Mirage (owned by MGM, also Treasure Island, Bellagio's, etc.)
Stayed 12/21 Sun, 12/22 Mon, and 12/23 Tues, standard rooms comped + $50
credit for FB
Monopoly color group rating: GREEN
Our play: what they expected from us
It's hard to start a write-up of this Strip property without analogies. One
that comes to mind is the "USS United States", an oceanliner built to compete
with the Queen Mary: sleek, fast, classical lines.
Another analogy, in light of the time of year we went, is a personal one -- my
favorite bar of all time. "Emilio's" used to be right next to the Waverly
Theatre on Sixth Avenue in New York City. It's been gone almost 20 years now,
replaced by a "Blimpies" sub shop.
The great thing about Emilio's in its heyday was how it handled the tidal wash
of humanity. Sixth Ave. is the beginning edge of the West Village, and on
Friday and Saturday nights the streets become a thronging tourist mecca.
Emilio's was the backdrop for some high and low moments in the human
tragedy -- and it was right upstairs that the Fugs attempted their musical
comeback.
First time I ever went there, Emilio's was a traditional Scottish bar. (Huh?
With the name -- never mind. 
But then, 15 minutes later, it had become a
SuperFly bar. And in an eyeblink and a sip from your mug of draft, it had
become something else again.
Emilio's had that ability to reflect the people inside it at any given
moment -- to give a touch of extra pathos, to embellish, to augment without
imposing its own sense of order. Monday nights, it was quiet as a poetry
reading corner. Thursdays, raucous like a piano bar. And if there was one
constant about the whole place, it was that essence of changing -- always
changing.
Mirage is now in the beginning of its post-Siegfried & Roy days -- regardless
of Roy's recovery, they'll never return (and a casino executive confirmed this
to my wife). Danny Gans is a headliner who's unquestionably a lot better than
the freebies we got from Rio, but he's still "just" an act -- not a brand.
And so, the Mirage must again establish an identity unique to itself.
Meanwhile, the sister casino to the north had just begun its own rebranding --
from "Treasure Island" to "TI" -- featuring a street show outside that's not
exactly pirates, but the enticingly-named "Sirens of TI". [Our 2-cents is
that "Sirens" is unwatchable in its present form -- they've gone from dumb to
dumberer -- and the "music" is horrendous. But by summertime, maybe they'll
have a useable soundtrack and will have figured out what to do with all those
recycled props. If they cared what I thought, they'd lose the rock'n'roll
flavor -- synthesizers can do a lot more than that, a whole lot better.]
So -- TI next door, then (to the south) is the ever-building Caesars
megamonster casino-shoppingplex, and across the street is Venetian. If the
name "Mirage" conveys a sense of illusion -- which is what they tried to
literally establish with the S&R act and the volcano in front -- then the
logical progression is to become increasingly tech-heavy. They haven't started
such a rebranding yet, because the casino part, regardless of the wrapper, is
traditional in almost every way.
But at some point they'll figure out a good way to get mirrors, holograms,
lasers (maybe some interactive computer-based stuff) into a presentation that
could out-Disney Disney. Imagine an Internet portal where you, sitting at
home, could control Actual Moving Items in a Mirage light show -- would that
be cool, or what? What if you could program Bellagio's dancing waters from
your home PC?
We're talking about the capacity for a Major Hook, here:
"Dear X -- We've been watching your work! The management of the MIRAGE would
like YOU to present YOUR six-minute light and sound show to the GENERAL PUBLIC
on [month] [day] [time], and we are pleased to offer you a complimentary TWO
DAY STAY for TWO to facilitate your preparations. All those other people you
want to drag along with you -- family and friends -- we'll charge only $179
per, per night, to have a GUARANTEED ROOM in the same wing of the hotel. Look
forward to seeing you (and all of them). "
OK -- maybe the idea still needs some work.
The room: best we had stayed at up until then. Couldn't get to the buffet,
alas -- they were reworking the usual location during our stay, and the
temporary one they provided seated only 160, and the line was 300+ people
long, except at around 3 in the afternoon when it was only 100 waiting for the
4pm seating to begin. (We really tried... and then we got in the car and went
to Sam Woo. Did I mention this great Chinese place -- ?
VP gaming -- see the vpFree database. It's not lethal in small doses, and you
basically want to find the "High Limit" area and either play in there (or
close outside).
One dollar-progressive JoB outside the High Limit area was where I tried my
major attack -- the Royal was paying about $6800 -- and I lost out to a
Chinese fellow who'd been working it (he said) for three days. There were a
number of other progressives around the floor that took chunks of our time,
but we never got lucky for the hours we invested.
Now, for the unique part of this stay. We had never established credit at any
casino before, or done anything remotely along those lines. We always brought
a cash bankroll, and replenished at the ATM. But on this trip, I had
basically preplanned to get money halfway through our stay (rather than
pulling $400-600 daily at an ATM, along with the bank fees which have crept
up).
So, Sunday evening, I approached the cage with my request for them to cash a
$5000 check. (We still had a healthy bankroll between us in case there was a
problem or delay, but wanted to see how this all worked.)
Apparently, if you haven't pre-established yourself, any casino in town will
extend up to a thousand on good faith, but that will only happen once in 14
days. (The casinos talk back and forth.) A check for $5000 requires the
credit department to contact your bank and verify the deposit, then make
arrangements for a wire transfer. Takes about 24 hours ... just like the
bigger playahs. Then you'll get an account set up and can take out a
"marker" at the High Limit area or the cage, which is good if you don't want
to stuff too much in your wallet at any one time.
Oh, and the signoff was cool, too. Casino executives, aka "suits", hover in
the important parts of the property, and the head honcho has a kind of
constellation of junior suits revolving around him. We got our signoff from a
guy who looked somewhere between James Caan and Alec Baldwin (from the new
Vegas movie "The Cooler".) Darn it all -- I forget his name now. But he
really was immensely likeable, and I didn't even want to think about the
distant notion that the guy who traditionally held this slot in the casino
heirarchy also (by long tradition) ordered the kneecapping of various casino
miscreants.