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

Days 1 & 2 - 2018 Las Vegas Winterfest, AKA Hipfest 2018

So, here is the first installment of my trip report.  I'm going to post the first two days together, since they seemed to be one long day.

* You may wonder what, "Hipfest" is.  Well, that's a combination of the first letter of my name, and the last part of Kip's nickname.

Tuesday, January 9

Back on November 11, a friend of mine let a group we’re in know that she booked a flight out to Las Vegas for $148 R/T (well, she used 8,008 points).  It was flying out of Philadelphia, but that’s still a really good price, so I looked into it and booked the same flight on the 13^th.  Since I live near Washington, DC, we had to work out some logistics on how I would get up to PHL and other things.  We eventually worked out that we would stay in Atlantic City at the Golden Nugget, do a play day there, and then head to PHL Wednesday morning for our 10:15 AM flight.  I would pick her up from her home near Cape May and then drive us to PHL.

I was going to head there after I dropped my daughter off at her school bus stop in the morning, but we had a pipe issue during the big freeze, and the plumber was supposed to be there on Tuesday, sometime between 1:00 and 3:00 PM.  Well, I waited and waited and they never showed up.  I didn’t head out until around 4:30, which meant I was going to hit a lot of rush hour traffic.

We eventually made it to Golden Nugget around 11:00 PM.  We were planning on having dinner at the Chairman’s Lounge, but missed it since we arrived so late.  We had a standard room, which was fine, we weren’t going to be there that long.

We had to do some play, since we were staying there on a comp and we were also on a tier renewal promo, and it was a 4x point day.  Our play went horribly, so needless to say, this was a disappointing start to our vacation.  We were also up until the wee hours, so we only got a few hours of sleep before we had to get up and head to the airport.

Wednesday, January 10 

5:00 AM came early, as we were getting ready to head out.  We hit the road shortly after 7:00 AM and arrived at Colonial Parking around 8:50 AM.  We hit a fair amount of traffic as we arrived towards the I-295 intersection on Route 42.

It was a short shuttle ride from the facility to the airport, arriving there around 9:05 AM.  I have TSA Pre, so going through security was a breeze for me.  It wasn’t so bad for Kip, except that she forgot to empty her water bottle.  She had to exit the security area, empty the bottle, and then come back through security. Quite time consuming.  We were still able to make the gate in time for me to get a quick breakfast at the McDonald’s near the gate.

We were mid B boarding (me in the 20’s, her in the 40’s), so our plan was to take two aisle seats across from each other.  It worked, and I got lucky, as I had an empty middle seat between me and the guy in the window seat.  We talked a fair amount across the aisle, and I think I fell asleep a few times.  I have our touchdown at McCarran around 12:30 PM, so we were a bit earlier than our 12:55 PM scheduled arrival time.

Now, I’m typically not a light packer, especially for a week long trip, but Kip convinced me to go with just a carry-on bag.  It’s a bit tricky, since I also have my bi-pap that I have to carry on as well (as well as my backpack), but I managed.  Since we didn’t have to wait for baggage, we were able to head right to the bus stop to take the WAX downtown.

I also usually rent a car for my Las Vegas trips, but we were there during CES, and rental rates were ridiculously high, so Kip convinced me to take the bus. The bus fare was $2, and we made it there just a few minutes ahead of the bus around 1:05 PM (otherwise, we were going to have to wait until the 1:50 PM), so that was some luck.

Waiting for the WAX (photo courtesy of Kip)

Yay WAX!

After an uneventful ride, we arrived downtown and walked into the El Cortez around 1:50 PM.  Kip had her host make an exception for our reservation, so we were staying there for three nights, with 3x points for her on one day, and $25 (which she originally thought was $50). I had seen a few of her rooms at El Cortez, including one of their signature suites, but we got a regular room on the second floor.  The room seemed quite spacious, with two beds, the dresser, desk and chair, plus a sofa and coffee table.  The bathroom area was small (as to be expected in a downtown room), but the bathroom has a window that you can open up (which Kip likes).  Our view was quite unspectacular, with a view of the roof, and an office across the way.  Above the office, we could see the Spanish style tiles and a Mission type tower, which was kinda cool.  Here's a link to photos of the room:  Room photos of El Cortez

Who needs a view anyway?

So, with Kip having not eaten anything but snacks on the plane, she was hungry.  We had Pizza Lotto on our previous trips and we liked it, and we have also eaten at Naked City Pizza on Paradise and liked that, so we were thrilled to learn that Naked City Pizza had taken over the Pizza Lotto space.  We were disappointed when we got our pizza.  It was not like the pizza we had at their Paradise location, although we did eat it. The poor meal was just the beginning of our poor day, and really an extension of our poor play in the morning at Golden Nugget. . .

The unimpressive pizza

El Cortez does have good video poker, and Kip wanted to play some Downtown Deuces (Double Deuces Wild), which has a theoretical return of 100.92%.  Well, we didn’t realize that return, in fact, we took some hard losses, which were even harder to swallow after the beating we took earlier that morning.

Oooh, that could have been better. . .

And this one too!

We moved to bonus poker at Ike’s bar, but that didn’t fare much better.  I know that we didn’t hit many quads, we didn’t hit aces, and I know I didn’t hit any other bonus quads.  I had enough and just wanted to take some slot shots.  We played $1 Top Dollar, which we had a nice hit at Resorts in Atlantic City in December, but we had no such luck this time, but we did take a $20 win each.  We then each tried a $20, her on Return of Invaders from the Planet Moolah, and me on Goldfish 3. Now, we have historically had bad sessions on Invaders, but Kip had one good session, and that seems to make her think that she’ll have another one.  That may be true, but every time we’ve played together, it ends in failure, and this was no different.  I, on the other hand, hit several bonuses and was able to cash out an $80.62 ticket, so we were up another $20 each.  We tried some 10c Wheel Poker, but bailed after only losing $10.  I saw a Silver Strike slot, so I tried $10 while Kip added $10 in Free Play.  We had no luck there, and decided to call it a night.

We hadn’t eaten since our bad lunch at 3:00 PM, but it was too late to get a full meal now, so we headed to the room.  As I recall, it wasn’t even midnight, but we had been up most of the day anyway.  Tomorrow’s another day. . .

Golden Nugget Resort Fee:  $22.31

Golden Nugget housekeeping:  $3
Shuttle driver tip:  $3 (Kip)

Bus fare:  $2 ea

Breakfast:  $6.90 (Harv)

Lunch:  $2 tip (Harv)

Drink tips:  $16

Happy New Year

Yeah, I'm a little late and I've been a bit lax at updating my blog.  Not that anyone's paying attention anyway.


So, here we are, January 18.  I did post my trip to Borgata in October, which I thought I already had.  So let's catch people up on what's happened since October:


October 19:  We went to the Smithsonian National Zoological Park (National Zoo) to see Bau Bau, the baby panda, and we did!  We did this as I was leaving to go to NYC for a business trip.


October 20:  I had an awful dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. in NYC, where I waited around 20 minutes for a waiter.


October 26:  We went to Summers Farm near Frederick, MD to go pumpkin picking.  We've been going there for the past three years and although there are places closer to where we live, they have a lot of activities here that we think makes it worth the drive.


October 27:  We went to see Disney on Ice.  We let Tessandra get dressed in her Elsa costume and she had a wonderful time.


November 4:  We took Tessandra ice skating for the first time, she did quite well.  This was in preparation for the Try Hockey for Free program USA Hockey was running.  We were going to be in Atlantic City that weekend, but there's a Flyer's Skate Zone there, so I was able to get her in there.  There weren't a lot of children there, but it wasn't set up for different skill levels, so those who had little experience on skates, did not really get to "learn" hockey.  We stayed at Trump Taj Mahal, which what I thought was going to be the last time I'd stay there before it closed.  Turns out they are planning on being open at least through 2015.  My friends Catherine, Bob, and I did share a royal though, so that was fun.


November 12:  Another business trip up to NYC.


November 23:  I had another Borgata Fiore Suite booked, and made the trip alone again.  I rented a car from Alamo and they had a really great deal for a minivan.  I jokingly took a picture of it before I left, and it was fortunate that I did, as when I returned it, the person noted damage on the front which I did not do, and they tried to make me pay for it.  I sent them an e-mail with the photo I took and they "decided" that they would take care of the damage.  In the future, I'll always remember to take good notes (and possibly photos or videos) of my car rentals.  We did have a good time in AC, we used the pool, tried Noodles of the World (which we liked) and The Metropolitan (when we weren't too impressed).  We drove down to Ocean City and played some golf, although it was a bit chilly and quite windy.


November 27:  Thanksgiving at my mother's which we very nice.  Then the next night we had a family dinner at Uncle Julio's Rio Grande Café, which I hadn't been to since it was just Rio Grande.  The food was still good though, and Tessandra enjoyed watching the tortilla machine.  The next night we had brunch at Whitlow's on Wilson, which was really nice, they had crab legs!  I'll have to remember that for future brunches.


December 6:  My handbell choir performed at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Stage.  We've performed there many times, but this time didn't go as well.  We weren't mic-ed up too well and on one of our songs, I didn't have enough room and was clanking bells left and right.  Probably one of my worst performances ever.  But, it is always a treat to play there.  We performed two other concerts at two retirement homes and those went very well.


December 12-18:  We took Tessandra to Walt Disney World for her birthday, I'll make a separate entry for that trip.


December 23:  I was part of a small handbell ensemble that performed the National Anthem before the Wizards game.  It didn't go as well as our performance before the Nationals game, mostly because there were only around 35 people and not all of the parts were covered.  Still, it was nice to be out on the court.


December 24:  We hurried down to my brother's to make Christmas Eve church service and stayed at the Country Inn & Suites in Virgina Beach.  That's one of our favorite hotels, mostly because they have the library there where Tessandra can get books.


December 26:  We headed up to Atlantic City for our usual end of the year trip.  Unfortunately, Cath couldn't take any additional time off, so she and Tessandra headed back on Sunday afternoon while I stayed for an additional two nights.  Friday and Saturday we stayed at Resorts, and because we got there so late (8:42 PM), we got a pretty plain room.  We met friends at Borgata and ate at The Metropolitan.  We had lunch the next day at Breadsticks at Resorts, since the buffet is now closed forever.  We walked down to Caesars to meet some friends, saw the light show on Boardwalk Hall, since the fountain show at The Pier is gone.  We had a late dinner at Café Roma before heading back to Resorts.


I had a horrible gambling trip, making three really bad trips this year (Las Vegas, the August AC trip, and this one).  Not even 1 1/3 royals helped, although a dollar royal would have made the year good (a quarter royal would have broken even this trip).  Since I didn't renew my Epic card at Resorts, I blew out my comp for Sunday brunch at Capriccio.  It was good as always, and I think I'll make it a point to have brunch there when we're up there.  The servers and the General Manager are great.  They could use a few more food selections (crab legs), but what they have is really good and the service is top notch.


Cath and Tessandra head home after brunch and get caught in some bad holiday traffic.  I walk from Resorts to Trump Taj Mahal, where I booked a room there a few months ago, but never cancelled it even when they said they were closing.  We went to The Water Club at Borgata for our end of the year MPT Tournament, which our friend "Sass" won (after many years of trying, not that we all haven't).  As it was Sunday, we were hard pressed to find something to eat late at night and ended up getting an overpriced meal at Dunkin Donuts.


Monday, Bob and I walked down to Caesars and ate at Kwi, which we enjoy.  We walked through Bally's and looked at Claridge and then headed to Borgata to meet our friends again.  After Bob couldn't get a cheese steak at Tony Luke's because they were out of bread and didn't want to take the time to bake more, we had burgers from Fatburger.


We checked out of Trump Taj Mahal for the last time in 2014, stopped at The Palace Diner for lunch and Bob dropped me off at 30th Street Station so I could catch my train home.


January 1:  I ended up not going to the Winter Classic, after taking a casino beating, I just didn't have the money to use on a ticket, and a friend did post that she had one available.  *sigh*
We had mom's pre-birthday dinner at Duck Chang's, as we always do.  We were fortunate that Stephen's fiancée was able to attend as well as Joshua.  The next night I took Tessandra to the Teppanyaki Grill Buffet, which she calls, "Happy Buddha", since they have a Buddha statue by the hostess stand.


January 10:  It was the handbell retreat weekend.  We worked on music for the Riverside Festival in April, plus some numbers for the dessert concert in February, which I'm going to miss for the first time because I'm going to the Capitals-Flyers game for my birthday.  It will be strange not being there, but I felt like a treat for my birthday.


And that brings us to now!  I guess I had a fairly busy end of the year, especially with the Disney trip.  This year I'm already packed with trips.  I'll be going back to Disney for Star Wars Weekend, plus I'll be going to Las Vegas two weeks after that with my poker buddies, and then I'll be going back to Vegas again at the end of July with my forum board friends.  I think I may be tripped out for this year!

October Borgata Trip

Wednesday, October 1

 

I received some Borgata offers for Fiore Suites from my play in August and wanted to take advantage of them.  I booked one, but unfortunately, my wife couldn’t get the time off, and since I hated to cancel the suite, I decided to go.  I let my friend up there know and we decided to share the room.  Since we only have one car, I booked the Amtrak, leaving Union Station at 1:02 PM, arriving at 30^th Street Station at 2:57 PM, and leaving there on Sunday at 4:35 PM, getting back to Washington at 6:30 PM.  It was $127.00 r/t, which I felt wasn’t bad, the trip up was only $38, it was the $89 rate coming back that was a bit pricey.

I did my usual drill, picked up the bus to the Metro station, and then took the Metro to Union Station.  I had a quick lunch at McDonald’s before boarding.  I didn’t think a Wednesday train at 1:00 PM would be crowded, but it was.  I didn’t have to share my seat though, so it wasn’t so bad.  It was mostly cloudy and it rained at times, but the sun also came out.  I arrived in Philly a little after 3:00 and Bob had just arrived to pick me up.  There was a little bit of traffic getting out of the city, but I think we made good time, and pulled into Borgata around 4:25.

There was a bit of a line at check-in, but the clerk did confirm that I had the Fiore suite, two beds.  Bob had a separate reservation, when I was going to be using the room with the family, but he was able to cancel it then with no charge or hassle.

I had stayed in the Fiore suite once before, when I checked in after midnight on a Thursday, but this is the first time I was able to actually make a reservation for one.  It is one of the nicer suites I’ve stayed in, the bathroom is huge, but this time there weren’t any robes in the closet like last time, of course, that was many years ago.

You can see pictures of the suite here:

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10154871113600232.1073741865.813685231&type=1&l=fa628bc1fa

We were going to check out the pool, but we got the Xbox set up and were playing on it for a while before we realized that we should eat.  They are running a promo where you can get a 2-1 buffet by showing a Showboat (Total Rewards), Revel, or Trump Plaza (Trump One) card at the slot club.  We got there around 7:50 and talking with the clerk, she said it was good for 24 hours and if we wanted to use it today, we’d have to get there quickly, because the buffet closed at 8:00.  Wow, we rushed across the casino to get there, the gate was partially closed and a woman was standing there but she let us in.

They’ve slimmed down the menu a bit, but there are still tasty offerings, although I just pretty much got prime rib and shrimp.  They used to have some nice dim sum offerings, but not any more.  Even the gelato choices were smaller, they only had like four flavors, which was disappointing.

I played a little bit, losing around $80.  We spent the rest of the night playing Xbox and drinking.

Thursday, October 2

Well, we slept late, what else is new.  We decided we’d definitely check out the pool (we’ve stayed here a few time and always wanted to go, but never did), it was small, but nice.  We spent about an hour down there, checked out one of the hot tubs and I checked out the sundeck area.

We left the Do Not Disturb sign on because we were planning on coming back and showering and would have housekeeping come after we left for lunch, but when we came back, the sign was gone and when I opened the door, I saw that housekeeping had already been there.  They also kept our sign, but fortunately, she was just next door, so Bob asked for another one.  We also noticed that she left the tip we had left in the bathroom for her (which wasn’t the first time that it’s happened to us in AC).

We showered up and went down to the “Cafeteria” for lunch.  It was a bit late for lunch, and we were going to do the buffet again tonight, so we just got pizza, Bob just a slice and me, I got a combo, which came with a drink and a salad.  I wanted a Coke because I brought some Malibu but because Bob stopped drinking Coke, he didn’t bring any.  We went back up to the room and ate and played more Xbox while we were waiting for our friend to join us for dinner.

We made sure we got there a bit earlier, and there was a bit of a line when we got there around 7:15 PM.  Fortunately, the other Bob had a Black Label card, so we were able to pay right away.  I had $18 in comps from my previous play, so that helped on the 2-1.

One of our friends works there, so they went to visit him while I went back up to the room to video conference my wife and daughter.  Bob came back up and we went down to the casino floor to play a bit.  We tried a few video poker games with no luck, we tried some nickel Ultimate X and hit a multiplied quad to get us almost to even.  We parlayed it on Multi-Strike and I believe all three time we made it to the top line, we got a paying hand, a flush, a straight, and two pair, so we were about even.  I found 50c on a Triple Trouble VP machine and I put in $10 to play it off and hit a quad.  Then I was playing some 50c 9/6 JoB and hit another quad and was about even for the two days.

We headed back upstairs, played a little more Xbox and called it a night.

Friday, October 3

Originally we had reservations at Trump Taj Mahal, but since it was closing and Bob has a shore house down in Stone Harbor, which is about 45 minutes away, we decided that we’d just go to the shore house.  We did have to go by there anyway, since Bob cashed out of Ultimate Casino.

I have an Epic card at Resorts, so we parked for free there and had lunch at the Epic Lounge.  We had eaten there once before and it was pretty nice, so we ate there again.  It is $12.50 in comp dollars per person, which is up from the $10 it was.  It is a nice little lounge and although they don’t have a large offering of food, the food seemed to be good.  Our drink service was a little poor though.

We headed over to the Taj, and I noticed that I didn’t have any of my Trump One cards.  Fortunately, there was no line at the slot club and I got two replacement cards.  I went to play my $40 in FreePlay, plus the $7 I had in slot dollars.  Unfortunately, you can only get your slot dollars in $1, $10, $25, $50, and $100 denominations, so that was a bit inconvenient, especially getting my $7 out.  I was playing their old Game Maker $1 9/6 JoB machines and hit a few hands to turn my $47 into $75.

We headed back to Resorts, where I was going to put in a play day while Bob went back home to feed his cat.  We played a quick $100 on $1 8/5 BP before he left and he hit a quad, but we both ended up losing.

I went back and hit a bonus quad, but it quickly was lost, and another $100, and another $100.  It wasn’t going so well.  I took a break and tried the $1 Wheel of Fortune, I got two spins, both hit on either side of the 1,000 slice.  I took my losings to the $1 Top Dollar machine, I hit a few bonuses but nothing great.  I tried the Dean Martin Wild Party slot, but didn’t get a bonus.

I went down to the 25c 8/5 JoB Progressive, the progressive was just under $1,200.  I was doing pretty good, I hit a few quads, then I hit like deuces with a kicker and I’m thinking, isn’t that always the way?  I did cash out up $80, so that was something.  I headed back to the high limit area and lost another $100 on the $1 8/5 BP.

I went down to the 25c 9/5/4 DDB Progressive, and after a few hands I held three deuces and drew an ace and the other deuces, $200!  Yea!  Around 5 minutes later, I get dealt quad threes and I draw a kicker for another $200.  I put in $20 and cashed out $325!  I’m still a bit down though.

I put in $40 on a 50c 8/5 BP machine and it goes pretty quickly.  I put in another and get some good hands, I hit a few quads.  Then I get 9s-10s-X-Ks-Qs, I figure I have to hold the straight flush draw, and wouldn’t you know, the Js comes in.  Ugh, and what if I didn’t hold the 9s?  Ah well, it’s still a nice $125 hit.

The guy next to me says, that’s the way you had to play it, and we get to talking about the games.  He’s a Red Carpet player, so he plays a lot.  He told me, as I suspected, that they increased the coin-in required to earn points.  We talked about the state of gaming in AC and other things.  Bob said he was here, so I was finishing up my play, I got three aces and picked up the fourth right around when he arrived.  I cashed out a profit of $320 and played another $100 while Bob was there.  I only ended up being down around $100, which wasn’t bad.  I ended up earning 20 points.

It was around 8:00 and I wanted to check out the Boardwalk, since I hadn’t really walked around there the past few trips.  We went down to Bally’s, since I hadn’t been in there since the remodel.  I liked what I saw, more room, newer games, seemed very nice.  I’m not sure I’ll be playing there, but at least it looked like they made improvements.  We went through the Wild Wild West part, which is still pretty barren.  They moved the poker room down on the street side, where their old “Little Joe’s Video Poker” area was, now it’s all live poker tables.  It’s very quiet there, since there isn’t anything else around there.  They did move the stage outside of the Mountain Bar to a separate stage, and put the beer pong and mechanical bull there too.

We walked through Coyote Kate’s, still pretty much the same, and went to Caesars.  We walked down to Trump Plaza, so strange seeing it with the lights off.  They were just starting to take the names down the following Monday.  The Rainforest Café, which is in the building is still open though.

We went back to Caesars and had dinner at Kwi.  We already enjoy eating there, but since they don’t allow children there, I can’t eat there when I’m with my family.  We got what we usually get, seafood udon, although Bob asked for his with just shrimp.  They also got rid of the coconut ice cream, which we like.

We headed back to Resorts and headed down to Stone Harbor, getting there a little after 11 PM.  We set up the Xbox there and played a bit before calling it a night.

Saturday, October 4

I slept later while Bob went out and got a haircut.  We were supposed to have some people come over for dinner, but they all had to cancel.  We still had to go out shopping for food, so we picked up some steaks and Bob was going to make some mac and cheese.  We walked into town so I could get my daughter some souvenirs.  We have stayed here many times, but never really went into the town.  I got her a shirt and a magnet for her collection.

Bob went for a quick swim in the bay, I found the water a bit cold for my taste, so I just watched.  It was overcast and windy, but when the sun was out, it was nice.  We got to see a pretty nice sunset.

Bob grilled the steaks, made the mac and cheese, and made some chicken for lunch the next day.

There was a nice moon out that night, too bad the phone on my camera can’t take good pictures of it.

We actually watched some pre-season hockey before playing more Xbox.

Sunday, October 5

We figured we’d have to leave around 2, so we had lunch there and watched part of the Eagles game.  I was wondering if it was a home game (it was) and if that would affect our travel plans.  Since my train left at 4:35, and I wanted to get there around 3:45, we would avoid any heavy traffic.  We did get to 30^th Street Station around 3:54, but they hadn’t announced the departure gate.  In fact, it is advertised that they’ll announce the gate 10 minutes before departure, but that didn’t happen.  Then they made the announcement that the Northeast Regional and the Acela would be departing from the same gate (opposite tracks).

I boarded near the front of the train, but it was packed.  Very packed!  It was the most crowded train I had ever taken,  I went from the front to the last car (all the while lugging my bag) and ended up in the second to last seat on the train.  It thinned out a little at Wilmington (the train originated in New York and was going to Richmond) and in Baltimore, it really cleared out.

I got off at New Carrollton, since it’s easier to take the Metro Orange line straight from there to Vienna than going to Union Station, taking the Red Line from there and switching trains at Metro Center.  I got to Vienna around 7:47 and Cath picked me up.

We stopped for dinner at IHOP, since Tessandra wanted pancakes, so I didn’t get home until 10:25.  Quite the long day, but it was fun.

We didn’t go up and see Showboat and Revel, and I didn’t see what happened with the walkway from the Taj to Showboat (did they wall it off, or just have the doors locked with a sign).

I have a reservation at Trump Taj for November 7-8 and it’s scheduled to close on the 13^th.  That will be an interesting trip.  I also have another reservation at Borgata for Nov 23-24 in the Fiore suite, I’m hoping to keep that.  We usually spend time between Christmas and New Year’s up there, but with all of the casinos closing (I get most of my free rooms from Resorts and Taj), if the Taj closes, there’s a good chance that I won’t get more than two comped nights up there at Resorts (although if I do two nights, then a night somewhere else, and then two more nights, it is possible).  I’m also planning on going to the Winter Classic in DC on New Year’s Day, so I’ll have to be home for New Year’s Eve anyway.  I guess we’ll see how things look next month.

No royals this trip, but two $200 DDB quads with kicker and the $200 aces were good to keep the trip from being a big loser.

Cath's birthday trip to Atlantic City

Cath wanted to have her 40th birthday at Grotto at Golden Nugget in Atlantic City.  We ate there in February and she really liked it, so I made a reservation at Resorts for Saturday, August 9, since I the only places I can get a comped Fri/Sat night is Resorts or Trump Taj Mahal.

We typically leave Friday night, but I figured we could get an earlier start on Saturday instead of getting there late Friday night, but Cath had to take our daughter to a birthday party, so we didn't get on the road until around 4:00 PM.  With a few stops, we arrived at Resorts around 8:09 PM.  I renewed my Epic status there, which meant that I would get free parking, but I didn't get my renewed card before I left.  So when I gave the parking attendant my old card, she asked if I had the new card and I said I didn't, but I renewed, but she said she couldn't see that.  I inquired about an upgrade since it was her birthday and she offer a smoking jacuzzi room, but Cath didn't want a smoking room.We ended up with an accessible room on the 3rd floor of the Ocean Tower, although we had to wait for it to be ready.  I forgot my money in the car, so I went back up, stopped by the slot club and got my new cards and asked about getting the $5 refunded.  The slot person said the front desk could do it.  When I asked at the front desk, she said they couldn't do it, but the parking valet would give me a pass for free parking, since I was staying there.  I said I was supposed to get free parking anyway, but I could see that the conversation wasn't going to go anywhere.  I'm not a big fan of accessible rooms, but this shower did have a shower curtain and there was a chair in it.  It was also odd that we had two refrigerators and our two chairs didn't match.

The refrigerator for our refrigerator. . .

High quality here. . .

 

Cath had a free dessert offer from Margaritaville, so we went there.  We got there around 8:48 and they said it was a 45 minute to one hour wait!  Wow.  We decided to wait, and while we were waiting, there was a person making balloon things and he made Tessandra a hat with a dog on it.  I had some freeplay and played it on the $1 8/5 BP.  I didn't get anything good, but I did cash out for $125.

 

Turns out, the wait was closer to 20 minutes, but I was still sitting by the blender since Cath had the pager. 

The big blender outside the restaurant. . .

 

We got seated near windows facing the Boardwalk and the "Super Moon" was out, well, the night before the "Super Moon".  We had two monkeys with us this time:



So, at Margaritaville, I got fried chicken, so sue me.  It was good, but I had to ask for more gravy.

 

We went for a walk on the beach, with the mostly full moon out, that's something you can't do in Las Vegas.

 

We found some nice shells on the beach, including the largest clam shell I've ever seen!

 

Bob was coming back from Barnegat going to Stone Harbor and he wanted to see if I was still up and wanted to eat.  We ate a few hours ago, but I told him I could get something.  He arrived but parking at Resorts was $20 if you didn't have your player's card, which he didn't.  So he went to Trump Taj Mahal, paid the $5 there with his player's card and used the receipt to park at Resorts. We got to Breadsticks around12:49 AM, and I think they closed at 1:00 AM.  Bob got the chicken parmesan sandwich and a milkshake and I just got a cup of the seafood corn chowder and a beer.  When we got the bill, I noticed that we were charged $12 for the beer that was advertised at $4.  After speaking with the manager, he made it right.  I had quite a few comp dollars, so I picked up the bill.

We tried taking some pot shots at Ultimate X and Super Times Pay, but we didn't win, seems like a carryover from Vegas.  And the last few times Bob left me, I'd hit a royal, but even that didn't happen tonight.

Sunday, August 10



Resorts has the annoying 11:00 AM check out, but I called down and was able to get a noon check out.  We were trying to figure out what to do for lunch and we decided to get something on the Boardwalk.  Tessandra likes corndogs and I figured there would be a place to get one there.  There wasn't a place on the Steel Pier to get one, but a little ways down we found a place.  They advertise that they have the largest slices of pizza and I think they are right:

 

I got a cheese steak and Cath had to have a funnel cake.

Afterwards, we had some time to kill, since we were going to be staying at Borgata tonight and it was using our friend's comp and they had to come and check-in for us, with dinner planned for 7:00.  We headed to the Steel Pier, since we've never really done that.  I bought the $35 package of tickets and we have a few leftover.  She was scared of a few rides, but she enjoyed most of them.

She got to ride on the upper portion before they closed it later

 

We left the Boardwalk and headed to Borgata, arriving there around 4:37.  Cathy and Jose were already in line, it was pretty long:

 

We got a nice room on a 20-somthing floor with a view of the city.  A strange thing was we set up the chairs for Tessandra to use as a bed and when Cath called down for an extra sheet, they told her they didn't do that, which we found odd.  The was a top sheet on the bed, which I took and used for her, although the one on my bed had holes in it.

I think it's time to replace this.

I also noticed that there was a leak around the toilet, although I did notice that they've remodeled the rooms since last I stayed there.  We put Tessandra down for a quick nap and showered before dinner.
We were running late and didn't get to Golden Nugget until 7:16, but it didn't take long to get from the parking garage to Grotto.  I spoke with the hostess and she said she hadn't cancelled my reservation yet, although the restaurant was hardly crowded.  It took a few minutes for the rest of the guests to arrive.  We ordered family style last time and ordered the same thing we ordered last time, the Grotto salad, spaghetti bolognese, and fettuccine alfredo with grilled chicken, and we got some buttered spaghetti for Tessandra.  Always love the large portions:

They gave Cath a choice of a birthday dessert and she got the strawberry shortcake:

 

 

I had a little over $30 in comps, and after taking that off, the bill was a little over $90.  They didn't add an automatic gratuity, so I tipped 20%.  One thing I found slightly disappointing is that restaurants will typically comp a birthday dessert, but they didn't.

 

We headed back to Borgata and I wanted to get some play in.  I started at the $1 9/6 JoB, and didn't have any luck.  I found some Super Bonus Poker machines, and I did hit a nice straight flush:

 

 

Things didn't get better after that and I dropped down to nickels, of course I hit this:

 

 

I'd lose a bit more and then I hit this:

 

 

I press up to dimes and I get this:

 

 

Finally another win:

 

 

I tried some more Hyper Bonus that we played in Vegas, but this was the best I could do this time:

 

 

That's after losing on quarters.  I always do better the first time, I should stick with that. . .

Monday, August 11

They had the room for Monday night as well, so we didn't have to rush to check out at 11:00 am.  We went down and had a leisurely lunch at the Cafeteria, their food court.  Last time I recall that we were able to get Tessandra a corndog, but this time there were none to be found.

 

I was going to check them out via the video checkout, but the TV wasn't working.  I was going to leave a note to housekeeping (along with the note that the toilet seemed to be leaking), when I saw that the HDMI cable was unplugged from the router.  After plugging it back in, the TV worked (I'll send them my bill).  But because it was so late, we couldn't check out.  As we were leaving, I told housekeeping that we were checking out and I also filled out one of the express checkout cards in the "living room", the lobby area outside of the room elevators (it's really a nice idea).

 

With a few stops, I believe we got home around 9:00 PM, a bit late since we have to go to work the next morning, but it was a nice little getaway.  It was too bad we didn't get to go by Revel (and too bad we never got to stay there before it closed).  I saw Showboat last time I was there and met Otto there, but I doubt we'll get back there before Trump Plaza closes.  I already see promotions for Trump Taj Mahal and Resorts for the Revel players.  We'll see how things shake out the next few months.  With Horseshoe Baltimore opening up, I'm eager to go see how it is.  They sent me some freeplay, so I hope to be able to use it.