Monday April 1, 2002
I got up pretty late today. It was actually after 11am. I’m not sure why but I guess I needed the rest. I got ready and finished packing. Today is going to be a busy day since I will be moving to the Palms. I also have to return this rental car and pick up the new one. Normally I don’t do this because the savings isn’t worth it but this time it’s going to save me about $90 so I figured it’s worth the time even if it takes 2 hours. I will also be checking into Main Street Station to take advantage of a promo that they sent me.
It was after 1pm by the time I was ready to get moving out of here. I still had to stop by the slot club to pick up my cash back. I had over 85,000 points. Half of them were from my last trip that I never cashed out. Normally I wouldn’t have left $100 in my account like that but when I left that day I had plans of going back later in the trip and never made it. If you recall that was the trip that I got sick for a few days and didn’t get to do a few of the things I had planed. This got me $212 in cash. I also went over the 100,000-point lifetime level and get a nice polo shirt for reaching this goal.
I finally left the Suncoast and the valet had my car to me in less then 3 minutes. That was pretty impressive.
My first stop was over to the Rampart Casino to grab some chips. You know this place. It’s the only casino in town that’s had more names than it’s had birthdays. Formerly know as the Regent Las Vegas and the Resort at Summerlin. If they don’t get their act together they will be known as the out of business casino. Just like last time I went in here there probably weren’t 50 people in the whole place. I had no plans to play here but they had a $3 craps table that had some people around it. I got into the game and made a few quick bucks when the shooter established a point of 10 and hit it on the next roll. He followed up with a 4 and made that too. I took my quick profit and ran. So far I am undefeated at the Rampart Casino!
From the Rampart it was on to the Palms where I will be spending the next 4 nights. I set this up by contacting one of their casino hosts through e-mail and telephone. When I got here there was no line at registration and in just a few minutes I was up in my room. I am on the 25th floor in 25107. The rooms here are nice but nothing spectacular. It’s done up in tans and browns. There is a wall unit that holds the 27-inch TV with a mini bar, closets, dressers, a safe, and iron and board. They also offer a Web TV type of Internet access for $9.95 per day. The bed has a nightstand on each side with a phone and alarm clock. There is also a small sitting area with 2 armchairs and a small table and a work desk.
The bathroom is large but basic. It has a hair dryer and coffee maker. They also give you the basic soaps and shampoos.
I have a view of the Gold Coast and Rio across the street. I can also see the Strip from Caesars all the way to the Stratosphere and the entire downtown area.
After getting settled into the room it was time to head back to Alamo to return my rental car and pick up a new one. As I said earlier I don’t normally do this but overall it was going to save me about $90 so I figured it was worth my time to do it even if it took 2 hours. That would still work out to be about $45 an hour!
It seemed like it took forever for me to get down the Strip from Flamingo to Sunset. There wasn’t anything going on down at the South end of the strip and it made no sense to me why traffic was so backed up. I eventually made it down to the part of the strip and stopped at Terrible’s just before Sunset Rd. to gas up the car before returning it. Drop off went smooth and I went back inside to pick up a second rental. The wait in line was only about 10 minutes instead of the hour and 10 minutes I had last week. This agent tried to hard sell me the extra insurance and used the scare tactic of telling me about getting charged for downtime until the car is fixed. She seemed pretty pissed I declined but tough. I’m covered through my insurance and my credit card.
I had a Chevy Malibu again and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it was the same friggen car I just dropped off. Well it wasn’t a terrible car but I was hoping for better one since this car was pretty beat, mainly by me. No problem though. At least I didn’t have to set all the radio stations on the radio, adjust the mirrors, and the seats!
In a few minutes I was on my way to the downtown area again. I was going to be checking in at Main Street Station. I got a mail offer that I booked before booking the Palms. It offered 2 complimentary nights and double points during my stay. I’ve never been a big fan of the hotel here based on its location to the freeway and the train tracks but it’s not that bad. I do like the casino and the scratch card promotion they have for hitting quads.
I got the check in and there wasn’t anyone there so I was in my room 1203 in a matter of minutes. The rooms here are pretty much all the same. This was 2 queens, a TV cabinet/dresser combo, nightstand and table and chairs. The bathroom is split into to separate rooms, one with the toilet and tub, the other with the sink. These rooms have no extras at all to offer. One thing they don’t have but should really add is an alarm clock in the room.
After checking out the room and resting for a short while I went down to he casino to register for my 2X points then began to play. I hit the 8/5 bonus 5-play machines that take 10 coins per line. This is just about the same as playing 10-play that I was at the Suncoast. These machines can be streaky and the first $100 disappeared in no time. I popped another in and got quite a bit of play but eventually that disappeared too. I decided to try one more and this lasted for a few hours. I was hitting quads and getting scratch cards. The machine was still up and down and I’d go stretches losing $200 at a time and then hit a few quads and be up $200. I was even lucky enough here to hit a few sets of aces. These were paying 800 coins each since this was a 10 coin machine. After running over $12,000 through the machine and being up by $200 I cashed out. I t was a hand pay and after I was paid I actually tipped the change girl a few bucks. I don’t normally tip for hand pays and that wasn’t really the reason I did. It was more because I hit 16 quads and never waited more than 1 minute for my scratch card.
After quitting I went up to the room and scratched off my cards. I had 4 for $2 each, 9 for $3 each and 3 for $5 each for a total of $50. I went back down to the casino to the cage and cashed in and then headed of to the Plaza. I have a bunch of April match plays I wanted to use up and more coupons for a free beef stew. When I walked in the fresh scent reminiscent of piss hit me. I think they sprayed extra lemon cleaner around today! All the blackjack tables were packed so I skipped using the match plays and just went to the snack bar to get my stew. One thing I noticed was they seemed to have jacked up all the prices on the menu. Last week this stew was $3 and today it was $3.50. After eating I walked back over to Main Street Station and got my car and headed back up here to the Palms. Traffic on the strip seemed to have lightened up and I made it back here with no problems.
I valet parked and the attendant was super friendly. Of course it was that scripted type of friendliness that they make him say. He welcomed me back to the Palms and said if I needed anything during my stay to contact him. The exact same thing the check in agent said!
It was getting late but since I hadn’t played here yet I decided to go downstairs and hit the FPDW progressives. This machine was ok at the start then sucked up my $100 with no hits. I tried another $100 and was hitting quints and wild royals and eventually hit the deuces to put myself ahead a little bit. In shortly after hitting the deuces I was lucky enough to hit them again. I was up quite a bit and continued to play. Before I realized it was 4am. I cashed out up $150 and came back to the room to go to bed. I ran over $5,000 through this machine and it was just a single line game. These machines are really fast and I can do around 800 hands and hour on them.
When I got to my room I had a USA Today newspaper and a sheet with Tuesday’s events here at the Palms hanging on my door. Finally around 5am I got to sleep.
Total win/loss for the day $700
Total comps for the day $325 (plus a Suncoast Polo Shirt)