Welcome to the 7th annual Christmas/Birthday trip report. The last year has gone by so quickly and it’s hard to believe it’s already time for the Christmas/Birthday trip. As always I have lot’s planned for this trip and it should make for an interesting report.
Day 1
Saturday December 18, 2004
Trip to Airport:
As usual I rented a car from the local airport and I’ll drop that off in Newark when I get there. As always Avis has the best rates and I got a full size for $43.98 plus taxes. I’m usually content with the cheapest car available out of here since I’ll only be in it for about 75 miles. However the full sized car was only $2 more than the compact. It’s hard to pass up the bigger, more comfortable car for $2. They gave me a 2005 Chevy Impala with almost 14,000 miles on it. The car was in good shape and ran well. Since it is Saturday there was no traffic at all on the way down to Newark. I also took a shot at passing up filling the gas tank. As I drove past my normal filling location, the needle was still above the full level. This was risky since Avis gets $5.35 a gallon but when I got to Avis in Newark the needle was still above the full mark even though I had put almost 80 miles on this car. My guess is this actually saved me about $10.
Flight:
As has been the case in the past, America West had the best fare for this trip although it’s the most I can recall ever having to pay at $288 plus taxes ($305.20). When I arrived to check in the America West counter was GONE! I thought they may have moved into a new terminal again but they just moved down to the end. Check in went quick and easy. From there it was on to security. Things would have gone well here but instead of some passenger being an ass, the security employees thought it was more important to discuss their break times than moving people through the line.
I’m on flight # 217 with a departing time of 7:45am and scheduled arrival in Las Vegas at 10:37am. Our flying time should be around 5 hours at 35,000 feet. The movie of the day was Elf with Will Farrell. It wasn’t very good but did have its moments. We actually landed nearly an hour early. The captain made one of the smoothest landings I’ve ever been on yet there was no applause. My baggage arrived in near record time and I was on my way to the Dollar rental car shuttle.
Rental Car:
This trip I booked my rental car through Dollar. Dollar has continued to have the best rates of all the car companies. I actually booked this car way back in June and got a decent rate of $169.96 plus tax for the 10 days for a full sized car. Over the last 6 months I checked this rate hoping it would drop but it hasn’t. Actually last time I checked the same rental was well over $300. I told the shuttle driver I had a fastlane reservation and he showed I was booked for a mid-size. WRONG! I booked a full size. He said not to worry about it and the lot guy would give me just about anything I wanted. He asked what size I had reserved and I said full but then asked if he could do better than that for me. He pointed to a Chrysler 300M and that today it’s a full size (even though it’s a premium). I jumped on it. The car has about 9800 miles on it and was scratched to hell. I filled out the damage form and the guy at the booth was really cool and joked about how I could really trash that car now (like I needed to).
The first move after getting the car was a quick stop at the Hard Rock to see if they had any of the newly released Christmas chips left from yesterdays on sale. Lucky for me they had plenty and I bought what I needed at cost instead of buying through a dealer. From here it was time to go to lunch.
Hotel:
The first hotel of the trip is the Orleans. I’ll be here for 4 nights. I booked a special coupon offer for 2 free nights. The best part of this coupon was I found it on a slot machine last time I was in town! I’ve also booked 2 additional nights at the internet rate of $20 per night. I know I don’t usually pay for room, and I could have stayed elsewhere for free but moving so much is starting to get old. Originally I was going to stay here for 6 nights but I got a great 2-night offer elsewhere that I couldn’t pass up. Check in went well and the clerk combined both of my reservations into one reservation so I wouldn’t have to check out and then back in again on Monday. I’m in room 1659 in tower 2. There isn’t much of a view but the room is nice. All of the rooms here at the Orleans are pretty much the same. This room has a king bed, 2 nightstands, work desk, TV cabinet/dresser, couch coffee table and a small arm chair. It also has the standard bathroom with the sink out side of the main bathroom with the tub and toilet.
Dining:
After getting the rental car and a quick stop at the Hard Rock for some Christmas chips I got in touch with Yahtzee Mike and headed up to Barley’s for lunch. We still had a few free pizza coupons left from the casino player fun book. I got there before Mike and ordered mine and played some video poker. As usual when I come to Barley’s for free pizza it ends up costing me a fortune. I got mine with bacon and it was good as it usually is. I will miss this coupon next year, as it’s not being offered in any of the major coupon books.
Tonight I hit the coffee shop at Fiesta Henderson with Yahtzee Mike for some Feel Good Soup. As you may know this is my favorite meal here and I’ve been craving it for weeks! It was a good as it usually is! Me and Mike also split a meatloaf diner. It was way too much food for both of us to eat but Mike had a $20 comp and we wanted to use it all up. After stuffing ourselves we headed over to the craps table.
Gaming:
While I was waiting for my pizza at Barley’s I hit some FPDW. I had a coupon for 3X points so turned that into the slot club too. Things were awful on this machine and I dropped $75 in about 20 minutes. This is typically what happens when I come to Barley’s for free pizza.
After lunch I played a little more but switched to 10/6 Double – Double bonus. I lost the $25 I had left from the deuces and popped in another $100. This was disappearing fast too but then I hit quad 8’s and finished the Barley’s trip down $64.
Tonight I went up to Fiesta Henderson to meet up with Yahtzee Mike for dinner and some gambling and also to meet up with our host there.
After dinner we hit the craps tables. The table started out rough with the classic point - number - number out. A great way to kill a come bettor. Things eventually changed and I had 2 pretty good rolls. They weren’t monster rolls but enough to get ahead. While the table was doing pretty good a dark side player came along. He was playing pretty big money (for Fiesta standards) on the don’t pass line. Then during my really good roll I had a point of 9 and I was hitting everything but the 9. The don’t guy looks over to me and says “I’ll give you $10 if you roll a 7”. I looked at him and said “Shit, I’ve got way more than that on the board. Are you nuts”? So he counters with “OK, how about $20”? So l responded with “You better start throwing blacks to me if you want me to purposely seven out”. Shortly after this conversation I went out but still made a good chunk of cash on the roll. I tried to make it my goal to wipe that asshole out. Now don’t get me wrong. I’ve got nothing against a don’t player but this guy was rooting for 7 and high fiving his buddy every time it happened. He was pretty much a pompous ass too.
I cashed out of craps with a $160 win putting me up about $100 on the day so far.
After craps I played some VP with Mike. I chose to play 10/6 DDB. Now I don’t usually play this game because of the volatility. I also hate getting paid even money on 2 pair. This machine was sucking money directly out of my pocket and I was in for $300. About ½ way through the 3rd $100 bill I held 3 aces and called Mike’s attention. It was more a joke since we do that all day long and never hit anything. But this time to my surprise, up popped the 4th ace and a 4 kicker for $500! I cashed out the session with a $200 win.
On my way out the door I had a $5 match play to burn so I went to a double deck game and was dealt 7 – 7 against a dealer face card. I hit and drew an ace, and then followed it up with a face of my own for the loss. I still can’t seem to do well when playing coupons.
Total win/loss for the day $300
Total comps for the day $57