Day 8
Monday December 18, 2017
We got up this morning and got ready, got our things together and headed out.

We made a quick run to Harrah's to cash in the tickets I forgot to cash the other day when we were there.

From there I went into Arizona and we were going to take the other way back to Vegas up 93. Mainly for 2 reasons. One for something different and to avoid that bottleneck of only 1 lane in each direction open from Cal-Nev-Ari to Searchlight. It's a longer drive by 20-30 miles but it was something different for a change and seemed to go quickly.

The ride back to Las Vegas was smooth sailing and took us to Tuscany. We aren't staying here but wanted to stop in and play for a while. It used to be one of our regular places to play and I've since fallen off of the mailing list. Today is 6x points on VP so I thought it would be a good day to play here.

Since none of the multiple line games are eligible for 6x points we played single line. The goal was to play for a while and hopefully get back on the mailing list. When I put my card into the machine all of my points were still there. I was amazed by this since we haven't played here since summer of 2015.

Things were streaky here but it was expected playing deuces. I ranged from being up over $100 to being down $100. Dee did about the same. We ran 5k through the machines and between us dropped about $200. The low light of the session was hitting a natural king high straight flush. This hand is like a kick in the nuts on a wild card game.

We also had some coupons from the ACG and LVA Coupons Books. One for $10 in free play for earning 300 points and the other for a 2 for 1 entree at Pub 365.

Next up was lunch at Pub 365. I ordered Mac & Cheese with pulled pork and Dee ordered Chili. We haven't been here since this place opened and it was pretty good. Nothing outstanding. One thing I can say is the mac and cheese was good and creamy but the pulled pork was not good and it was a rip off. As far as the flavor went it was really salty and almost tasted like hot sauce. If that wasn't bad enough there was about what I'd call a large tablespoon of pork dumped on top of the mac and they had the nerve to charge $6 for it (on top of the price of the mac and cheese). Dee said her chili was excellent. I would come back but knowing what not to order!

We paid using a combination of things. The first was this month the players card is giving 25% off the bill so that took the $28 bill down to $21. The 2 for 1 coupon took another $7 off and I had some comps built up that covered the remaining $14.

We stopped off at the players club and got the $10 added to my account for the ACG coupon. I also had points on my card that I cashed in for another $100 in free play. I ran it through a quarter game and turned the $110 in free play into $92 cash.

We left Tuscany and the ride took us to the Tropicana where we'd be spending the next few nights. We're staying here on a mail offer that Dee got. It's for up to 4 nights, $40 a day in free play, $20 a day in food, 2 show tickets and 2 for 1 lunch at Robert Irvine's Public House. Since Dee hasn't played here in about 10 years the guess is this offer came from her action at M.

Since we have no status here we actually had to wait in line to check in. The shame of it! It wasn't too bad since we were next. That was until some entitled old bag in some big hurry decided to cut in front of everyone. It wasn't worth fighting with her over. Then this ^#$%*^ (insert choice word here) gets to the counter and for someone in a big hurry doesn't have her ID and credit card ready and spends upwards of 5 minutes rifling through her giant purse looking for it. Seriously, if you're going to be in a big hurry and decide to cut in front of everyone, have your shit together.

We were quickly assigned room 1232 in the Paradise tower. It's a handicap accessible room with 2 queens a nightstand, dresser, flat screen TV, work desk, and armoir. The bathroom has a roll in shower, toilet and vanity with safety bars all around. It has a view of the airport.

We got our things up to the room and took a break for a while.

Earlier today I got an e-mail for $5.25 tickets to see Gordie Brown at Hooters. Even with the 100% service charge I thought it was a good deal for 2 people to see a show for $21.

While we were at Hooters we got players cards and used coupons for $10 free play when you play $10 and a $10 match play. For signing up we got some discount coupons as well as a $5 match play for each of us. We found some machines with ugly ducks and started to play. I was hitting quints and straight flushes one after another but Dee was getting killed. Then it was like someone flipped a switch. She started hitting all of the good stuff and I got killed. Since we had no set amount to play here Dee cashed out around even and I quit down $50.

We went back to the club to get the $10 added to the account and found some penny games to play. Dee chose Money Rain and got her ass handed to her. She turned the $10 into 33¢. Never have I seen such a bad run before. I put mine into a Planet Moolah machine and turned my $10 into $17 with a few decent hits.

Next up it was show time. The showroom here is really small. It's not well laid out and there is a support column right in the middle of the room making certain seats unacceptable. If you haven't seen Gordie Brown before (we hadn't) he does impressions of many people and throws in comedy and singing. Some of his stuff was spot on, some not so much. But his comedic ability makes up for that. The show lasted a little over and hour and was worth every penny of the $10.50 per person. Since it was really slow in there the room was about ½ full. Gordie joked about that multiple times. I couldn't imagine why anyone would perform to a room this size half full. My guess was to try new material and to do things he doesn't normally do. This turned out to be true as he worked really loose and at the end said about 50% of what he did wasn't part of the regular show.

After the show we stopped off at the roulette wheel to run match plays. I went first with my ACG match play and you'd think I dropped a bomb on the table when I placed it down. The floorman came over and read every word of the thing and I don't think he even knew what he was looking at. I bet it on black and red came up. Next I bet the $5 coupon they gave us for signing up and I lost that one too. Next Dee went and they wouldn't take her ACG coupon. Said it needed to be validated at the players club. Hmm, strange, no where does it say that and just 90 seconds ago you took mine. Whatever. It's not worth fighting for. Dee played her $5 coupon instead and won netting us a $5 loss on match plays. If she could have used the ACG coupon we would have been even.

We came back to the Tropicana after this. The plan was to only play a small amount here to hopefully keep the offers coming for the future. This isn't a core play for us but it's nice to have a place to come and short play for a few days. If they had some decent VP and a better comp system I'd play more here because we actually like the place.

The first stop was the players club to get the free play loaded and to get the show tickets that came with the offer. Dee has always wanted to see Purple Reign and that show is now here at the Trop. This shows wasn't included in the offer. The only show included was some Magic show called David Goldrake's Imaginarium, Your Magical Journey Begins Here that reopens tomorrow. Dee was kind of disappointed in this.

It was time to play and I found some short pay multiline VP so we ran a little action on those and wrapped up the play Doing 4k. The only real highlight of the session was Dee hitting the 5th royal of the trip for $200. Sadly we still lost $200 during this play. Then again, playing garbage, we deserved it.

When we were done we ran Dee's free play through some penny games for some fun turning the $40 free play into $32 cash.

For a late dinner we went to The South Beach Food Court using Dee's whopping $20 food credit. I got chicken fingers and Dee got a ham and cheese sandwich and we actually came in just over the $20 credit we had. Dee had enough comp on her card to cover the 98¢ so we got out of there for free!

We brought the food up to the room and ate it up here while watching TV.

Total win/loss for the day - $300
Total Comps for the day $283
Total Coin - In for the day $9,900
Room(s) $64
Cash/Free Play $170
Food $49