Day 8
Today’s day starts off with some running around town. One important stop will be a fun one. This is a stop at the bank to make a nice deposit of the winnings from last night. After that it was a little shopping to pick up some items we forgot earlier in the week.
For lunch we grabbed a quick meal at Jack in the Box. I had some tacos and some bacon cheese burgers. You gotta love $2 lunches!
Then it was off to the Pinball Hall of Fame. Dee didn’t want to play so she read her book while I played. As always, this is a great place and I enjoy the hell out of it. Not only did Dee read she took a nap!
Tonight Dee wanted to see a show. She’s always wanted to see La Cage at the Riviera. WE thought we’d check out Tickets 4 Tonight for their rates and then the Riviera Box Office as well. I made the mistake of pulling into Circus – Circus. The valet area was slow so I pulled in there and told the attendant we were only going to be like 20 minutes and asked him to keep it close and he said he would.
Tickets 4 Tonight had the tickets. Regular price was $75 and they wanted $37.50. I thought we’d be better off going across the street to the Riviera box office and using a 2 for 1 coupon from the POV. This would get us tickets right from the source and save us the service charge that T4T charges. This turned out to be the right move. Not only were the tickets cheaper, they already included he LET tax and there was no service charge.
We had lots of time before the 7:30 show so we were going to go do a coupon run. However, when we got to the valet area at Circus – Circus the a-hole didn’t keep my car close and parked it. The booth was all backed up. They had one guy running cars and one guy in the booth. This is completely unacceptable for a strip valet to only have 1 guy running cars and I will be contacting MGM about this mess. About 40 minutes later our car finally arrived. I handed the valet a dollar and told him it would have been a five but his buddy that took the car was supposed to keep it close because I was only going to be 15-20 minutes, and he didn’t and I’d been waiting twice that long to get my car back and he’s lucky to have even gotten that dollar.
Since the wait was so long for the car we decided we’d just go over to the Riviera. Since I haven’t played here in about 10 years I had to get a new slot card. Dee hadn’t been there in 5 and also needed to get a new card. We both got free play for joining but we weren’t told how much it was. To my surprise when I got to a machine and downloaded it, I’d received $1. No, I didn’t miss a zero it was ONE dollar. This has got to be the biggest joke of all time!
We decided to play a variety of penny slots to kill a little time before the show. We started off playing together and then Dee went off to the other side of the little room we were in. A few minutes later I hear her yell my name. I got up and looked over and saw her credit meter racking up coins. It was already up to over 20,000. By the time I cashed out my ticket and got over there it was still rolling and finally stopped at 45,000 coins. She couldn’t have been more excited and it was her biggest hit ever on the slots! Not only that but she hit it on her first spin!
After she cashed out e went to Kady’s Coffee shop at the Riviera for dinner. We had no comps and actually had to pay (gasp) for this meal. However we used a 2 for 1 coupon from the POV and saved some more money. The 2 Riviera coupons alone that we used today almost covered the subscription cost. I had the beef stew special. It was a huge portion of beef stew in a bread bowl. It was very good and full of big chunks of meat.
We still had time before the show and played a few more penny games before it stated. We didn’t hit anything worthy and went to line up for the show. This show is general admission so if you want good seats you need to line up early (there’s not a bad seat in the house). We ended up near the back of the room but it was far from a sell out.
Dee really enjoyed the show. I am kind of neutral on it. Parts I liked and thought were well done. Other parts were poor and a disappointment. The comedy value and the way the impersonators portrayed the stars was pretty good. However, if you expect to hear them sing, forget it. This show is 100% lip sync. Not only that, but it’s done very poorly. Now I could live with that if this show was $20 but regular price for this show is $75 per ticket. At this price, unless you really want to see this show, I’d have to suggest skipping it as there are other shows out there that are not only better, but cheaper. One tip though is if you’re going to this show search out a 2 for 1 coupon. They are available from many different sources and make it a little more of a value. Overall I thought the show was good and being that it’s been here for 23 years, people must like it.
When we left the show Frank Marino was in the hallway signing autographs and taking pictures with people. I took a shot of him and Dee together. She was very excited to meet him since she’s wanted to see this show for many years.
We played some more machines after the show. I was not getting much play at all and we decided we’d leave. On the way out I stopped by some $1 VP and it had a decent pay table on it. I decided I’d play $200 and hope for the best. My main plan was to get some action on my card because in the past the Riviera was VERY generous with mail, although that was 10 years ago. I’m hoping they still are and they send out some nice stuff for the summer trip. I was actually down to my last hand a few times on this machine before slowly creeping back and then hitting a quad. I cashed out of this machine with a $100 win and left the Riviera up $20 for the night.
From here it was off to the Gold Coast. They are running 6X points and we had match plays to use. First up was roulette as we’ve been doing at most places. Dee played odd and lost. Followed up with black and won taking us to 30 for 51 on coupons. Next up was some penny games. I was getting my ass handed to me tonight. I couldn’t hit a thing and no bonus rounds. When I’d hit a bonus round I’d get the minimum offered and then it was back to losing. I finally had a good hit on a regular spin that had me only down $50. I went back to the VP after this. Things were much better here and I got some nice dealt winners and pulled a few quads to stay alive. I cashed out even after running about 2k through the machine. I was good with this because I as down to my last few hands again before mounting a comeback.
We stopped at a roulette table after VP to play some more coupons but we ended up with a dealer that was clueless on how to handle a coupon and told us we had to hold up on it until the floor person came over and he was doing a fill. I took the coupon back from him and my money and we walked away. Note to Boyd gaming. Train your employees so they know how to handle promotions you’re offering.
We wanted to get something to eat and since the Coast properties are getting rid of their coffee shops in favor of Friday’s we went there. I’m not happy about this trend. The coffee shop is a casino staple that made Las Vegas. Not only that but Dee wanted breakfast and they only had 3 all day breakfast items. Dee got macaroni and cheese with chicken and I got a pulled pork ravioli appetizer and we shared. Even though I wasn’t in the mood for these items tonight, I have to say for industrially prepared food, it was pretty tasty.
On the way out I remembered I had to cash in the chips from my earlier win. While I did this Dee stopped at a penny machine and hit for $28! That was a nice way to walkout the door. We finally got back to the Rio around 1am and crashed!
Total win/loss for the day -$50
Total comps for the day $240