The Road to Vegas

This was the first time we drove to Las Vegas rather than flying. We took I-80 through Iowa and Nebraska staying the first night at Kearney. We went though some pretty good thunderstorms but not really much to see.
We then took I-76 to I-70 in Denver and then I-70 through Colorado and Utah. We stayed the second night in Parachute, Colorado. One interesting thing was there was an unusual property development there called “Battlement Mesa”. As the name suggests, it is a mesa about 500 feet higher than the valley floor (in this area, I-70 follows the Colorado River). It is an upscale gated community with large houses (tremendous views of the valley and mountains), community shopping and facilities and natural gas wells. That’s right, mixed in with the houses are 17 natural gas drilling sites. This whole section of I-70 from Denver to Grand Junction is incredibly scenic though it has to be a nightmare driving in winter.
Soon after we got in Utah, it started to rain which is not what I expected. It rained most of the day. In the section after I-70 fed into I-15, the rain was mixed with dust. It was literally raining mud. The third night was In Washington, Utah just north of St. George. We did a side trip in the morning to see Zion National Park and hit Las Vegas on Sunday afternoon.

Day One in Las Vegas

We got to the Mirage at about 3 PM. Ellen tired the $20 trick but I am not sure we got anything out of it. We were invited guests and already were paying $50 for an upgraded room with a separate shower. We got the 24th floor and a view over the pool toward Caesars. Also a view of Bally’s, Paris and up the east side of the strip but the Bellagio fountains were hidden behind Caesars. The one thing we might have gained was immediate access to the room. Many people were being told that they had to wait 2 hours for the room to be ready.
We wanted to have dinner at the Redwood Grill downtown but they were booked until very late so we went to Onda at the Mirage instead. Onda does Italian and is in the space of the old Ristorante Riva. They have re-decorated especially in front but the general layout is unchanged. Ellen did Caesar salad and the veal chop while I had Insalata Caprese and veal parmagiana. All were very good but not outstanding given the price. I would say met expectation. Service was very good.
Went into the casino to see what we could do. Ellen had some small wins on various slots, nothing special to note. I had small losses on various slots and VP machines.

Day Two in Las Vegas

I picked up coffee and coffee cake at Starbucks in the Mirage while Ellen got ready to go out. Since we had an LVA coupon and had never been there, we decided to visit the Palms. When we got there, the valet was completely jammed. I am not the type to sit in the car waiting to get into a casino so we zapped through the drive through and went across the street to the Gold Coast which we also never had been to. We went to the player’s club to get new cards. Boyd’s is getting all their various clubs merges so it took some time since we had about 5 different accounts. We hit the buffet (again LVA coupon). I was not particularly impressed but not bad for the price and certainly better than the buffet at Sam’s Town.
Ellen then got on a Wizard of Oz slot machine which forked over several hundred dollars. I came out slightly ahead at video poker but gave it all back to the slots. This pretty much killed the afternoon. We went back to the Mirage for a rest. We had dinner at Japonais which is a Japanese contemporary fusion restaurant. We had yellowtail, tuna and snapper sashimi, lobster rolls and split a chestnut chicken entrée. We enjoy this restaurant a lot. Back to the Mirage casino, Ellen continued to win though nothing big. One thing we notice is that they have really put in a lot of slots that require a lot of money for each play. You have to be careful to notice that what you thought was a $3 machine is actually an $18 machine. About 2 am, we got hungry. We wanted to stay in so the only real alternatives were the Carnegie deli and their new burger place. We went to the deli and split a pastrami sandwich. The size was ridiculous. It easily could feed four. This seems to be a pattern in the restaurants that they have gone to massive serving sizes to justify the high prices. This is probably OK for locals who can take it home or college guys on spring break but it is a waste for the typical visitor. Ellen and I have been going more and more to splitting entrees to keep the quantities under control. Also the really bad part is that except for steak where most times they show the weight, the restaurants won’t admit they are going to serve a huge quantity.

Day Three in Las Vegas

Having read about it, we went to visit the M Resort to see it and catch the buffet. The little map I had showed it across from and a little south of Mandalay Bay. Wrong! It is a long way out of town about 10 miles south of the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign (they have made this is into a bigger deal with a parking lot and wedding parties and bus tours getting their pictures taken in front of it). The M Resort is very modern and it is very impressive in fittings and architecture. This being a Tuesday morning, the place was very thinly populated. We just missed the end of the morning buffet so we split a bagel and had coffee at the coffee shop. The casino is well lit and seems to have a variety of everything. After some experimentation, we determined that the Mermaid slots were paying. Ellen worked her way up by several hundred and even I did not lose money. When the machine seemed to cool off, we went to the lunch buffet with the $2 off for joining the slot club. We had no line. The buffet is as reported up in the top tier. I would not say as good as Wynn or Bellagio but certainly competitive with Mirage and Paris. The included wine and beer is certainly a strong point. Another good point is the big screens where they show what is on the menu and give you some idea of where to find it. All in all, it is an excellent value, good quality, very wide variety and not a bad price. Played a few more games after lunch but did not make any more progress. The Wizard of Oz slots were different than the Gold Coast and were not paying while we were there.
After M we went back to the Mirage for a rest and to dress for dinner. We ate at the Redwood Grill in the California. This is one of our favorite places, great ambiance with piano player, good service and good value. Ellen had the lobster tails and I ate the King Crab legs. Both were excellent. We went up to Dave’s Aloha bar for Mai-tai’s and were very disappointed for find it closed. Talking with the staff, times have been tough at the California. They have cut way back on the hours at the bar and close the coffee shop late at night pushing all the business to the Pasta Pirate. We went back downstairs and had mai-tai’s and played video poker. Both of us came out slightly ahead so when combined with complimentary mai-tai’s, a pretty good evening. Going back to the Mirage, I was ready to call it but Ellen wanted to give them some more play. After a while, we had a piece of cheesecake at the Carnegie Deli. While heading back to the room, Ellen wanted to play while I was ready to call it (2:30 am). She choose some variation on the Mermaid slots and I saw a bank of $1 VP whose progressive had worked up to $5600. I told her I would be there and win the progressive. On the third hand I was dealt AKQ of diamonds and two trash cards, up come the jack and 10 setting of the music and flashing lights. Once the slot person came around, I popped over the two rows and told Ellen that I had done it. She assumed that I was not serious but eventually moseyed over to where I was waiting to get paid (a pretty long wait in fact). She then realized I had paid for the trip and also since Mirage tracks winning versus losing, that we were not going to see any more comps on this trip.

Day Four in Las Vegas

Checked out off the Mirage and as expected they did not comp anything extra. Went over and checked into Caesars. It continues to be bigger and bigger operation and I think some things like the valet and bell service are being pushed to their limit by the sheer volume of people. This time the $20 at the front desk worked wonders. We got up graded from the Forum Tower to the Augustus Tower and got in to the room immediately at I PM. We got a huge corner room, one side the window only showed the Octavius Tower and a sliver of the pool area but the other side was as good an overlook of the Bellagio water show as anyone could get. Given all the hauling and timing we had room service for lunch. Since we were now seven days on the road, I went out to find a Laundromat. I ended up at a combination Terrible’s station and Laundromat on Flamingo. The name was an accurate depiction of the situation, no vending for laundry supplies, half the dryers did not work, no counter space to fold clothes. I hope the bankruptcy court punishes these guys severely. After I got back, we headed down to the casino. Ellen did pretty well on the Flaming Sevens (with scatter) and the Roman Rewards in the Palace section of the casino. I returned to my previous slow losing. We had a late dinner at Hyakumi which is Japanese. We did not want to go with the teppan style (just not in the mood to eat with strangers) so we sat at a table. We sent with the Shogun Bowl for two which had 3 types of sashimi, teriyaki salmon, beef and lobster and something else I do not remember. All were very tasty but again a lot of food.

Day Five in Las Vegas

Had room service breakfast, I would not recommend the biscuits and gravy. They had a very strange taste. Went down to the casino and migrated to the Forum section. Ellen did quite well on a Pompeii slot machine (the one that yells Veni, Vidi, Vici when the free spins come up). She also made money on a Goldfish slot (with the fish food bonus). We had lunch at Mesa Grill. Ellen had the burger while I went with the price fixe lunch of tortilla soup, buffalo burger (animal no the city) and profiteroles for dessert. Have to like spicy food to eat at the Mesa Grill. We kept playing in the forum casino after lunch but no further success. Dinner was at Nero’s, the steakhouse at Caesars. They have both a filet mignon price fixe for $39 and a price rib price fixe (salad, meat, vegetable and dessert) for $49 which I think are real good values for this level of restaurant. The portions sizes were actually what somebody could finish.

Day Six in Las Vegas

Again room service for breakfast. More time in Caesars casino but things seems to have cooled off for us and we gave back some of the previous two days’ success. Since it was Ellen’s birthday, we went high end to Il Mulino in the Forum shops for an early dinner. Great food but even bigger portion size problem. We had a variation on Insalata Caprese with double cream fresh Buffalo mozzarella and a slice of prosciutto along with the tomato and basil. Ellen had the cappellini Il Mulino with a porcini mushroom cream sauce. I had cannelloni which had a béchamel sauce. I thought they were overstuffed and could have used a higher pasta to filling ratio. While the food is spectacular, there is too much and the price is too high. After more time in the casino, we picked up a dessert at the patisserie and took it back to the room.
In the morning we checked out, our accumulated points (gambling and a Harrah’s Total Rewards visa card) just about covered the entire bill.

General Observations

1. Service at both the Mirage and Caesars has improved significantly over the past few years.
2. It is much easier to get a drink at the slot machines than the past few years. Mirage in particular has gotten much better. M Resort was the best of all.
3. Traffic, except for I-15 (due to construction) was better than I expected.
4. Las Vegas has clearly overbuilt. It is doing to take a long time to deal with the massive excess on condo construction near the strip.
5. It appears that the new penny slots (penny-what a joke, you need two to five dollars a throw) are the hot machines and seem to have more good payers than the conventional dollar slots.
6. Pompeii, Mermaid and Goldfish slots were especially good to us.

Thanks for the report.

I've always thought that someday i would like to drive to Vegas - but I would not want to have to drive home! How was the drive home - did you do the same route?

You mentioned that the slot machines require more money, what you thought was a $3 machine is an $18 machine. Are you talking about max bet? Do you always require playing max on slots? I play max on vp but vary on slots.

All your food descriptions made me hungry - time for dinner!

Thanks for posting!

We went home by the southern route through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Illinois.

Several years ago we when we had the boys with us we made a side trip to the Grand Canyon and Meteor Crater so we did not divert to see them this time.

We did plan on a side trip through the Petrified forest and Painted Desert. This worked out extremely well. When coming from the west you get off I-40 onto NM-180 travel about 10 miles east and enter the park from the south, you exit the park back onto I-40 about 25 miles east of where you exited.

Just before we got there, there was some spectacular collision just past the north exit of the park. Some SUV was demolished requiring a helicopter transport of the mangled driver and a semi then went off the highway, flipped over and burned. The back up went to just after we exited the interstate. They closed the road for about 2 hours.

We went though the park (which I recommend to all who have not seen it), took some pictures and shopped at a big petrified wood and fossil store just off the interstate. We got on the interstate just as it was opening up again. Thus we got to do the tour and it did not cost us any time.

As for the slots, it depends on the machine but most of the new types that feature bonuses, do not pay the bonus if you do not have the max in. Certainly on a lot of the bonus penny machines (hot shot, goldfish, Mermaids, star wars) most of the payout is in the bonus so if you do not play max you double the house advantage.

i love road trips!! getting to old to do 500 miles a day but may drive down from seattle some day.what did you drive,car/van/suv?sounds like you had a really solid trip.

forgot to ask,how many oneway miles?

What a great TR! Congrats on the wins, especially that juicy progressive royal! I really enjoyed reading about all of your dining experiences - I've been wanting to try Japonaise for a while now - I really need to get there soon. Also am interested in Il Mulino. Glad you had a safe trip to and from. And Happy Belated Birthday to Ellen!

Thanks for the nice trip report. Congrats on the big royal.

What were your impressions on the crowds in the tourists areas?

Would you consider driving the trip again?

I saw a sign at Cheeseburger in the Miracle Mile that said they were famous for Mai Tais. It sounds like you never got a world class mai tai this trip.

The whole trip ran 3994 miles. It was about 1900 out, about 100 around town and 2000 back. We had two long days of driving: the first when we did about 670 to Kearney and the last when we did about 720 from Joplin, Missouri to home.

The Mirage was relatively crowded but it will tend to give that impression because of the channelization of the path between entrance, check-in and the rooms. Everybody sort of goes the same way. They had the usual crowd with about half foreign visitors.
The crowds were pretty thin at the Gold Coast, M Resort and the California. It seemed that both foot and vehicular traffic was light in the downtown area.
I went to the Walgreens on the strip between MGM and Planet Hollywood. It was mobbed but the actual sidewalk traffic while respectable was no where near as heavy as I have seen it in the past.
Caesars definitely picked up people between Wednesday and Friday but still was not as busy as some previous visits. With the multiple towers there are people going in a lot of different
directions so more people can be there without it seeming crowded. One group conspicuously less present was the 25 and down crowd with the black mini-dresses. I also thought that the Caesars guests were more American than in the past.

I do not think I would drive again for two reasons: the big chunk of drive Illinois, Iowa and Nebraska is really pretty boring. Also Ellen developed some issues sitting in the car that long with swelling feet which were a drag.

Indeed, the mai-tai situation was quite disappointing. Because of various issues, we never got over to Trader Vic's.

LOL, no wonder we couldn't catch up with each other - it sounds like you were getting in about the time I was getting up most mornings<g>.



This made me howl! I'm with you, and I'm not going to wait in line for a favorite machine either. It sounds like you caught lunch at the Gold Coast buffet - the only meal that impresses me there is breakfast, but Sam's Town does indeed make other buffets look good<g>.

The Carnegie deli at Mirage sounds like a great place to meet on some future trip - one pastrami sandwich split three ways please! Which game were you playing when you hit the Royal? And .. congrats! The Mirage comp policy doesn't sound inviting; does that just apply at Mirage or all all MGM-Mirage properties?

Ellen's Pompeii slots at Caesars sound like noise that I would enjoy at a casino; some of those video slots have great graphics, but Veni, Vidi, Vici sounds like a great audio theme to me. The Augustus Tower sounds really nice with that view of the Bellagio fountains, and it's certainly nice to read two trip reports where our members got into their rooms without a 2 hour wait - that used to be a major stumbling block at Caesars. We used to swap horror stories about waiting in the alleged VIP registration line for an hour to check in, only to be told to come back and wait in another line for the room key at 5-6 pm .. not my idea of a fun afternoon in Las Vegas!

Sorry I missed you (or was too dad-blamed tired that last night); I was looking forward to meeting the folks that raised Tim The Dealer!