Not really much play at various Stations this spring landed us a
couple of free nights at Red Rock Station last week. And now this is
my new favorite Vegas resort. High marks for everything: design,
amenities, ambience,facilities, staff (hotel, casino, pool and
restaurant).There was no problem finding a seat at an Optimum play
machines. Do you like bar-top progressives? Play early or share the
experience with loud rowdy young drunks (Curse you, Red Bull).
Speaking of progressives, there's a bank of .50 8/5 BP with Royal and
Quad Aces progressives a few feet from the DDB/$1199 machines between
the High Limit and Reward Center areas.
After 2 days at the Rock, wife was up almost exactly what I was down.
I moped and grumbled effectively enough to move a couple of C-notes
from her purse into my wallet and off we went to the Stardust...
The 'Dust, which will close Nov. 1 and become actual dust shortly
thereafter, hosted sort of a goodbye/than-you dinner that we somehow
were invited to. It turned out to be a very pleasant evening --- free
champagne and top shelf liquor, an excellent dinner, and a handsome
coffee table book chronicling the property's checkered past . (For
instance: most of the wise guys depicted in the movie "Casino" were
Stardust guys in real life). A couple of Boyds signed the books and
we met some VP fiends who confirmed our opinion that (for a while
anyway) the 'Dust had offered a pretty fair deal: decent VP and
generous comps.
After dinner, slow cured by just the right number of cocktails, wife
and I enjoyed one of our favorite Vegas entertainment options: bad
karaoke. A multi-cultural procession of (drunk, I hope) men and women
took the stage flanked by a pair of dancers in leather micro-minis;
one too fat; one too thin; each imprisoned by separate and totally
incompatible rythyms. "Pour Some Sugar On Me" slamming up against "I
Could Have Danced All Night". Excellent.
The next morning, we strolled the seamy north Strip promenade, mixing
retro VP at Slots-A-Fun, the Riv and the Frontier and brief chats
with homeless folks. Since the Stardust has virtually no playable VP
remaining, we decided to appreciate the drinks , dinner and lovely
parting gifts the Boyds had bestowed upon us by playing at the
Orleans. I won, but wife lost, and demanded to be taken immediately
to the the Palms, where free food awaited. After sampling a
thoroughly mediocre buffet (although the first I've seen featuring
Lebanese fare), wife and I wandered off in separate directions. I
lost quickly on a variety of 100%+ VP machines; she won more than a
grand on Wheel Of Fortune and Deal Or No Deal. Wife found this
extremely amusing. Me, not so much. We finished off our evening at
Palace Station, where we found a .25 bar-top progressive cranked up
over $2200. We chased that royal till our eyes crossed and our
fingers bled, but we couldn't hit it. We did squeeze out a small
profit on quads and one STR FLUSH.
Our flight home was delayed two hours, allowing plenty of time to
reflect on what I found to be an interesting coincidence: our 4-day
visit seemed pretty much a capsulization of our entire Vegas history.
Our early vacations in the desert were spent at various Strip resorts
(including the Stardust, of course). We shot dice, played BJ, partied
hard and behaved idiotically whenever the opportunity arose. Time
passed, and as we began to figure out VP, we moved off strip to the
Palace and the Gold Coast. Soon Stations and Coasts popped up all
over. By then,(mostly) competent at VP, we found ourselves with
better and better gaming choices farther and farther from our
original staring point --- as seen in the contrast between the new
Red Rock and soon to be extinct Stardust. Wife found this bubble of
insight so fascinating she instantly fell asleep.