Please ADD your own Las Vegas Trip Report. Date of Trip: February 15, 2006 to February 21, 2006 Hotel Stayed At: Rio and Flamingo Report by: HT <> From: Sierra Vista AZ

The Best Laid Plans........
We were scheduled to leave Tucson at 7:25 p.m. on Wed. February 15th, with a connection in Vegas to Burbank. We had tickets to The Price is Right on Thursday, a life-long dream of my Trusty Companion(T.C.). We had been told that people line up as early as 6:00 a.m. for a 2:30 taping. Then on Friday, we had tickets to The Tonight Show. On Saturday, we planned to drive from L.A. to Vegas and had tickets to see Aerosmith with Lenny Kravitz on Saturday night at the MGM Grand. We would be staying at the Flamingo until Tuesday on a free offer to play in a slot tournament.
That was the “plan” anyway. I mean, I had planned every detail practically down to the minute. We had both worked that day and I had printed "A" boarding passes first thing in the morning. After getting out of work, we drove the hour to Tucson, arriving about 6:30 p.m. Well, what actually happened was there were high winds in Vegas that day and everything was backed up. I understand this is not Southwest’s fault. My T.C., however, was not quite so understanding. They finally announced that we were going to miss our connection to Burbank. We were given the option to fly to L.A. arrive around midnight and take some kind of a shuttle to Burbank that cost $20 per person and arrive who knows what time, or fly into Ontario in the morning and rent a car there. I had the rental car reserved at the Burbank airport, as well as the hotel reserved there. They gave us a few minutes to decide. In the meantime, I get on the phone and call 1-800-HARRAHS and they say they can accommodate us for the evening at the Rio comped. Finally, after some tense moments, we say “screw it, let’s just go to Vegas”. In the meantime, they had switched our flight from our original one to a completely different one. After getting our new boarding passes, I remember my bag. I never check my bag on such a short trip but, of course, this time I did. I had not even a toothbrush. T.C. carried on his bag. The gate agent said she would “try” and get my bag off that flight since our original flight was now not even stopping in Vegas but going directly to Sacramento. We arrive in Vegas at about 10:00 p.m. Of course, my bag is not there. I go to baggage claim and she says, oh it is probably in Burbank, call this number in the morning. I say whatever. At this point, I just want to sit down in front of a slot machine with a drink. We arrive at the Rio and check in with platinum check-in which takes all of 5 minutes. During the span of time I am checking in, T.C. wins $700 on a dollar machine right adjacent to check-in. Things are looking up. He referred to this machine as his personal ATM for the next several days.
We get to the room and are very pleased. The rooms have been redone since the last time we stayed there (4/03). It was very, very nice. The bed was super comfortable. There was plenty of room and a fridge. It then dawns on me, my bag isn’t in Burbank, it’s in Sacramento. So, I call the number and I get the same baggage agent I had spoken to in person. I tried to explain this complication to her and then I told her a little while lie that I had medication in the bag that I needed. She then took my information and where I was staying. I thought, well it will be at least 2 days before I see that bag. So, I called Housekeeping for a “dental kit” as they call them and went down to gamble. I got back to the room a little after 1:00 a.m. and the message light was on. I called and they said, YOUR BAG IS HERE. I almost fell over. I don’t know how, why, where...but there it was. I was so happy.
The next morning, we were trying to decide what to do. Do we rent a car and drive to L.A. and still try and make the Tonight Show? Do we try and get a flight that morning? Do we stay put? I was so comfortable and happy with this room, I was happy to stay. I was able to make arrangements to stay in that room until Saturday comped. We figured on Saturday, we would just move over to the Flamingo and carry on with the “plan”. We ordered room service breakfast. Two standard breakfasts, pot of coffee and one juice was about $42.00 but well worth it. At this point, I am looking at 6 full days in Vegas ahead of me and I was delirious.
First thing in the morning, we stop at platinum check-in to get our key cards re-done and while I am in that process, T.C. wins another $200 on his personal ATM machine. He won $1,000.00 from that machine over the course of the days we were there. That day, we went over to the Gold Coast and then across to the Palms. We toyed with the idea of seeing an IMAX movie, but they didn’t have one playing at that time. We got on the shuttle to the mall and then crossed over to Wynn. There is a bank of nickel machines there that I am partial too. When we were there in September, we watched a lady win the progressive of $6,000 + while sitting there. We played there and then walked to the Venetian and then to Harrahs to catch the shuttle back but the line was too long, so we walked to the Barbary Coast and caught their shuttle to the Gold Coast. I didn’t realize it at the time, now that Harrah’s has bought all these new properties, they have shuttles running between the Rio and all these separate properties. It was windy and cold that day and we just wanted to get back “home”. We ate dinner at the American Grille or whatever it’s called in the Rio and just stayed at the Rio for the evening.
Friday we decided to do this Treasure Hunt promotion they were doing. You get a card at the Total Rewards and take it to the Total Rewards booth at each of the properties, Rio, Harrah’s, Flamingo, Bally’s, Caesar’s and Paris and they stamp your card and give you a little gift. You can then enter your card in a drawing. We got a “gold” necklace at Caesar’s, a key chain at both Harrah’s and Flamingo and a pen at Bally’s. When we got to Paris, they guy says, oh you’re getting your last stamp here so you get a coupon for a free buffet for 2. We used it the next day for late breakfast/early lunch and the total was almost $60 for the 2 of us, so this was a great deal.
Saturday was moving day. I hated to leave the Rio. I had been so comfortable there. We packed up and took the shuttle to the Flamingo. Went to platinum check-in and it was too early to check in but they said they would get us a room with a view. We checked our bags and went and used that Paris buffet coupon. After that, it was time to check in. We got a room on the 24th floor with a beautiful view of the strip facing Caesar’s and even a view of the Bellagio fountains out to the left. But after the Rio, it was like checking in to a closet! I will be staying at the Rio on future trips. Although they did say at the Flamingo that they were going to be renovating.
We took the monorail down to MGM and located the Garden Arena. We had time before the show so we got drinks and I found some nickle machines that were very fun. I won about $60 playing before the show. We got to the arena right before 8:00 since we had assigned seating. Our seats were so bad that our backs were literally against the wall. You could not have gone up any higher or back any further than we were. Still we enjoyed the show which didn’t end until after 11:00. We monorailed it back to the Flamingo.
Sunday was the day to register for the slot tournament. I had been invited to play at one at Harrah’s in September and didn’t end up playing because they were so disorganized. I had to wait in line 2 ½ hours just to register. But I thought I would check it out. Before that, we went and placed bets on the Daytona 500. I finally found the registration area and was pleased to see they were very well organized.. It took all of 5 minutes to register. I received 2 coupons for the breakfast buffet and a $50.00 food and beverage coupon. I also received 2 wrist bands for me and my guest to be in the tournament room where they were going to have an open bar and food set up. Each person had to play 3 sessions; 2 on Monday and 1 on Tuesday. We took our $50 food and beverage coupon and ate while watching the end of the race. T.C. won $140.00.
T.C. had read in the paper that “The View” was going to be taping several shows in Vegas. On Sunday, we noticed that they were constructing a “set” in front of Caesar’s that we looked directly down on. I wanted to try and attend a taping since we had missed out on seeing the television shows in L.A. We went over to Caesar’s and looked around. We asked about tickets and were told, sorry, all sold out.
Monday morning, we could look down and see they were taping an actual show of The View. We found out later that the first taping was at 8:00 and people had arrived as early as 6:00 a.m. Monday, I played in my first tournament session. I really didn’t know what to expect. For those of you who are interested, you were assigned a machine by number for each session. There were 600 credits on each machine and you played until those credits were gone or 30 minutes whichever came first and points were generated for each “win”. I guess the person with the highest combined total points for the 3 sessions was the overall winner. Although I was to later learn that almost everyone would win something. It was kinda fun. After that, we walked across the street to Caesar’s to see if we could see any famous people or anything at The View. We walked around the set and we could see that Marge Helgenberger was the guest. There was a “stand-by line” sign with just a few people standing in it and in just a few seconds, we were handed a ticket to The View. We were taken to a kind of out door “holding area”. We were then told that Celine Dion would be performing on the show. We waited about an hour and a half and then were moved onto the actual set. We had pretty good seats. It was a lot of fun and in addition to Celine performing live, the male dancers, Thunder from Down Under performed. It actually aired on 2/24. During one of the breaks, Barbara Walters came down into the audience and was about 2 feet from me. Wow, she has got to be a size 0. She is tiny, tiny. Meredith Viera seemed really nice and talked to people and posed for pictures during the break. We got a free gift bag of Nexus hair products. All in all a fun way to spend the afternoon.
We went back and I played my second tournament session at 5:00 p.m. After partaking of the free drinks, we monorailed it down to the MGM as I really wanted to play that nickel machine again. It was one of those nights, when you completely lose track of time. I was playing the nickel machines and T.C. was playing blackjack. At one point, he ran out of money and came and borrowed $20 from me. The next time, I saw him he had over $700. Anyway, I thought it was about 11:00 p.m. We went to get on the monorail and it was closed! It was after 2:00 a.m. I couldn’t believe it. We ended up taking a taxi back to the Flamingo.
Tuesday morning we were both feeling pretty bad. We went and ate at the buffet and it was time to leave. Flight home was uneventful and on time.
All in all we had a great time. With all the freebies we got, we paid for 2 meals the entire time and one hotel night. Can’t wait for the next trip 4/15 - 4/18.


HT <> - Sierra Vista AZ    2888

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