Bromance - Day 4 - Go Big Or Go Home!

Today’s entry starts off a little earlier than usual. At about 5:30AM in the morning, I am awoken by Bryan. He crawls out of bed, fully clothed, thank God, and stands in the pathway that separates our two queen sized beds. I thought he wanted to get an early start to the day since this was our last day, so I said to him “Seriously Bro?” Then he begins to mumble something and mumbles another sentence, I’m only able to make out that he says “I gave him the wrong address” and he looks pretty flustered. Then he tells me to forget about it and just heads to the washroom.

Awkward! So I don’t mention anything until later on.

As we were coming back from the OG yesterday, I asked the cabbie to point out where the Peppermill was, so that we could head there for breakfast tomorrow, turns out it’s only a 10 minute walk from the Encore, easily doable!

I wake up this morning, shower , change and get all pampered up ready to head out, usually I’ll wait for Bryan and head out together, however since he was so tired yesterday, I told him to sleep in. I head downstairs, find our Blackjack machines, only to find a couple of old guys sitting there playing Keno? WTF is ken-know? So I don’t think much of it at the time and choose a different machine, thinking the other machine might have better luck. Nope, I blow throw my $100 pretty quickly. Should have taken it as a sign and just waited it out. Then I try to win it back by hitting the tables playing $10/$15 a hand, that doesn’t go so well. So now I’m down $200, time to face the music and head on back up. Bryan’s all ready to go!

We walk on over to the Peppermill for breakfast, we each order the same thing and I cover breakfast since Bryan had earned us a free dinner from yesterday’s play. The food was a couple dollars higher than what we’re use to paying for breakfast, but it wasn’t that bad, neither of us were able to finish the 3 pancakes that came with our 3 eggs, 2 strips of bacon and 2 sausages.

After breakfast we headed on over to the Riviera since it was just a couple of blocks away. We go in, I direct him towards the Player’s Desk and he signs up, the lineup is really long and slow moving, just like the last time I was there. I think he only got a deck of cards and a small amount worth of slot play, needless to say, we were outta there in no time!

Across the street was Circus Circus, we’ve heard so many great things about this place, that we had to check it out. We get in and notice that the place is almost empty, dark and smells! Gross! I want to get out of there right away, however they have a rather interesting promo going on. Instead of the usual $10 for $15 worth of chips, you get to do it twice! $30 for $40 worth of chips? I just couldn’t pass that up. Waited in line for about 20 minutes before I finally made my way to the player’s desk.

The cool thing about this place is that some of the slots still drop coins; maybe I’ll head over to Slots-O-Fun next time and give it a whirl. I want to play, but they only have one pit open, that only allows for 1 small roulette table, and 2 blackjack tables, all of which are full of people playing on them. So we circle and hover for a bit, finally get some standing room for the roulette games, so we play a bit. I use my ones and cover all of the numbers in the third section, luckily I hit the #24, so I’m able to make off with even money right about now. We stand and play a bit more, playing colors, thirds etc.

Finally decide to walk over to the blackjack table to use another match play, turn that into money, and then quickly get the heck outta there! That place sucked the living daylights out of us!

By the end of it all even though we were both +money, we were already dead tired, even though we had only woken up a few hours ago. So we decided to cab it to TI to explore the other side of the strip.

Once we get there, we do a quick pass through TI, make our way over to the Mirage, look for the nude pool and the Secret Garden, then mosey on over to the Forum Shops inside Caesars. Amazing! That place is huge! It’s like a hidden mall, we get there too late for the Atlantis show and only catch the last couple of flames, it’d be an entire hour before it shows again, we don’t want to wait that long.

OMG! Something is wrong! We don’t have any energy and we don’t have any alcohol in us! Quick! Let’s stop by the bar top, play some video BJ and get free beers! 2 Red Bulls please, you can’t do Red Bull? But can do Rockstar instead? Fine, we’ll settle! Now that we have energy we need beer! 2 beers please! I think Bryan loses his buy in here and I manage to cash out @ even money, it wasn’t easy though.

After that we start walking on the overpass and head on over to Bellagio. Wait, what’s this? Brand Name sunglasses for sale? Only $10 a pair, and 2 for $15? Bryan! We have to get them; these sunglasses just fell off the truck, who knows how long they’ll be available for. So after spending about 15 minutes looking, we finally settle on two pairs (I need two pairs….insert Nelly’s Air Force One Song). Eh Muchacho! $13 dollars for two! Silence…….I’ll take that as a yes. Done!

So now we be rockin’ shades, poppin’ bottles, sipping sizurp, we be ballin!

So we make our way over to the Bellagio, walk around the observatory, snap some photos, begin making our way across the fountain to the City Centre, that’s when I notice that it’s rather warm out @ 2PM today. I know we’re supposed to do something when it’s warm out in Vegas, but what is it…..oh wait, I know! Hit da pool! I figure if we hurry we can still catch the last bit of the sun and maybe get in a good solid hour of pool time! So we hoof it over to Paris to get a cab. OMG construction there has the entrance/exit @ a stand still. Guests must be livid there trying to get in & out. So we quickly head on over to Bally’s to catch a cab back to our hotel.

Quickly head on up, change, grab and head on back down to the pool. It was warm but still not warm enough for everyone to be out enjoying the nice warm weather. I guess the fact that we’re Canadian helps?

So I’m just laying there on my beach chair catching some Z’s. Phelps over there is getting his 90 laps in. While I was laying there, I could totally tell whenever someone walked by and they blocked the sun for a second or so, because I could feel the instant change in temperature, weird

I would have totally ordered a couple of drinks and charged them to the room; however it was kind of chilly for ice cold beers. Next time!

So after the pool, we go back to the room to change and begin to head out back to the City Centre, where we last left off.

Us: City Centre please

Cabbie: Do you want me to take the back roads or the freeway? (mentions something about getting back on Tropicana Ave)

Us: (OMG. Is he trying to long haul us? With the freeway crap?). The back roads are fine.

So he drives us right past the City Centre and we end up between New York New York & Monte Carlo. We both thought that he had still long hauled us and “missed” the City Centre entrance and brought us right to the end of the strip, so we were a bit displeased.

Us: You can drop us off here, it’s fine, we’ll walk it.

Cabbie: Okay, that’ll be $12.50

Us: Here’s $15, I’ll take $2.00 back

Cabbie: You guys staying @ the Encore?

Us: Yeah?

Cabbie: And you’re only tipping 50 cents?

Us: Yeah, you’re right, I’ll take a dollar back then.

Turns out there was no direct entrance that we could see to the City Centre due to construction of the Cosmopolitan.

So, since we’re at the end of the strip we explore NYNY first. We get in walk around, oh look! A giant slot machine. We line up, each take out a dollar and give it a spin. I thought about pulling out $3 and putting it to max bet and trying to go for the progressive, but after watching so many people spin it and not hit a thing, I decided against it.

After that, I was feeling a bit hungry, so we went up to Nathan’s for some Chili Cheese Fries. Delish!

Then we headed back down, totally skipped Monte Carlo and went straight for Arai/City Centre. Man, that place looks nyce! The Aria casino area looked pretty full, everything was so nice and new!

Finish looking around there, head on over to the Mandarin Oriental. Walk in, wait chairs and an elevator that’s it? Where is the lobby? What? It’s a sky lobby? 23^rd floor? Okay!

OMG. Is that a chair in the elevator for the long ride up? WOW! Ding! OMG. Is this place ever so dark! I can’t even tell if the receptionist @ the front desk is hot or not. Oh well, time to check out their washroom, oohhh ahh, everything in here is so nice. Oh look! Nicely rolled up hand towels. You’re gonna take one? Seriously bro? Okay, go ahead, I won’t tell.

We then head on over to the Crystals place and walk around inside, this place is pretty big, empty, a lot of the stores are still under construction and have yet to be opened. I wonder what this place looks like during the summer.

Oh? What’s the building over there? That’s the Cosmopolitan? Its scheduled to open December 15^th? Maybe I’ll come back in January 2011 and check it out then. So we begin to make our way back to the Encore, but due to construction the overpass leads up to Planet Hollywood, as we’re walking by, we see the giant slot machine that you can spin each day. So we line up to spin it. Mr. Slots over there spins it and gets $10 worth of free play. I on the other hand only win a free appetizer; with an entrée purchase @ P.F. Changs. No thanks.

So Bryan first has to go line up @ the Player’s reward desk to redeem the coupon he got outside for another coupon, then he had to take that other coupon to the Cashier which is on the other side of the casino, only to have the cashier give him another coupon that he can insert into the slot machine? Holy!

While he’s in line @ the Player’s desk, I’m just standing there watching this couple play this giant Deal or No Deal machine. It’s not the slot one, where you only get to play the game once you get to a bonus stage; it’s just simply the game. I wanted to play it, but it didn’t seem like they were going to leave that machine any time soon. Oh wells. Something to do on my next trip!

Finally, he’s done! So we both sit ourselves down @ the Multi-Black jack machine playing $0.25 a hand, 7 hands at a time. I input $5, I think. I get to about $15 at one point, look over and it doesn’t seem like he’s ready to cash out yet, so I continue playing, next think you know, all my money is gone. So I just sit there and watch him play for a bit, then when he has about $15-$20 he cashes out too.

I think we then make our way over to a VP Bar top to get some comped drinks while playing $1 / hand BJ. We ask for Red Bull, they provide, look @ the receipt it says Red Bull Vodka. It was awesome! Bryan loses his buy in pretty quick once again, wtf? I get another MGD, play until even money then cash out.

We leave P.Ho and continue to make our way back to our destination, we do a quick stop by Carnival court, watch a flare drink get made, stand around for a song, then we’re on our way again.

We finally make it back to the hotel, but before we go use our comp @ the buffet, let’s see what kind of food the Society Café is serving as well. Judging by it’s name, I thought it would serve café type foods and have sandwiches @ best. Little did we know that it was actually one of their high end restaurants. They served steak, seafood, the whole nine yards. Who would’ve guessed, a high end restaurant @ the Encore.

We can use our comp here? Are you sure? You’re positive right? (The buffet is valued @ $50 yet if we eat here the bill is probably going to be close to $200, how is that fair?). Ah well screw it, if they can’t comp us everything, we’ll just charge it to the room, and then talk to a host about taking it off afterwards. I mean, he did put in quite a bit of coin to earn those comps!

So what are you limiting us to order from? Are you serious? We each can have one appetizer, one non-alocholic drink, one main entrée and one desert? Stop it, please, Mr. Wynn, you’re spoiling us. (Previous to this Bryan had already declared that Encore was also his favorite hotel as well).

We accidentally get a hold of a breakfast menu, on it I see that there is a vanilla milkshake, its $8 though, however they should comp this drink since its non-alcoholic. The waitress goes to ask the head chef, and he says yes, it’s not breakfast but he’ll make it for me. Great, now I’m blushing!

So I’ll have that, the Iceberg Wedges, and the Caramelized Sea Scallops. Bryan will have a glass of red wine, the Jumbo Lump Crab & Asparagus and Bone-In Cowboy Ribeye. They bring us some Whole Grain Mustard Butter with Pretzel Sticks to start off and everything about the service and food was top notch.

Desert time comes; I see some Patron infused drink. Patron? I can’t afford that stuff, $12? I order it, and forget that alcoholic drinks aren’t included. But before I ordered it, I asked the waitress how it tasted and she told me that it’s really good, you can hardly taste the patron. So I gave it a go.

Bryan had the XXXL Chocolate cake. My drink comes; I take a couple of sips of it and eugh! This is gross, you can clearly taste the alcohol, it’s too strong for me to enjoy right now, I’m too stuffed, I can’t drink it all. So the waitress comes by, asks how it is, I tell her, then she goes, well she can go ask the manager to see if they can take it off. Off she goes, she comes back with great news, manager said yes. Awesome. She then goes on to tell me that I can still order desert ‘cause technically I haven’t ordered anything yet, so I end up getting a strawberry cheesecake to go.

Bryan only managed to finish about half of his 14 layered chocolate cake. However, dinner was great; we were there for who knows how long, but neither of us complained since our bodies needed the rest. Dinner came out to about $150 before tip. Needless to say, the waitress got a nice tip!

So we make our way back to the room, we stop by to see the casino host. I wanted to see if they could work their magic and “forget” the glass of wine we just ordered since alcoholic drinks weren’t included in the comp. So we get there, we talk to her, explain our situation, she picks up the phone begins to work her magic and goes “uhhh, there’s no charge here. I don’t see anything” we go “Oh! We just ate there about 10 minutes ago, maybe it hasn’t gone through yet” “Oh wait, I see it now, yeah, take it off” Yeah baby! Take it off! Wait what? Oh, you mean the charge, oops, me blushing again. So now the charge is off and we trot happily back to our room.

So this was our last night of freedom and since we had a 7AM flight, this meant we had to be at the airport @ 6AM, so this meant no strip club tonight. Sorry! So you may have noticed that I haven’t done much gambling this trip. I mean I had little sessions here and there, not for long period of time though.

My idea was to save up all of my gambling till the very last day, and just gamble a little each day throughout the trip, to try and just make enough spending money. That way, if I lost all of my money on the last day, it wouldn’t have ruined the trip for me, ‘cause you know the feeling of losing money sucks!

I still had about $140 of the $150 free credit that I was given for my stay. So I went over to my favorite slot machine the Spin & Win machine. It was a quarter machine with a 3 coin max bet. I liked this machine because we had played on it previously and we just kept hitting the bonus and it kept us entertained for quite some time. At one point I told Bryan that if we hit the 1,000 coin bonus payout he would get half and if we hit the $3,000 progressive, he would get a third of it. Sad to say that neither of those events occurred, I mean we couldn’t even line up 2 of the 3 symbols required to hit the progressive.

After that I moved on over to the $1 VP progressive machine to empty out the rest of my free credit on it. I mean $5/hand that free credit finished rather quickly. I had my Jacks or Better cheat sheet on me of course, only until half way through; I realized the card was not to be used for progressives. I assume that for progressive you just try to go for the Royal more often than normal. Needless to say, I’m still without my first Royal.

After this, I think we floated back and forth for a bit between that Spin & Win slot machine and Video BJ, we even went back to play a bar top VP machine. We found one by the bar that had a larger than normal screen, this one was meant to accommodate two people. So we each put in $20, for a $40 buy in and played $5 a hand on Bryan’s card. He was gunning for that 1,000 points to get that free 1 night stay. So when they review his play, hopefully he’ll look like the baller he was mistaken for down @ Freemont!

At one point we brought out total up to $200, it was just so easy, we would turn 2 pairs into full houses, and we’d turn 4 card flushes into 5 card flushes, a pair into trips. It was unbelievably easy. So needless to say we didn’t stop when we were on a high note and lost the $40 buy in.

We even created our own system of “celebrating”. When we would hit a:

Jacks or Better pair – we’d just sigh out loud

2 Pair – We’d say “two pair” but in a saddened tone

3 of a kind – We’d fist pump, no each other (MTV inspired)

Flush – We’d high 5 each other

Anything higher than a flush deserved 2 high 5’s!

I know I know, very bromancy! We’d even double check each other’s work, I’d be responsible for the deal button and he’d be responsible for the hold button, that way if I didn’t agree or if he missed something I wouldn’t hit the deal button. Hey! After a few drinks and @ that time during the day, it’s a good idea okay!

I looked @ my watch after that and it was probably almost 1AM, the plan was to stay up until about 3AM, head back to the room, catch a couple hour of Z’s and then off we go!

1AM? Okay, time to buckle down and start gambling, I buy in for $200 @ a $10 table, Bryan joins me with 20 bucks. I’m up about a hundred and he’s also up to about a hundred as well. Not bad. Time to call it quits? NO!

Dealers have their tables and they go on break every so often. Our table belonged to Iris. We liked her, she’d give us money, then her replacement, Steve, would take all our money. I’m serious. Iris would give me a bunch of money, then Steve would dwindle me back down to my last bet, then Iris would come back and give me back all of my money. It got to one point that if Iris wasn’t there, we wouldn’t play.

Steve reminded us of Jet Li. The Jet Li in Hollywood movies, because he spoke like him, he had that hint of arrogance when he spoke. So Bryan’s down to his last $10, and he’s holding on to it, for when Iris returns. Jet Li goes, “what are you gonna do with that $10? You know I’m just gonna take it, just bet it!” So Bryan does, he loses that hand, right after he loses that hand. Jet Li goes “ATM right behind you” ROFL!

So Iris comes back from break, time to step it up $25 a hand please. Also the table minimum has also been raised to $50 a hand, but we were grandfathered so we could play $10 a hand if we wanted to. I’m up to about maybe $500, then Steve comes back, he breaks my bank and brings me back down to $350. He then says, okay, one more hand, if you lose, cash out and go home. Done! So I lose it, so I colour up and leave….the table. Ain’t no way I’m going home, I’m still down $300!

So I walk around for a bit, try a different table, lose about a hundred there, no luck. OMG. Iris is back, I grab all of my chips and quickly run on back to her. So then we begin our little dance all over again. I look @ my watch. OMG It’s 4:30AM, we’re suppose to be up in 45 minutes, oh well so much for sleep!

So I play a bit more, I’m down to my last $60. I tell her that I’m going to bet it all, if I lose, then I’m done. If I win, then we’ll see. So lucky enough, I win it, now I’m sitting with $120. Iris, what should I do? What? You want me to bet it all in one hand? Okay Iris, I trust you! Bam! $240 just like that! She jokingly said that I should bet it again, but both of us knew that wasn’t going to happen. So I hand Bryan the $200 and tell him to not let me bet that, and I break my bets into two $20 hands. I win the next one, dammit! If I won, I would have been back up to even money for this trip. Oh well!

I end up losing the $40 and colour up. At this point I am really tempted to go back up to my room, grab the rest of my money, go back down look for Iris and play $100 a hand to either go big or go home. Needless to say I just went home!

We head on back up to the room, pack, shower, change and get ready to wait for 5:30 before we hail a cab. Bryan is dead tired, I kept telling him to go back up to the room to sleep, but he refused to. It’s about 5AM right now, he’s crashed on the bed, I’m sitting on the bed, and it’s getting too comfortable. It’s 5:15AM right now, so I move on over to the couch to sit, next thing I know I wake up and its 5:45. Oh shit! Clap! Bryan we gotta go, its 5:45. So we head downstairs, hail a cab. Luckily the suite has its own set of doors so we don’t wait too long for a cab.

Airport please! Strip or back roads? (What no highway option?) Back roads should be fastest, so back roads! First honest cab driver I’ve seen the entire trip. He gets the full twenty!

By the end of it all, I’m only down $400 from this trip; I see it as spending $100 each day for the 4 days that I was there. So not bad at all. I definitely spent more than $400 while I was there. I mean the comps alone on my end were just over a grand!

I’m getting old, I think next time I’ll have to slow it down a bit, stay for a longer period of time so I don’t have to cram so much all in one day, and maybe get more rest? Naw, who am I kidding! You only live once!

Notes:

· No time share folks this time around. Where did they all go? Both of my previous trips were around this time as well, don’t tell me they went into hibernation.

· No annoying time share people, but they’ve been replaced by Guided Tour folks.

· Sign-up bonuses and perks have gone down the tubes!

Bromance - Day 3 - On To The Next One!

So the next day we wake up pretty early once again and I can tell that Bryan is still pretty bummed about losing that brown envelope and getting hustled by that stripper last night, so I decide to try and cheer him up by taking him to Denny’s and then off to Freemont later for some more free stuff and bonus money! Free money usually cheers people up! We make our way over to the Denny’s attached to the Casino Royale for breakfast, man that place is packed! It takes about 15 minutes or so before we’re seated. We sit, we order, we eat, we pay, we leave.

Man, it’s windy and cold today! I didn’t bring a light jacket with me today cause the weather was so nice out yesterday. So we decide to head back to the room so that I can grab a light jacket. But not before we stop by the Walgreens that’s on our way to buy a drink for later thirst quenching.

We make it back to the hotel and of course we utilize the secret suite entrance. There are two entrances to the rooms in Encore, the Suite entrance and the Resort Tower entrance. During my last visit, I had no idea the Suite Entrance even existed, so every time, I would walk behind the little café, past the gift shop in order to get to the elevators and then back across to my room. However this time, Bryan discovered the secret Suite Entrance just further down from the Café. See told you he was good @ video games. You need to have a suite card to gain access to the entrance, however every time we walk up, we’d just pull out our wallets to reach for the card and the attendee would just simply open the door welcoming us.

This entrance, had its own everything, it’s own attendee with its own set of doors, it’s own front desk, it’s own bell desk, it’s own concierge, and it’s own exit. Needless to say, we utilized that entrance every time there out, cause it led us to our room much faster.

Anyways, we get back up to the room, drop the drink off, grab my sweater and off we go to the secret exit to haul a taxi. Freemont Experience please! I think the ride cost us a little under $15. Freemont was not that busy that early Monday afternoon, which I guess is a good thing for us ‘cause we were going to casino hop and sign up for their Player’s Cards.

First stop the Fitzgerald! It was rather a long line up, because I guess they had the best signup bonus on Freemont. You got $3 in free slot play, you enter a draw and you get a ‘Get Out of A Bad Hand Card’. The name speaks for itself. You pull out this card when you’re playing blackjack and you have a bad hand, hand it over to the dealer, the dealer takes the card and you take your money back. Max bet of $25. You can only redeem a card once every 24 hours.

So we both lose our $3 slot credit pretty quickly, not hitting a thing, playing max bet on a 3 coin $0.25 machine. Then head on over to a blackjack table, sit down, hand our IDs and players card over to the dealer/pit boss for rating, as soon as that’s done, we each pull out $25 to start the betting. As soon as the money is on the table, the dealer screams over his shoulder to the pit boss, “we’ve got some high rollers over here” he was serious too, this leads the pit boss to come over and watch us play. High rollers? Us? Naw, couldn’t be, I mean only yesterday we were playing $0.25 a hand on video blackjack and now we’ve migrated to $25 a hand at the tables? Uh oh!

So we each win the first hand off the bat and then we are able to play a couple more hands with our initial buy in, meanwhile the dealer is making small talk with us, asks us if we’re stay at the Fitz with them? I tell them no, we’re staying @ Imperial Palace. I didn’t want to tell them that we’re staying @ the Encore and were only here for their freebies. He bought it. After a couple more hands, I’m dealt a 12 and Bryan has a 16, while the dealer is showing a face card, so I play stupid and ask the dealer if now would be a good time to use the card, he says yes, we use it and then bounce. I tell him that this was our first casino stop and we’re gonna go explore the rest of Freemont first.

So we both left that place with some +money in our pockets. Not bad. Not bad @ all. So, on to the next one!

The Four Queens. Here they had a giant slot machine that we could spin, if we hit 4 Queens we got a big prize, I don’t recall what the prize was, but needless to say neither of us hit it. We signed up, we each got a deck of playing cards, then they had the give them $10 they give us $15 in promo chips again, so we did that. This time I took that promo chip and used it on Roulette. I looked @ the screen it was showing black for 5 times now, so I decided to ride it by betting on black, it hit, took my winnings and then bet it on black again, it hit, took the winnings, tried to ride it again, it hit red, I lost. Oh well there goes my chips, at least I got more than my money back. They also had another promo where if you got 10 points they would give you $10 worth of free slot play, at this time Bryan thought that 10 points would be rather difficult since we would likely have to cycle through $100 to get it. Okay straight to the cashier, then onto the next one!

Next up was the Golden Nugget. I’ve seen this place on TV and heard many great things about this place, it doesn’t look that bad. By signing up we once again get to spin a giant slot machine, Bryan was able to capitalize and get $5 worth of free play, while I got nothing, but I think the sign up came with $5 free play anyways, but neither of us was able to turn that into real cash. Oh well, on to the next one!

OMG. It’s Binion’s. This is where the WSOP started? By signing up for their card, we got a $10 match play. Finally! I’ve been craving for one here! I don’t think we got any slot credit here, but they did have a promo where if we got 10 point then we would be able to swipe our card through their machine which would do a spin and we would have the chance of winning slot credits and various other prizes. We used our $10 match play on blackjack first. I think we both won that hand, so it was a simple hit and run. Then we migrated over to the video blackjack machines to earn our 10 points, starting @ $0.25 a hand, then migrating to $0.50, I eventually stepped it up to $1.00 a hand to get the 10 points in no time. Well, what do you know, I guess I am a high roller! We head on over to the machine to do our swipe, I only manage to win a free drink, alright I guess. Take it to the bar, trade it in for a beer. Not bad. Bryan wins the same thing, trades his slip in for a Rum & Coke. Almost done here, @ Binion’s they currently have a million dollars laying around in a plastic case, that you can take a picture with, so we each go lineup and take our pictures with it. Free souvenir photo, not bad. But, on to the next one!

Club 1906, which is the Golden Gate Casino, haven’t heard much about it, it’s rather a much smaller place than the other’s we’ve been to today, in order to sign up for their player’s card, we have to fill in registration forms. I guess they haven’t upgraded their technology yet. On the form it asks for an anniversary date, I turned to Bryan and asked him what our anniversary date was and he didn’t know either, bah! Once you finish signing up, all you need to do is achieve 10 points for $5 worth of free slot credits once again. Easy enough right? That’s what I thought until I started walking around the whole place, OMG they have nothing here but slot machines, no video poker and no video blackjack machines? How on earth am I going to earn those 10 points then, luckily, we came across a bar top and it had video blackjack on it. Okay here we go. Bam! In no time we achieved our 10 points and got the $5 free slot credit. We exchanged it then we went to go blow it all on slot machines. I don’t know why we do that, work so hard to get that free money, just to go blow it all away on silly slots, why not put it back into the video blackjack machine and bet $5 a hand, you can easily double it up right? Oh well, I guess I’ll do that next time. For now, it’s on to the next one! Oh wait, we’re at the end, there’s no more.

Now what? Remember back @ the 4 Queens we had that 10 point promo again, that we gave up? Let’s go back and achieve that. Done. So we head back, come across that giant slot machine again, lo and behold it’s a different attendant now, so we line up and spin it again, still nothing. Okay no harm done. We plunk ourselves in front of a couple of machines and away we go. Once again we achieve those points in no time. Finally drink service! My beer of choice this trip was MGD, Bryan’s was Heineken. Okay, that’s done. On to the next one.

Hey wait a minute, what’s this? Glitter Gulch? Sound funs, no cover? Go on, I’m listening, 10 girls on a Monday afternoon? I am so there! I wanted to go in and see what the Monday 5M shift looked like, but Bryan was hesitant. Somehow I managed to convince him, I don’t think it took much though, only maybe a couple of “c’mon man, don’t be such a bloody wanker” and he caved. The girl at the door tells us no cover, so no cover, we get in the waitress tells us that it’s a 2 drink minimum, and she seemed pretty persistent about it too. I look around and they have no bloody patrons, only a couple of girls dancing alone on stage with nobody watching. A 2 drink minimum? That’s about $20 a person. Dammit that’s $40 from me; there goes my lap dance money for Bryan. Forget it then, we’re leaving. So we left.

Little did Bryan know that if we successfully got in, he would have gotten a lap dance from one of the girls on the Monday 5PM shift. Lucky bastard!

I don’t get it. You have 0 patrons in there, two people walk in, why force a 2 drink minimum on them? I would have been okay with just a one drink minimum. Maybe next time I’ll try to negotiate and say I’ll do one drink, or just have one drink and then leave, but then again, the waitress did already have 4 glasses in her hand ready to go. So maybe that won’t work.

Okay, let’s get out of here, oh wait, what’s that? Main Street Station? I’ve heard about you! Okay, let’s try going there. Aww no signup bonuses? Okay, let’s go visit your friend El Cortez, sign up there, and then if nothing is good then we’ll grab a cab from there. Nothing is good, so we head on over to the valet and ask Tony to grab us a cab, we sit and wait, time goes by, an X number of people die from smoking, and we wait, we ask Tony again, he said he called, and that usually cabs are here really quickly, we wait some more, we probably waited what seemed like 30 minutes, still no cab, forget it Tony, if you can’t deliver we’re not handing out the goods, ($2 tip). So we decided to walk it back towards the strip, and try to flag a cab along the way, I mean it’s Las Vegas how hard can it be to flag a cab?

So we walk for about half an hour then all of a sudden Bryan starts laughing. What? What is it? He spots Olympic Garden, another strip club? In Las Vegas? Who could have guessed! We stand there for a good 2 minutes arguing about where we should go in or not. He wants to go back to the room to drop off all the stuff we got from Freemont first, I tell him if we do that, we’re gonna have to cab it back, which is just more money and time. Neither of which we got. So in the end he caves, willingly, so easy!

We get in, show our IDs, the girl asks us how we got here, uhhh we walked. Okay, no cover then! Perfect! It’s Monday night football! Whoo! One side of the room where all the screens are is where everybody is sitting and watching, the other side where the stage is, the area is dead. Okay we choose the dead side. We sit and just relax for about 10 minutes; we’re tired from all the walking we did. Two girls approach us, asks us to go for dances with them, we easily oblige! The only funny thing that happened here was that Bryan once again got another shitty lap dance, he said the girl just sat there, barely moved and that she thought he was thirty! HA!

Okay, at least we can now easily get a cab. Can you believe that there were no available cabs headed back to the strip? We saw cabs but they all had passengers in them. How do people from Freemont get back to the Strip. Bus?

So now we’re back @ the hotel and after exposing Bryan to all the Video Blackjack and showing him that earning comp points is a very easy thing to do. So I sit him down @ a $1 video blackjack machine and tell him to start earning us dinner! For new member sign ups @ the Wynncore, just earn 150 points and you’ll have enough for a free buffet. I of course feed a hundred dollar bill into the machine as well and join him. I also need to earn between 750 and 1,000 points for my free buffet. He starts off by playing $1 a hand, then moves on to $2 a hand. I think I’m playing $5 a hand at this point, and I double my money in no time and cash out. Then I just sit there for awhile and watch him play.

Shortly after sitting there for awhile, I realize that we should once again divide and conquer. I tell him that I’m going to head on up to the room and shower, and that he was doing a good job and that he should keep up the good work. After I shower, I head on back to the front desk to ask them about the M Resort. I told them that I heard a rumor that there was a complimentary shuttle that would take us there and back and wondered if they knew anything about it. The girl at the front desk, Victoria was a cute Asian girl, she didn’t have all the info but knew some stuff, like there was an outlet mall nearby and that they had a really good buffet there, that served really good seafood, you know typical girl stuff. She didn’t know when the busses left and arrived, so she directed me to speak to the concierge.

He made some quick phone calls and found the info for me, but if you go, you have to spend a good couple hours there, otherwise you’d have to cab it back. I also told him that I was going to go pick up Le Reve tickets and he offered to print them for me. After he printed them he thought it was weird that the tickets were free, so he started to do some digging, and then noticed that my room was free too. Uh-oh. So he made some quick phone calls to try and clear some things up. In my mind I was like “mind your business that’s all, mind your business; don’t worry about how I got comped. You’re gonna mess everything up” In the end he said okay, now I understand. But I was just hoping that he didn’t mess anything up and I wouldn’t see a bill for $1,000 @ the end of my stay.

As he’s printing the tickets for me Bryan comes strolling in through the Suite Entrance with a big smile on his face, he tells me that he was up to $400 at one time, easily earned the 150 points and next thing he knew, he was close to 500 points. So he strived for that. Now he gets another dinner for free. Perfect. I guess I don’t have to work that hard then. So he heads up to go shower and change, after that we make our way to the buffet.

When we get to the cashier, he compliments the cashier lady on the super fast inputting computer skills; I think he was hitting on her?

Dinner was great, I tried the salmon, the prime rib, the dumplings, the shrimp, the snow crabs, the desert, the coffee. Coffee was needed because after dinner we were going to see Le Reve. And I don’t care how entertaining a show is, once you sit down for more than 15 minutes, your body starts to get used to it and you begin to fall asleep and enter a Le Reve state. Ha! Get it?

Overall, I thought that the show was superbly done. At times, I found myself wondering how they can hold their breath for such a long period of time, how they jump off such high platforms and not land on each other. Even I found myself struggling to stay awake at certain times.

Of all the Cirque shows that I’ve seen in Vegas, I would rank the following from most enjoyed to least enjoyed: Le Reve, KA, Zumanity, & Mystere.

Now that the show is done, it’s almost time for the Strip Club! Another one? Yes, another one! But before we go, we need to make some quick coin for it first! What other promising way than, Video Blackjack! So we each got back to our respective machines and slip in a hundo each, bam! Bryan starts off with $2 a credit at one credit. I start off with $1 a credit but at 5 credits. I need to make up some lost time talking to Victoria, I think that by playing at this 2.5X rate, I’ll have caught up to Bryan in no time. Sneeky guy. I look over and he’s playing $2 a credit @ 4 credits, that’s $8 a hand. Baller! The guy @ the Fitz was right, we were high rollers. Oh well, slow and steady wins the race then. I hit my mark of $200 and I cash out, I watch Bryan play for a bit, till he’s done, then we head on back up to the room and I phone treasures and ask them to send over a limo once again.

Same thing, take care of the driver and he’ll take care of the rest. It’s a short trip once again. Tip the driver $15 this time. They waive us in, no cover, no drink minimum. We find a seat by the stage. I order a drink, Bryan stalls on the drink, says that they said no drink minimum. They said, no you need to buy a drink, he says he’ll order one later. I go up to the bar, hand him $20 in exchange for a rubber band full of one’s! Yes! Tonight is going to be a good one!

Today was a special day, it was exactly one month since I had my birthday and it is exactly one month till its Bryan’s birthday. Of course in Vegas it’s everyone’s birthday. However, I decided to make that night about him. Of course I didn’t tell him till much later.

We sat by the side stage and the girls there did 2 song sets, and every time a new girl would come on, I’d wait till the second song, then make eye contact with her. As she would slowly make her way towards us, I would take out the dollar bill, fold it in half and place it in front of Bryan, by that time it would already be too late for him to refuse. Some of the girls would perform tricks, some of the others would just simply ask him to slip it in, while others simply motor-boated him.

After about 3 or 4 girls he finally caught on to what I was doing and began refusing it, by quickly pulling down the dollar bill, however sometimes he would be too late and wouldn’t be able to pull it down in time, and the girl would still wander on over. Even though his verbal expressions was saying no, as soon as she walked on over, his mouth would hang low, giving him that droopy dog expression and he would slide his beer to the side to make room for her.

There was this one girl who was pretty tall, she walked on over to us and must have seen that Bryan had two dollars in his hand, while I had a dollar in mine. She turns to us and says “where is the love?” Then demanded that Bryan give her a dollar: give me a dollar. Since that worked so effectively, she demanded another one from him: Give me another. Then turned to me and said: Now, you, give me a dollar. To which I did. She just took the bills and left, what a waste!

I don’t remember when, but at one point I started telling the girls that it was Bryan’s birthday. One of them turned to him and said: It’s your birthday? To which he denied, then she called him a liar, and wished him a happy birthday! You lucky dog!

To try and make up for the regret that happened @ Rhino’s, I bought him a dance from the best looking Asian girl around, sorry, I tried!

While he was inside getting his grove on, two guys showed up and sat by the stage as well, it didn’t look like they knew each other, since they were sitting at opposite sides of the stage. It looked like these guys had quite a bit of ones on them. One guy reminded me of the guy from Borat, the other guy was just a typical larger sized guy. The Borat guy would raise his hand in the air, open it and let about 6 – 8 dollar bills fall out of his hand. I thought for sure that would have gotten their attention, but they just chose to ignore it. Weird. So I decided to try an experiment. I took out a dollar bill and placed it in front of me, and she came over. Interesting….

Later on the Borat character went to sit with the other dude, iono, maybe he wasn’t feeling the love and decided to settle? He tried his tactic over there as well, dropping several dollar bills, but this girl who was a different girl ignored him as well. So I tried my tactic again and place the dollar bill in front of Bryan and it worked again. Huh!

Anyways, after I used up my last dollar bill, we decided to leave ‘cause Bryan was beginning to look like a Zombie and based on my performance @ the shooting range, there was no way I would be able to effectively destroy him with a firearm.

Bromance - Day 2 - An Expensive Lesson

After what feels like 8 hours of rest, I wake up only to realize that it’s only been 4 hours since I went to sleep. WTF? It’s only been 4 hours? It feels like I slept for an eternity. Okay, I’ll sleep for a couple more hours then. After those couple of hours fly by, I hop in the shower for a quick rinse to wake myself up. As I emerge from the shower, fully clothed! Bryan says to me: I know you just showered, but it’s a really nice day out, wanna hit the pool?

When I went in to shower, the blinds were still closed, so I had no idea what the outside looked like, he was right, it was really nice out, and there were a handful of people already lounging around by the pool. I say, sure let’s go for it, who knows what the weather will be like tomorrow and we don’t have to check out till 11 anyways. Wait a minute! What are we going to wear? We don’t have our luggage! Oh well there goes that idea.

Now because of the delayed flight, our baggage was delayed as well, because of that, we weren’t able to go clubbing and now we’re not going to be able to enjoy the nice pool weather either? Someone @ Delta is going to get a very carefully worded letter of complaint!

So we both pack up our belongings, I brought my blue backpack with me, the one I always bring whenever I’m travelling, so I can fit my stuff in it no problem. However, Bryan brought a man purse along, so it can only fit so many items. So I had to carry his newly purchased “souvenirs” as well. Great. Now my bag blue backpack looks like an overstuffed Smartie! Oh well, @ least the stuff wasn’t heavy.

So we check out and begin to look for breakfast, that is when I notice that there is a food court in the upstairs section of Excalibur, so we decide to head on up there to see what we can find, since neither of us really want to waste time looking for another place to eat. After a quick lap around the food court, we both settle on breakfast @ McDonalds. I order the Sausage McMuffin combo, with a medium coffee and Bryan orders the Breakfast Burrito combo with a large coffee. Bryan picks up the tab on this one. After we’re done eating, I notice that the coffee is still piping hot, too hot to drink even. I mean it’s been like 15 minutes since they poured it and it’s still that hot? Impressive! Only because we were sitting down, If I was driving and trying to drink it, It would have been a different choice of words.

After we eat breakfast, we head back down to the lobby to find the Concierge (I still have no idea how the Concierge works, are we suppose to tip them after we ask them for help?), to inquire where and how to get to the gun store, she pulls out a brochure that they have and on it, it marks that it’s approximately 3.2 miles from the MGM. So we’re like, it’s a nice day, we’re young, shouldn’t be that hard of a walk. So we plan to walk it as oppose to cabbing it. We also planned to stop by once again for the Player’s Card @ The Tropicana & Hooter’s since they were closed the night before.

We get to the Tropicana and locate the player’s desk, I explain to Bryan how their ‘Slot Promo’ works, where you give them $20 they give you $50 in slot credits, only to be used one select machines, then if you don’t win, you get to choose a souvenir. He signs up for their players card, only to find out that the only sign-up bonus they’re offering right now is reimbursement on your slot losses. No instant slot credits? No buffet coupons? No match plays? Boring! On to Hooter’s we go then!

We get to Hooter’s, he signs up, and they give him his $100 slot credit, once again only able to play it on certain machines. I told him that when I signed up we got coupons, a pen, show tickets and $200 worth of slot credits and those credits lasted me a good 2 hours, and by the end of it, I was bored out of my mind from all the button mashing. He blew through his $100 in less than 2 minutes. FAIL! Once again, no food coupons? No match plays? No show tickets? Double Fail!

So we begin to make our way down Tropicana Ave and head towards the Gun Store. It’s only a 3.2 Mile walk, it’s a nice day out. We walk, we walk, we walk. Mind you @ this time we’re still carrying all of our stuff and wearing our Sweaters, but it’s still doable. We walk and walk and walk some more only to make it to the Thomas & Mack Centre. OMG. We’re only here? Although to tell you the truth we actually had no idea where ‘here’ is in relation to ‘there’ (the Gun Store). We see a waiver a little further up, and quickly hoof it up there double time to ask him how much further the gun store is? He tells us that it’s probably about another 3 miles. Another 3 miles? I could have sworn we just covered that distance. Okay, no more wasting time, let’s cross the street and flag down a taxi.

So flag down a cabbie and hop in, he tells us that we probably had another 5 miles. 5 Miles to go? The brochure lied! Thank goodness we decided to cab it instead! (After coming home from my trip, I googled the distance walked (1.2 miles) and the Gun Store was actually 3.2 miles out.) The cab ride seemed like a really long one though. I’m still not sure how The Gun Store is only 3.2 miles away from the MGM it seems double the length! I mean the cab back to the MGM cost us almost $10 bucks! Something’s off here, I just can’t seem to figure out what!

We walk into the store and clearly look like a couple of tourists who have never been there and don’t know what we’re doing, we stand around for a minute, absorbing it all in. OMFG! We’re gonna get to shoot real guns! Once it’s our turn to choose what we want, they have us sign in first, then tell them what packages we want to shoot. I opt to go with the Gun Store Package, which allows me to shoot a H/K MP5 SMG w/50 Rds, Semi- Automatic Rifle w/10 Rds, 12ga Shotgun w/5 Rds, and receive Three Targets, along with a T-Shirt. Bryan opts to go with the Coalition Package, which allowed him to shoot a M249 SAW w/40 Rds, M16 Rifle w/25 Rds, M9 Pistol w/20 Rds, and receive Three Targets, along with a T-Shirt as well. They hand us our ammo and ask us to pick our 3 targets from a wall of 20 targets.

We wait in an extremely long lineup; however the line up seems to be moving pretty quickly, oddly enough, considering how everyone seems to be crammed inside that little room. Finally, it’s our turn; march on up to the equipment rack, put safety goggles on and earmuffs. They lead us into the room, take our ammo, take our targets, one at a time of course, bring us a gun, load it for us, and show us how to shoot it, how to aim and off we go!

I thought that firing a gun for the very first time in my life would be a lot more exciting and that I would be a lot more nervous, but surprisingly, it wasn’t. The gun felt very comfortable in my hand, I wasn’t nervous to pull the trigger, I didn’t spray. I think I handled it like a pro….except for the fact that I missed most of my targets and then when I did hit the paper, I hit the wrong target. I shot the dog instead. At the end of it, the instructor was giving me grief for hitting the friendly dog. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that I didn’t like German Shepherds.

Plus, the instructor was weird anyways. She found out that we were Canadian, so she asked us if we ate baby seals. Bryan tells her that we don’t have baby seals where we’re from, they’re more up North, so she goes, ‘oh I know’ ‘If you study enough Geometry, you know where things are’. AWKWARD!!! We could tell that those were jokes, but they weren’t funny, well not to us anyways, we couldn’t even muster out a fake laugh.

So before we leave we pick up our T-shirts that were included in the package. Note: We did not choose the same T-Shirt unlike the Walgreens incident. We went outside to try and hail a taxi, there was no way we were gonna make the same rookie mistake and walk it all the way back. We stood around for maybe 10 minutes for a taxi, we were told that this was a tourist hot spot and that there would always be cabs floating around, this was not the case!

We got off @ MGM and began working our way up the strip, since our luggage that day was being delivered to our next hotel, The Encore. We head on in, explore the MGM for a bit, make our way over to the Rainforest Café and the ‘pond’ area and where the washrooms are. I come out of the washroom first, so I go grab a seat by the fake crocodile sitting in the ‘river’. I notice that this middle aged man sits down as well, he looks left, looks right, rolls up his sleeve, checks his blindspots again and sticks his hand into the water to fish for change, grabs some of it, pulls his hand out of the water, lets it dry off for a bit, then stuffs the change into his pocket. Bryan comes out of the washroom so I vacate my spot and we head to the door, but not before I tell him to watch that man and see what he does. Surely enough, the man gets up, takes my seat and does the same thing again. So Bryan quickly snaps a candid photo of the man. I wonder what would happen if you get caught doing this.

After that incident and from all the laughing, we’re both feeling a bit parched. There is a souvenir shop right across from that exit, we head in, and we each grab a beer. We make our way over to the checkout counter, we say both beers are to be purchased together, she rings in one beer, asks for the money, we remind her that the beers are together she says okay, and still asks us for the same amount. Bryan was going to try again, but I’m standing next to him and I’m going ‘shh shh shh’ as in just let it slide, so after some hesitation he gives in and just hands her the money for one beer. My beer is a twist off, his cap needs to be pried off, we ask her if she can open it for us, she says no, but tells us that there is a bottle opener for sale by the door, and to just put it back when we’re done with it. What a lovely lady!

We head out and begin making our way up the strip. We do a quick entry and exit into the M&M store, only to discover that neither of us really has an interest in visiting that store. We head on over to the Tix4Tonight booth to see what they have. We walk in and this cute girl comes up to us trying to give us some info. I tell her that we’re looking for a good show (but so is everyone else who walks through that door. I don’t think anyone ever comes in and goes “You know what, I’m looking for a shitty show today, can you recommend one?” I think I’ll try that next time!) She immediately and enthusiastically recommends Crazy Horse over by the Riviera. She tells us that it’s a really good show, and that if her as a girl can appreciate and enjoy it, then us couple of guys are bound to enjoy it as well. I tell her that, the show is cool with me, but that Bryan plays for the other team and likes guys. She says its okay, here in Vegas we don’t judge (That’s true. We only ridicule you in our TR’s after we come back). So Bryan is trying to decide what to watch, and I’m making small talk with this cute Cuban girl, I don’t really remember what I was saying at that point, I already had maybe 3 sips of beer in me. Crazy, I know! He wasn’t able to decide on a show, so we just left empty handed once again.

We continue making our way up the strip, there’s a small magic show going on right outside the Harley Davidson Cafe, we watch for a couple of minutes, it’s not a good show, we’re bored so we move on. We both marvel @ Aria & The Crystals shopping Centre from the outside, snap a bunch of daytime photos, typical touristy stuff. Last time I went, it wasn’t completed yet.

From there we head on over to the Miracle Mile Shops, do a quick run through of that mall. Head on in to the Planet Hollywood Player’s Card area, read the sign, it informs us that there is only a $5 Slot credit being given away. That’s it? I know Vegas isn’t doing well, but skimping out on the slot credit is not the way to go! You need to give us more slot credit so that we can see how fun your machines are, so that we are willing to pump in more money into your machines! I tell him that $5 is nothing, it’s owned by Harrah’s now, we’ll be passing up a bunch of Harrah’s property on our way up to the Encore, we’ll check out the Player’s Cards from them and see if they have anything better.

Right now it’s 2PM and check-in is @ 3PM, and I’m getting tired from carrying all the stuff and all the walking, so I suggest that we just skip the going in and outs of the casinos and just make our way up the strip to check-in then we can make our way back down once we’re rested. Luckily, he agreed. I mean, we’re still enjoying the sights of Vegas, by just walking up the strip.

After what seems like eternity of walking, we finally make it the Encore for check-in. We utilize the ‘divide and conquer’ strategy. I line up at the front desk with the sea of other people waiting to check-in since it’s 3PM right now, while he goes looking for the bell hop to see if they have our bags. I pick the shortest looking line, and as you know, that does not always work out. Turns out the couple in front of us had so many questions, they kept asking for this and that, asking about this and that. Sheesh! The line-up to my left was already 2 persons ahead of me by the time I got to the desk. She must have heard me complaining to Bryan and saying that ‘we’re gonna time attack it and make this the fastest check-in possible’ ‘cause she turned around, flashed a million dollar smile and apologized for taking up so much of our time. I of course returned that smile with a million dollar smile of my own and said it was okay. No point in getting upset, they were almost done anyways.

We check-in, no $20 trick, ‘cause we’re already staying there in an upgraded comp, it’s the Encore, doubt $20 would have even been enough, or worked. Head up to the room, snap the mandatory bed, washroom, TV, and room pics. But none of this happens before we get to the room and Bryan frantically rips open his suitcase emptying out all of his contents looking for his little brown envelope. But nope, it was nowhere to be found!

We make dinner reservations for 7PM @ Envy Steakhouse, the plan was to use a restaurant.com coupon. It was probably around 3:30-4:00PM right now, I felt a little famished so I inquired if he would be up for a little snack. He said, he’s always up for food. So we headed on over to the Fashion Show Mall to the food court area and had ourselves some Mexican food. After that he utilized the ATM conveniently located in the mall to pull out some money. We figured that the ATM fees in the mall would be less than the hotel ones. Sure enough, this proved to be true!

Now that, that is all out of the way, first casino stop? The Venetian! We get in, make our way to the Player’s Card desk, inquire about their signup bonus, the lady tells us that there is no current promotion being given for new member signups, however they do have slot attendants who are walking around and randomly giving away vouchers for $25 slot credits, but you’d have to be real lucky to get one. Go figure, luck is required in Vegas! So then we ask her about the ‘refer a friend’ promo. The promo is pretty much what it sounds like, have an existing member bring a new member to sign up and you’ll both get $25 worth of slot credits. Perfect! We are just the kind of people you’re looking for!

We both sign up. I take Bryan over to a bank of Video Blackjack machines, hand him my ‘cheat sheet’ for Blackjack, set him up for $0.25 per hand and away he goes! So this is where he learns how to properly play Blackjack, he’s played before, but not with basic strategy. I think we were there for about half an hour before we used up the slot credits and not once did we see a cocktail waitress to order a drink. The place was pretty dead on a Sunday afternoon as well. Afternoon nap maybe?

We head on over to the Palazzo area, explore there, and then make our way back towards the Harrah’s properties checking out the various casinos around there. No Total Rewards card sign up here, the bonuses just weren’t happening! After exploring the various Harrah’s property and seeing them offer 6:5 blackjack, the excitement just wasn’t happening. So we both collectively agreed that the Venetian was the place to be. We get in find a $10/$15 table for blackjack, I buy in for $200, and he buys in for $100. I think he walked away with a small bit of profit or he just broke even. I on the other hand was down about $125 or so. So I said screw it, find me a different table, a $25 / hand table. I get to a table that is in the middle of a new shuffle, perfect, just what I like! The dealer’s name is David, he’s shuffling, there’s a lady sitting in the anchor spot, just waiting, and I guess it took him too long to shuffle, cause she got up in a huff and stormed away. I turn to David and go “I don’t think she likes you man” He replied with “I don’t give a damn!” This got us cracking, so much to the fact that I could have swore I saw a little smile from David himself. Anyways, as soon as he’s done shuffling, I plunk down and quickly turn whatever chips I had left on me at that time into a pure $200 profit. It didn’t take much to pull me away from the table with a quick $200 profit because we were already cutting it close to our dinner reservation for 7 and we were gonna head to Spearmint Rhino’s afterwards, so I wanted to be able to blow that $200 there and not have a worry.

So we head back to the room, shower and change, head downstairs hail a cab, we hop in, I tell the cabbie “Envy Steakhouse please” He starts pulling away, then stops and asks “Do you guys want the shortest and fastest route?” This question caught the both of us off guard? WHAT? What kind of question is that? No, I want you to long haul my ass! We’ll those were the kind of comments that were going through my head when he asked. I said, yes shortest and fastest route. He then asked if we just came from there, I said yes, he asked if I remembered how much it cost me, I told him less than $10 including tip. I thought he was still going to try to long haul my ass! He said no, that can’t be. I understood his comment as, no it can’t be that cheap. Bryan on the other hand however understood it as; no it can’t be that much. Oh well! In the end the ride came to $8 with tip!

We get in Envy is dark and dead, same as last time. No drinks, no appetizers, no desert, just the main course. We each just order our own individual steaks, the food wasn’t that great. They brought out a side with three different kinds of salt for you to use on your food, little did we know though, that everything else would be full of salt and extremely salty! The steak! The veggies! The mashed potatoes! By the end of the night, even the water started tasting salty. If our waitress had bothered coming back around to ask how everything was, I would have told her the food was too salty, but no, she never came around again.

It’s probably 8:30 by now; it’s still too early for the strip club. Bryan heard many great things regarding Planet Hollywood, I suspected that it had something to do with the deal-ertainers, now that it was night time; it was the perfect time to go. So we get in, head to the Player’s Desk to sign him up for a card, since we visited the other Harrah’s properties and it didn’t seem like they were giving him anything. He got his $5 in slot credit, a coupon book. I quickly flipped through the coupon book, no match plays, and no free souvenirs? Just food coupons? What is this a Harrah’s property? Oh wait, it is. We make our way over to the slot machines to use up the free credit, he plunks himself down in front of a Penny machine, hits the max bet, nothing, hits the max bet again, some stuff happens but we’re not sure what. It looks like the machine froze, nothing is moving, nothing is happening. I tell him to hit the service button and have someone come take a look at it, although there is probably only a dollar left in the machine. Meanwhile, I’m on the machine next to him, I put in my $10 and hit max bet, less than a minute, I’m done my buy in, nothing comes to light.

Shortly after a slot attendant comes by, we tell them that the machine doesn’t seem to be working, they try to enter a code, look up at the upper game screen and go, it’s a touch screen bonus round, you need to pick cards until you match 3 of them. I swear that screen wasn’t available before. So nonetheless, Bryan does as he’s told, he picks 3 of the same, and surprise! He gets 25 free spins. So we stand there, watching the machine spin itself, then when he dwindles down to almost no more free spins, what do you know? He hits it again and gains another 20 or so free spins. Long story short, we sat there for a good 10 minutes watching the machine spin itself, by the end of it all he won about 7,200 credits, which to me on a penny machine is huge, especially when it was off a $5 free slot play promo.

Little did we know that you could just hit the button and the credits would be added to your balance immediately, we just sat there for another good five minutes waiting for the machine to transfer the credits over to the balance. OMG we were gonna be there forever, until I told him to try and hit a button, to see if it’ll skip that whole scene. To our surprise, it worked! So he cashed out with about $75 in pure profit.

We floated around the blackjack area trying to find a spot to play, but they were all full and plus they were 6:5’s we weren’t gonna play that. We both agreed that once again, The Venetian was the place to be, so we headed on back over there. All I remember from here is that I gave them back the $200 I had taken away from them earlier, probably in blackjack. Luckily we went back to the room earlier on in the night and I emptied out my wallet, otherwise, I probably would have sunk in more money trying to chase. I open up my wallet and there’s $40 left. Perfect. Chip change for $40 please, outside. I bet $20 on black, it hits. I try it again, it fails. I try playing the thirds, nothing hits, I try black again, and it fails. Oh well there goes another $40.

Time to head on over to Spearhmint Rhino’s! We head back to the room to grab more money and change; I call them to send over a limo for us. I read that the limo ride is free and will take care of the $40 cover. All you have to do is take care of the driver. Done! So we head on downstairs to the front to meet our driver, he rolls up, it’s an actual limo! Cool. I get to ride in a limo for free? Awesome! It’s a short ride over from the Encore to Rhino’s, we get out, I tip the driver a $20. A male host leads us in, he explains how this works, says that they’re busy tonight, it’s gonna be a long wait for a table, but you know if we take care of him, he can bump us up on this list, if you know what I mean. He wanted $50. So I agreed. Mind you, Bryan has very little strip club experience and has never had a lap dance, so I had to make this right! Five minutes later, we’re in. The host asks us what kind of girls we like, I tell him I prefer blondes, Bryan has no preference, anything that walks really.

So we sit down and 30 seconds later two girls show up out of nowhere. Mine’s a blonde, she sits down, we start talking and she’s saying all the right things, and when I mean she’s saying all the right things, I’m not kidding. It’s not the usual, you’re so cute, I love your hair, I love your watch etc. She asks where I’m from, I say Toronto, she’s says ‘like Drake?’ OMG I love Drake, I’m like me too! So we hit it off and start talking about Drake’s concert last night, and the after party, and how she met Drake, then a flo-rida song comes on, and she goes OMG I hate Flo-Rida. OMG me too! Meanwhile, Bryan’s girl is constantly pestering me about going to the back room with her and Bryan. I’m like WTF? What did he tell her he was interested in? I wasn’t sure if he was serious, or if it was just an excuse to get her off of him. In the end I told his girl that I’d buy him a lap dance, yano, since he never had one and all, and she wanted it inside where there was more ‘privacy’, but I said nope, out here, take it or leave it. So she agreed and performed one out there.

Meanwhile, my girl is trying to get me to go into the back room with her as well, typical prices 3 songs for $100 or 6 songs for $200. I told her that I would take one from her out here, but she said no, I said take it or leave it, and she left! Oh well.

So Bryan’s dance is done, she comes up to me to collect the money, I give it to her, she takes Bryan’s hand and leads him towards the back. I’m thinking wow; he must have really liked it and now wants to go to the back, good for him. Three songs later, he comes back with his belt in his hand and a big FML face on him. I’m like what happened? You got her pregnant? He’s like, no. I just got scammed. WHAT? Apparently, after the three songs, she asked him how he wanted to pay, he was all confused because he thought I paid for the dance outside, ‘cause he saw me hand her the money. He didn’t bring enough money with him for this, so he had to use his credit card. They only sell chips in denominations of $20, the stripper wanted a tip, and also the cashier wanted a tip, the bank wanted a tip as well, but in the form of a charge. So in the end that 3 song set he did cost him a lot of money!

Meanwhile, I’m out here, cycling through girls. I land a blonde that I’m not really feeling, she goes what’s wrong, you like Asians? I say, yeah I do, so okay, not a problem she leaves and next thing you know, we’re being harassed by Asians. They must have a code or a system that alerts them to preferences. I cycle through a few Asians including one who said she was 30, which probably means 35 in real life. Sorry that’s not for me hun. I finally land another blonde, once again, this blonde says all the “right things” she tells me I’m cute, she loves my cologne, loves the shirt that I’m wearing etc. you know, the typical stuff.

She tells me that she’s gonna let me in on a secret, I have a feeling what the secret is going to be. I tell her that I can’t keep secrets, but I’ll try just for her sake J. She tells me that she’s gonna doube it and give me six songs for a hundred as opposed to the three for a hundred just ‘cause she really “likes” me. I’m like sure hunny, that’s just too good to be true, what’s the catch, she says that there is no catch, that I can even leave my wallet with my buddy if I’m worried. What’s going on in my mind right now is not ‘OMG I’m gonna get 6 songs for $100’. It’s ‘I wonder how this scam ends’. So in the end I agree. You know what they say, curiosity killed the cat, but satisfactory brought it back. I just had to know!

We go in, she tells the bouncer it’s 3 for a hundred. My guess is that the club gets a cut at the end of the night, so they’re always going to tell them it’s a 3 song set. First two songs are alright, third song rolls along and I’m feeling tired. Who knew that by just sitting there one could be so tired. I guess my body got comfortable with the cushioned seat and thought it was a bed? I mean I have been up all day today. Either that or they were playing rock songs and I don’t like rock music. After she finishes the fourth song, she asks me if I want to go for more or if I wanted to stop. I didn’t care that she was only on the 4^th song; I guess that was the scam? Or she lost count? I was just so bored/tired I just wanted to GTFO. So I paid her and left.

I come back outside to the seat only to find Bryan talking to a nice looking Asian girl, I thought she was Taiwanese. She was wearing a nice white dress, long black hair and to top it all off, nice braces! Wow! So I sat down at my seat and asked if I was intruding on anything and if they wanted me to leave them alone, the girl was nice enough to say no, she didn’t say yes, I want to do nasty things to your friend. So I ask her for her name, she tells me it’s Tila. I’m thinking Tila Tequila, so I go ‘oh, how original’, she admits it’s just a stage name. Turns out she’s from LA. 90% of them are from LA. Where abouts in LA? K-Town? I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, you’re Korean? How rare is that? So I pretend that I don’t know what she’s talking about? K-Town? And give her a stupid look, she’s like you know Korea Town. OH! Just checking!

I had just come out from a dance, and haven’t been hyped up enough yet for another one, and Bryan was still hurting over all the money he paid for those three dances, so neither of us got a dance from her. Turns out that missed opportunity would be the biggest regret both of us endured during this trip.

So we leave the club hop in a taxi and the driver immediately asks us "Asian massage guys?" We're like uh, no thanks, just to the Encore is fine.