Well today is the day. I am up at 4:45am but it’s not quite time to leave yet. Unfortunately I have to work. Luckily I have an early out so only have to work until 2pm!

After what seemed to be the longest work day of the year I was finally out at 2pm when my relief arrived. I had more than enough time before I had to be in Newark. I jumped in the rental car I picked up at the local airport yesterday. I booked with Avis like always and got a rate of $38.99 for a full sized, one day, one way rental. This is the cheapest it’s been in a long time. They gave me a Hyundai Sonata with 7800 miles on it in good condition. The only issue with this car is it was a rattle box. If I had this car more than a day it would have driven me crazy! One downfall about this rental is they didn’t have my reservation and car ready for me like they were supposed to since I’m preferred select.

Traffic wasn’t too bad today considering it’s a Saturday. I made my usual stop for gas in the car by the Meadowlands and then made the rest of the trip to Newark airport. Returning the car was easy and everything went well in less than a minute.

I hopped on the monorail and off to Terminal C. My flight tonight is on Continental. This flight was $348 when I booked but I’m not actually paying for it. I redeemed my comp dollars at Harrah’s back when it was only 30,000 points to redeem. It’s since been raised to 50,000. The way I see it I redeemed $300 in comps that would get me over priced food and not anywhere near $300 in value. With the airline ticket, it’s like getting $349 in cash since I would have to buy airfare anyway. I’ll just eat in the diamond lounges!

The check in process was long and slow and the wait at security was just as bad. As always there were a bunch of tools trying to get through with items that weren’t allowed or felt they were exempt from the rules because they were old. Tonight I’m on flight 1828 with a departure time of 7:15pm. We’re scheduled to arrive in Las Vegas at 10:03pm. The flight is pretty full and I’m in seat 41A. Unfortunately the inbound flight had an excess of handicapped people on it and they needed a lot of wheel chairs. They couldn’t get enough over to this gate and 7 people sat on the plane until they finally arrived. This caused a delay of our flight to board and take off. It’s a damn shame to have a flight delayed because of something like this.

As always, people are assholes when it comes time to board the plane. They call rows 35-42 and everyone gets in line. You have no idea how much this pisses me off. Then it’s a major process with all of these people and their effing carry on bags that are too big and too heavy to be hoisted to the overhead bins. People, check your effing bags, it will make everyone’s life so much easier.

In my row I was seated with a couple and their baby. Of course the baby didn’t have a seat. It was a lap baby that the parents allowed to kick and punch the seat in front of and hit me repeatedly. Not wanting problems I ignored it. To make things worse the dad decided it would be ok if he laid the kid across his lap and ¼ of the way into my seat. So, I’m seated with or near yet another asshole once again.

Today’s movie was Astronaut Farm with Billy Bob Thornton. I passed and read and slept during this flight after I ate. Continental still serves a meal on their flights and tonight is was a chicken patty sandwich with a small side salad with Caesar Dressing and a miniscule Milky Way bar.

Since I had been up since 4:45 this morning I was able to sleep quite a bit of the flight away. Before long we were making our approach to the Las Vegas area. Our landing was smooth and I was back in Las Vegas one more time!

Arrival on this trip is a little different than usual. Instead of renting a car like I usually do when I arrive, I’m getting a limo ride. According to my host I should be greeted either at or around the carousel by my driver. Now I’ve been offered limo rides to hotels before and I usually turn them down since I rent a car for my trip. This trip I am renting a car but the rates were SO high from the airport, combined with the taxes, it made more sense to pick up the car at the hotel. More on that tomorrow though.

My driver wasn’t there initially because they somehow got my flight info wrong but I had a voice mail from them when I arrived. I called them up and got it all worked out. The driver met me at baggage claim where I waited quite a while for my bag to come out. This was my first ever limo ride in Vegas and it was cool to be able to check out all of the sights. Traffic was a mess on the strip since it was a Saturday night and the driver said there were a lot of events tonight making things worse. My only issue with this ride is it wasn’t really a limo. It was just a Lincoln Town Car. That was kind of a bummer but no big deal.

After a short ride in the car I had arrived at Circus – Circus. I know that many people reading this despise the place (and most that do have never even been there). I’m staying here for 5 nights on an offer of 5 nights plus $330 in free play. Say what you want about the place, but with a deal like that, it’s hard to pass up. I was greeted at the front door by a bellman and a VIP host. That was kind of cool. I checked in at the VIP registration area and everything was in order. I had reserved a Jacuzzi Suite with my host. In just a minute I was on my way to room 26816 in the West Tower. The bellman brought me up to the room in the service elevators because there was a huge wait at the regular elevators. I thought that was pretty neat.

It turns out that this really isn’t a suite, but more just a regular room with an added mini bar area and a larger bathroom with a Jacuzzi. The rooms here are decent and this room has a king bed with nightstands, sitting area, work desk, TV cabinet/dresser and mini bar area with a fridge, coffee maker and sink. The bathroom is about 3X larger than the standard bathrooms here. It has a glass standing shower stall, Jacuzzi, toilet and long counter. It has a good view of the Riviera across the street, some of the north strip and the area near Wynn. It’s not a bad room for the price and the free play. I’m also LRFB here this trip with a $100 limit, but more can be comped based on play.

Once I checked out the room I made a short walk over to Walgreen’s for a few items. On my way over I took my 2 free spins at Slots – A – Fun. As usual I didn’t win anything. To this day the most I’ve ever won on those was 2 quarters. The most I ever saw anyone win was 10.

After I got back to the hotel I was pretty beat. It’s been a long day and even after the nap on the flight I was beat. I had originally planned on playing a little tonight but decided against it. Instead I just went to bed hoping I’d be up some what early tomorrow and be able to get an early start.

Total win/loss for the day $0
Total comps for the day $484