Day 3 - 2018 Las Vegas Winterfest, AKA Hipfest 2018

Thursday, January 11

Kip deemed this day, “Transition Day.” We had started out losing, so we needed to take a break.  It was during the morning that I realized that I lost my gaming notebook.  I realized I had to have left it by the Silver Strike machine, the last place we played and the last place I remember having it.  I frantically went down and looked around but did not locate it. I went to the security desk, the slot club desk, and the front desk, but no one had it. I figured it was gone.  I usually keep all of my gambling money in it, but since I had already lost it, there was only about $14 in $2 bills, plus some worn old $1 Silver Certificates and some old $2 bills (most likely not worth more than face value, but I had gotten them at the Credit Union a few years ago and had been using some for tips and Quad Bets).  So cash-wise, there was probably only around $30, but I also had some player’s cards and strategy cards in there.  I guess a lucky thing was that since it was a new gaming year, I switched out the pad and there was a brand new pad in there, so I didn’t lose my prior year’s notes and I just lost the play notes from yesterday.

We were going to get an “early” start, but after running around, it was “late”, so we just went and had brunch at Siegel’s 1941, the coffeeshop at the El Cortez around 11:45.  We had eaten there before and I have never had a bad meal there.  That string continued, as I had a nice French dip, and Kip had eggs Benedict.  It’s usually only available at breakfast, but the server said if they still have sauce, they can make it, which they did.  The whole cost was $28.15, but without tax for the comp, it was $26.  I left a $6 tip.

Dining with a view!

Kip's eggs Benedict!

My French dip!

We headed over to Golden Nugget to play some live poker during the double high hand jackpot, which ended at 2:00 PM.  However, there was a wait to play, and there was only an hour or so left in the promo, so we decided just to head over to Huntington Press to pick up our 2018 MRBs.  After a quick stop in Binion’s, we took the SDX at Casino Center to Fashion Show Mall.  We walked a bit, and then ran as the 203 was coming (the SDX was delayed due to traffic, but Kip said that the 203 was probably delayed as well).  We didn’t have to go far, but there are no pedestrian walkways across the I-15 on Spring Mountain, so we couldn’t walk from there.  It took us a little over an hour to get from Downtown to Huntington Press, and we picked up our MRBs, no problem.

Since we were out that way, we decided to walk over to the Golden TIki, a place we wanted to go to last summer, but didn’t find time.  It was just a 15 minute walk from HP.

We had been to Frankie’s Tiki Bar a few years ago and really enjoyed our experience there, so we wanted to try this place.  It was very nice, the décor was quite impressive, with a collection of artifacts and knickknacks.  We both ordered the Dole Whip with rum (a drink you could get free by signing up for the mailing list, but I had forgotten to do that).  They have video poker there and we inquired if they comped drinks. The bartender said they did with $50 C/I. That wouldn’t be a problem for us.  We were playing some crappy 10c STP VP and were doing quite well.  At one point, I believe we had both doubled up, but we kept playing, because we kept ordering drinks.  As it turned out, (although we didn’t inquire further), she only comped us one drink each (and if we knew that was the case, we would have stopped after our $50 C/I).  The bonus side was that we were there during happy hour, so we got some really nice drinks and the total cost was $16.24 ($39 less the $24 in comped drinks), so we left $30 total and we actually cashed out up 75c!  It was a nice place to spend a few hours!

Our bar top view!

The Dole Whip Float with rum!

Happy Hour?  Yes, please!

Mai Tai!

Blue Lagoon!

Clam couch

I was told that's Hunter S. Thompson's knife. . .

We walked down to Gold Coast to use some coupons, getting there around 5:05 PM.  We had a play $10, get $10 in FP, and a $10 MP.  We netted out a $5 win each with our Free Play, and then we bought in for $100 each at $10 Pai Gow Poker.  I have played for years, but this was only Kip’s second time playing.  She suffered a beat down at Borgata at $20/hand, so hopefully this would go a bit better at $10/hand. It didn’t go great for her, but I was doing pretty well. I didn’t lose many hands, and I pressed up to $20 for a while and decided we should cash out when I was up $75. She was down $40, so it wasn’t that bad. We took a combined $17.50 win from that!

I forgot to mention the dragon lantern on the casino floor. . .

We had to make sure we got to the Bellagio Fountains for the 8:00 or 10:00 PM show, because it was the last night that the Intel drone show would be going with the fountains.  It was already around 7:00 PM, and we still had to get to Caesars Palace, since we were going to eat dinner at Bacchanal on my Diamond Celebration dinner.

We waited a bit for the bus to take us from the Palms to Bally’s, and then walked across the street to Caesars. I had lost my Diamond cards in my folder, so I went to the booth to get new ones and get the dining voucher. We headed right to the buffet (around 7:40 PM), and there was a crazy long line for regular paying customers. There were only a few people in the Diamond line (with no one in the Platinum or Seven Stars lines), but it still took a while to pay (after the $100 comp, it was $10.80).

I last ate there with a friend of mine and was a bit disappointed with it.  This trip, however, it was very good.  All of the dim sum items I got were good, although the Har Gow was a bit doughy.  I had overheard the waiter at the next table say that they could get king crab legs delivered to their table, so I asked Kip to inquire about that to our waitress while I was away.  Sure enough, she came back a few moments later with a large plate of split crab legs.  I know they have them on the buffet, so I’m not exactly sure how this is a benefit. I think maybe because they are split? I don’t know. In any event, the meal was really good.

Dim me sum of that!

I'm not sure how special these crab legs are, but they were good!

Room for a little dessert! 

It was close to 10, so we headed out and walked over to Bellagio, arriving there around 9:55 PM, plenty of time to catch the show.  It was quite crowded, I’m not sure if everyone knew about the drone show, but it was more crowded than I recall seeing in some time.  We worked our way to the center of the street side of the lake and waited. And waited, and waited. Apparently the show was going to be delayed for around 15 minutes. It was worth the wait though because the drone show was excellent.  I couldn’t see much of the fountains, since we were so close, but I had seen fountains shows before and the drone show was very special.  *I took a video, here, but I'm posting some photos Kip took:

Well, I took this one waiting for the show to start. . .

Photo by Kip

When the fountain shot through the drones, pretty cool.  Photo by Kip

Photo by Kip

Since we were here, I wished we went in to see the Conservatory, but for some reason, we just headed back downtown.  We crossed the street to Paris and took the Deuce back downtown (another first for me).  We got downtown around 11:10 and I had to stop at Walgreen’s to pick up distilled water for my bi-pap machine and some ibuprofen, since my back had been bothering me for a week or so.  We rolled back into the El Co around 11:15.

Since we were here, I took a photo. . .

And another photo. . .

After taking a beating the whole day of the 10^th, we decided to just take $60 each and take some shots.  We lost $20 each on DDW and SDB.  While we were playing SDB, we kept hearing the Invaders machine going on a bonus game.  After we lost our money, we just had to look, and we saw the tail end of a 558 spin bonus game, where she won around $280 on a 25c bet.  How come that didn’t happen to us last night???  We tried a last shot at $1 Top Dollar and lost another $20 each. That was enough gambling for us that day, and as I recall, it was another “early” night in Las Vegas.  Hopefully tomorrow will be different. . .

Siegel’s 1941:  $6 tip

Golden Tiki:  $16.24 food, $13.76 tip

Bacchanal:  $10.80 food, $10 tip

Walgreen’s:  $6.85