Disclaimer: This report has no pictures of winning hands and I don't disclose wins or losses in dollars. That is my preference.
Note: Clicking on a picture brings up a larger size view.
Note: Clicking on a picture brings up a larger size view.
PRE TRIP
One day in November, I saw a travel alert for a crazy air fare to Las Vegas from Philadelphia for $80.20 round trip. That is not a typo. Philadelphia is not near me, but with that fare I had to consider it quickly while the price was still available. It turned out the fare was available for about 12 hours. The available dates were mostly January into early February, so weather would be a significant issue, both for flying and the long trip getting to the airport and home. I had to give it a shot, as it would be fun to be able to say I bought a $80 round trip fare. This rivaled my record round trip fare that I snagged on National Airlines, after 9/11 in 2001, when they had $1 Tuesday return trip fares, making that total $78 for a round trip to Las Vegas. I viewed this new fare purchase as a $160 for 2 expense/risk for us that could easily be forfeited (because the ticket change fee is $200 a person if I wanted to change dates). I would not assume we would be taking the trip. The winter to that point in the east was very calm in terms of snowfall, and it seemed ideal for flying. Then, about 5 days before the trip, they started forecasting a significant storm for the 8 or so hours before the flight departure time, putting the flight and the drive in serious risk of being cancelled. As the date approached, the forecast held steady for snow and ice, which would be even worse for driving.
The day before the trip, the forecast was still iffy, since just a degree or two difference meant ice vs snow vs rain, and was too much to risk waking up that day and getting into an accident on a long trip, or the trip becoming a day long marathon ending up in missing the flight. So, I looked at alternate plans, such as staying overnight the night before in Philadelphia. The typical rates for a decent hotel were around $150, which of course would have wiped out some of this 'great deal' I was getting on the trip. This would also mean pretty much sitting around in Philadelphia the whole next day, waiting for the early evening flight. It would not be a good day for driving around sightseeing. I then came up with the idea of staying in Atlantic City, comped, the prior day, which being near the ocean, was going to have better weather, and less chance for ice and snow, making the relatively short drive to Philadelphia. Luckily, I was able to book a room with one day notice. The fun part of the trip is now we would be in Atlantic City and Las Vegas in the same day.
The day before the trip, the forecast was still iffy, since just a degree or two difference meant ice vs snow vs rain, and was too much to risk waking up that day and getting into an accident on a long trip, or the trip becoming a day long marathon ending up in missing the flight. So, I looked at alternate plans, such as staying overnight the night before in Philadelphia. The typical rates for a decent hotel were around $150, which of course would have wiped out some of this 'great deal' I was getting on the trip. This would also mean pretty much sitting around in Philadelphia the whole next day, waiting for the early evening flight. It would not be a good day for driving around sightseeing. I then came up with the idea of staying in Atlantic City, comped, the prior day, which being near the ocean, was going to have better weather, and less chance for ice and snow, making the relatively short drive to Philadelphia. Luckily, I was able to book a room with one day notice. The fun part of the trip is now we would be in Atlantic City and Las Vegas in the same day.
I won't cover the AC stay in much detail because there was not too much eventful to report. But we were surprised that the buffet at Caesars is no longer open for breakfast! This is a unfortunate trend in many casinos as breakfast buffet's are a favorite of mine. Of course we watched the weather reports closely, and the storm ended up not as bad as forecast, especially for Philadelphia. The storm would be over four or so hours before our flight, and only a bit of snow was going to fall there. We were able to eat at a Diamond Lounge at Caesars just before leaving for the airport. Off we went after filling up for $1.74 a gallon (full service) at our favorite Wawa gas/convenience store with their very good and very inexpensive coffee (about 8 fresh varieties available) as a bonus.
I had shopped around for a good off airport parking place and found a huge variance of pricing. We went with the ExpressPark North parking lot, and we were very happy with the service and the rate, which was half of what another lot, a mile a way, was charging. My goal was to not spend as much on parking as the airfare, since that seemed too "wrong". Parking ended up being $70 for the week, meeting my goal.
We were flying out on a very off peak time and day apparently, and getting through bag check in and security was a breeze! We took carry-ons and limited the bag check in to one bag for the two of us since there were checked bag fees. I thought it was strange when I was checking in at self check in that it didn't ask me for a credit card for the bag fee (more on this on the return trip), so I just assumed they would charge the same credit card I used for the airfare.
The terminal was quite old with not many electric outlets, so I thought I was lucky when I found a seat near my gate that had one nearby. My luck turned to frustration, as I thought I was targeted for some kind of prank TV show, when the regular 110 Volt outlet would not hold the plug of my charger cord. The socket holes were too big! I've never seen anything like this, and after a while it was funny. If I held the plug into the outlet, it worked, but the second I took my hand off of it, the plug fell halfway out of the outlet, losing power.
The terminal was quite old with not many electric outlets, so I thought I was lucky when I found a seat near my gate that had one nearby. My luck turned to frustration, as I thought I was targeted for some kind of prank TV show, when the regular 110 Volt outlet would not hold the plug of my charger cord. The socket holes were too big! I've never seen anything like this, and after a while it was funny. If I held the plug into the outlet, it worked, but the second I took my hand off of it, the plug fell halfway out of the outlet, losing power.
I had been monitoring the seating and noted that the flight was probably only 60% filled, which meant at the very least we would be able to sit in the aisle and window seats with the seat between us empty to spread out. Upon boarding, we could see it was even better than that, and that there were many rows near us, near the back of the plane, completely empty. So, here we were, playing $40 each, one way, for flying over 2,000 miles, and getting an entire row of seats for each of us! The deal was getting better. Being an evening flight, it might be a good chance to sleep on the plane.
Unfortunately, we had some people on the flight who talked loudly the entire 5 hour trip. Many of them where Austrians and Germans in their early 20's. The entertaining part were when the drunk ditsy American girls were socializing with them, and asked the guys where they were from. When they answered "Austria" the girls were perplexed, and obviously never heard of that country, asking them "do you mean Australia?" I winced and laughed as these girls provided the foreign travelers with the typical American "the US is the world" stereotype. Actually, I would wager that they probably didn't know that Wyoming was part of the USA either, if they were asked. I think the guys were turned off by the drunk stupid girls, as when asked what they were going to Las Vegas for, they replied to the girls that they were going there to get some sleep. Eventually the conversations got so loud that the flight attendants asked them to quiet down.
As we crossed the Rockies, we hit the most turbulence I have ever experienced. I had to hold onto the arm rests to steady myself in the seat, even with the seat belt on. I could feel the plane suddenly plummeting, but it felt like it was in control, which it was, as the pilot was diving to try to avoid the turbulence. The really severe stuff lasted about 5 minutes, and it was bad for about 20 minutes.
I had a great Costco rate at Budget, and with my express membership there was a car waiting for me in a marked spot with my name on the screen at the booth. It turned out to be a brand new Sentra with 88 miles on it! I thought this was great, but later learned that it was less then ideal. I couldn't find the cruise control at night as I was locating all the controls, but figured I would find it in the daylight the next day. Well the next day came and I learned that this car had NO cruise control. This was not a compact or subcompact, this was an "intermediate" class car. I didn't even know they made cars without cruise control anymore! This would make the drive to Laughlin and back a pain. I thought about returning it for another car, but figured I would just deal with it rather than going through the hassle.
THE M RESORT
THE M RESORT
We first checked into the M Resort, which is now my favorite all around hotel due to its quality rooms, top notch buffet, good (but not great) video poker, and great staff. There is one cocktail waitress that works in the slot area who gave us great service and had remembered us from a prior visit. This here was one of the most amazing parts of the trip. Before this trip, we had talked with her two or three times, after serving us coffee and water in the early morning, near the end of her graveyard shift. While we have tipped her generously, it was never excessive, or something that would warrant remembering us as customers because of a large tip. I woke up early the first morning and went down to play, and there she was, working the slot machine floor area. Instead of just saying hello, she greeted me by my name! This, after seeing her just 2-3 times over a 9 month period. She must have served to hundreds if not thousands of customers in that time, yet she remembered my name! Embarrassingly, I had to look at her name tag to remember her name! She then apologized for not remembering how I like my coffee, which was ridiculous that she even thought that she should remember! We had a short chat about why she was still working the overnight shift, and it turns out that turnover is so slow that there aren't many openings to move from the graveyard shift then to days or nights, which shows what a quality place this is to work. She came by again before the end of her shift, and I ordered two coffees, one for me and one to bring up to the room. Here was the most amazing part. She came back with the coffees and she had written our names on them. That would be amazing alone, but even more, since one of our names has a unique spelling, and she had remembered it correctly. I hadn't noticed this until we got back to the room, and when I did, I was floored. For her memory to be this good, she is probably overqualified to be working as a graveyard shift waitress! I am writing a letter to the M with my praise for her service!
We "earned" a complimentary excellent buffet through video poker play which requires $1300 to $2000 coin in, and you keep the points. On this day, they were also running another promotion where you earned an M Resort shirt after $600 coin in, over and above earning the buffet, but once again, you keep the points. To ice the cake, they allowed a second and third gift per person that day to be earned by earning for earning 600 points again, and this gift you had the choice of wine as the gift. So, a shirt, two bottles of wine and a great buffet, all for under $4000 coin in, and you still get to keep to points to redeem for cash back or comps.
As has become tradition, we went on the St Rose Parkway Trail for some exercise the next morning, and we were loving the 55 degree morning temperature while it was below freezing at home.
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| Loot from the M |
As has become tradition, we went on the St Rose Parkway Trail for some exercise the next morning, and we were loving the 55 degree morning temperature while it was below freezing at home.
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| St Rose Trail start |
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| The bakery case at Baby Cakes Bakery at the M |
Off from the M we headed to Laughlin, with no cruise control. It made the trip a little more tiring, but we got there fine.
HARRAH'S LAUGHLIN
The next day we played at Harrah's Laughlin. Just like the M, as luck would have it, we were there on a promotional day at Harrah's. They were giving away some small appliances this day. Nothing that valuable was offered, but I always feel like if I earned it and they are giving it away, I should take it. The issue was though how to get this gift home. We already had enough carry-ons, and it wasn't worth paying $25 to check it in as baggage for our trip. I thought about giving it to one of the hosts on the trip. Typical of Harrah's, the actual giveaway hours were limited to 2 to 6pm, and so the lines were long. I had easily qualified, but I wasn't about to stand in line for a half hour for a $30 gift that I wasn't even sure I could use. At the time, I had no idea when the window was closing, but at 5:55 I went up to the window with no line, and learned that they were closing in 5 minutes! Then I got the good news. They had run out of supply of gifts and were instead shipping them to people's homes directly! Jackpot! No worries of how to get this home!
One of the reasons we went to Laughlin is that their weather is typically 5-10 degrees warmer than Las Vegas. We lucked out when the half day of rain turned into a sunny mild day the next day, mild enough to spend time in shorts on the Harrah's Laughlin beach, while it was snowing at home at that very time.
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| View from Harrah's Beach |
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| A local, who stopped by to chat |
We've been collecting the tidbits you are about to see below for a few years. If any of you read the Seven Stars Insider Newsletter, you know that the author likes to point out grammatical errors in Caesars' Resorts casino mailings and signage, some of which are pretty bad, others more subtle. Well I have some pretty blatant examples here below. The Harrah's Laughlin buffet would make a English teacher cringe! It is hard to believe, but for many years many of the buffet dishes have been labelled with ridiculously basic errors. This is part of Caesars Resorts, a multi billion dollar corporation, run by highly educated people. I would have to assume that most of the hotel management on site, as well as at least the buffet managers who have run this over the years, have a decent college education, not to mention the cooking staff who should be familiar with the names of the dishes they are cooking from their training. But that shouldn't even be required to see these mistakes, and even a high school student would probably notice these mistakes that make this place look very dull. Yes, some of the apostrophe errors may not be glaring to some. But it is ridiculous that someone with a decent English education isn't in charge of approving any sign, buffet or not, before it is engraved or printed. If they simply typed the names they used into Google, they would find their mistakes. So, ready for some fun?
Just a consistency thing. Why is it "Macaroni -N- Cheese", but "Fish & Chips"?
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| No, it's Lo Mein! |
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Wouldn't it make sense to check that it's "du jour" not "de jour" before making 4 signs with that same mistake? (I didn't post the other 2) |
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| This one has no mistake, it's just the choice of words I think is odd. If it's really a "display" should we be eating it? Or is it just a display? |
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| No, it's Scalloped Potatoes |
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| They have MANY apostrophe issues here. These are just two of them! |
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| Okay, two of them have pretty bad mistakes (it's supposed to say Tartar), but the one that is correct, lemons, is even more entertaining! Why are the other items in the prior pictures above apostrophe 's', yet lemons has no apostrophe? Why not "Lemon's" here? |
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This may be the worst one. Above is the current sign, which of course is wrong. But what is worse is that this is their updated sign. Last year's version of the sign is seen below. Someone must have told them it was wrong, so they changed it. They were only a removed apostrophe away from being correct before, but now they are missing the 's'! They actually took a step backwards AFTER being told the sign was wrong! Can't anyone in the buffet management just type 'banana foster' into Google and see that only 'Bananas Foster' is shown in the results, and learn the correct naming before creating the sign? Doesn't anyone with training in the restaurant/food industry that works there have any enough food knowledge to know the correct name of the dish? Two tries and no one in a billion dollar corporation can get the name correct? Really? |
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| Hand Scooped Ice Cream |
Just a consistency thing. Why is it "Macaroni -N- Cheese", but "Fish & Chips"?
There is a "phenomenon" that interests me at the Harrah's buffet. In the Diamond/Seven Stars area, which only has about 20 tables, there is one table permanently reserved. It is reserved for a particular Seven Stars family whom I have been told eats at the buffet for breakfast/brunch at least 6 days a week! So, they have reserved their table for them permanently, for all hours, in case they show up.
One of our favorite experiences is sitting outside at the complimentary Diamond Lounge at Harrah's, having a little to eat and drink while viewing the Colorado River. It's a very peaceful setting. The food though, as always, is lacking, but they had tuna salad, which in that place, to me, is like having a special dish because its one of the only things I find edible there.
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View at sunset from Diamond Lounge
We don't spend much time at the bar inside other than to get our own drinks and water (there are no waiters for the tables), but I had remembered the last time the staff talking about one of the them there that was ill with cancer. I think our last trip she might have been back serving there. I didn't really get to know her too well, but seeing her friendly familiar face on our trips is something I got used to. So, it was really sad to see the couple of sheets and pictures of her that they had posted behind the bar. Carie had died Dec 20 at the age of 40 from breast cancer, leaving two kids behind. If anyone remembers her and is interested, I am posting her picture and the memorial/donation information that was posted there. |
LAUGHLIN RIVER LODGE
In Laughlin, the River Palms closed and has now been purchased by Dotty's and has become the Laughlin River Lodge. The place is a little odd but it has been refereshed nicely. It was unique to see a casino with floor to ceiling windows giving players a nice view. I have never seen a Video Poker machine that had denominations from 5c to $5 before I saw one here!
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| Floor to ceiling windows with a view in a casino! |
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| 5c to $5 all on one machine! |
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| They had two of these walled rooms made up to look homey. |
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| This area sold drinks and snacks but also offered nuts and candy, complimentary for players. |
RIVERSIDE
We walked through the Riverside casino, and this Video Poker bar overlooking the river caught my eye. What was unique was the second row of machines near the bar, in groups of two. And since the bar area is sunken, people in the main casino can look down and watch your play at that second row of machines. Very odd!
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| Bar at Riverside, Laughlin |
A bonus for anyone that enjoyed reading the Harrah's signs. This one is outside on the River Walk near the Pioneer casino, and has been there with this spelling for at least five years.
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| No, "gazebo" would the correct answer if you are playing at home. |
BELLAGIO CHINESE NEW YEAR DISPLAY
This was the first time we were in town during the Bellagio Chinese New Year Display in the Conservatory. In past years, seeing other's pictures, I was very impressed. Seeing it in person this year was nice, but it wasn't as impressive as I expected
DOWNTOWN LAS VEGAS
GOLDEN NUGGET
At the Golden Nugget, I was looking for the bank of machines that I usually play when I saw in the distance someone getting up from a seat and leaving some kind of electronic device at the machine. I walked towards it to see what it was, and it looked to be a large smart phone or small tablet. The person was now far out of sight, and I didn't get a look at his face, so I couldn't immediately track him down. I opened the case and found it was a very new Samsung 8 inch Android tablet. There was an address book, but no clear entry for contacting "me" except for the persons name. I figured since I was playing the very machine that he had left, I would just continue playing and he would likely come back within the hour after he remembered where he had left the tablet. However, after an hour, he wasn't back. Yes, I thought about reporting it to lost and found at the Golden Nugget, but I felt I would give it a try first and get the satisfaction of seeing the owner reunited with it, because I have had two instances over the years of misplacing items that were then taken and not returned.
An hour later I started calling the 2-3 numbers that were in the contact list of the tablet, and left a voice mail with the story. About 2 minutes later, I received a call back from one of the numbers, it was the owner's brother and he would contact the owner to make arrangements for the return. I requested that he wait to call back until after 8pm, since we were headed to dinner. Well, bedtime came and there was no call back. This was strange. I was wondering if this person somehow didn't care enough about it to call me to pick it up. The next morning we were checking out to leave, and I saw a missed call while we were at breakfast. There was no voice mail though. I called the number (same area code as his brother) and asked if he was trying to call me about the lost item. It was him, and he had not called me the night before because he wasn't feeling well and I guess went to sleep early. We made arrangements to meet in 5 minutes, as he was staying at the Plaza.
He of course was very happy to get his tablet back, and thanked me for going through the effort to locate him. Then, he explained how his house was robbed a few months ago and all his electronics were stolen. This tablet was to replace one of the stolen items. He had tears in his eyes when he thanked me again. After asking me if I had plans to stay at the Golden Nugget again, he gave me a Golden Nugget gift card as a thank you for returning the item.
It is nice to see the Golden Nugget is still investing in improvements. Around back, near the parking garage, they are upgrading an entrance that was formerly used mainly by buses and shuttles, and here they are adding large windows and some escalators, which I believe are to get customers quickly from the entrance to the meeting/convention space area on the second floor. My "inside" source at the hotel told me that this project costs over $1 million, mainly because putting in these escalators meant that the main power lines going to the casino all had to be re-routed. They also are adding many more decorative multi colored ceiling lights throughout the casino, similar to the ones first installed near the Bar 46 area.
The Golden Nugget 24 Karat Slot Club has some changes underway. Not yet announced, but in effect at the time of my stay, were comp dollars that accumulate on the slot card in addition to free play. This is a new extra benefit. There was one sign hinting that a tiered slot club was coming.
There are two new self serve parking ticket machines at the Golden Nugget parking garage elevators. Looks like some kind of change is about to take place.
The Golden Nugget 24 Karat Slot Club has some changes underway. Not yet announced, but in effect at the time of my stay, were comp dollars that accumulate on the slot card in addition to free play. This is a new extra benefit. There was one sign hinting that a tiered slot club was coming.
There are two new self serve parking ticket machines at the Golden Nugget parking garage elevators. Looks like some kind of change is about to take place.
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| New self serve parking payment machines ready to be unveiled at the Golden Nugget |
FOUR QUEENS
Each year for January/February, the Four Queens sends me a room offer which has an additional perk of giving away a jeweled figure for the Chinese New Year for qualified play. This year they are giving a jeweled goat, if you earn a certain level of points. "The Royal Flusher" has mentioned his jeweled goat prize in his trip report. So I finally was able to pick up a Four Queens Chinese New Year figure myself this time. I noticed that it is hinged and the body opens. Now that I have one of these, I am not sure what I will do with it. It didn't bring me luck but I can't say I gave it a chance since I left it in the box, and kept it in the wrapper.
I noticed the casino changed its air scent, which is an improvement over the prior scent from last year.
I was disappointed that for the second time in two years, Hugo's Cellar has raised their prices on the menu. Most of the dishes are now in the upper $50's. Of course, that includes the amazing, made to order salads. I used to contend that this place was a great value, but now, it probably just fair. We like to tip generously there due to the great service, but the tips alone on a comped meal are now costing us $25,
FREMONT
The fresh baked sourdough bread they serve at the Second Street Grill, in the Fremont Casino, is amazingly good, and served with a delicious eggplant garlic dip. My favorite meal of the week was the $30 blackened Tuna there, served over a light asian mustard sauce, which I think is a great deal, especially since they know how to cook it blackened but rare.
I might start a tradition of pointing out an "idiot of the trip" as I came across a sportsbook "expert" last trip, and came across another one this trip. He was boasting to others how he was betting heads on the Super Bowl coin flip, because it had come up heads three years in a row, and he wanted to start off his Super Bowl betting with an "early win"! Apparently the concept of independence of events was never brought to his attention. By the way, I said this about him BEFORE the actual game, and when I saw the flip was tails this year, thought of him and his planned "great start". Maybe he saved his big bet for betting on how many seconds it took to sing the national anthem before the game (yes, you could bet on that), or a similar "sure thing"?
SUMMING IT ALL UP
As far as video poker, near the end of my trip I had a great day at the Four Queens. At double bonus I had two, four of a kinds in 4 hands (250 each), followed 8 hands later with being dealt four 2's for 400, which meant I racked up 900 coins in less than a minute on three big hands. I had another nice day earlier in the trip, hitting four Aces in Double Bonus poker three times for 800 coins each! The next day I had lost most of that in a really poor Jacks or Better session. All the ups and downs resulted in me being about even going into the last day. The last day however was not kind, as I lost over 1000 coins, which was effectively my loss for the trip. Being that a single royal flush (4000) would have put me in the black, I consider this a decent trip. The royal flushes do not come regularly, and my last trip was over-royaled as I hit three of them, so here I regressed back to a little below average, not hitting a single royal. This shows one of the reasons I don't post pictures of video poker hands. I could have taken pictures and posted the dozens of four of a kinds that I hit during the trip, but what would it really mean? I lost despite them. The moral of the story is, just looking at a few great hands doesn't mean you can tell if someone is a winner or not!
We headed to the airport on our trip back and self checked in. This time, I noticed the kiosk screen where you enter the number of bags you want to check in, allowed for two free bags. This was also probably true on the flight out, which is why it didn't ask me for a credit card then, but I hadn't noticed the pricing on the screen. I have absolutely no idea how this happened, as I have only flown once before in this airline in the past 7 years. I don't have a credit card with them or any membership that would account for the free bag allowance. So, the expected $50 for one bag, round trip, became a $0 expense. I guess I somehow hit another mini "jackpot" to end the trip! In addition, the flight home had enough empty seats to again allow us each a row to ourselves for our $40 airfare!
So the costs tallied up to $160.40 for airfare for two, $145 for a week car rental, $0 for hotels, $0 for hotel resort fees, $70 for airport parking, and nearly all the meals comped, to the point that the meal costs were $12 plus the tips for the week's meals. My free play from the casinos we played in exceeded these costs by a significant amount. So my net loss from play was partially offset from the free play, making this trip's loss not so hard to handle.
HIGHLIGHTS
- $80 round trip airfare, cross country
- Escaping the storm to make the flight, and no delays
- M Resort cocktail waitress service
- Mild weather
- Returning lost tablet to owner
- Blackened tuna and sourdough bread at Second St Grill
- $0 hotel expense, close to $0 food expense
LOWLIGHTS
- Car rental with no cruise control
- Severe turbulence on flight
- Small/moderate loss in slots/video poker.
- News about Harrah's Laughlin bartender
