Day 6
Sunday June 27, 2010
Today we started off the morning by taking some of our items to the car & meeting with Yahtzee Mike down at Starbucks for quick coffee and a snack. We hadn't spent much time with him and we were leaving to go to Laughlin later today. We spent about an hour with him and said our good byes. We won't be seeing him until Christmas time at the soonest.
Next up was to gather the rest of our items and meet up with Rick and Wendy in the hotel lobby. They had some room charges from drinks at the pool over the last few days. My host wasn't in but a guy called Vince worked with me. He covered all the charges on those drinks over the last few days and we checked out. That was pretty cool of him and Rick and Wendy were thrilled to be leaving the hotel with a zero balance for the entire trip. It was fun taking care of them and showing them a good time. They're already talking about coming back next year.
Rick and Wendy were heading back to Canada later today but not until 5pm so we had plenty of time to do a few more things. We decided to go to M for their buffet. They sent me and Dee coupons for a free buffet and I also had the buy one get one free coupon from the Las Vegas Advisor Member Rewards Book. On the way to M we made a super quick stop at South Point. I ran in and earned a point on Dee's card so she would get her 2500 points in her birthday month. I only lost 50¢ in the process and scored her $7.50 in comps.
Next up was M. I valet parked the car since we had all of our luggage and wanted it to be safer than just parking in the open. Wendy looked impressed with the place when we walked in. We walked through the casino and showed them where Dee hit a few jackpots on the Gold Fish machines back at Christmas time. I had a line pass with my mailer but sadly there was no line so we didn't get the luxury of scooting past everyone. We used all of the coupons and the 4 of us got in for $30. YES, I paid for food in a casino. It was painful and sure, I could have played a bit to get it comped time was an issue to a degree so it was easier to just pay. $30 for 4 people to eat at this buffet is a steal. Once seated, we were faced with the dilemma of what to eat and how much. The selection and quality of this buffet is about the best in town and today was seafood brunch.
Once we over ate, we rolled out of the casino back to valet and then from here it was off to Bonanza, the world's largest gift shop. Wendy wanted to grab some items to take back home and we figured this would be the place to find what she wanted. Dee and I waited in the car while Rick and Wendy went in.
The next stop was a trip over to the Gold Coast so Dee could do her birthday swipe. She only scored 1000 points so we pretty much went all of the way over there for $1.66 in comps. It worked out ok though since Rick and Wendy picked up a couple of bottles of liquor at the gift shop. Dee got them a 10% discount for being a player’s club member and had almost $6 in comps accumulated in her account so applied those to the total. That was pretty nice of her and Rick and Wendy appreciated it.
It was getting near time to take them to the airport so from the Gold Coast that's where we headed. They were flying out of terminal 2 and everything is so much easier from there then from the main terminal. There was quite the line for check in so we hung out with them until they were checked. We said our good byes and sent them up the escalator to security. They'll be missed as we had a great time with them.
It was now time to start the next leg of the trip and off to Laughlin we went. The drive here was uneventful and we made pretty good time getting here. There was some traffic but it flowed really nicely and quickly. I'm guessing that's why we got here so fast! We arrived here at the Aquarius and valet parked and used a bellman to take our luggage. We checked in at the VIP area which is a nice little room on the right when you walk in. I arranged this whole reservation through e-mail with a host that was assigned to me after I earned their next level of card. Just for the hell of it I asked if she could upgrade us to a suite and did just that by giving us an executive suite, the largest rooms on the property. She also scored us some free play for our celebration and a little bit more for Dee's birthday. So far things were going well with this host. As many of my long time readers know, I don't usually have much luck with hosts, especially on cold calls. So far this trip the two I've dealt with were great.
Once checked in our host came down to meet us and then we were off to the room. They gave us suite 9068 in the California tower. These rooms are the double door rooms at the ends of the hallways over looking the river. You enter into the living room area. To the right is a bar area with sink, double cup coffee maker and fridge. Farther to the right is a guest bathroom with a toilet and a sink. There's a large dining table in the area across from the bar. In the center off the room is the living room area with a couch, 2 arm chairs and a coffee table. There's a 42 inch TV and a dresser on the far wall and a work desk to the left of the entrance.
The bedroom is in its own room making this a true suite. The bedroom is very similar to the standard rooms here with a king bed, night stands, chair, work desk, dresser and 32" flat screen TV. The bathroom is about twice the size of the bathrooms in the standard rooms but had no real extras in it other than the extra long vanity area.
Both of the rooms have views of the Colorado River but no view of the rest of Laughlin because of the location of the suites at the end of the building. Along with the river you can also see across to Arizona and there's a great view of the mountains. There's also an amazing view of The Home Depot as well. Nothing makes a vacation more complete then the orange glow that comes from this place at night!
Once we got our things unpacked and organized it was off to the casino. We chose to sit at the cove Bar in the back of the casino so we could play some and watch the Yankees play the Dodgers. The VP here isn't great but we settled on 7/5 bonus. Almost off the top I was dealt 4 to a straight flush and filled it on the draw. The only bad part was it was A-5. That’s the low end equivalent of a royal. In fact it's even harder to hit one of these and was painful. From here we both struggled though and quads were sparse. Dee eventually got dealt a straight flush and hit a few quads. It was up and down as we watched the Yankees getting their asses kicked by the Dodgers mainly due to errors and poor execution by NY. I still hadn't hit a quad and not only lost all of the straight flush money, but also lost another $50 on top of it. I switched to an aborted pay table of DDB with progressives hoping to score a quad and I did just that but only in 10's. It got me back up though and I switched back to bonus. Dee was getting beat up and was down to $1.25 and had a huge comeback getting into the plus side. By now the Yankees were getting beat badly 6-2 and it was the 9th inning. I never count these guys out though and we kept playing. I hit a bunch of quads including getting dealt aces (where were those on the 10 plays last night?) and kept plugging along. Amazingly the Yankees tied the game in the top of the 9th and sent the game into extra innings. The game went to extra innings so we kept playing along. Dee started getting beat up but was I was doing ok. I was about to quit but hit another quad to keep us alive and the Yankees scored 2 more runs in the 10th winning the game as the Dodgers didn't get it done in the bottom of the inning. We cashed out after the game was over with a total of $75 in winning between us.
It was after 9pm now and we hadn't eaten since M so we went to Cafe Aquarius. There was no line so we didn't get to cut in front of anyone and were seated right away. The service in here was horrible tonight and the waits to have our orders taken and for the food to arrive were very long. Dee had the hot turkey sandwich and I had a soup called the sign of the Zodiac. It was noodles, bok choy, chicken, pork, shrimp, and scallops (which were passed off to Dee). It was tasty and filled the void.
Next up we hit the multi line video poker. This was a bloodbath from the beginning. There were no dealt winners and not many drawn either. I switched from triple play to ten play hoping for a few decent hands so I could switch back to triple with a little bit of money. Things just weren't happening here and in less time than at the Silverton the other night we dropped $700. While we were playing a lady behind us yelled YES! I was up digging into my pocket so I looked over at her machine. She was playing $2 spin poker and hit a bunch of royals for a $40,200 pay off. She was excited to say the least. In listening to her tell her friends she didn't realize she was playing $2. I wish I could make a mistake like that!
It was about midnight now so we headed to the room. The only problem was our keys wouldn't work. We kept getting a yellow light. We went to a house phone and called down for help and they sent security up who let us in the room. This security lady was tough! I wouldn't have wanted to be on her bad side! We finally got into the room and she told us we could get new keys in the morning or she could go get us new ones but it would be a while before she returned. We chose to do it on our own since we were in for the night anyway.
When we got into the room there was a small gift basket of snacks waiting for us. It had Oreos, potato chips, pretzels, graham crackers, an apple, an orange, 2 packs of beef jerky, and bag of trail mix and 2 waters. This place is cool!
Total win/loss for the day -$600
Total comps for the day $503