Hotels
Orleans - four different reservations here to take advantage of assorted (cheap) offers.
Reservation 1 - Standard prices for this one. No offers, no free play or food credit. There was also no resort fee, which was nice.
Reservation 2 - $25 per night offer including of $20 free play and $20 food credit. This followed on from the first one and I just went down, checked in and out and kept the same room. No resort fee on the bill for this one either.
Reservation 3 - Another $25 per night offer. No free play or food credit, but we did get Thanksgiving for $25. Not bad considering we paid over $100 for last years Thanksgiving nights. We had the resort fee added to this bill. (I think a supervisor checked me in, probably why we were charged.)
Reservation 4 - Yet another $25 per night offer with the free play and food credit. (No resort fee.)
Barbary Bill's - Stayed here for nine nights. The prices dropped for some of our nights so I called and got the better rates. Some had also risen, but they let me keep them as they were.
Venetian - Two nights on the $149 per night offer including $50 slot play per day and $50 bar credit for Lavo at Palazzo. Didn't take long to spend that. A bottle of Estrella that we buy for € 0.60 in our local Spanish bar, was $9!!! I know it's imported, but really!
Me not drinking Estrella at Lavo.
Car hire
We had a car for most of the time we were in Vegas. I think we will be more selective next time, it was extremely convenient, but we did use it just of the sake of it sometimes. We had two separate reservations with dollar. We booked through car hire 3000, who have the full insurance package requires for UK drivers. We are both Dollar express members and it's easy to get your car. The girl in the office remembered us from last May and was really nice.
First rental period was easy and painless. Dodge Caliber almost brand new. Good seat adjustment (I'm short) and Digital radio.
The second was not. Disaster! We had the Caliber to begin with and I just chose another. We didn't have luggage; this is significant. We decided to drive to Silverton for lunch. Halfway there I noticed that the gas tank wasn't full. When we parked, we looked at the car and it was obvious that it hadn't been checked properly. There were two coats in the trunk. I called the dollar help number, the woman was no help at all, and so I took the car back. Unfortunately I left the paperwork beside the phone in the Silverton! Nightmare, but finally we sorted it all out (the nice girl in the Express booth was awesome) and ended up with a Hyundai Sonata, which was better for me to drive because it had even more seat adjustments.
Shows
Tom Jones - 10th November - $93.65 each
Tom Jones at the MGM Hollywood theatre. I really enjoyed the show. I definitely think he was more than slightly tipsy though and he's had far too much surgery. There were the obligatory knicker-throwing women at the front. Tony was sure they were plants. Tony Curtis and LV Norm from LVRJ were in the audience. Tony Curtis spoke to me when he passed our table as they were leaving, (he spoke to a lot of others too, but this was my first real celebrity sighting.)
Vinnie Favorito - 15th November - $27 each (2 for 1 coupon)
Good show. Don't go if you're easily offended. He picks on the audience mercilessly. Tony had tears rolling down his cheeks at one part. (Laughing, not crying.) He asked us who we were and where we came from, but he can't have any Brit jokes in his repertoire because he left us alone. We used the two for one from the POV and the Flamingo honoured it even though it was for Oshea's. Tony wanted to go to see him again this trip, but I persuaded him to leave it until next time.
Neil Sedaka - 16th November - $15 each (2 for 1 coupon)
This was a good show. Tony liked it more than me because he knew more of the tunes. His voice is still very strong considering he's getting on a bit now. He did a video duet with his daughter and a couple of tracks from his new album. Thanks to Norm for the half price voucher that he sent us.
Mamma Mia -20th November - $44.75 each (with link from Cheapskates forum. Thanks Skybank.)
I was surprised to learn that this show was 2.5 hours long. I don't suppose you can shorten it much, but they seem to manage with a lot of other shows. It didn't feel long at all and it was a great show. We both enjoyed it, me more than Tony, but he preferred the Neil Sedaka show.
Ka - 22nd November - $79.40 each
We really enjoyed Ka. This was our first Cirque show. We were in the cheap seats, but there really isn't a bad seat in the house. Got to see almost everything, but sometimes there was so much going on I didn't know where to look.
Commodores - 29th November - $25 each
It was a crap show. I knew I had made a mistake going to it when the lights went down and the bass notes started booming out. It was rattling my kneecaps! I didn't recognise many of the songs they sang, they weren't the ones that made it across to the UK. We were in the fourth row centre, so leaving early would have been difficult.
Gambling
As many of you know, we don't do much in the way of gambling. This time we did have a bit of free play included in our hotel reservations. We also had coupons for $10 free play at 4 Queens and 2 x $10 at El Cortez. Tony likes to run the exact amount of free play through and then cash out to find out how much he has actually won off the original stake. I don't know what difference it makes, but he seems to like doing that.
Didn't get anywhere with Wizard of Oz this time, Goldfish was OK, but not as good as previous times, my old favourite Texas Tea was quite kind to us but all in all no wins, just quite a bit of play (and $1 drinks) for not much money. I have to say my new favourite is Outback Jack. There are several bonus rounds and every one seems good fun. There weren't many of them around and they were often being played.
I actually played a bit of video poker this time. The best I did was on a deuces wild machine where I got a Royal Flush with a deuce for 125 credits. My best hand ever! I know it's nothing to some of you but I was well happy. I did get a couple of 4OAK's here and there, but it was when I was only playing 5c (25c total) so not much to shout about there.
We had a bet on the Ricky Hatton fight. I wanted to put $50 each on, but we ended up doing $50 between us. It all goes in the same pot so it wasn't a problem. Since the odds were well in Ricky's favour, there was no point in betting on a win, so we went for the "Won't go 12 rounds" and as some of you may know, the fight was stopped in the 11th round. A win for us! We picked up $190 and Tony said he wished we'd done the $50 each. Hindsight is a wonderful thing.
Food
We mostly ate at buffets, Orleans Coffee Shop or Ellis Island. We had the BBQ at Ellis Island three times with a 2 for 1 coupon. It's currently Tony's favourite. We had quite a few 2 for 1 and $5 off coupons and used them when we could. (Thanks Lesley)The buffets we ate at (in no particular order). Orleans, Rio, Harrah's, Silverton, Red Rock Station, MSS and Fremont. I have to say we ate less this time than we usually do, and felt better for it.
Ellis Island combo of half a chicken and half a rack of ribs. Only $8.99 with your EI slot card.
If you got this far, thanks for reading.
