Vegas Trip

Two years ago Gary and I took a gambling junket to Wendover NV with our friends and the bug hit us, now we try to make a trip to Nevada every fall. Last year we went to Jackpot and this year we went to Las Vegas Oct 28-31.

We didn't fly Allegiant because the dates didn't work for us. Allegiant is the cheap airlines that flies direct from Billings to Las Vegas, so we flew on Delta. I went through our travel agent and she found us a good deal for flights and motel. We stayed at the Luxor Casino which is located on the south end of the strip. We even paid for a shuttle to and from the airport. This cost us $1000 for the two of us. All we had to do was pay for meals.

Mom took and picked us up at the airport all we did was buy her breakfast and dinner for doing us this huge favor. We left Billings at 11:30 am and arrived in Las Vegas at 2:30 pm. We had to get a connecting flight out of Salt Lake. We would have flown on Allegiant which is a direct flight from Billings to Las Vegas, but the dates didn't work for us.

Our travel packet had vouchers for the airport shuttle and the check in for the Luxor, but I had instructions to call the shuttle 24 hours before arrived to verify the confirmation. I was told that all I had to do was go to the ticket booth and have our voucher validated. They would give me tickets to get on the shuttle. Was told where to find them at the Las Vegas airport.

Found the booth for the shuttle, got our tickets and was told to stand in line #1. Very well. We got into line #1 like we were instructed. The bus driver started loading up passengers and called for line #1. Just before we got on the bus, he told me to stay put as there were others who were there before me, they were in lines #2 and #3. This got my ire because the driver was very rude about this. So we got back into line #1 and this time I stood in front to make sure that I would be first on the next bus. There was room for us, so we got on this bus anyway. Not sure how he knew who was first or not.

We got checked in, had to find our way through the maze of the casino. Our room was in the pyramid and we had to take elevator 4B to get to our floor. We were on the 12th floor. I was given a casino map and we found our way to the elevator. Riding in an elevator when a building is shaped in a pyramid is an experience. You are riding at an angle. I was fine as long as I could lean against the wall of the elevator, but when you had to stand in the middle, it was like you were drunk.

Ed met us at the motel on Friday night, we ate dinner at the Mexican restaurant in our casino. When we checked in received a booklet full of coupons and we had a 2 for 1 on beer at this place. Gary and I shared a plate full of nachos while Ed ordered three tacos. When his plate came out I swear those tacos were bite sized, very small. We get bigger ones at Taco Johns. After dinner Ed took us on a small tour of the strip. We walked to the Excalibur, MGM Grand, Tropicana and Hooters. At Hooters Gary and I signed up for the players card, we got $200 to gamble on and we also got a voucher for a free steak dinner since we were out of state residents.

I thought they would put the $200 on our cards and we could play any machine we wanted, that was not the case. You could only play on certain machines, the hostess would put in the money. You could not cash out and were required to play the max bet. In this case the max bet was $10. Didn't take long to use of $200 but it wasn't my money. The only time when you won was if you hit the $1000 or $100 marks. We didn't eat the free steak dinner. For that you got a steak, baked potato, texas toast and 2 pats of butter. We were required to buy a beer for $1.50 to get this.

Gary was the winner for the weekend, he won $2300. He played a couple machines won $50 on one and $80 on the other. He won $2200 on the college football games. We both lost on the NFL games. His winning ticket went down to the wire. The last game was Stanford and USC. Stanford had to win by 8 points. The game was very exciting, went into three overtimes with Stanford coming out the winner. In college football by the time you get the 3rd overtime teams are required to go for the 2 point conversion. Stanford had the ball first in the 3rd overtime, scored and made the 2 point conversion. It was USC turn, the player dropped th ball in the end zone. It was all very fun, there were alot of people in the sports book cheering. I can never complain about Gary watching too much football.

The rest of the weekend was spent gambling, we did walk around and check out the other casinos and I was able to get some photos. We did enjoy the pool at the Luxor.

It was Halloween weekend in Vegas so saw alot of costumes. Some were hard to tell if the people were wearing their regular clothes or were in costume. Most of the people on the strip were the young crowd, college age. We were surprised that so many were there as they were not in the casinos. Most were in the clubs partying and there were quite a few Halloween parties going on in the casinos. Sunday night you could not get in to the Tropicana as they were full with Halloween partiers.

The weekend went by so fast that it was time to go. I had called the day before to verify our seat on the shuttel to the airport was told that the shuttle would pick us up at 9:10 am and we would get to the airport in plenty of time to catch our noon flight.

We were waiting for the shuttle as it was running late. A security guard was talking to us and we found out that the last day our shuttle was in operation was the 31st. Gary was talking to another driver when he was told that we needed a pink ticket. I didn't get one, the lady only gave me pink tickets to get on the shuttle our arrival day, she handed me back the voucher for the return ride. The man wasn't sure that we would be able to get on the bus or we would have to stay on the bus until our voucher was validated.

Fortunate for us, the driver didn't care since this was the last day of them running shuttles. He took our voucher and said that was good enough. Whew. When I first checked in at the shuttle she did give me two tickets. She only saw me and didn't see Gary as he was standing out of the way. Apparently she didn't read the voucher that it was for two people.

We were so glad that we didn't have to check any baggage in, the lines were very long at the airport. Found the kiosk to print our boarding passes then finally found the gate we needed and made our way through security. That was a madhouse, must have been at least 500 people getting on flights, thought for sure we would miss our flight. We were in security for half an hour, didn't take long at all with all the people getting through. Just before we got to the security station, they had opened up another scanner and we were told to get in that line. It was just a regular metal detector, not the body scanner, that was in the other line. All of our flights were on time.

The Las Vegas airport is huge. When you first arrive you are on the ground floor to check in, then you have to go upstairs to your gate and security. Then you have to take the tram to get to the concourse.

This was a good year for us on gambling. I won $1100 in Deadwood and Gary won $2300 in Vegas. I do have my photos posted on Picasa.