This TR has been posted on Brian's board, so for those of you who have read it over there it is the same.
Also let me preface the TR by saving the clothing rants are by my sister, so this is a woman's view of other woman's clothing. Not by me, a guy!
Also TRMV and I sat next to each other and chatted at the Sin City brew pub and we didn't know it until he posted his TR. LOL!
Flights and McCarran
We took an early flight out of Midway on Southwest and scored their first class seats. So you are now saying to yourself, "Wait Southwest doesn't
have a first class section!" Well they do if no one sits in the middle seat and you can spread out and use the middle table as your own serving table.
You also have to love an airline that has drink specials!
McCarran had made some improvements since I was there in December. Southwest now has their own security check point for the C gates. When you enter the departure for Southwest you can now make a left and go up the escalators to the check point, you use to have to make a right and go to the other check points. Once you make to the gates they have put in a Wendy's and Popeye's Chicken fast food joints by C24, C25 area.
The last thing is that it seems that Las Vegas never wants us to leave. Every departing flight that I can remember has been delayed, this time it was Midwest weather. We were on the boarding ramp and the pilot came out to stop us to tell us Midway was on weather hold and rather than have us sit on a hot plane we should go back to the terminal. I thought that once again this is what makes Southwest a great airline.
Paris
This hotel gets a big FAIL on the front desk! First the $20 trick was refused (am I in Vegas??) and secondly I was charged for internet usage 3 times on the same day. When I went down to get it taken off the bill, the clerk gives me a snotty question of "Are you sure you didn't connect 3 different computers?) Yeah lady, me and 2 other geeks felt the need to all connect to the net on the same day in my room for a marathon Worlds of Warcraft session!!!!
Their drink service is outstanding the casino however so that made up for the front desk. I was playing a slot with my sister watching and we got drinks which came back very quickly; it was a Stoli tonic with olives, and my sister had a captain and coke. She brought me extra olives and I tipped her $2, my sister tipped her as well. She came back about 5 minutes later with drinks again without us asking for it. She stated that she was going on break and wanted to make sure we didn't run out.
Throughout my stay there the drink service was always quick. I also found out that you only need to put a $5 in the VP machines at the casino bars to score a comped drink. They have a few beers on tap at this bar besides the Miller/Bud crap, you can get Fat Tire, Widmer and some others, so they get bonus points. The pay tables are terrible even at the $5 level so I only played enough to get a beer or two.
Overall the rooms are nice, quiet and not falling apart so I would stay there again on a comp or a really good deal.
Imperial Palace
(stayed in by Sister of Skybank, hereby referred to as S.O.S)
My sister was excited to get her first fully comped room for a trip and got a Luv Tub Suite at Imperial Palace. She had fantastic service, quick check in and no problems at all with the hotel. When she checked in the only one available was on the pool floor, and the service desk seemed apologetic to even offer it to her. When she asked what the problem with it was, they informed her that they play music at the pool from 9AM-5PM and sometimes it's loud. S.O.S. told them no problem, she didn't plan on being in the room at that time. To her surprise, the clerk asked her if she wanted the key to the door and she was a bit confused since she had already gotten her room key. Turns out that the room had a sliding glass door entrance directly to the pool area. She was ecstatic about that special treat, as it meant she never had to walk through the hotel in her swimsuit. Her room was also at the end of the hallway and, being on the pool side, it was nice and quiet at night and no bright sun in the morning glaring in. Also S.O.S. fell in love with the Luv Tub and raved about the shower pressure in the hotel as well.
Foodie Stuff
The only new place that we ate for dinner at this trip was Wazuzu at Encore. All I can say it that it was just ok for me. I had the Korean short ribs although they were good the kimchi and rice had to be purchased separately, WTF! S.O.S. had Pad Thai that tasted like sugar and peanuts; the tofu was all rubbery as well. They took the Pad Thai off the bill so they get credit for trying to make it right. The funniest thing was as our waitress was apologizing for the bad food and was asking to see if my sister wanted something else in place of the Pad Thai another server came to our table and placed some other dish that we did not order. If you could have seen the look on the waitress's face you know that this guy was going to get a bitching out in some Asian language once she got back to the kitchen!
We revisited the GVR breakfast buffet and this has to be one of the best values in LV! At only $8 for breakfast you get all the same stuff on the strip buffets and they will serve any of the deserts you would like as well. What we thought was great was that they had what looked like 2 crates of strawberries on the buffet with a huge bowl of fresh whip cream in the middle, now that is breakfast in Vegas!
Something that I noticed though out the week is that the lower end eating places were packed. There were lines at most of the buffets at odd hours and the higher end restaurants were deserted.
Because the higher end restaurants are not that busy they are offering price fixed (or prix fixe if you want to use the fancy term) menus. We eat at Stack off one of these menus. We got a choice of starters, entrees and desserts for $30. The starters and entrees were good and filling but the desert was off the charts. It was 6 warm sugar coated raspberry jelly doughnut holes, but what makes it out of this world was that they served a warm dipping sauce. The dipping sauce is most closely like the cinnamon roll icing that you get with those Pilsberry cinnamon rolls. S.O.S. and I seriously considered just drinking it out of the bowl when we ran out of the donut holes.
We also tried the breakfast buffet at the M resort. It was good but just not as good as GVR's breakfast buffet. The M Resort does serve Coke instead of
Pepsi, so if you are looking for that head out there. The resort is very nice and new looking, of course they cater to the LV locals so there is a lot of full
pay VP even at the $0.25 level and their slot club is pretty straight forward, you also get $2 off the buffet with the slot card. The people working the
player's club desk were incredibly nice and friendly, and S.O.S. chatted with hers for a while about her shirt and her email address, both of which the
attendant thought were fantastically funny.
Here are some pictures from the resort:
The Lobby
http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w86/skybank_photo/IMG_0510.jpg[/IMG]
The Pool
[IMG]http://i174.photobucket.com/albums/w86/skybank_photo/IMG_0511.jpg" alt="image">
Bums and Scammers
The famous guy who has the "why lie I need a beer" sign that is usually on the bridge between Bally's and the BC had take out from Wolfgang Puck's this trip! That is one of those only in Vegas moments when a bum get take out from a higher end restaurant.
The bums are also starting to branch out and sell the bottles of water for $1. My only question would be, do you think these are bottles that they got out of the dumpsters and refilled?!?
For the first time ever in all my trips to LV I ran across someone who tried to scam me out of money. I was breaking a bill at the bill breaker machine at the B when a guy came up to my right. He puts his hand out like he wants to shake my hand and says something. I look over at him sternly and say "what's up". I think he knew he wasn't going to get anything out of me after that but he still proceeded to tell me his story of just getting out of prison, etc… "can you help me out?" I told him not here and he almost ran off because I was looking around for security and he knew it.
S.O.S. had a guy come up to her at the Planet Ho who tried to offer her $75 worth of chips for $40 dollars because he was late to get to the airport. She pointed toward the cage and told him that he can cash them over there, he promptly ran out of the casino as well.
I guess that this time of the year there are a lot of first time visitors and that they are usually easy picking for these scammers.
Fashion Nightmares
I will let my sister write the most part of this section, but all I can say is that Old Navy sure does sell a boat load of those plaid cargo shorts to guys! The only other thing I must comment on for the guys is that you should really dress for your age regardless if you are in Vegas or not. I saw a very middle aged Indian (Via LA) in an Affliction t-shirt and big douchey shinny belt buckle. Let me just say you are not going to get a 20 year old chick because you dress like a 20 year old, you need money and those women usually don't care what you look like!
Now for the S.O.S. public service announcements to all women in Vegas. Oh my goodness, was there some nightmares going on this trip!!
Rant #1 - for ALL women. I don't care what size your breasts are - wear a BRA!! No one wants to see your saggy fun bags giggling around looking like sad empty wallets. More then one occasion per day there were women running around on the strip braless who clearly passed an age when they should go braless a long, long time ago. And to the younger women as well, you might not think you need one, but if while you walk they knock into each other and look like two puppies struggling to get out of your shirt - put one on! (This was actually witnessed, and I was absolutely mortified that this girl did not feel the obvious pain this was going to cause).
Rant #2 - Maxi dresses. Oh yes, the name is completely appropriate, because it maximizes how big you look! For those of you unaware, these are the sundresses that are so long they reach your toes and only touch you at your chest. Wake up ladies, these are your grandmother's moo-moo without the sleeves, it's the young Mrs. Roper look! I saw literally hundreds of women of all shapes and sizes wearing these, and not a one of them looked good in it. I understand wanting to be comfortable, but come on, you can do a little better then this.
Rant #3 - Gold Lame. Lord, please please, make the makers of this fabric STOP making this!! We saw two women who really hadn't checked a mirror (or their actual clothing size) stuffing themselves into the Gold Lame. One was a tank top that she was stretching for all its worth (with no bra I might add) and because of the fabric it had zero give, so we got the joy of seeing all that should have been covered by a better fitting top (think back fat rolls). The other was more heinous, being an entire gold lame mini clinging to its seams for dear life on a woman who should NEVER consider wearing a mini. The best way to describe her shape was round, and that poor dress was doing all it could to not rip apart as she walked.
Rant #4 - Animal (and like animal) prints. Think before you wear ladies! Check ALL views in a mirror. While there is nothing wrong with a well dressed, well worn animal print on the right person, you might want to rethink that skin tight zebra print dress and what it is doing to your back view. I am not a small woman by any means and would never EVER put that on my body, no matter how much I liked it. If you have any width to your body at all, you really should keep that off of your behind! Also there was this strange print circulating around Vegas in various incarnations, we saw it in dresses, shirts, halter tops, and jackets. It was reminiscent of a bumble bee, having these large paint-like swishes of yellow and black across a white fabric. For as many times as we saw it, we never did find one person who could pull it off, nor did we find the offending store selling it.
Odds & Ends
It was the 25th anniversary of Cirque while we were there so they renamed LV Blvd this for that day:
The tried to set a world record for the number of people stilt walking on that anniversary day but I found out later that they didn't reach the amount they needed. We did watch them try in front of the fountains.
S.O.S. actually saw Metro PD stop and yell at the porn slappers for being on both sides of the sidewalk between Bally's and Paris. I guess they legally are only supposed to be on one side of the sidewalk. He stopped his car and yelled at them, "If I have to tell you guys to all get on the same side of the sidewalk again I am arresting all of you". They moved pretty quickly after that.
Our favorite slot machine from last trip was removed from Ceasars when we went this time. It was a bigger bang big event with what we can only call "pig bonuses". We loved it last trip and it was gone this one. S.O.S. was heartbroken because it was her favorite machine last time and she was looking forward to playing it again. Also found that the Indiana Jones slots were nice and we added that to our list of faves. We tried a variant version of them (we were playing 5 reel penny slots) that was a video screen and did not find them to be as fun, but the 5 reel was added into our regular rotation along with our old standbys of hot hot super jackpot, jackpot party, Goldfish and VP.
With the economy and lowering of prices in LV it seems to be a different type of visitor this trip. Like I said the buffets were very busy and at all hours, but the restaurants were not. There were a lot of families and quite a few times I heard parents explaining to their kids that the "video games" are for grownups. Of course we also saw kids sitting the on the outskirts of the casino floor waiting for their parents to stop gambling. I also found that if you tip the cocktail servers they seem to come back quicker this trip, I am guessing that people are being real cheap and not even tipping a $1 per drink. In the casinos where drink service was good for us (Paris, IP, Harrah's, Planet Ho) waitresses were more often then not coming back before we ever finished our drinks after tipping what has always been our standard tips.
The 80's has made a comeback at the locals' casinos. Look at the price of this concert:
The M resort also had a concert with a group of 80's bands in July as well, here is the line up; ABC, Missing persons, Wang Chung and the Cutting Crew all for $37.
Lastly I will leave you with the picture of my very first Royal Flush. S.O.S. is still waiting on hers.
- thanks for sharing it with
us. Loved the photos too especially the last one 
