This was a short trip with my son for some father /son bonding.
Left on Wednesday night and arrived in Vegas around 11:30pm. Caught the shuttle to thrifty and picked up a dodge caliper, no power windows, no power doorlocks, and definitely no power engine but at $7.50 a day I won’t complain.
Went to Albertsons for a bottle of whiskey, a foam cooler and some mix then went right to Rio for a night. Got settled into our room , had a couple drinks and went down to gamble for a few hours. Before we had left I had told Jason to go to the bank and get whatever amount of money he was comfortable losing and avoid the bank machine and its high fee’s. Like most sons he decided not to listen to the old man and went to the bank machine when we hit the casino floor. Jason played three card poker and quickly lost $100 while I mucked about on some penny slots and $10 craps. We finally went to bed around 4:00am.

Got up at 9 and showered, dressed and headed to the buffet for breakfast. This was the worst meal of the trip. The only edible food was the omelette otherwise everything that was supposed to be hot was cold and visa versa .

We checked out and headed to Paris for three nights. Left the luggage in the car and went to check in just to see if a room was available. No problem so we got the luggage and went to the room and unpacked for the rest of our stay. I liked this room especially the bathroom with the separate shower. The room at the Rio was more spacious but the Rio is really showing its age. Strangely, and for no particular reason, we did not gamble at Paris at all. We wanted to play poker and there is no poker room at Paris so we went to Bally’s for most of our gambling.

I am a fan of In-n-Out burger and was continually telling Jason how much he would enjoy the burger with all the fresh lettuce, tomatoes, onion etc. Well, we go to Maryland parkway near Tropicana and I tell him I will order while he gets a seat. He tells me not to get anything on it except mustard. What!!!! I can’t go up to this kid and tell him that. It goes against all that is right in the burger world. I convince him to at least put a tomato slice on it to save me any more embarrassment and he agrees. Now I’m a little worried there might be a picture of me on the wall saying “Do not serve this man” next time my wife and I go there.

Friday morning we went to McDonalds for mcmuffins, over to Caesars to pick up our medallions for the kids and to Imperial palace to look at the auto collection. When we were finished we went to Bellagio and played some poker, breaking about even. He said he felt like steak for dinner. He wanted the steakhouse at Paris but I felt we were in Vegas and not just any old steakhouse would do so I convinced him to come with me to Ellis Island for their steak special. I had clam chowder, steak with baked potato and green beans plus a tall glass of beer. Jason had the same except he had salad instead of soup. Total bill $15.80 Of course all of a sudden he wants to pay for supper. I told him if he goes into the casino and find’s a machine where your feet don’t stick to the floor when playing then he can pay the bill now instead of tomorrow at the fancy steakhouse he wants to go to.

He goes back to Ballys to play poker and I head to IP to relax and watch the karaoke. Saturday morning we head north on the strip and stop at McDonalds again for a quick breakfast. From there we go to Charleston and head toward Red Rock. On the way I stop in Summerlin at a new home site and tour a couple of single story homes. I love the view to the mountains and the homes had everything I would want. This is just an exploratory look to satisfy a curiosity. We get to the red rock canyon entrance and Jason decides he doesn’t want to take the loop so I turn around and head back. We stop downtown and park at Las Vegas Club. Give the guy $5 and get it back at the cage. We tour downtown and get our picture taken with the million bucks at Binions.
We go back to Paris and up to the room for a few drinks and relaxation before heading down to the poker room. I get seated and a guy in seat 7 is obviously the bully raising every hand and pushing people around. I put up with this for awhile and decide its time to put an end to it. He raises pre flop and I call knowing a continuation bet is coming. Sure enough he bets out and I push all in. He puts on a show for a minute and folds. Next hand the same scenario and this time he starts grumbling when I push all in on a K-7-3 flop. He finally says he is going to fold but if I try this again he will take me outside. I am glad my son wasn’t at the table cause he had been drinking pretty good and I know he would have come across the table at the guy. I flip over a seven just to rub it into the guy a bit and he says to shove it up my ass. He behaved himself after this and I finally left the table up $250.
Jason has taken a huge hit at three card and is just about broke but when he goes to use the bank machine it says the account is P.O.S. whatever that means. We find out that the machine he used at Rio when we first arrived has been compromised and is under investigation and his bank has frozen any transactions from his card. I offer to lend him some cash but he says it must be an omen so we decide to call the airline and change from the 12:15 flight on Sunday and book the 11:30pm flight tonight.
We then go upstairs and pack and head to the Bellagio for some craps. Finally he says lets go back to Ellis island and eat before we head to the airport. We order the same as we had the night before but this time the waitress asks us if we have a players card. Jason gives her his card and they had put 5000 points on it the night before as a new sign up so the bill is $9.80
I drop the car off, $40.00 for Wed night to Sat night. It costs me more to park my car than to rent one.
The flight home was uneventful except for Jason laying down on the floor between the seats and letting me stretch out on the seats.

This was one of the few times I have gone to Vegas with anyone except my wife and it was a good trip to get away with one of the boys and just doing whatever we felt like doing. Will be going back for a week in February with the wife and things will be more structured. That will be four trips since Oct and have not yet paid for a room.
You gotta love Vegas baby.

Very interesting. I'm glad that you had a good time. It's nice to be in a situation where you do what you want instead of what others want.

Did the weather meet your expectations? It sure got cold the last few days here with a dusting of snow on Monday. The outlook looks good though.

I've had my ATM card go to POS at Caesars Palace on more than one occasion and never knew why and never followed through. It seems that it basically goes from being an ATM to a credit card transaction (Point Of Sale?) where the casino cashier cage sells you cash at a very high service charge.

I've heard that the IP has sold off most of it's car collection. Was there enough cars to make it worth the visit?

Thanks for the trip report.

Nice fun trip!
Enjoyed the part where you put the table bully in his place! I'm glad that worked out for you.
As far as a different trip of doing what you want, when you want, I'm sure you still figured in your sons likes and dislikes. So was it really a trip without structure? I know, it was a guy thing, you did just guy things and I'll bet decision making was a lot easier?
How many sons and daughters do you have? I mean, like any good parent, you must keep it even, and take each one on his or her private Las Vegas vacation, right? This looks like an excellent way to get a few more vegas trips in before it's a year in October! So far your on track for 12 trips! LOL

Thanks for the fun and different trip report. I enjoyed reading it very much!

JMT, The weather was outstanding. We had the windows rolled down and walking the strip was very comfortable except for some rain on thursday. I remember doing the car collection a long time ago when they had Hitlers parade car, Al Capones car and Eisenhower's
parade car and it seemed to have more variety but there was enough still there to make it interesting.
I talked to Jason yesterday and he said his account was ok and they gave him a new debit card.

Lee, Originally I had all these plans to show Jason stuff but once we got there they all went out the window and if he showed some interest in something we checked it out. I was shocked he didn't want to go to Cheetahs or something like that but about a year ago a former girlfriend of his found him on facebook and he's never been the same since. What has transpired is in itself a good 20/20 story.
I have two sons and a stepson. They are not kids though. They are grown men with Jason being 40, Jeremy 38, and Rick 40. Strangely none are married but that will change this year. The youngest works for the airline so we are on standby which allowed for the change of flight. He is not interested in Vegas in any way, shape or form but would have come except his work schedule didn't work out. He is an outdoors tent and campfire type of guy. He lives in a cabin on the shores of Lake Erie with no municipal water from Nov to March. He doesn't like the city and believe it or not he drives two hours to work and two hours back. Now they have changed his schedule to five 12 hour shifts on and five days off.
Sorry I got off track there.
We had Caesars booked from the 15th to the 20th but just cancelled it. It looks like the 1st of March until we can go back. Terry is in real estate and with the economy there is a few Power of Sales (foreclosures) that she has and she wants to wait to make sure they close. 12 trips in 12 months would be interesting but once the warm weather gets here any traveling I do is on my motorcycle. My brother and I always go on a trip or two so Vegas will be off the radar until Sept or so.

I also loved your cure for the table bully - WTG! Being the table bully might be as close as the jerk gets to good strategy<g>, but aren't there some house rules about language and/or threats to other players?

I sure hope you can teach Jason about all those hamburger fixin's before you take him to Las Vegas again. We have had a couple of our members denied service at a fine dining establishment, but it would be a wee bit embarrassing to be banned from a burger joint<g>.

Would not having to deal with an exchange rate have anything to do with Jason's preference for the ATM? Do any of the casinos give you a break on exchange rate? I sort of remember a sign at Bill's promising good Canadian exchange rates, and I know that used to be one of the "hooks" Reno would use to lure Canadians into town.

Daisy
There are rules about language and such but the problem is the dealer has to be proactive in enforcing them and if the offender tips the dealer whenever he wins a pot the dealer seems to not want to do much unless it gets excessive. This creates a problem. This has been one of my pet peeves for a long time. That is dealers who do not run their table within the rules of the game.I could go on and on with this subject but I do not want to bore everyone.

I'm not sure about getting better rates at the casino. I just know the atm charge's $5.00 plus whatever the bank charges to do the transaction.

Of course when the dollar hit par last year I went to the bank and exchanged all my Canadian vacation dollars to American and am enjoying the fruits of such a wise decision... NOT!!! man I'm an idiot.

When I went to the bank before we left I asked the teller how much American for $1,000 Canadian. She fiddled with her calculator and looked at me and said " are you going to Las Vegas?" I said yes and she said well this must be an omen of good things to come because your $1,000 equals $777 American
Wait a minute. I just lost $223 bucks just to exchange some money and she says this is a good omen. Geeez

I do know that we used to get mail from some of the casinos offering at par room rates to stay at their hotel. This was quite a long time ago before the conglomerates moved in.

I think all of us might qualify as idiots if we look at the economy in hindsight.

I'll follow up on that Canadian money sign on my next trip. LOL, someday I'll figure out my "selective" memory - I might walk down the strip and never notice a new highrise, but my memory filed away the location of that sign! My instinct tells me that the exchange rate offered by casinos could differ widely.

I'm not really a poker player (tournaments only), and I'm still offended by the idea that dealers don't uniformly run their tables within the rules! Would some of your stories involve players allowed to change their verbal bets? If so, keep in mind that I'm not that easily bored.

ru, if you get a balcony room at the IP, be careful. Today, a guy fell to his death at Circus Circus when he went out to the balcony for a smoke.

I dare not show or tell Terry about this unfortunate event. Next thing I know she will have us staying at CC and I have to draw the line somewhere.

I only checked at one casino; the exchange rate at Bally's was $.77 for $1 Canadian on Friday.

Ok. Well, I was at the bank here on Friday and the exchange was $.76 for $1 Canadian so the hotel was slightly better. Thanks for checking that out Daisy.