It's a moving day going from Hotel Apache to the mini-suite at Golden Gate. I still have the room for the night though so there's no hurry to move my luggage.
Kip and AH are at Cosmo, moving to Aria, and they invited me to brunch at Salt & Ivy using their comps, how could I refuse? Brunch is from 7:00 AM to 2:00 PM so I arrive there around 11:00 AM.
AH is able to check in, and we go up to the room real quick to drop things off before heading to brunch.
We get over to Salt & Ivy around noonish. I believe we had a reservation (since I believe they were required). We got a table inside, but near the atrium area. Jacques checked out the drink list:
I might have passed on a cocktail, but Kip got the Smoked Old Fashioned and said it was one of the best cocktails she's ever had (and that's saying a lot!).
I ordered bacon and eggs, and although I ordered my eggs over easy, they came out scrambled. I didn't want to have the eggs go to waste, so I didn't say anything, but AH and Kip told the waiter and he brought me the correct eggs. I told them they had to help eat the scrambled eggs then, although everyone's portions were quite big!
AH is planning on play day at Aria while Kip and I head downtown. We really don't have a plan for today, It was around 2:00 PM, so we decided to head to Total Wine and More and pick up some makings for drinks we saw on the drink menu at Bugsy and Meyer's, it had Plantation Stiggins Pineapple Rum, limes, and simple syrup. Okay, we fudged on the real limes and got juice, but we weren't going to make a big mess squeezing limes.
We had a couple of ideas on what to do, do some couponing, visit some casinos, but we ended up doing some "fun play" at Eureka. And "fun play" at Eureka means full-pay Multi-Strike! Yeah, it's a tough game, but it's good when you win, and in this case, we did!
We were hoping for a double up, and we were close. Kip went out to take a phone call and I was in charge of the play. After going up and down, I finally decided to cash out at $60.25, a $10.00 profit each. We were playing on Kip's card, and there was a coupon to get $10 in free play for 500 points. We played some Not So Ugly Deuces to get the remaining points and got a $2.50 profit each for that. We then turned the $10 in free play into $25 cash, so that's another $12.50 each! So we had fun, and got $25 each!
We headed to Golden Gate, and got there around 6:00 PM. We weren't able to get rooms on the same floor, but I was in room 33 and she was in room 43. The suites are always nice, other than the funky bathroom set up.
I still had around $40 in comps at Binion's to use, so we headed to Chicago Brewing Company for dinner. We got there around 6:30 PM. We used the 2-1 beer coupon in the fun book we received when we checked into Hotel Apache on root beers.
We ordered the giant pretzel and pizzas. I got a Chicago deep dish, which was good, Kip built her own 10" pizza. The pretzel was so big, I had to take half of my pizza back to the room (well, we both did!).
The subtotal was $39.98, and the total with tax was $41.50. Without the tax, I'd be at $48.91! Almost perfect. I tell the server that I wanted to charge the meal to my room at Hotel Apache. He said I couldn't do that. I told him the clerk at the front desk at Hotel Apache said I could (as well as quite a bit of advertising I had seen on their website and in their casinos). He went to check and came back and said he learned something today, and that I was right.
So now we just finished eating and AH sends us a message telling us to meet her at Din Tai Fung for dumplings so she can blow out her comps! We say sure, and head back over to Binion's so I can move my bags from there to Golden Gate and check out. Apparently, the tax isn't forgiven on room charges as they are on regular comps, I saw the remaining balance on my folio on the TV:
We haul my stuff across Fremont Street to Golden Gate. It was a Friday, so it was a bit crowded, and I said we should go through the front of Golden Gate as opposed to going through the casino. I take a picture of my fabulous view from my room:
Some friends of ours were having a Zoom call around 8:00 PM EST, so before we headed over to Aria, I called us in on our phone. The Zoom defaulted our background to one of Circa, which was kind of interesting. It was fun to see and chat with our friends.
We head over to Aria, and when we get to the parking garage, security is there and asked us if we were hotel guests. We said we had a dinner reservation, and they let us in (I'm not sure what they would have done if we said we were just visiting). In any event, we finally got to Din Tai Fung around 9:45 PM.
The place was pretty busy. I had heard about this place for a while, and I was happy to give it a try. AH and Kip wanted tea, and I saw fresh orange green tea, which I thought was hot, but it was iced. They said it was fine. The dumplings were very good, I will definitely come back here when I can.
After eating, I guess we decided we needed to walk it off, so we headed to Bellagio to see the fountain shows and Conservatory. It was a bit windy, so it seems the fountain show was cut short.
Around 11:45 PM, we got to the Conservatory, and now there is a roped line to get in. I don't believe we waited too long, but the Conservatory was nice, as always.
I took a selfie of us, but someone took a picture of us from further away.
We headed back to Aria and AH went up to her room and Kip and I were heading back to the car. There was this display heading towards self park. My wife showed my daughter and asked me if those toys were available, which I didn't know. I wasn't sure if I was getting back to Aria, so I asked AH later and she said they didn't (but later I found out they did, but on my most recent trip, the person told me they were out of stock for months. . .
We got back to Golden Gate around 12:30 AM, still "early" for a Friday, but a full day for us. Since we had purchase the drink makings, it was time for a nightcap!
That capped off a pretty good day!
No comments:
Post a Comment