April 8
Left Toronto and my gf Lee and I arrived in Vegas at 3PM. I had
booked an Augustus Tower at Caesars on Harrah's site. Our only other
stay at Caesars was in November of last year at which time we ran
through about 50K coin-in on my card. This was enough to receive
basic deluxe room offers but we really wanted to check out the
Augustus tower so took advantage of the opportunity to book it
comped. Besides checking out Augustus the other reason we wanted to
spend a day at Caesars was to do DIAD. Check-in went smoothly and
after dropping off our stuff in the room (which I ended up liking
better than Lee) it was down to the 25c 5-play JOB machines. There
are 2 banks that we like playing at - one is accross from the Elton
John store and the other is the bank of 4 by the garage elevators.
The latter used to be in the center but have now moved up against
the wall. It took us much of the day to rack up 1800 tier credits
with breaks at the Augustus Cafe, browsing the Forum Shops, and
watching Pamela Anderson arrive at Pure. Once done we traded in our
TR card for a diamond one and received a vest for the upgrade. Also
got a sports sac for earning I believe 175 base rewards.
For the first day at Caesars we were down $866 and earned about 6400
reward credits (1809 of them being base rewards and about 3600 being
bonus rewards). These RCs were enough to take care of our meal at
Augustus plus a small breakfast the next morning at Cypress Street
Marketplace. The only charge left on our bill was a $5 tip.
April 9
After checking out of Caesars we headed over to the Venetian for 3
nights on their "Garden of Green" offer. This is a $25K sweepstakes
with 2 drawings. Each 50 points earned earns one ticket in the
drawing. My only play at Venetian was one day in February when I put
25K coin-in through the 9/6 JOB dollar machines. The goal that trip
(we were staying at Wynn) was to do most of our play at Wynn and
then one day at Venetian in the hopes of receiving some nice offers
as it was the one place on the strip we wanted to stay at but had
never done so before. Checking in again was a breeze and the room
was quite nice although not really my taste. Lee however did think
it was appointed better than the Augustus room.
Since the earning period for the sweepstakes didn't commence until
3PM we decided to do a little shopping at the Fashion Show Mall and
also check out the diamond lounge at Harrahs. Breakfast in the
Harrahs Lounge pleasantly surprised us with offerings such as
pancakes, pastries, fruit, bagels, etc. Too bad it is only open for
breakfast on the weekends.
When we returned to Venetian to start playing all 3 of the 1$ JOB
machines were vacant so we sat down next to each other, playing both
on my card, for the next few hours. I find it hard to sit down at
any machine for longer than 2 hours although it is easier if the
drink service is good. Luckily at Venetian the drink service was
excellent.
For dinner we headed to Empress Court at Caesars as we had $100 food
credit to use. The ambience and food was excellent and it felt nice
dressing up a bit even if the Empress Court only applied the
McDonald's dress code. Overall people were dressed people in the
Harrah's Diamond Lounge! Returned to Venetian and played some more
before calling it a night.
After about 20K coin-in we were down $400
April 10
Woke up early (no surprise!) and had breakfast at Paris after
finding out the Diamond Lounge at Harrah's was closed. And then
continued walking along the strip to do some shopping at Walgreen's
(I guess you have to be a Canadian to understand this). After
Walgreen's we walked back to the Venetian to put in a small session
before lunch at the Canyon Ranch Cafe. We found this to be a good
place for not only healthy minded people but also vegetarians such
as us. Portions were small but the food wasn't bad even if it was a
bit pricey.
After lunch we played some more before the sweepstakes drawing at
7:30PM. It looked like about 200 people showed up for the
sweepstakes with maybe 150 of them being entrants (the others just
guests). 10 prizes would be awarded in each drawing with 6K going to
first. One of my tickets was drawn for the 8th place prize and $150.
After the drawing we went upstairs to Postrio for a small dinner. I
had the portobello mushroom pizza and Lee had the four cheese pizza.
Prices were very reasonable and of course the pizza was excellent.
Then we headed off to Le Reve which we both found to be delightful.
The theatre, costumes, choreography, music and general aesthetics
and continuity of the show far exceeded our expectations. We have
seen Allegra (cirque show in Toronto) and Zumanity but Le Reve was
not even comparable.
For the day we did about 25K coin-in and finished down $540
April 11
We woke up and had breakfast and the food court in the Venetian
casino - for some reason I had a craving for a Krispy Kreme donut -
and then started pounding the machines. I don't think I've sat at a
machine for so long nor played so fast but after about the 5th drink
we were both in a state of delirium. From about 10:30AM to 2:30PM we
had put through about 30K coin-in which qualified me for a gold
card. After picking it up we headed to the gold lounge for some
snacks - they had buns, cheese, and some fruit along with water,
juices, pop, etc. It was also fun seeing Louie Anderson come in and
be his loud, annoying self before sitting down at the 50/100 play
machines in the high limit room. Unfortunately no alcoholic beverage
service in the Gold Lounge but the lounge was much brighter, airy,
and in general more comfy than the Harrah's diamond lounge.
I'm not sure what happened for the next few hours but we did make it
to the ballroom in time for the 7:30PM sweepstakes. No win this time
but I did walk away believing that this was a much better offer than
what I had originally expected. For 75K coin-in over the 3 days I
had earned 30 tickets. Looking at the drawing drum and observing how
many tickets other people put in I couldn't imagine there being more
than 1000 tickets entered over the 2 days. That's an expected value
of $25 per ticket or $750 per 30 tickets. I'm sure the math is more
complicated than this especially since one can only win once in each
drawing but it still seemed to be good enough odds to consider
returning on a similar offer in the future. There were maybe 3 other
couples under 30 at the drawings so we didn't feel too much out of
place/intimidated. One girl didn't look older than 21 and she won
prizes at both drawings.
After the drawing we went to check out the Flamingo diamond lounge.
It is much more swanky than Harrah's and the clientale seemed to be
more friendly and jovial. Unfortunately there wasn't much there
around dinner time for vegetarians. Then it was time to see George
Wallace with guest David Brenner. We both enjoyed the show even
though we aren't really fans of stand-up comedy and had basically no
idea who George Wallace was. But the show was comped as part of my 2
free show tickets/month as a Diamond member.
We didn't play much VP after the morning session finishing the day
with about 32.5K coin-in and ending up down about $1000
April 12
Before we checked out I called the host who I booked the offer
through and she was able to take off my food charges which
shamefully only amounted to $40. I was surprised she was able to do
this after reading other reports from people who came in on free
room offers. The total bill was $20 for a few local calls and some
gift shop purchases. After checking out of the Venetian we walked
around a bit (including dropping into the Chanel store for a little
therapy) before our 3:20PM flight home.
Overall for the trip we didn't hit any royals and finished down
about $2800. However, the $165 cashback from the Venetian and $150
sweepstakes win did bring this down to under $2500 in absolute cash.
Just about where I would expect to be with 100K coin-in and no royal.
rhizome