Day 3
Friday October 17, 2008
Today I was up early. I had to pack up and get ready to leave town. I’d be driving to the Los Angeles area with Anne, Steve, Jason, Christine and Terry where we’d be spending the night before tomorrow’s cruise.
First up was a little casino business though. I had a coupon from the Harrah’s properties that was good for $100 if I earned 25 points in 2 different casinos. I also had a coupon from the ACG that was good for $5 in comps after earning 50 points. I thought this was a good opportunity to double dip since the $100 was given at the second property you earned the points and they’d have no idea I dropped off a coupon at the Flamingo. I decided since it was short tern I’d play some penny slots to earn these points. At the Flamingo I just got slammed. Couldn’t hit a thing and hit no bonus rounds on anything I played. I ran through a little more than the 50 points for the $5 comps and in the end dropped in the area of $150. I took my coupon to the Total Rewards booth and there were no issues in turning in the coupon.
After that was taken care of I went back over to Bally’s. I was short on time so I played a 7/5 bonus $1 triple play machine to rack up the 25 points as fast as I could. As luck would have it I was dealt 3 deuces and connected with the 4th on the middle line. I also hit a few full houses and walked away from this machine up $205. This was good enough to offset the $150 loss at Flamingo and put me up by $50. Then I cashed in my coupon for a free $100 and completed the day up by $150. This wasn’t a bad day considering it was only about an hour of work and most of that was walking casino to casino.
After I got my money I ran up to the room to get my things and headed out to the valet to pick up my rental car. The valet here has always been pretty good and with my diamond card my car came up before other cars of people that were already there. It’s one of the perks of being diamond that has paid off for me over the years.
From Bally’s it was off to the Chevron station on the corner of Warm Springs and the strip to top off the tank. I only put about 40 miles on the car and it only took $2 in gas. I was surprised by this but they must have really had it full to the top when I picked it up. I met Anne and the group here and they followed me to the rental car facility. Dropping off took a little longer than normal. Dollar seemed to have been short handed and only had one guy doing returns. A manager finally came over and took care of me. I was on my way with receipt in hand and off to meet Anne and Steve in the visitor parking lot. From here it was off to Anne’s mother’s house to pick up her luggage (she was driving on her own). We left her house and made a quick stop at Jack in the Box and we were on the road at around 12 – 12:30pm.
This was my first time ever driving to LA from Vegas and hopefully my last! In the future I’d rather just fly and avoid the traffic. There wasn’t much traffic but there were a few spots of construction that bottlenecked the 15 and then we hit rush hour traffic as we got into the LA area. This drive with a stop for a pee break and snack took in the area of 6 hours. We arrived at the Sunrise Hotel in San Pedro and I checked in and was in my room at about 6pm. Now I was checked in here AND I was still a registered guest at Bally’s in Las Vegas. I guess it’s kind of neat being a registered guest in 2 hotels in 2 different cities and states at the same time! Now even though I’ve left Vegas at this point it’s NOT the end of this trip. This trip will resume in just a week after the cruise. For anyone interested a review of the cruise can be seen at: http://boards.cruisecritic.com/showthread.php?p=17033146#post17033146 and this report will continue on Saturday October 25.
Total win/loss for the day $150
Total comps for the day $339