Day 18
Saturday December 29, 2001
Slept in late as usual today. The plan this morning is to go and collect some chips from the Boulder Highway casinos and to hit the north end of the strip since I never made it up to that end the night I stayed up there.
I drove down to the strip and it seemed like it took forever. The town is really starting to fill up for New Year’s Eve. The strip was much busier than it had been last week when I was staying there. I made my way to Stardust to park the car and I would walk the rest of the north end. Next stop was Westward Ho. This place always seems to be booming to me. People really seem to like the low limits and the easy room comps. Even though I understand it’s the easiest room comp on the strip I have yet to ever get any type of offer from them and I’ve had a card there for almost 6 years.
My next move was over to Slots-a-Fun. This is another place that always seems to be booming to me. I dropped a few quarters into a Flip It machine. I’m usually pretty lucky on these but not today. As I tried to make my way through Circus-Circus it was packed. Between kids running around everywhere, and parents not having control of the kids to the adults that don’t have a clue as to how NOT to just stand and look around in circles in the middle of a walkway this place was nothing more than a zoo. I got out of here as quick as I could.
I went back out the side door I entered through and got my famous fun book they hand out at Circus-Circus that is good at Slots-a-Fun. I took my 2 free spins on their special machines hoping to win my usual 50 cents but that didn’t happen this time.
I made my way through this zoo too and crossed the street to the Riviera. After I grabbed some chips at the cage I went over to the Continental City Ticket Office and saw my friend CC and told her that I would be leaving in 2 more days. While I was there Gary called and I talked to him too. I told them I would be back soon, hopefully in the springtime.
From the Riviera I made it back over to the Stardust to get my car and then drove down to the Stratosphere. I self parked in the garage here and something just didn’t seem right about this garage. There wasn’t a light on in the whole garage and it was very dark and dreary in here. I think it was pretty scary and unsafe and they really need to get those lights fixed in the garage.
It was getting late so I decided to do the Boulder Strip tomorrow and went back to Sam’s Town to eat. Tonight I tried the Firelight Buffet. I didn’t think the buffet was that great. There were many choices on the buffet but very few meat selections. Most of the items were side dishes like fries, stuffing, pastas, and potatoes. They had a carving station with 3 meats and there were a few meat items on the regular buffet like breaded pork chops, chicken parmesan, and chicken. The pork chops were so over cooked that I couldn’t even cut them with a knife and the breading was so salty it was like eating salt straight from the shaker.
They have a large dessert area but there were few selections on it. There were a few cake items, and a number of pie selections. Also donuts that appeared to be left over from the breakfast buffet, cookies and a few pastry items. Of the few items I had none of them were very good other than the cookies. They also had an ice cream station with hard ice cream. It’s the same ice cream they serve at Calamity Jane’s ice cream shop.
After I ate it was time to try some more video poker. I sat at the same machine I was at last night. Things were very good at this machine again and I was hitting quads like crazy including aces. I cashed out after about 3 hours on this machine with a win of over $100 and another stack of T-shirt coupons.
Since they were on a limited supply for the shirts I quick cashed in my coupons and got another 8 t-shirts. I’m wondering if I’m going to be able to fit all these shirts into my suitcase or not.
I took a short break up in the room and then went back down to the casino. Since I cashed out a little over $100 from video poker I took that little extra and played some of the new video slots. I tried out The Price is Right. There are 2 different bonus rounds on this game but I was only able to hit one of them. I hit that one twice. You spin the wheel and if you get 55 or higher in 1 or 2 spins you move to the showcase. Here you pick price tags and they correspond to a prize in 1 of 2 showcases. Each prize has a coin value. After you get 4 prizes in one showcase you win the coin value of the prizes in that showcase. I never did hit that other bonus round so I can’t tell you what happens there. This is a fun machine and it plays the Price is Right theme on each spin. I of course lost playing this game but I got to play for a while and didn’t really expect to win.
I wandered around the casino for a while and then went down to the bowling center again. Tonight they were doing the extreme bowling again. I took a lane for an hour and I as able to cram in over 8 games again. I get a pretty good value when I take a lane for an hour. I could probably squeeze in a few extra games if I had an extra ball and didn’t have to wait for mine to return.
After bowling I went to get some late night breakfast at the Fresh Harvest Café. I ordered the Blueberry pancakes. They were great and very filling. The coffee shop was pretty dead considering it was about 2 am on a Saturday night. After eating I went back up to the room and called it a night. Tomorrow will be my last day in town.
Total win/loss for the day $100 <---I did it, I won
Total comps for the day $119