It took me a while to get this posted but here it is. Maybe my last trip for a while....

Thursday, April 23
I had been in Florida visiting my parents and celebrating my Dad’s 83rd birthday. So I flew out of Ft. Lauderdale, connected in Dallas, and arrived in Las Vegas around 2PM. Although everything went smoothly and there were no delays, it was a full day of flying and I was very tired by the time I arrived. Luckily, getting my rental car at Dollar was easy and my room was ready by the time I got to NYNY. This hotel always takes very good care of me and I got my usual Jacuzzi room on the 28th floor overlooking the strip. So far, so good.

After unpacking and settling in, I ventured into the casino. As I reported in a few previous trip reports, I’m not crazy about the newly remodeled NYNY casino. I used to love the Central Park setting of the old casino and their game choices were always good. But the new casino could be ANY casino and the game choices aren’t great anymore. My greatest love is Triple Play VP and those choices are extremely limited. And there isn’t ONE Triple Play machine at a quarter denomination – it’s all dollars. I like to bounce between the two, especially when my luck is bad at the dollar level, at least I can go down to the quarter level and not get killed. Well, let me tell you – killed is what I got on this trip.

To summarize my gambling exploits, let’s just say that I lost my shirt on the first day, my shoes the second day, and almost lost my pants on the 3rd but I managed to win a few bucks back so as not to lose those pants and all that I was wearing underneath!

After playing for a while and digging myself a big hole, I went to Gonzalez y Gonzalez for some delicious enchiladas. I was very hungry by this time and it hit the spot. After dinner, I went back to the room, took a Jacuzzi, and went right to bed. I was exhausted.

Friday, April 24
One of the things I love to do in Vegas is to get up early, get some coffee, and play VP when all the crazies from the night before have gone home and the casino is quiet. At 6AM, I was the first one in the coffee shop and at my VP machine at 6:05AM. I played for about 90 minutes but my luck was terrible and I lost more money than I wanted to at that point.

Around 7:30AM I headed to The Maple Tree for breakfast. This is definitely one of the best places in Vegas for breakfast. It’s on Spring Mountain near Jones and is worth the trip. I had a wonderful cheddar cheese and maple ham egg scramble, their great maple muffin, and chased all of that down with a SMALL order of biscuits and gravy. Everything was DELICIOUS. I was stuffed to the gills and waddled out to my car.

I then headed for the M Resort. I had visited this place on my last trip and loved it. It’s a great casino and has great gaming choices. I had seen a new VP game there on my last trip, called Quick Quads, and was curious to try it out. I’d gotten a manual on how to play it and had been studying proper strategy for the past few weeks. So now it was time to play it for real money! I started out at the nickel level, since I wasn’t 100% sure of what I was doing, and I’m happy to say that I broke even – actually, I think I won 50 cents in the hour I played it, getting a lot of quick quads in the process. It was fun.

Since there were plenty of $5 minimum blackjack tables, I tried that for a while but had no luck, then moved to $5 craps where the luck was worse. I have to say that all the M Resort employees and dealers are extremely friendly and professional, always giving you a kind smile as they’re taking your money away!

Okay, no luck so far, so my Plan B was to go see a movie. It’s a nice break from the casinos and gives me a chance to relax. I went to see “The Soloist” with Robert Downey Jr. and Jamie Foxx but didn’t like it very much. But at least it saved me a lot of money, because I returned to NYNY for another disastrous session of video poker, where I reached my loss-limit very quickly. So I bailed out, when back to the room for a Jacuzzi and a nap.

Dinner was at the always-excellent CraftSteak at MGM Grand. My favorite bartender Alexis was working and I ate at the bar. The filet mignon is the very best in Vegas and perhaps anywhere in the world. Get that with their incredible fries and it’s a meal sent from heaven.

Since it was a beautiful evening, I went for a long walk – first down to Bellagio to see the fountains and conservatory (and get some gelato too!) - then headed back south, going all the way to Mandalay Bay where I tried my luck on some Super Times Pay VP machines. I like Super Times Pay but it’s a game you have to be careful with. If you’re not careful, you can lose a lot of money quickly. Well, these machines were like vacuum cleaners so I bailed out fast.

Next stop was some blackjack at Excalibur where the dealers consistently drew to a 21 when showing a 5 or 6. Okay – this is no fun! I made a brief stop at the craps table where the shooters sevened-out quickly and my money was gone in a flash. Once back at NYNY, I didn’t even think of playing anymore since my luck was so horrible and I had lost way too much money on this day. I was in bed by 10PM.

Saturday, April 25
Same routine as the day before – 6AM coffee and VP, money all gone by 7:30AM. Headed to my OTHER favorite place for breakfast – Egg Works at Sunset and Eastern. Ham and cheese omelet, wheat toast, ONE biscuit with gravy – everything excellent. I’m not sure which place I like better – Egg Works or Maple Tree. I give them both A+.

Then I headed out to Red Rock Station where I donated more money at VP while actually MAKING about 50 bucks playing blackjack – a winning session, how rare!!

Then I headed to an art fair in Summerlin that JMT recommended. I hung out there for a few hours, had a nice walk about the neighborhood, and listened to Lena Prima for a while. It was a nice way to spend some time.

Back at NYNY, I didn’t feel like losing any more money so I decided to go for a walk. I walked by Tix 4 Tonight and just out of curiosity, checked out what was available that night. I was surprised to see that “Ice” was still playing at the Riviera. I had seen it about 2 years ago and really enjoyed it. For some reason, I thought it had closed but it hadn’t. So I got myself a ticket for the 8PM show.

I meandered up the Strip and eventually got to the Wynn. I was hungry by this point and remembered that their Italian restaurant Stratta is open for lunch. I’m a big fan of chef Alex Stratta who used to run Renoir at the Mirage and now has Alex at the Wynn. But Stratta is a more “affordable” restaurant than those other 2. And the lunch menu has some great stuff at decent prices. I had a warm goat cheese salad which was wonderful and a wide-noodle pasta with a red wine meat sauce – it was superb.

I played some quarter triple play VP and actually won a few bucks before heading down to the Riviera for the show.

“Ice” is an intriguing concept for a show. It’s an ice skating review directed and choreographed by Debra Brown, who used to work for Cirque du Soleil and did some of the choreography for both “Mystere” and “O.” It blends ice skating, dance, and aerial acrobatics. It has a cast of about 30 people, all of them from Russia, who exude an interesting combination of sincerity, innocence, humor, and sex appeal. The entire stage is an ice skating rink and a roughly 100-foot half-circle of an ice track extends out into the showroom and wraps around the front section of about 5 rows of theater seating. This is where I was seated and I couldn’t have asked for a better seat. The seats were very comfortable with a lot of legroom and the sightlines to the stage were excellent.

The show was mostly the same as what I saw 2 years ago but some of the performers were different. It’s hard to describe everything that goes on in this show. Most of the music is prerecorded and it’s an eclectic mix - everything from Pink Floyd to James Brown to Janis Joplin to more obscure new age and electronica music. There’s even some Russian music and a live trumpet player who plays along to some of the pre-recorded music (and yes, he skates too!). Some of what you see in a circus is done here, from juggling to handstands and flips and jumps, except everything is done on skates. Characters emerge from the ensemble of one number to be the star of the next: A skating violinist emerges from a comic trio, a young man does handstands on braced arm stilts with a trio of women, one of whom steps out for a hoop-twirling routine. My favorite part was probably a guy who does a balancing act on a variety of contraptions from a very high platform and he’s NOT wearing a safety harness. My palms were very sweaty when that act was done – it was quite amazing to see.

The last time I saw the show it seemed like the theater and stage was probably too small for all that they attempted to do. Some of the skaters attempted to do flips and turns on the ice and was evident that they had very little room with which to maneuver. But a lot of those tricks weren’t in the show this time and it was probably for the better since I wasn’t worried that the skaters would fly off the stage and hurt themselves.
Inevitably, “Ice” will be compared to Cirque du Soleil but it obviously has a much smaller budget than those multi-million dollar shows. But that’s what makes this show so intriguing – they do a lot more with a lot less. And the performers do their utmost to please and you really root for them. They’re all very charming and I really loved the humor in the show. I’m so glad I saw it again as I think I liked it even more on the 2nd viewing.

After the show, I was very tired since I’d had a full day and no nap. So I took a cab back to NYNY, dashed over to Excalibur for a night-cap of Krispy Kremes and milk, and was in bed by 11PM.

Sunday, April 26
Same routine as before – coffee at 6AM, losing VP session until 7:30AM. Went back to Maple Tree for breakfast. This time I had buckwheat pancakes with REAL maple syrup. Delicious! (One word of advice if you go to The Maple Tree – make sure you ask for the REAL maple syrup. They will serve you “regular” syrup unless you ask for the real stuff. But if you get the real stuff, they will tell you the “upgrade to real maple syrup” will cost you an extra couple of bucks. But I think it’s worth it.)

So what to do the rest of the day? I was tired of gambling since my luck was so bad and I there wasn’t much else I wanted to do. No other movies interested me. So I thought I’d see another show. I looked at a guide and saw that Cher was in town so I thought I’d head to the Caesar’s box office to see if I could get a ticket for tonight’s show. Since I was looking for a single seat, it was a definite possibility. I had a choice of a seat in the front row, left of center, or a seat in the very last row of the 2nd balcony. So I opted for the front row.

I returned to NYNY with the intention of taking it easy for the afternoon. Amazingly, I had a winning session playing blackjack and then had a very good run on a $1 single-line VP machine. I actually made back about 1/3 of the losses I had previously suffered. I considered that a win, took my profits, and headed to the room for a Jacuzzi and a nap.

Prior to Cher, I dined at Bradley Ogden at Caesar’s. I’ve eaten at this place many times and have always loved it. It’s got first-class service and excellent food. I ate at the bar and enjoyed an incredibly wonderful Caesar salad and a Hawaiian ahi tuna entrée. Everything was great.
I already had seen Cher last August and truly loved the show. And I’m glad I saw it again. When I saw her before, she didn’t talk very much but made a comment about how her throat wasn’t in very good shape (although she sounded GREAT that night). It was soon after that that she started cancelling shows because of respiratory problems and eventually stopped performing for the rest of the year.

She talked a lot more this time and was very, very funny in her comments and ad libs. She chastised a guy sitting a few rows behind me since he was sitting there with a scowl on his face while everyone around him was laughing and smiling. He looked really miserable and seemed really angry that she was picking on him!

She also mentioned her previous vocal problems and told us we were “lucky” to be seeing her since it seems the climate and her vocal chords don’t get along. She still sounded great but toward the end of the night, she got really horse during one of her songs (and apologized later for that) and was coughing a lot between her numbers. But the show was excellent. She had the crowd on its feet, dancing and screaming for the last 20 minutes of the show. This is truly a great show.

She is indeed a legend. She’s had an amazing career with a lot of ups and downs and now here she is, playing to a packed house of adoring fans who have paid a lot of money to see her. The song selection is still great and there were 3 new numbers in the show this time, although I had a tad disappointed that she replaced “The Way of Love” (probably my favorite number the last time I saw her) with “Love Hurts.” But she still did a great job on “Love Hurts.” I still loved the tribute to Sonny, singing some duets with him, and disco segment of the show which climaxes with a rousing rendition of “Take Me Home” is great fun.

The live band is superb, especially during some of the non-Cher hit songs “Walking in Memphis” and “Love is a Battlefield.” And of course, her entrance at the beginning of the show, descending over the audience in her little pod, singing U2’s “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” is a show-stopper all by itself.

After the show, I walked back to NYNY and made a brief stop at a VP machine which wasn’t cooperating. Since I didn’t want to give back all of what I had made earlier, I stopped gambling and headed to Excalibur for some Krispy Kremes prior to calling it a night.

Monday, April 27
I had no problem returning the rental car and got to the terminal in good time. The flight left on time and I arrived in Chicago nearly 30 minutes early. Although I came back poorer, I still had a good time. But I had a couple of final thoughts on about this trip:

- We know how horrible the economy is and keep reading how tough things are in Vegas. But based on the crowds of people I saw on this trip, I have to question that. Casinos were full, restaurants were full, streets were crowded, and the 2 shows I saw were well-attended. Are things really that bad in Vegas?

- I think I’m in a rut and probably need a break from Vegas. I’ve been going 3-4 times per year for the past decade and things are starting to get stale for me. I keep playing the same games, going to the same places, and I’ve grown impatient with the traffic and crowds of people. I’m disappointed in what they’ve done with NYNY and I don’t look forward to staying there anymore. Plus I’ve lost – badly – on my past 3 trips. Although I still enjoy myself when I go, perhaps it’s time for a break.

mike-always a good read of your reports.it is a shame that nyny has spoiled your home base.i have read just recently that taxable sales are down 20% in vegas so the crowds are there but not spending any money,20%is huge! sorry for the loses and i read from other sources about very poor gambling luck,and talk about an enhanced rng,how do you enhance random?? better luck next time and i know you will get over "stale"

DAG - Believe me, I thought about the "enhanced RNG" but I don't want to believe that is true. I really think it's a simple case of my luck being really, really bad!

Mike, I always enjoy your trip reports. Did you cut back on your biscuit and gravy servings? I know that when I eat comfort food, it's hard to cut back. I'd rather skimp on anything other than comfort food.

I saw ICE recently too for a second time and was pleasantly surprised. It has changed for the better. I sat about 15 feet back from the outside rink and that was a great view. My only problem was that I was at one of those crowded tables where you have to turn to see the stage. I think the only bad seats are the ones off to the sides where you can't see the entire stage area. I think it's a great show value using the half price options. It scares me to watch that balancing act.

I'm glad you got to see Lena and walk through the neighborhood. It's good that you got to take a break from the strip action too. I've been looking at neighborhoods like that with walking trails behind the homes. I'm not sure what housing action I will take. I'm looking at doing something though.

I've been on the fence about seeing Cher. I've turned down more Cher offers than Celine offers. You're kinda swaying me to seeing the show before it's too late.

You might have dug yourself into a rut. I know NYNY has been good to you in the past. I suspect most resorts would also treat you well if you threw them the same action. Maybe you could theme a few trips to looking for the machines you like to play and the rooms you like to stay in. You might have to switch from MGM to Harrah's stuff or Wynn/Encore or another company. And I don't have to tell you all the non-gaming fun you can have here.

As you mentioned, it's hard to tell that the crowds are down. I'm sure gaming revenues are down big time. The people are here though.

Thanks for a great trip report. I look forward to your next one.
And I hope it's sooner rather than later.

Hey Mike,
Sorry it took so long for me to get time to read your report. But everytime I would start to read it, I'd get called away. Although I must admit, even reading of your losses was painful.
Mike I think it's time you seriously started looking for a new home base.
I started originally with the Flamingo, then for a number of years it was the IP, moved to Ballys for many years then back to the Flamingo for a stretch and then ending up downtown at MSS.
Today, I'm on the strip again at Caesars and still splitting my time with downtown.
You know, you can always go back to NYNY! Have you ever thought of possibly trying a downtown trip or 2. It's different, and for me friendlier.
My suggestion, maybe not to give up on Vegas, but to do more different stuff.
Glad you won something at the end of the trip.
What is your overall feeling about quick quads? I personally didn't care for them in the long haul. I found myself actually getting board with them.
You always eat well, it's one of the things I really look forward too on your trip reports. This trip was no exception to that rule! Thanks for typing it all out for us!
I need to make a trip to Vegas!!!!!!

I'm also sorry to be so late - read your report a couple of times in Las Vegas, then thought I replied when I got home - for someone feeling "stale," you got around pretty well - ate pretty well too. I already know you don't expect to win all the time, but you sure sound like me in 2006<g>. I hit all those Royals in 2004, 5 more in 2005 and then nothing until Sept 2006 - and I kept wandering around thinking "gee, it feels like there's something missing."

You said it yourself - you're in a rut - your breakfasts sound great, but try somewhere else. Pass up the movie theatre for a bowling alley, etc. There's only one excuse for always doing the same thing in Las Vegas, that you LIKE what you're doing - otherwise there are alternatives!