This is a little delayed as I got whisked off to Germany for the last
2 weeks. The wife and I took a 3 night vacation without our 2 year
old (such luxury!) at LV Caesars for the $75,000 slot tourney. Here
is a summary of the trip:
FLIGHTS
Flew direct from CVG on Delta without problems on Friday night after
work (we snuck out a little early). Landed in Vegas at 5:45pm, right
on schedule. We carried our luggage on board for such a short trip and
this makes getting out of the airport easy.
RENTAL CAR
Used thrifty for the third time in a row and I have nothing but
complements. The bus was waiting for us. Walked straight to the car
area and got straight into our car. Total cost $65 for the weekend.
We were in our car and on the road by 6:15pm.
CAESARS
My host (Frank) set us up in the Augustus tower for the three nights.
Much has already been said about this, but I'll add my 5c worth.
These are in my opinion the best "standard" rooms in Vegas. Lot's of
room, comfy beds, great bathrooms, view of Bellagio fountains and we
had a nice big fruit basket waiting for us.
BRADLEY OGDENS
This was our first time to BO for dinner (we had dessert there once
before). While my wife and I are big "foodies" this place just didn't
seem to hit the spot for us. The service was average (my wife had to
get up after 15 minutes and ask for menus) but we did enjoy the food.
Had the Rib eye which was wonderful and the wife's Cheese Soufflé
starter was also very good. Can't help feel it's overpriced for what
you get. We wouldn't eat here if it wasn't comped. We WILL go back
and give it another chance but we much prefer Mesa Grill. Dinner was
$185 for 2 starters and 2 mains plus two drink each. Rated 3 forks
(future visits might increase this to 4).
MESA GRILL
We had brunch and dinner here. It's worth mentioning that we called a
week ahead for dinner reservations and couldn't get anything before
9:30pm. However, when we turned up at 5:15 they seated us immediately
in the dining room (we would have sat at the bar if necessary). We
just walked up for Saturday Brunch. We love this place. If this was
a local restaurant we would eat here a couple of times a month (only
the prices would stop us going weekly!). If you haven't had the pork
tenderloin, try it. It will change your impression of pork. The
coffee rubbed fillet is also to die for. We also shared the dessert
sampler. My wife flipped over everything. Just a great restaurant.
It's worth noting that the first time we went there (last year) my
wife was only so-so about the place. Future visits have confirmed
this as one of our favorites in Vegas. Brunch $40, Dinner $220 with 2
bottles of wine 
Rated 4 1/2 forks (could be a little cheaper).
VP
I did a quick check on the inventory and found everything list in the
database. I also checked the multi-plays in a hope the 10c 10-Play
had come back (no luck). Played almost exclusively triple play STP 9/6
JOB with a little triple play 9/6 JOB when those machines were busy.
Played $20,000 a day on Sat and Sun on my card and another $15K on
Sunday on my wife's card. This should maintain our "normal averages".
STP is probably the most volatile game I have ever played. It is so
easy to drop a grand in a session on the triple plays. I shudder to
think how the 10-play would fare. This trip I ended up $200 down
while doing about 2/3rd's of our action. I was actually pretty luckly
with some reasonable multiplier hits (4K on x10 and x8, dealt flush on
a x8 ). My wife dropped $1K while playing her $20K though BUT and
this is a huge BUT she connected for a Royal with the x3 multiplier!
Simply amazing! So if anyone wondered what that bloody noise was at
7am on Sunday two weeks ago, it was me simply exploding with delight!
This also broke my wife's two year royal drought in spectacular
fashion (I've hit fourteen 25c royals this year alone to keep us
ahead). I'll try to post a picture of it on the site if I can work
out how.
TOURNAMENT
Both the wife and I were in the tourney (we use my wife's work address
so that we can get multiple offers). This was my wife's first
tournament and she had a blast scoring 16K, 17K and 15K in her three
sessions for a total of just under 50K. We were buzzing all day on
Sunday waiting for the presentation because we knew she was somewhere
near the top (50K had won a tourney earlier that year). As it turns
out she was 7th, just one hail Caesar from 1st. I was a very
impressive 293rd despite a 17K first session (an 8,500 second session
might be the all time low?). In the end we won $1,075 (guess who got
the $75!).
WYNN
Spent Sunday afternoon at Wynn sitting in the upstairs parasol bar
drinking away the afternoon. It's amazing how much fun it is to just
sit, drink and talk to the wife without our wonderful 2 year old
around. This was easily the most enjoyable 4 hours of the entire trip
(had to believe with the gambling success, I know). It was like we
were dating again (hard to believe after 6 years of marriage). We
rang up a tidy $65 drinks bill and it was worth every penny.
COMPS
The room was comped, plus I had a $75 food certificate which we used.
We earned another $200 in comps while playing with about a 3:1 bonus
to base ratio. Also, we used the diamond lounge once for breakfast
which wasn't too bad for a quick fix. There were LOTS of drink comps.
SUMMARY
After bounce back cash and tourney wins we were $3,050 up for the
trip. This was almost double our previous best trip. This should
help finance the future trips which are not so successful.
Cheers