brown desert, with various canyons and gullies. I LOVE that window seat! It%26#39;s like looking at a large map! Nature is beautiful even from some 30,000 feet up!!!

The brown desert signaled the nearing of our destination, and sure enough we began the initial descent. I prepared for landing, packed away my PSP and books, and gazed out the window. Where%26#39;s that blue, where is it...ah, there. Lake Mead. Beautiful, bright azure against a sea of brownish beige desert and under the pale blue morning sky.

12:30 we begin the final descent, flying low over Lake Las Vegas and Henderson, and by 12:50 we are on the ground at McCarran. Everyone is wide awake and buzzing with subdued excitement! Flights to Vegas are the BEST flights I have ever taken!!! (And I%26#39;ve flown to a lot of places!)

I finally deplane at about 1:00 and go over to baggage. I love the feeling I have during this time. I%26#39;m anxious to get into town, but I am finally able to relax and breathe easy; I have arrived safely in Vegas and nothing can further delay me from getting there. I can deal with waiting for my bag or the long line at the rental car counter, because at least I%26#39;m HERE! :)

I get my bags, go to Thrifty (or was it Dollar? both are the same company and so similar, and both give the best deals in Vegas, and I use them both...) and finally get my car. A Subaru wagon. Very nice, nothing too fancy but very nice and an easy, fun car to drive. I throw my bags in the back. I have a smoke and relax, and then do what officially sets my Vegas vacation in motion - set my watch back! I love it! Time Travel! So I go from 2:00 PM back to 11:00 AM!!! I have a WHOLE DAY ahead of me in VEGAS, free to do whatever I want!

:::: This ends my overly detailed description of ';THE TRIP OUT';,

for those of you who wanted to skip it!

The rest of this TR is about Vegas itself! ::::

I will post the rest of the TR in pieces as responses to my OP, so they will follow here as well. :)

LONG overdue Trip and Meet %26amp; Greet Report - Dec. '07

DEC 10, cont%26#39;d...

I leave the Car Rental deck, hang a right, and another right onto Warm Springs, and then a right onto Las Vegas Blvd. Cruised up and the strip was nice and empty as I passed the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign. At Tropicana, I hung a left, and then cruised by In-N-Out as I was hungry. No crowd! It was only about 11:30 so I JUST beat the lunch crowd, within 10 minutes of my ordering the line was out the door. YUM In-N-Out, I crave this all year back east, and I love to indulge when I%26#39;m out west. YUM YUMMMM. Now I%26#39;m good. Now I%26#39;m not starving. Now I need a nap.

I went straight to the hotel to check in. El Cortez. I hate to let the secret out, but this place is the best deal going. One day people are going to realize that they%26#39;ve cleaned up the place, revamped the rooms a bit, they are very clean and their service is more than decent. It%26#39;s not the Mandalay Bay or Bellagio. It never will be. But it%26#39;s not the rat-hole it once was nor is it nearly as ';bad'; as it once was. It%26#39;s more than nice enough for decent, clean people to stay there, and there%26#39;s enough of the ';local color'; to make it more interesting than being in the strip hotels with the rest of middle America. Anyway, that%26#39;s just my opinion. No matter what, it%26#39;s a great place to save some money and be able to relax, sleep, shower, in between days and nights out and about in town.

So, at the El Cortez, I have a rate of $19 a night (thru Expedia) for two nights. I reserved a pavilion room w/ 2 queen beds, one of their older rooms that has a door to the outdoor corridor. It was cheaper than the tower, where I%26#39;ve stayed before, and I wanted to check out this cheaper room. I%26#39;ve reserved it before, and they%26#39;ve always told me it was unavailable and that I was being upgraded to the tower. Well, same thing again. I%26#39;m not upset, I like the tower, I know it%26#39;s probably a lot better, but I%26#39;m so curious to see what it%26#39;s like to spend a night in the pavilion rooms! But she said they are all full. No big deal. I go back to the parking deck, drag my stuff with me to the room, and collapse on the bed. Yes, on the bedspread, I know they%26#39;re filthy. But I%26#39;m wiped! And besides, I%26#39;m in my filthy ';traveling clothes';. Whenever I fly, I wear an old pair of jeans and a T-shirt that I plan on not wearing again during the trip because in my opinion the seats on the plane are almost as bad as any hotel bedspread, so I don%26#39;t mind that I%26#39;m in those clothes lying on the bedspread, since they%26#39;re already filthy and I won%26#39;t wear them again.

I crash out till about 3:00, wake up, shower, and drive out to Red Rocks to catch the last hour or two of day light. It is so serene and peaceful, on a Monday afternoon almost nobody is here and I relax and collect my thoughts and just bask in the comfort of knowing I have a fun trip ahead. It%26#39;s a bit chilly, a little windy, but compared to the cold I left back in New Jersey, it%26#39;s nice out, about 48 degrees. The sun drops and the temp drops with it, so I head out of Red Rocks. I end up driving in on Sahara, and stopping off at Elysium Internet Cafe. I stop in for a Green Tea and some free WiFi for my laptop, and I give my Vegas web pages one more look for coupons, deals, ideas, etc. before my buddy Mike gets out there the next day.

From there I start to head back and by now it%26#39;s about 7:00 PM and I am hungry again. I head down to the Palms... I love the Palms buffet because they serve Lebanese food (courtesy of the Lebanese owners, the Maloofs). My parents were both born in Beirut although we are Armenian) and I was raised on Lebanese food. When I used to bring my dad to Vegas each year till he passed away, he loved this Palms buffet for the Lebanese food. And so do I. So I figured I%26#39;d start off with this buffet. I had a discount also, it ended up costing me about 1/2...I can%26#39;t now remember where I got the discount though. The buffet was being redone last year when I was there, and this trip it was the ';new'; completed buffet. I enjoyed my tabbouleh, hummus, shawarma, kufta, and other fine Lebanese treats as well as some of the other fine offerings. But, to be very honest, this buffet has gone down in quality and value a little bit, since being done over. If it weren%26#39;t for the Lebanese food I might not eat here anymore, whereas before it was a better value and slightly better quality and I would have eaten there regardless of the Lebanese foods. Anyway, if you don%26#39;t care for Lebanese food, I don%26#39;t know if I%26#39;d recommend this buffet to anyone; it%26#39;s not bad, but it costs more than it should and it%26#39;s not great. You can do better, but you could also do much worse, and I%26#39;ll leave it at that.

After a satisfying meal, I strolled over to the craps tables. I was itching to play! The Palms had always been pretty good about having low minimums. However, I discovered on this trip that minimums were climbing all over Vegas. In the past the Palms probably would have had at least one $5 table on a dead Monday evening. Well not anymore. Now it was two $10 tables. OK. So I%26#39;ll play some $10 craps. The pit boss here always recognizes me, even though I show up there once or twice of my 2 or 3 trips to Vegas a year. Anyway, I don%26#39;t care, he%26#39;s always very friendly to me. It could be because I%26#39;ve had some big wins there which he noticed. I don%26#39;t know if he noticed some of my big losses there also. Anyway, on this evening, I start out with $100, and steadily lose it, until my last $20 or so, which happens to be bet on a lucky shooter, so I quickly earn back my $100 and then more. Being a degenerate gambler (kind of), of course I can%26#39;t walk away with $70 in winnings, so I proceed to gamble that, but I do manage to get out of there with my initial $100 and another $35 or so. Not bad!

So now it%26#39;s almost 10...I cruise around the city a bit, take in the sights, and then hit Cheetah%26#39;s ';gentlemen%26#39;s club'; for a little ';entertainment';, since I probably won%26#39;t get much of a chance to later. A part of me always thinks that one day I%26#39;ll walk into one of these ';Gentlemen%26#39;s Club'; and find a bunch of wealthy old men with English accents wearing tuxes and monocles, sitting around in big leather chairs and eating CLUB sandwiches and drinking CLUB soda, so it would be a true CLUB of GENTLEMEN. But it always turns out to be a bunch of less than gentlemanly men in there and some ';exotic dancers';, as I expected, lol.

I get back to the El Cortez and park, and before heading up I stroll down to the Fremont and grab a 99-cent shrimp cocktail, watch the light show, blow 10 bucks in a penny slot at Vegas Club (that Goldfish game - it%26#39;s ADDICTING! And I HATE slots normally!) and then stroll back to the El C, where I call it a night, after a LOOONG but great first day in Vegas! :)

To be continued...

LONG overdue Trip and Meet %26amp; Greet Report - Dec. '07

DEC. 11

I wake up refreshed and happy to be in Vegas! No shower, I throw on my dirty jeans and t-shirt and fleece and a hat, and I stroll out onto Fremont. Over to the Starbucks at the Golden Nugget. It%26#39;s not too cold today, upper 50%26#39;s maybe. I grab a coffee and a pastry for breakfast. Head back to the El C. and grab a shower.

Mike%26#39;s flight was due in around 10 AM, but I figured I%26#39;d get ready and head to the airport early. As I was just finishing getting dressed, Mike called me to say he had arrived and gotten his bags; his flight was ridiculously early! But that%26#39;s a great thing! I was pretty much ready so it only took me 15 minutes to get to McCarran and pick him up. What a difference being picked up and driven to a room that%26#39;s already checked in! It took all of half an hour, which included cruising up the strip, compared to the day before when it took me almost an hour to get my bag, take the shuttle, get the rental car, and then another hour to drive to the hotel, get checked in, and make a second trip back to the car to get my bags and take them to the room! So we got Mike%26#39;s stuff into the room. That room was huge for 2 of us. We each had a queen-size bed and plenty of room for bags and stuff. So he sees the room, great... Of course he was starving after his long flight from North Carolina, and of course I had always told him about In-N-Out over the years, so we headed over to In-N-Out on Sahara (or Maryland maybe?) and grabbed him a burger.

I then told him that my plan for the day was to show him Mt. Charleston. So we headed out to Mt. Charleston. Mike was surprised to learn that there was snow, much less substantial amounts of snow out in the desert! We went straight on that first road (before turning to go up to the top) and drove into the small developed area there, and then stopped at the information center. The information center looked like it was a small cabin up in the Rockies or Alps more than something in the desert! Mike was fascinated with this and, even though this wasn%26#39;t new to me, so was I. No matter that I%26#39;ve seen it before, it%26#39;s still neat to me that I can drive less than 15 miles from where there%26#39;s no snow at all to where the ground is completely covered with snow. From there we drove up to the top of Mt. Charleston. I stopped at that highest lookout point, the atomic bomb viewing point. We took in the entire valley. It was COLD up there. Mike snapped some pics and we got out of there. We headed up to the ski area, again Mike was surprised to see a fully operational ski and snowboard center up there. We walked around a bit and then headed back.

I had told Mike about the Meet %26amp; Greet and told him he didn%26#39;t have to come, that it was a bunch of us Travel Nerds who talk on TripAdvisor, but Mike is always up for a new and different experience and decided to come along. We headed back to the El C and cleaned up and dressed and headed over to the GG. We walk in about 1/2 hour late and I realize I never did read what I was supposed to look for, and how to identify Vegascalling... Having been to a previous M%26amp;G earlier in the year, I knew that it would probably be a kind of mixed-looking crowd. We saw 3 mixed-looking crowds though. So we figured we%26#39;ll grab some shrimp cocktail and look around. As we%26#39;re eating, we notice a group by the bar, and that they have name-tags. But for some reason, to me, they looked like they all knew each other too well to be the TripAdvisor group... Well, of course they all knew each other all too well, just through TA!! We strolled by casually, and sure enough, it was our Meet %26amp; Greet group. Vegascalling%26#39;s husband Patrick had a TA hat or shirt on which gave it away. Well, we had a great time enjoying the company of people I%26#39;ve had the pleasure of reading and being read by in my time on the Vegas forum. It was especially nice to have an international group, as we had 2 couples from the UK with us - funinhoundslow and his wife, Bev, and madmand and her husband, Gareth. After some great conversation with the vegascalling and her husband (despite her story of a rough trip out to Vegas) and our English friends, Stratton came over and introduced himself. Ah yes, Stratton, who I have seen ubiquitously in the Vegas forums, and have appreciated his many interesting posts...he was looking very much in the holiday spirit in his red vest. Santa would have been proud! After a while we headed out to see the Christmas tree lighting, but that was a false alarm, so we headed back to the GG, then back to the Christmas tree lighting. It was a fun ceremony, not too long, and I think Mayor Goldman was drunk...I guess Hannukah came early for him! lol Anyway, after the ceremony we all parted ways...Mike and I weren%26#39;t up for a long night anyway, as we were driving out to San Diego the next morning.

So we left Fremont, hopped in the car and headed out for a buffet dinner, as Mike was anxious to try his first Vegas buffet. I chose the Orleans for its value and also to give Mike a peek at an off-strip casino/hotel that isn%26#39;t downtown. We had our buffet. Mike is a voracious eater, and he quickly learned that his style of eating and buffets don%26#39;t go well together, lol. After that buffet he slowed it down somewhat any time we hit a buffet later in the trip.

After a great dinner, about 9:30 PM, we strolled slowly out onto the casino floor, and just took a stroll. Both of us were being somewhat money-conscious, at the very least not wanting to lose money early in the trip, as we were going to San Diego, L.A., and Palm Springs and then back to Vegas. So we had no plans on gambling, and we didn%26#39;t have much time anyway. We strolled by several different games, peeked in the poker room, checked out the sports book, and then strolled on over to Craps as I always like to see what%26#39;s going on at the tables. We saw a few $5 tables going, and one had a big open area from the stickman to the hook, so we kind of hung a foot back from the rail and watched. Mike had never played much craps, and wanted to play on this trip, but had a few questions, so we used this as the perfect learning opportunity for him. He knew the pass line bet, but wanted to learn the Come bet. I explained the come bet to Mike and luckily for us there was a guy playing come bets on our side of the table. So we watched him place his come bet, and then I%26#39;d talk Mike through what happened to that come bet with every toss of the dice. Of course Mike picked it up pretty quickly because it%26#39;s the same basic idea as a pass line bet, but he was still getting a bit thrown off during come-out rolls and what happened to the come bet during those.

At one point, our come bettor stopped his come bets. So I took out $60 with the sole intention of using it to teach Mike. I figured I would just play it till I lost it all, and Mike would have covered half of it anyway. So we watch as I did come bet after come bet, no pass line bet. I%26#39;d win one, lose a couple, win one, lose a couple...back and forth until my $60 was gone. Mike was getting the hang of it so he didn%26#39;t want to stop, so he pulled out $60 and we re-loaded. This time he placed the bets and threw down the crap-checks and the odds, and I%26#39;d talk him through whenever he needed help. Well, he got the swing of it pretty quickly. The table was so relaxed and fun, even though we weren%26#39;t winning, we weren%26#39;t getting killed quickly, so we each took some more money out and kept playing, very casually and conservatively. There were still a bunch of cowboys still around from the NFR, and we had a few at our table, and we were entertained by them, so it was worth it to keep playing.

The first cowboy did alright. We nicknamed him ';cowboy crif'; (it%26#39;s a long story). He rolled for a while and we went back and forth but ultimately won a little money off his pass. Next was the ';nashville cowboy';, a kind of fake looking cowboy. We called him ';Kenny Chesney';. He didn%26#39;t do well at all, as we expected. But after him, was a cowboy who was an older guy, salt-and-pepper beard and dressed all in black w/ a black hat, and I dubbed him ';Black Bart';. We both knew Black Bart was the real deal, and bet heavily on him. Sure enough, it paid off. Black Bart hit our come bets for us, and then we played pass line plus come bets on his roll, and he hit those too. He also hit hardways, in particular the hard eight which he hit twice in a row, and I had pressed it after the first time he hit it, so on that bet alone I won $90! Overall, Mike and I made good money on Black Bart. We each recouped the $100 or so we lost and then won on top of that, Mike in the area of $100 and I won closer to $200.

So Mike%26#39;s first day in Vegas was a great one. He had In-N-Out burger, visited Mt. Charleston, got to see the desert up close, went to a Meet %26amp; Greet and met some different folks, had a Vegas buffet, and experienced a fun time at Craps which also was profitable! We were done for the day. We headed back to the hotel and packed up a bit and hit the sack.

DEC 12 - Wednesday

Wednesday morning, we packed up and checked out of the El C. We had to go to the Rental Car center to turn in our car and get one from Hertz, as I had a 1-week free rental from Hertz because of my President%26#39;s Club points. We went to the rental car center and made the switch, and Hertz gave us a nice new Lincoln MKZ, really a nice car! Again I attribute that to my President%26#39;s club status, but whatever the reason, it was a nice ride. I had driven the Subaru down to the Hertz lot, unloaded all our stuff and left it all there with Mike, drove the Subaru up to the third floor to Thrifty or Dollar or whoever, then walked down to Hertz and picked up the new car, and we loaded it. What a hassle! But we managed. Then we hit the road to San Diego.

As we headed down I-15, I told Mike that I traditionally always stop in Jean or Primm as I leave Vegas for ';one last game'; of either craps or blackjack (even though I kind of hate blackjack), since that will be the last gambling for a while. So we hit Whiskey Pete%26#39;s. We found a craps table but it was dead, so we headed over to blackjack. It was horrible. We both lost. The whole time, there was an older Asian man who would jump in and out of the game, and at this $3 table, he was betting $100 chips. He would jump in, lose, then get mad and leave, then come back a deal later, and play two hands, and bet $25 on one and $500 on the other, and then lose, etc. It was annoying, but even more weird than annoying. What was most annoying, though, was that we lost some of our winnings from the night before. Mike decided that my tradition is a stupid one, and I guess it is. Oh well! lol

From there we headed out on I-15, stopping at Alien Fresh Jerky in Baker, and then at Calico Ghost town just outside of Barstow. Calico let us in for free or for like $2, and all their ';special'; attractions were free that day, probably because it was dead since it was ';cold'; for the locals and only crazy fools from the east coast would be outside on a sunny day in the %26#39;60%26#39;s walking around. So we unwittingly ruined the day of a Mormon kid who worked there giving tours by asking for the tour of the mine-house. He made us regret it, though, so we got ours, lol. He gave the most unenthusiastic tour I%26#39;ve ever seen, and I think he was just making a point, lol. Touché, my friend! But at least we got to pan for gold. I mention this in the TR because I want anyone reading to know about Calico, it%26#39;s a cute little ghost town, the kind that as a kid I had always seen people on TV and in movies going to but never got to go myself. I think if you%26#39;re traveling through and you have kids, or even as a day trip from Vegas if you have kids, Calico is a great stop for the family.

Anyway, from here we were off to San Diego, then L.A., then Palm Springs for a few days...I%26#39;ll continue this TR later, starting with our return on the following Tues. nite. And it probably won%26#39;t be as drawn out as it%26#39;s been...but I am not making any promises! :)

Wow, long overdue johnny, wondered what had happened to you! I enjoyed meeting you.

hey Stratton! Yeah I kind of dropped off the face of the earth since that trip... just been real distracted with real life. Mike and I enjoyed hanging out with you at the M%26amp;G also! I read up on your TR, sounds like you and your lady friend had a great time!

Anyway, I%26#39;ll be finishing this TR in different, new post, and I%26#39;m gonna try to be a lot less long-winded, lol. Then I%26#39;ll have another TR for a trip I just took in March, so I%26#39;m way behind on my TA TR%26#39;s.

Thanks for the shout and good to hear from you again. Hopefully we will meet up at another M%26amp;G, I%26#39;ll probably be back in Vegas this December again.

Johny-Nice TR so far...great to hear about another Armenian raving about food and vegas...I thought I was the only Armenian here on the forum :)