Well here goes, our November trip report.

Friday November 21st, Unlike what we've done for years, and leave after working a full day on Friday. This year we (I) chose to leave early am. When we had to get up at 2:30am in the morning, I was wondering what the heck was I thinking, for our 6am flight to Vegas, through Cleveland. Well, our flight was delayed out of Harrisburg, because of a broken de-icing truck. This was huge, because a 2 hour delay caused us to miss our connection in Cleveland, and pushed back our arrival in Vegas even further. I had time to buy a rooster pen in Cleveland, I had a ball with it. After a 15 hour ordeal, we arrive in Vegas! Head to Thrifty, we get a nice Chrysler 300, only to find the trunk filled with trash, we are given another 300, but it's a base model. Sandy is staying at the Flamingo, we are over at Caesars Palace, and valet is a log jam. We get the newest tower, Augustus tower I believe. Nice lg jacuzzi oval tub, separate shower, tv in bath area, double sinks and toilet closet.
Down and over to Bills gambling Hall for a bite to eat, $50 bucks for this slop, was way out of line, we will not be back.
On the way back to Caesars Sharon mentioned she likes the Garden bar at the Flamingo, and we make a quick stop there at 9pm. Low and behold, my old friend Alan is tending there this night. We head to bed for Caesars at 3:30am. The good news, I hit deuces twice on dollars at the Garden bar.... the bad news, I hardly had anything to show for it, in my pocket. It takes money to play, ya know?
Saturday, November 22,
Meet Sandy and out for breakfast to the new Cannery for breakfast, 2 stinking hours for this meal, and we where seated right away. Computers all down, we couldn't get a players card, the machines where not excepting them anyway, no credit card payments excepted for anything. Any ticket out of a machine, would not read in the next machine, had to go to the cage to cash out. Horrible! We Left, never to return this trip.
Green valley station, Sharon shops, I loose.
Sam's Town & Sheplers C&W tent is up, so Sharon finds some shoes she has to have.
Back to our Hotel, we hit the Diamond lounge for a quick snack and a cocktail, then a nap, so I'm awake for our only show this trip. Dave Atell is one of the headliner shows at the Comedy festival, and I got tickets. It was a good show, we had great seats, and he's a little raw, but I find his humor entertaining, it's not politicly correct at all. Finish the night at Caesars. I get the Aces' on a dollar Triple bonus machine for $1200 and the dreaded W-2G. bed at 3am, after some high roller slot play... it's all bad! Another poor choice!
Sunday, November 23,
Breakfast Crepes at Payard at Caesars. Wonderful, is the best single word to describe these works of art. I'd stay at Caesars again just to walk down and enjoy these in the morning!
SouthPoint and we get enough points for a "meal cooker" which they don't have, and agree to send it to our home (we are still waiting). I'm not counting on ever seeing it either.
Silverton, I love this place! Here I play a new 5 play machine, only quarters however. After quite a bit of play on DDB, I'm dealt A, A, A, A, 3. That's 10,000 quarters or $2500 and another dreaded W2G. Of course at this time I wish I was playing dollars! LOL
We leave, and I am up for the trip, in great sprits. Dinner is at Texas De Brazil tonight, we walk in without reservations, and are seated promptly. It was an excellent experience, but you can't eat like this often. I am looking forward to enjoying lunch here on my next visit and just doing the soup & saled bar, it is amazing.
Planet Hollywood and then we finish the night at Caesars Palace till 10pm, I'm beat.
More to come.......

Monday, November 24th,
This is move day for Sandy, to the California, we move some of our stuff to the California as well, but we still have one more night at Caesars. We overlapped nights this trip.
Sharon & I have an early breakfast at Margy-ville and while we enjoyed the early morning sites, we did not enjoy the food. THE WORST coffee I have ever tasted. bar none! Nothing was prepared correctly, and our order was wrong. We probably won't return.
Flamingo and Ceasars and loose, loose, loose.
Lunch at the Palm with Laine, Toby, Daisy, Sandy at the Palm restaurant. Very good and very enjoyable company. My arm was twisted a little here and was forced to allow everyone to pay thier own check. Grrrr! <S>
Today is a big loose day for Sharon & I, can't seem to get anything going anywhere downtown. Dinner at the Brew pub...YUCK! This will be the only meal here this trip. Again, things are deliverd cold that should be hot, items wrong, slow and loud. Can't think of one thing nice to say about the place.
Back to tthe strip for the night. We give Ballys a try, and finally break the loosing streak. Bar service was excellent at the bar formally known as bubbles.
Caesars and bed at 1:30am. We stayed up till after 1am because caesars was going to loose power from 1am till 6am, we noticed very little difference, except more guards.
Tuesday, November 25,
Check out of Caesars, everything is comped including out bottle of expresso vodka, we are moving to the California with us! LOL
Feels odd valet parking at the Cali, instead of MSS. The valet is slower.
Breakfast at the California cafe, where we meet Sandy and agree to just stay downtown today. We have dinner plans for the Redwood in the California tonight.
We hit the Fremont, Golden Nugget, Horseshoe, Plaza then dinner at the Redwood. Nice dinner and even better price with the Hawaiian package from boyd. We split up and we play at Cali & MSS for awhile, finally drifting over to Las vegas club and see my sister Sandy sitting at one of those virtual blackjack machines. We sit and join her for a bit, then move over to the virtual 3 card poker machine. Sharon hits a 3 of a kind and we play till she looses it all, but the cocktail service is good and we are having fun. Back to MSS and I can't keep my eyes open. I am actually falling asleep at the machine (not that they could slow the deal down any more on those treasure chect machines, if they did it would stop dead) so it is to bed by 3am.

Still more to come.....

I had forgotten about Wendells Tuesday afternoon talkvegas meet at Main Street Brew Pub. JMT, thank you again for inviting your friend, Lena Prima to our meet. Above all her talent, (and she has a lot of talent) she a very nice person. I'm enjoying the CD!
BTW< anyone who has the newest Lena Prima CD "Live! in Las Vegas" should check out the inside jacket of the CD. Our own, JMT is listed on it in the "thank you's". A very special touch.
Wendell, Thank you so much for getting this thing together, you did a smashing job (as always). I must admit I like the smaller meets, and the Brew Pub in the afternoon is a great choice for these. Also thank you for the drink!!! You where a fantastic host. It was nice seeing old and new faces at this get together. I'm already looking forward to the next meet!

More to come.....(I'll try to finish this tonight)

Lee - Congrats on those Aces and Deuces but sorry about those W2G forms. Tell me more about that new 5 play machine at the Silverton. What is it?

Looking forward to the rest of the report!

Mike, it's a brand new bank of upright five play multi denom machines with the new lower buttons on them. It's easier on your wrists and cuts the fatigue down to almost nothing. They are just past the center square bar, but not as far as the twin creeks restaurant. I ran out of time, or I would have played longer, they kept giving me 4 to the royal, but not that 5th card! LOL

A bad day....Wednesday, November 26, (not pretty)
I woke up early at 7am and I knew something wasn't right, I was sweating badly, a mad dash for the bathroom, and what I thought was just a case of the runs quickly turned into trouble. I got cold, real cold, just shaking, to the point I was afraid to stand up. I made it back to bed, but again another race to the bathroom. Again the chills and shaking. This time however my stomach was letting me know things where not alright down there. Then it struck violently on my way back to bed. I turned around and just made the commode, my entire contents of my redwood meal.
I would repeat this for the duration of the day. My whole body ached, I was sick in Vegas. Now I will share a funny portion of this (although it wasn't funny at the time) diarrhea & dry heaves do not mix well! LOL
On top of all this, our toilet get stopped up..... Sharon got on the phone and got the quickest response I've even seen from the plunger guy! LOL
At 6pm Nurse Sharon took a break for dinner and brought me back some crackers and ginger ale. A shower and some sleep helped in my recovery, but I still wasn't able to go anywhere this day.
Thanksgiving, November 27,
I meet Sandy and Sharon in the california cafe, they have already gotten thier food, I ordered just a english muffin, I am not hungary yet, but I need to eat something. We stay close to the hotel, I can't really enjoy myself, I can't seem to relax and sit still. I am not enjoying my gambling. I take several breaks during the day up in the room. By dinner time, I'm feeling better, and I am looking forward to food. Traditional thanksgiving dinner at the Pullman Grill. Comfort food never tasted so good! After dinner I seem to calm down and relax a bit more. We visited Fremont and Golden Nugget for a spell. Today was a slow drain on the bank roll.
Friday, November 28,
Up early and feeling much better, we head out to the Egg & I for breakfast, so sandy can taste eggs benedict (she's never had them) and I figured this would be a good place for them. They seem to take care in the eggs served. I enjoyed the service and friendliness of the place and would go back anytime.
After breakfast, we stopped at Sahara, and pulled out or cash back here as well. Southpoint again, then back downtown. I don't remember where we ate this evening. But we played at MSS and California the rest of the evening, after packing for an early flight home. Sharon left me in the casino to get a little more sleep. I stayed and played, but lost, I should have followed her lead. Oh well, another bad choice on my part.
Saturday November 29,
Up early and check out, zero balance, car return smooth, Continental flight home on time and no problems. I slept most of the way.

Closing thoughts

I made a lot of bad choices, playing way too late into the evening, not quiting when I was up and just playing it down to zero. When you win early, I always give it back. I always play harder too, after all, it's there money???? wrong! I know.
Being sick on vacation sucks. I'm just glad that didn't hit on a travel day!!!!

The End....

Thanks for the trip report Lee. I don't know where to start.

Congrats on the W2Gs.

I like the salad bar at Texas De Brazil. I have a hard time finding the words to describe it to others. I use fresh, clean, and cold but that doesn't cut it. Interesting that you want to try just the salad next time. Have you ever paid $25 for a salad before? I would have no problem paying for it. I only have trouble explaining the justification to others. How would you describe the salad bar if you were recommending it to someone?

Thanks for coming to the meet. I'm glad you like your CD.

lee,bummer on the sick part,the redwood,cross that off my list.lee don't forget you can write off your losses up to the amount of your winnings and your share of the trip costs,i am sure your acountant has all the right answers.next trip?can you imagine having the hershey squirts on a plane? frightening!!!

JMT,
The salad bar at Texas de Brazil, has a unique collection of items not often seen on a salad bar, and it is definitely up-scale on the produce and other items. The chilling table, it's more then a cold table, could ever hope to be. The other big plus is, the employees are taking constant care of the thing, not letting anything get too low, or too beat up. Keeping it clean is a major problem I have with any buffet salad bar or meal in general.
Most of you here, know me, and for me to WANT to return to a salad bar, is really the highest compliment I can give the place!

DAG,
I can't blame the redwood, I believe this was a 24hr flue bug, because I enjoyed my meal at the redwood, had no issues with the meal while eating it, had no issues the rest of the evening after eating it. I will go back.
On a plane with what I had, I can't imagine it. I'm sure it happens, and what can you do.
Next trip? good question!
I keep looking, sometime between the weekend after Valentines day and march 15 is the best guess. Last year we went the first week in March, and that could happen again. There have been some good fares out of Philadelphia lately, but I haven't committed to anything, I sure wish I knew what the economy was going to do. Something other then tank, would be nice. LOL

Congrats on the good luck........er........skill!!!! (For all of your W2s.............did you know that there are always many losing race tickets on the floor in Sports Books?)
We really enjoyed seeing you, Sharon and Sandy, and had a great lunch at the Palm. We'll go there again.
So sorry you became ill........not much fun anytime, much less while on vacation.
Had hoped to hear that Sharon won the Wheel of Fortune at the California, but so far, nothing in the paper.
We were really sorry to miss the meet, but happy to see a few attendees anyway. Hopefully, next year.........or Wendell's Birthday trip.

The Palms is a great place for lunch, and I believe, they where grateful for the customers. That was the most empty I have ever seen the place for lunch.
Thanks for coming to see us, nice little visit with a bite to eat! <S>

Sharon lost almost every day, not a lot mind you, but she never had a big winning day. That hurts the bank roll!

Thanks for reading the long & late report.
I'm ready to go again, just my bank roll isn't... LOL

Lee - sorry you got sick. Yes, NO FUN being sick on vacation - I can relate! Sounds like food poisoning to me since you recovered so quickly.

And as Tater said, you CAN off-set your W2G wins with losses. I do indeed collect losing tickets in the sportbooks just in case I get the dreaded W2Gs. Sometimes I embarrass my friends because I make a "sweep" through the sportsbooks, looking like a homeless person scavaging for food.

Also, you can tally up your end of year statements with all the players club accounts you have. If you show losses, you can deduct those as well. Whereas once you had to get separate statements from each casino, MGM now provides a summary statement for all the casinos you play in. I think Harrah's does the same thing.

You may already know this but in case you don't, just remember - you can only deduct losses up to the amount that you had to declare on the W2G wins. So if, for example, you have $4000 in W2G wins, you can deduct up to $4000 in losses to off-set the wins.

It sounds like I shouldn't be so jealous about SouthPoint's offer to ship your cooker home; I qualified for one but got a slot club clerk who rather pompously told me SouthPoint doesn't ship anything. For your sake, I hope he was wrong.

It was so nice of you to let us pay for our own meals at the Palm<vbg> - and the meal and company were both indeed excellent. LOL, as good as my steak was, I still kept casting covetous looks at your salad. We'll have to do this again now that we know exactly how to twist your arm.

Thanks for the warnings on Eastside Cannery and Margaritaville - kept me from wasting time in either joint, although I do enjoy the music as I stroll by Margarita ville.

Congrats on those W2-Gs! It's so easy to make those bad choices with "their money" - we probably all play looser when we get ahead, assuming that good luck will just keep flowing our way.

Sorry to hear about the nasty bug, but I am glad you got over it in time to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner and fly home in a comfortable way<g>.

Mike,
The accountant takes care of all that.
My problem with a Harrahs win is, I have been playing on Sharons card. So I show very little loss at that place! LOL I have recently started playing on my own card (last weekend), and have now graduated from lowly gold to Platnium status.

I really am not sure what I had, but I'm better now. Just back from DR too, he told me my blood pressure is the best it has been in a long while, and I'm in fairly good shape for an old fat guy! LOL

Thanks for reading!

Daisy,
Maybe you would have had better results at Margy-ville or eastside cannery? My luck on choosing eating places wasn't so good this trip. Sometimes I wonder if a black cloud wasn't following me around at dinner time!

Thanks for reading!

The whole value of Margaritaville is the view and watching the city come to life. Food and coffee aren't worth the trip at all.

The deal at the Eastside Cannery was just bad luck. I've been there several times and it is a professional operation. If the computers failed on a regular basis they would not have stayed in business this long. When the computers go down on strip casinos, it's nationwide news, and it happens a few times per year. I think MGM's main computer went down a while back and that affected all of their properties.

The real problem IMO on computer outages is how they handle it. More often than not, the front line employees are the product of the generation that got trophies for being on the losing team, and never learned about excellence. When the computers go down, they aren't prepared.

The only problem that I have seen with the Eastside Cannery is the "buffet" and they are making changes all the time. I don't see it surviving.

JMT! SURVIVING!?? Are you referring to the buffet or the whole casino?

The buffet

JMT,
I intend to give both places another try. The service was friendly at Margy-ville, and for that alone it rates another try. Plus, it is a unique way to see vegas come to life in the morning.
I know we caught the Cannery on a bad day, but it still sucked for us. But we like the Cannery, we also like the fact of a Cannery closer to us, then the one on Craig drive. With the road construction, that one was off our list this past trip.

Close all the buffets, I wouldn't loose a min. of sleep! <S>