Day 7 Friday December 20, 2002
I slept in a little late this morning but not too late since it’s a moving day. After I got ready and packed up it was time to go. It was almost 1pm by now so I was able to swipe an extra hour in this nice suite.
It was actually raining and cold and just a totally dreary day outside. I can’t remember the last time I was here when it looked like this. I could have stayed home to get weather like this!
After getting my car from the valet I went up to the strip to the New Frontier. I have a reservation for the weekend but I won’t be staying here. I’ll be checking in and giving the room to friends. When I got to the Frontier to check in there was no line and in just a few minutes I was on my way up to suite 782. I checked over the room to make sure it was clean and ok for my friends.
Not wanting to stiff the Frontier and lose my comp rooms I went to the casino to play for a while. I also still had the coupon for a $25 bonus for any quad. I played 8/5 bonus and couldn’t hit a thing. No quads and not anything else either. I played for only a short time on this machine and dropped a c-note.
My next move was to an 8/5 Aces bonus machine. This machine was as bad as the other one and I couldn’t hit a thing here. It’s just another case of my history with coupons and never doing well with them. This is the 3rd day I’m playing on this coupon and still haven’t hit a quad. Having dropped enough money here and reaching enough points to keep my 2-day average high enough to maintain my monthly free rooms I decided to quit. I filled out a bunch of entry forms they gave me for a drawing. The grand prize is $5,000 and a stay in one of their penthouse suites. The drum is jammed with entries but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to throw in my 75 entries too. The drawing is next Saturday and the only reason I bothered was because you don’t need to be present to win.
From the Frontier I made a stop to give my friends the room keys and told them everything they needed to know about the New Frontier and not to expect too much, even though they will be in a suite.
Now it was time to go over to the Las Vegas Hilton to check in for the next 3 nights. I got a mail offer from PPE with an offer from each of their properties in Las Vegas. Some were for free weeknights (Bally’s & Flamingo) or discounted nights (Caesars & Paris). Each offer came with some sort of perk like food or show tickets. The offer I chose to use was for the Las Vegas Hilton. It was good for 3 nights and good on the weekend. It includes 2 show headliner show tickets. This week it’s Sheena Easton. I’m not sure if I’ll use these or not yet.
When I got to check in there was just a short line and I got right up to the counter. Turns out I am being upgraded to a suite for my birthday. The agent made out 2 packets and I was given 2 room numbers. I was expecting this to be a huge suite. The lady here was very nice and in just a few minutes I was on my way to room 1830.
When I entered I wasn’t too impressed. This room is actually what I’d call a mini suite. It has a dining room table, TV cabinet/dresser combo, couch, end tables, and a wet bar. It has a queen sized bed that is actually a Murphy bed that folds up into the wall. There is a walk in closet to the right when you walk in. On the left is a small room with a vanity and a hair dryer. The next room is a decent sized bathroom with another vanity, toilet and tub. The room has a great view of the strip. I can see all of the way from Mandalay Bay down to the Sahara.
It turns out the reason for the 2 room keys is because this is actually 2 rooms with an adjoining door. The room next door is 1831 and is a standard king sized room. It has a king bed with nightstands, a small sitting area with 2 armchairs and a work desk. There is also a TV cabinet/dresser combo with another 27” TV. The bathroom is similar to the one in the other room except the bathroom doesn’t have a second vanity.
It’s actually a lot of wasted space for just me and an upgrade to the mini suite would probably have been enough. I think I would have been happier with 1 decent suite with a Jacuzzi than 2 adjoining rooms but it’s still a nice deal.
I was starving by now and instead of unpacking I went out to get something to eat. I decided on the Fiesta Henderson since I could get my favorite soup and then play video poker. It’s Friday so that means 5X points (.83%) in comps.
It seemed to take forever to get up there but I realized I was fighting rush hour traffic on a Friday afternoon. When I finally got up to the Fiesta the place was packed. There was a 20-minute wait to get into the Baja Beach Café but I went to the counter and got right in. My soup came pretty quickly and was much better than it was back on Saturday.
After I ate I played some quarter FPDW. I wanted to get onto one of the 10-coin machines but as I expected they were all taken so I took a regular one. This machine was a vacuum cleaner. I wasn’t hitting many deuces at all and after only 500 in play I was out $100. Based on this morning’s beating at the Frontier and this I was beginning to get flashbacks of my last trip where nothing went right. I moved to another machine to try again. This machine worked out better. I was hitting quints and wild royals frequently and getting enough 4 of a kinds to keep me going. I had the credit meter in the high 700’s and then hit another wild royal. The odd thing was the coins started spitting out. Usually this happens if the credit meter will go over 1,000 coins but it looks like this machine is spitting them out at 800. A few hands later I hit a straight flush for 45 coins and they spit out again. I thought this was pretty funny since the machine said it pays up to 1,000 coins.
I had the meter up in the 700’s and as low as 100 but was able to hang on long enough to hold a pair of deuces and pull the other 2. The machine locked up and played the jackpot music. It only took a few minutes to get my $250 hand pay. I played until the credit meter ran down to nothing and then scooped out my coins. I had a little over $50 in the tray from all of the coins that spit out. I made $100 on FPDW tonight. I also earned 3,000 points that are going to be multiplied by 5 to 15,000. The way I see it that’s 5 more bowls of Feel Good Wonton Soup! That should put my account back to about 400,000 points or about $660 in comps.
After I cashed in my coins I went to play craps. After a few bad shooters (myself included) and almost going bust 2 great shooters brought the money back and then some. From here it was up and down and after about 2 hours I quit. I finished ahead by about $30 and then headed back down here to the Hilton. I made a quick stop at the grocery store to replenish my snack and soda supply. There’s something fun about stopping at the supermarket at 2am and seeing more than 5 people in the store (3 of which are workers) like in our 24 hour supermarkets back home.
When I got back to the Hilton I went up to my room. When I entered I saw something hanging off the edge of the end table. It was a room service tray with 2 pieces of chocolate cake and a card that said Happy Birthday signed by the assistant hotel manager. I thought this was pretty cool on part of the Hilton. After a quick snack and unpacking my things I called it a day and went to bed.
Total win/loss for the day -$50
Total comps for the day $144