I had called down last night to the concierge and asked for a late checkout, they told me that they could extend it for an hour, till noon. And that if I wanted to check-out any later, I would have to call the front desk to see what availabilities they had. We weren't planning on staying in the room till noon, but i called, just in case!
Around 9:30AM, I left my room, alone, and headed downstairs to the front desk to settle my bill, luckily there was no line. I told the friendly girl who greeted me and that I was checking out this morning and asked if she could do anything about the resort fee. She immediately asked me what was wrong? I wasn't expecting such a question and stammered for a bit, I told her that there was no major issue, but I could make up some stuff if it made it easier for her to waive it.
She told me that they generally don't waive resort fees unless there is a major complaint of some sort, but she would go ahead and waive it for me anyways. Cha-ching! That's $28USD a night saved!!
If she needed reasons, the reasons I had at the top of my head were: the wifi kept cutting out, and I had to keep signing back in, there was no daily newspaper as indicated on the booking under what the resort fee includes and the maid forgot coffee cups and keurig cups one night and I had to call down and have them brought up to me! See minor issues, no major ones.
I then asked her to print out a copy of my room charges as I needed to go see a Casino Host to try and have those waived as well. I knew that I did not put in nearly enough time at the tables or on the machines that was required to have the charges waived, but I was hoping maybe she could work her magic and maybe waive the glass of wine, or maybe even the appetizer or side?
So off I go to Aria and quickly locate the casino host room, it was easier to locate than expected. I'm instantly greeted, I sit down and explain why I'm there. She says let's see what she can do, asks for my room number, 29008. Then asks if I'm Peter or Juan? Uhhh, my name is neither. Oh! I'm staying at the Vdara, not the Aria. So she looks through my file once again, frown and says, yeah, there's really not much play here. I ask her what I'm rated at, she says I'm rated for about an hour of play at $23 per hand and that they were looking for someone who puts in at least a solid 4 hours of play at $25 a hand. I say, okay, that sounds about right, thank her for her time and leave.
I probably put in 2 hours of play, but they can't track every minute, so the hour sounded about right. But the weird part was the rating of $23 an hour, I pretty much flat betted $25 a hand #Weird.
So since the host wasn't able to waive any of the charges from the steak dinner the other night, I had to head back to the Vdara to settle my bill, there was a lineup of about five people now, but luckily they had more check-in attendants, so I waited in line, walked up and told them I wanted to pay by cash, she didn't have the cash box and I was told that I had to wait for another attendant who did have a cash box to become available.
Once he was available, I told him I wanted to pay for the charges in cash, but that I had accumulated a small amount of XpressComps from the machines and I wanted to use that. I had managed to accumulate a whole $1.05 in comps! Which sounds about right, I have about 100 points on my card. So I used that to offset part of my bill and ended up paying $86 in cash.
So I head back to my room and begin packing, OMG. All this change.
Next stop! Lunch buffet @ the Bellagio! I had one more MyVegas reward to redeem and that was a 2-for-1 lunch buffet at the Bellagio. Found the players club and had that reward loaded onto my card. Went to the buffet, yes! Only one other party in line! Was a little concerned that the outflow from the CES convention would be lined up here for whatever reason.
I made myself a breakfast plate:
Don't think I've ever done a lunch buffet in Vegas yet, so this was probably my first. Not bad, especially with the 2-for-1 deal!
Now that brunch is out of the way, time to make our way over to the Luxor for the Bodies exhibit. She was the one who wanted to go, I could have survived without it. We walk all the way to the Excalibur then take the tram to Mandalay Bay, hop off and then immediately take the tram to Luxor. That saved us some walking!
I wanted to grab coffee before I headed in there, was afraid I was gonna fall asleep walking around the exhibit! But sadly no food, drinks or photography allowed.
The exhibit wasn't that bad, had some interesting stuff, it was a larger than expected exhibit, had rooms and rooms filled with stuff. I think we were in there the longest 'cause we read practically every single board.
When we exited the exhibit I was glad it was finally over, but she wished that there was more to the exhibit to see.
We went to the food court to grab me my coffee and her tea. Then proceeded to the casino to search for our dear friend Alice. I think we found her alright, but she wasn't very friendly and ate up our $20 very quickly without giving us any love.
As we were leaving, I came across a Super Times Pay Video Poker machine, those are hard to find too, so I bought in for $10 played some nickel Video Poker and was able to bring it up to just over $20, then I quickly cashed out!
We have one last dinner before we have to board the plane, so we're headed to the Wynn to chase that friggin buffet!
When we get there, the video Blackjack machines that we were using the other day were in use, so we tried going to other machines, but they weren't setup the way these ones were, the other machines didn't have the split or double down option. So we waited a bit and then finally they were done and we parked ourselves by those two machines. Ordered a red bull vodka for myself and a pina colada for my lady friend and we set to work.
She plays $1 a hand, slow and steady! I bought in with $20 and started out with $2 a hand, lost that after a short while, we were still short about 200 points. Slipped a $100 in, go big or go home right? Well I'm going big, then I'm going home! Changed it up to $6 a hand, so that each hand would get me 1 point.
By the time I hit the 750 mark, I was down to about $50. I didn't want to cash out yet, I was either going to lose it all or bring it up to break-even and then cash out. Luckily I was able to bring it back up to my $100 and cash-out, but by the time i was able to cash out, we were at 897 points. Whoops.
Ugh! Only 300 more points to go until that steak dinner! I knew I could easily do it, but buffet it is. So the buffet ended up costing us about $32, $20 for me and $12 for her. I have her load the buffet onto her card and off we go!
It's about 6PM, I'd say still pretty early for dinner time. We both agreed the value of this buffet if one was to pay was better than the one at Caesar. Even though I was severely disappointed that they didn't have the Asian dishes that I was looking forward to. No Peking duck, no Sui Mai, no Ha Gow, the crab legs were soaked in salt water, so we could only eat a few.
Side note: Someone needs to tell Mr. Wynn that there's a spelling mistake on one of his place cards.
As we were exiting the Wynn casino, there was a blackjack machine that was facing the walk-way, seemed like it was just calling to me, so i ran up to it, fed it a $20 and played $5 a hand, I was either going to double my buy-in or bust out! The highest I think I got was to $30, then I busted out. Probably ran through another 10 points or so on the machine.
Diner is done and our trip has drawn to a close, so we're slowly making our way back to Vdara to pick up our bags, we pass by the Mirage and notice that there are a bunch of people standing around the volcano area, and shortly after it goes off.
We pass by Caesar's Palace on our way back and notice that the Caesar's Chalet is now in full swing.
We get there, print out boarding passes and head to the gate. FML! Our flight has been delayed by 2 hours. Gosh darn it, I didn't check before we left for the airport, could have stayed a couple more extra hours, same thing happened to me on my last trip too! Some things you just never learn!
Closing notes:
I forgot to stop by one of the many hotel gift shops and pick up some more strategy cards, the one that I have is a little out of shape.
I think I'm ready for my rental car experience now. That way I can explore the further properties, such as M Resort, The Palms, Rio, SLS, etc.
I'm 1-0 for 2015 thus far.
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