Terrified of Vegas - Day 3

We were out the door shortly after nine today, the plan was to head to Ellis Island for their Egg N Steak special. Can you guess how we’re getting there? That’s right! We’re walking it!

I read that the walk can be a little sketchy at night, but since we were walking early in the morning, I wasn’t too worried.

We both ordered the Egg N Steak special for $5.99. I told her that they have a microbrewery and they brew their own beer here, so she opted to try their light brew for $2.

As we were walking into the restaurant I noticed they had a sign up that said you get a $5 match play if your bill comes out to more than $15. Which wasn’t an issue ‘cause for my beverage I opted to go with coffee and that was close to $3. The breakfast was really good and did not disappoint!

 

Once that was done, we headed over to the player’s booth to sign her up, as I had already had a card. As a new member once you play through $10 they give you a random amount of free play anywhere between $5 to $500. She said she wanted to try her luck at the tables and actually sit down and play this time, so we each changed a $20 and found a $5 table. Turns out that in order to use the match play, you needed your receipt from the restaurant, so I had to go back to the restaurant, track down our waitress and ask for a copy of our receipt.

So now we each had a $5 match play, one from the restaurant, one from ACG. She said the beer was really good and wanted another one, so we each ordered a beer and started playing. I think I might have won my match play and she might have lost hers. Long story short, she busted out really quickly, I was able to stay in there for twice as long, but wasn’t really winning anything and shortly after I busted out as well. Just to put it into perspective to let you know how quickly this happened, our cocktail waitress wasn’t even back with our drinks yet and it's a fairly small casino.

So we stayed relatively close to the table and went to a machine to ring through $10 worth of slots. By the time we were done with that, our drinks had arrived. From ACG we had another coupon that gave us up to $100 in free play once we ring through $10, so she had to go to the booth to get that loaded. Once that was loaded, we were directed to a computer terminal where you would swipe your card, enter your pin and select the promos available to you.

After she loaded the promo onto her card, I was curious to see what kind of promos I had on my card, you know, for shits and giggles! I swiped it and it something about invalid and for me to see the player’s booth, which is what I did. Lucky I was curious! As it turns out Ellis Island updated their computer systems back in October of 2014, so all their old member info was wiped out and now everyone is considered new again, so I was able to sign up and qualify for the random amount of free play from $5 - $500.

So she played through both of her free plays, which I think the random amounts both times were $10. So now it’s my turn to play through, which I did very quickly, then I go to enter my pin to reveal my random amount, lo and behold, I’m presented with $198 worth of freeplay! Cha-ching!

One of the things that I wanted to do this trip was run a $100 through a $1 slot machine, on a max 3 credit bet and see what fortune it yielded me. I quickly run up to an attendant and ask them where their bank of $1 slots are, she tells me that they truly only have ONE machine that’s a dollar per spin, all the other machines are like penny machines that you can play more credits.

So I go to that machine to load $30 a time to test the waters. Press MAX bet which is $3, the first couple of $30 play throughs were alright, got some $6 and a couple $9 returns; there was no $3 return even though you were playing $3 per pull. I’d be sure to cash out my winnings every time, after a little bit, I decided to try my luck on a random machine next to it, once again I ran through $30 on it, and I think I might have hit $0.40! That was a big waste.

So I hop back over to my $1 machine and run through the rest of my free play. After feeding all of my TITOs in, I ended up cashing out with $66.40.

So minus the $20 that I lost from the BJ table, I was up about $40 from Ellis, all because I was curious to see what kind of promos my card yielded.

Once we were done with that, we started making our way towards the High Roller. 

They didn’t even begin construction yet last time I was there, so I wanted to check it out. We also wanted to check out and buy from the cupcake ATM. So we each took turns buying from that.

That whole lane way where the High Roller was located was new to me, so I snapped a couple of quick pics there.

Then I went into The Linq casino to ask if they still had the promo going on where if you hit a natural blackjack you would get a ticket to the High Roller, but sadly they said that promo had ended.

We proceeded to make our way to the North end of the strip, since we haven’t explored that section yet. The next casino we stopped at was Casino Royale. Once again, I was already a member, but she wasn’t, and the promo for this casino was they give you an instant loss rebate of $20 if you lose $20 while playing slots.

She sat down by a bank of 2x2 machines that just happened to be the Alice in Wonderland game and fed a 20 into it. This was a penny machine that had 40 lines, so $0.40 per pull! Shortly after a few pulls, she triggered a bonus game, won a few dollars off that. Then she would move on to the next Alice machine. Once again, after a few quick pulls, she would trigger one of their bonuses, the game had several different bonuses. She kept on doing this until she had cycled through all 4 of the Alice machines within that bank then she cashed out. In the end, she was up by $12.

She decided that she wanted to cut her risk there, keep the $12 and walk away. I on the other hand, saw that she was so “good” at slots and wanted to cash in on the action, and take advantage of the loss rebate promo, but I knew that I had to lose $32 just to gain a chance at winning back some money.  It’s a stupid bet I know, but hey it’s Vegas! What the heck.

So we decide to go 50/50 in this, and we each feed $16 into the machine. We end up losing it all, which then triggers a $20 loss rebate, which is paid in freeplay, and we somehow win back almost our buy in, might have been a couple bucks short, but that was okay.

Little did I know that this would become “her game” and that every casino that we gambled at from here on out, we would be in search of her Alice game. Which was fine by me, it gave us a side-mission from casino hopping and it was a fun game, with the various bonuses.

We continued our way north, with a mandatory stop by the Sephora shop right by the Venetian, while she was in there, I pressed on a bit more and took some quick snaps.

Then went back to meet up with her. She bought a $25 make-up that was half price because it was either labeled improperly or in the wrong section, regardless she was happy.

We popped into the Venetian asking about their player’s card promo, there was nothing of interest there, so we cut through the Palazzo for our next hotel destination.

We finally made it to the WYNN! What a relief! I had butterflies in my stomach as I was approaching the revolving Wynn door. As I stepped in, I was instantly greeted with that nice aromatic smell. We snapped a couple of pics as we cut through the Wynn to get to Encore.

Once we got there, I told her that Encore was my absolute favouritist hotel. There’s just something about this hotel that just gets me!

Quickly found the Red Card booth, was glad to hear that they still had the same new player promo, but without the freeplay I think. Earn 300 points, get a spin on their wheel to win a prize, earn 750 points, get 2 comped buffet dinners, earn 1200 points get a comped dinner at Society Café.

Before we signed up, I pulled her over to Society Cafe and showed her the menu to see if she liked the selection. I wanted to earn the 1200 points for this comped meal, as I've already been to the buffet numerous times, but only eaten at the Cafe once.  It was really just another place that served steaks to her, and she noted that we would have already been consuming a lot of steaks this trip and she wanted to try the buffet 'cause she heard great things about it. Okay, you win.

As she was signing up, the lady behind the desk asked if she wanted one card or two cards. I quickly said two. Why didn’t I remember this earlier on the trip when we were trying to earn points to collect the freeplays! *facepalm* With two cards going at once, we can both be earning points simultaneously! I guess it didn’t really matter before because those point targets were rather low, 5 or 10 points. This time we were striving for 750 points!

It would have been awesome if her wheel spins, landed on the 2 free buffets, but realistically, she’d most likely hit the $10 in free slot play.

Right next to the Red Card booth there was a bank of Blackjack machines and we both got to work immediately, we both put in $20. I started off playing $1 a hand to test the waters, then gradually moved up to $2 and I think maybe even $4 at one time. I look down at my money and next thing I know, I’m already at $115 from a $20 buy-in! I should have cashed out at that time, taken the money and pay for the buffets! But I had only begun chasing the buffet, I think at this point in time I was only around 100 points, still a long way to go!

So of course I kept playing on, next thing I know, I’m out of credits! I feed another $20 into the machine and this time as soon as we hit the 300 mark, I played till I was back to $20 then cashed out. We were both earning points, so she may have contributed about 15-20 points, while I did the rest.

She went up to spin the wheel and of course it landed on the $10 free play, and of course we had to go search for an Alice machine, but I don’t think we were able to find one, so she had to settle on another game, CATS. Once again, she started off pretty well with this game as well, quickly turned her amount into $30-$40, then cashed out. 

Like I said, this was my favouritist casino, so I didn’t want to leave, and I wanted to try my luck at the blackjack table. Plus, I gotta show Steve Wynn some love, so that he may extend me those very generous marketing offers once again!

So I buy in at the table for $300, win the first couple of hands, then dealer change, changed from a female to a male dealer. I dis-like male dealers, I can never seem to establish a flow and win with them. I’m quickly down $125, so I decide to get up, cool off and look for another table.

As soon as I get up, she tells me that she wants to go play some more CATS, ‘cause this is her new game and she’s great at it! So we go. While she’s playing and distracted, like a cat, see what I did there? I sneak off to go find another table. A female dealer, perfect! Once again, a couple of hands in, dealer change, but she tells me to stay that this is a good shoe. I stay, not because she told me it was a good shoe, but because the new dealer was also female.

Once again, I’m flat betting $25 per hand. I’ve already played through about half the shoe, I place another $25 bet, my phone rings, I step away from the table to answer it, it’s her, she’s asking me where I am, I tell her my location and she’s coming to look for me. I go back to the table, I see 2 $25 chips, uhhh, and I guess I won that hand? I collect one of the green chips, and play again; I lose it, the dealer jokes that I should go talk on my phone more.

My travel companion managed to find me and is now standing beside me, that’s when I realize I’ve been winning more that I’ve been losing, time to try a couple of $50 hands! I play through about 2 $50 hands, win them both and yellow card! Signaling that it’s the end of the shoe, while she’s shuffling, I’m counting my chips and realize that I’m at $650. I tell her to colour me up!

I know, some of you are probably screaming at me right now, saying that I shouldn’t have left, I was on a hot streak and should have kept playing, but I practically quadrupled my table buy-in from that one shoe, and doubled my buy-in for the day, so I was happy! Snap a pic, then head to the cage for some cold hard cash!

As we’re leaving the casino, I catch up with her on what happened with her Cats game, she lost it all! But she was okay with it, since it was just freeplay to begin with.

Now we’re headed to Caesar’s for the Bacchanal buffet because the line up Friday night was just too long. It’s early, we get there at 5PM, but that was our plan, to get there early and even if there was another 2 hour wait, we would wait it out this time!
 

OMG. It’s $60 a person? FML! I’m paying for dinner too! Our arrangement was that I would pay for dinners and she would pay for breakfast and lunches. It’s a 25 minute wait until we get to the cash register, I had them my CET card and told them that I have $40 worth of reward credits loaded on there from SocialRewards, he swipes the first time and says no I only have $10. What? That’s impossible, I checked my balance before I left on the trip and I had $30 and another $10 was pending, I ask him to swipe again and he says, okay, I see $30 now #Odd. Okay whatever, the other $10 was pending anyways, maybe it didn’t get processed over the weekend, so I pay for the rest in cash.

We wait in line for another good 20 minutes before we’re seated. So all in all, we waited for about 45 minutes before we got seated. There was a party of 3 directly behind us in line the whole time and they were pressed for time because they had a show to get to, which I felt bad for, ‘cause they would be rushed through the whole buffet experience.

My thoughts on the buffet? It’s not the greatest! I found the lighting was a little dark for my liking, I like bright rooms. I felt that the “lounge seating” kind of chairs was a bit odd for a buffet. My table was too crammed next to the other one, so you had to tip toe and shimmy your butt to get into your seat. After riding several taxi rides and hearing them advertise over 500 different items, we both were expecting more of a selection. Although it did have more or a variety than other buffets, I'm not sure what kind of extravagant items I was expecting.

The raw oysters that they had out, didn't look fresh, looked like they had been out for too long. Other than that the food was good, they had warm and cold crab legs, which taste the same, and weren’t too salty, they had scallops, a lady from Nicaragua (I think), told me that the Taco’s there were legit and really good, but I still preferred the ones from Freemont street, and thanks to a tip from a friend, I was able to acquire a secret Mochi Ball.

After the buffet, we made our way over to the Cosmo, i’m considered a new player there and wanted to see what promo’s they had. Sad to say that they weren’t running any promos whatsoever when I asked. I guess this is actually a good thing, ‘cause all the promos for this trip have been pretty crappy, so hopefully next time I’m there they’ll have a good promo that I can capitalize on!

So we proceeded to head to the Aria, once again we were on a mission to look for Alice, we looked high and low and she was nowhere to be found! So we settled on her second best game, CATS. Played that for a little bit, I knew I had to put in some face time at the tables if I wanted my resort fee waived, so I bought in for $300, it was a very quick session, one up, one down, rinse, repeat, BORING! No excitement, no action, was playing with a table full of people too. Once I was UP the one green chip, I coloured up and called it a night!