Day 5: Carson City
It takes about 40 minutes easy driving , straight down 395 south to Carson City. We would visit only 2 casino's , The CC Nugget and then Casino Fandango. Neither of these casino's have hotels, but the Fandango has a Holiday Inn next door ( 3870 South Carson Street ), and our host , Steve , said he would comp 50% of the $110 room charge plus food comps. Fair enough !
Carson City ( named after Fremonts' scout Kit Carson ... was warm and sunny about 90 degrees , and a bit windy. Town of Carson City - great visitors center, walking tour of town, State Museum with old Carson City Mint, Rail Road museum. There are 2 Italian Restaurants across the street from each other Bsghetti's and Garabaldi. I think CC is a very worthwhile side trip if your going to Reno because of the history and decent VP.
Nugget - Best selection of VP in town, and comparable to some of the best Reno Joints.
* 8/5 super aces in dollars. These have a sign on top that says "highest paying machine in town" . That may be true, but these machines have always beaten me. Another $400 down the drain !
* 9/5 triple bonus plus, 9/6 bonus deluxe in dollars -- beat me for another $100
* 25C/50C/$1 FP pickem, NSUD --- Ok, , took another $150 from me. Started off in a deep hole.
* various progressives like 8/5 quarter bonus with $1200 RF. Beat these for $150 but that was slow since these are coin droppers and my machine ran out on a payout cycle.
* 50C NSUD - actually beat these for $100
* There are 2 versions of dummy slot FIREBALL - 120 penny and 200 penny. The 120 penny max coin version is much less volatile and $60 is usually enough to last quite a while . Drove my $30 start up coin to $130 and then cashed out.
* Finally an unlikely machine saved me from disaster. The 9/6 DDB ACES with Faces is hard to find , but this is a much better game ( 99.6) as compared to normal DDB. Put $100 in and held ACE ACE...up popped Jack/ACE/ACE ...for 2000 coins ( $500 ). Cashed out for $600. So all in all, the Nugget beat me for $100 - which was fine considering the first two hours of constant losing.
Casino Fandango - Decent VP selection and is about 3 miles out of town. The place reminded me of a mini Atlantis. The Holiday Inn rooms were really really nice ( better than most of the Reno Rooms this trip ) with fridge , safe and free internet. The Walk was only 40 feet side door hotel to casino. Last stay I had no luck here, but felt I could beat this place on round two. Was I right ?
Food: Te Amo Italian Restaurant. The casino had given us a $40 food coupon. At this Italian restaurant we had a full meal , bottle of wine, and split a desert and the check came to $39. This same meal in AC folks would have been over $100 - believe me... excellent food and service.
Coffee shop : easy comp, and $3.99 gets you a steak and eggs special.
VP:
No luck here my first night including a loss on Sex and the City slots.
* 20C full pay deuces progressive ( RF = $960 )
* 15/8 loose deuce at 25C/50C/$1
* STP with Airport Deuces
* strange Multistike Airport Deuces game with random top line progressive
* 3-way action
Note: There is a very nice Movie Theater attached which you can use your points for. Went to bed around 1AM over $500 in the hole.
Day 6 Wednesday : Woke up to a pleasant surprise. The Casino had picked up my entire hotel bill ( losers get it all dont they ). Ok, I decided to try one more time to beat them. Went to the bar , stuck a benjy in and proceeded to play 6/5 super aces quarter progressive with $2900 RF. Folks this WAS the best machine in the place - and they had over 10 of these. After about an hour got 4 ACES for $500, switched machines and got another 4oak Aces FOR $500. Switched to 20C FP 10/7 double bonus and ran up $100 to $400. so...good news for me... I End up beating the place for a cool $500 with that $1000 turn-around. Enjoyed our comped breakfast at the coffee shop !
Silver Legacy ( 2 nights ) for Day 6/7
We drove back to Reno to return our Alamo car , with terrific Serius Radio. When we saw the Atlantis in the distance we got off a Virginia Street exit. filled up with gas ( $10 ) , and got right back on the highway as 395 passed over Virginia Street further north. Took a $16 taxi to Silver, as once again, no shuttle was waiting for us.
Check-in, Our host set up with a 31st floor players suite on a birthday offer . These are really nice rooms. My favorite of the entire trip.
Food: Sterlings ( great King Crab - paid with comps and $50 birthday food cert ).
Coffee shop ( Cafe Sedonia / improved service now ) - free breakfast thanks to Mansion Coupon
Buffet - Free lunch buffet thanks to Mansion Coupon
Sips Coffee-Donut shop : good.
VP: ElDorado --- while waiting for my room, went to Eldo to play and got killed. Lost $200 on the NSUD 3play, and $700 on the 9/6 BDLUX Multi-strikes. It would be a struggle to recover at Silver , but I almost did.
VP: SIlver Legacy:
-- FP Joker , NSUD, triple play 9/6 machines upstairs ( did well here +$500 )
-- 9/6 triple play bonus deluxe triple play in $1, and quarter
-- $1 FP chicago pay schedule one-eyed Jacks ( same machines as NSUD and 9/6 DDB progressives )
-- 8/5 bonus 10 coin quarter with $3100 RF ( these were positive folks, and nobody playing them )
--- 8/6 Jacks dream card ( thats the best schedule on these machines, lost $100 in about 10 minutes )
--- 9/5 DDB ultimate X ( did not play these, but this was the best pay schedule on the 2 machines they have )
-- 9/6 Jacks 10C 100 play
-- 9/5 triple bonus plus machines in various denominations
-- 10/7 DB dime 1-100 coin machines ( I blasted these ! )
-- $NSUD downstairs, and upstairs .
NOTE: checked about 25 machines for reported full pay AA - sorry, they were all short pay.
So all in all , I love the Silver and rate it a solid #2 in Reno, after Atlantis. Beat them for about $700.
Downtown notes:
* Great walking town. While walking around town I went through the Siena. To my surprise , this place which is on the verge or either a strike or closing was doing terrific local business because of a few nice promotions. People were water rafting on the Truckee, and there were a lot of college kids downtown and near the university area.
* The Silver Legacy is the best smelling casino in Nevada - very distictinve and pleasant - dont know how they do it.
* Beat the lines by checking in at the VIP service area at SL. A bottle of fine Carrano wine was waiting for us in the room.
* The Casino was freezing in spots. Rather than get a cold, I walked across the street to the tourist gift shop and bought a really nice sweatshirt for $5.
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