Postmortem 10/2013.

Vegas, late October. Overall good trip, fairly uneventful, if that's possible in Vegas.

Arrived as planned at about 11:00a on Wednesday. After getting pretty comprehensively lost I quickly gave up on my plan to walk out of the airport and caught a cab. To MGM. I was staying at THEhotel at Mandalay and didn't have enough sleep the night before so I decided to head straight over and try to get lucky w/a room. Had a slightly bitchy check-in girl and was charged a $100 hold per night for incidentals, so that started off the trip on a bummer note. I am under no circumstances a wealthy person and I always have a very carefully planned amount of money that I take with me, so losing $384 of that (resort fee on top) was a shocker. I know it's just a deposit but I don't like having cash taken out of my pocket in Vegas w/o being aware of it beforehand.

Anyway, got there so early that no Strip view room was available, so I just said fuck it and took a room on the 13th floor with a view more of the airport, but in the corner of the window you could see the Luxor pyramid, so not so bad. Got settled in and talked myself down from being pissed off about the incidental hold and checked the place out. THEsuite (yeah) is actually a little smaller than it looks in YouTube videos, but I'm a big/tall guy so that's probably not surprising (bunch of manlets on YouTube apparently). It was still more than enough space for a single guy though, and despite being slightly worn down (imagine they're not doing much trivial maintenance on the place as it will be The Delano in March) the suite was well appointed. Nice big bathroom and a half, floor to ceiling windows in both rooms, comfy bed. The plasma in the living room unfortunately had shitty reception and sounded terrible, I tried to play a CD I brought along and it distorted even on low volume. Not a deal-breaker though, I had my little soundbar with me.

So crashed out for a few hours, woke up around 4 and did the taking a bath thing which was lovely. Literally can't remember the last time I took a bath...probably 20 years? So that was nice. Took a shower in the somewhat leaky shower (couldn't get the door to stay in the closed position, need 2 bath towels to mop up the runoff) I got dressed and headed for MiX bar on the 64th floor, and man, the view did not disappoint. I'll throw it on the blog on a separate post. Pretty amazing. The entire Strip looking north including the tip of the Stratosphere, looking DOWN on Luxor. Worth the $20 I paid for two Guinness.

Then it was down to the lobby and into Mandalay Bay proper for dinner. BTW, a lot of the reviews I read about THEhotel made it sound like it's half a mile away from Mandalay through some long, horrible corridor. It was seriously about 100 yards. You walk it in about 90 seconds and it keeps the noise of the Mandalay casino away from the hotel, WHICH IS THE WHOLE FUCKING POINT. I'm an overweight American but I'm embarrassed by being in a country with anyone who is so fat and lazy that they cannot do this walk, or feel the need to bitch about it. Fuck, people.

But ANYWAY, like I said, dinner. Made reservations at Red Square, but just sat at the bar. This is another place pictures don't do justice. It's EXTREMELY dark and EXTREMELY loud. Obviously trying to cater to the younger crowd. So I order the flat iron steak medium well. The steak comes out with no sides, just a couple sauces, and it's medium rare at best. My fault for not sending it back, but for $38 you'd think they could get the cook right. Eh, it was still good and filled the stomach for the rest of the night. Had a really good Moscow Mule and was in and out in about 45 minutes for $62 including tip. Not bad.

Then off to drop a molly and find a place to watch some more of the first game of the WS, which by that time was already pretty much a laugher. Sat in the middle bar, pretty boring and uneventful. All gets a little hazy at this point, I know I ended up at The Henry at Cosmo but I'm not too sure how long it took to get there. Have a sizable gap between about 8p and 1a, lol. Anyway I did OK for money (still had about $2300 so must have stayed away from slots as was the plan, got back to the room and ended up in bed around 2a. I remember thinking the molly wasn't really kicking in but I do have the whole memory loss thing going, so I dunno. Pretty "meh" first day but enjoyable enough.

2nd day, woke up, cleaned up, made the trek to Mandalay to get breakfast. Ate an omelette at Citizen's, Mandalay's version of a 24 hour cafe. Very whatever. Kinda tasteless. Not being wowed by the food in supposedly a food Mecca will be a recurring theme here. Then trundled off to the other side of the strip by getting to Excalibur on the tram from Mandalay and crossing over to MGM. I took this tram a lot during the trip, would highly recommend it. Saves a lot of time going through Luxor, which I had no real need or desire to do.

I had this big plan to see the other side of the strip, check out the other, non-MGM resorts, blah blah. I wandered through Planet Hollywood, sat at a bar with an inattentive bartender who didn't know how to pour a pint, played a couple slots and left. Pretty much the same story at Paris. I was out of there and back to Bellagio within a couple hours. Stayed there a bit, had another beer served by a bad bartender. I did stop by The Pub at Monte Carlo and had a late lunch (cheesesteak) that was very good and used a Foursquare offer to get a couple cheap beers. Then took off back to the room to sleep up/clean up. Was a short and pretty boring 2nd daytime.

Woke up around 6p, beautied up and headed over to NYNY looking for a seat to watch the Series. Found one, had another meh meal and talked to a chubby girl from Michigan for WAY too long, like 3 hours long. Knew I wasn't attracted to her, but just couldn't put her out of her misery or mine, for some reason. Maybe due to the fact that I haven't charmed a woman in a long time. Maybe because I WAS attracted to her best friend. Yeah, probably that. Finally extricated myself and made my way over to Cosmo again after mollying up. Stayed there for a while again, drank a lot, stumbled back to the room around 3 or 4a this time.

Had plans to get off the strip on day 3, was going to maybe get down to Double Down, which I've heard is a hoot, or another dive bar just off the strip. Instead, spent almost the entire day in NYNY going from bar to bar getting drunk. Nine Fine Irishmen, Times Square bar, and Sporting House. Wasn't really much going on, just talked to bartenders and drank. Played/lost maybe a couple hundie in NYNY, where I've never really had much luck in slots, though I sure do seem to end up there a lot. Sporting House is my kind of bar, guess that's why. It's one of my touchstones there now along with Dick's and The Henry. Yes, I'm getting into a rut in a town I don't even live in. That's so me.

Back to room, laid down for what was supposed to be a short nap, but went back to sleep after the alarm went off and didn't wake up until 8:30p. Jumped up, turned on my Vegas playlist on the BlackBerry, shit/shower/dress and back out. Decided, despite the very uninspired meal I had there the morning prior, to eat at Citizen's again. Had an enormous sirloin that tasted fine but had a lot of gristle, which shouldn't have been surprising given that I was in a cafe. All the great steak houses around me there and I eat twice at a glorified Denny's. Sad. Anyway, after dropping the last molly onward to Monte Carlo...of all the MGM casinos I go to there I have NEVER had any luck whatsoever at Monte Carlo, though I keep trying for some reason. Keep having to fend off texts from the girl from the previous night, why I'm even responding at this point is beyond me; maybe I'm keeping her in my back pocket in case I get REALLY horny later, dunno.

As usual then it's off to Cosmopolitan and hit the bars, find a bartender I've seen almost every time I'm in Vegas and hang out at his bar for a while, then apparently played a bit at Cosmo machines as I have a $40 voucher in my pocket from there the next morning; with molly memory I don't remember much of that. Last thing I DO remember is ending up back at NYNY (what is it with that place?) playing the Superman machine and getting myself down to about $700 left for the trip. I hit the pillow at 7a, sun well coming up by that time, having to wake up to check out in 3 hours. Ugh.

So I wake up in a serious haze to check out, take a quick shower, pack my shit haphazardly and stumble down to reception where I need to collect my deposit and be on the way to the airport. Have a couple hours until I need to be there for the flight, so I put another hundie into a couple machines with no luck, then decide to sit down at a bar to get one last beer and try to clear the cobwebs. I stick around $50 of loose small bills into the vid poker machine there just to get them out of my wallet, really; I had already resigned myself to going home with about $700 or so. Would have been fine, as long as I had $40 to get a cab home I would have been OK with any amount left over, as usual on my Vegas trips.

After a few small rolls on Keno I play max on a quick pick card and the first glorious moment of the trip happens, an hour before it's ending. I hit a jackpot. All 6 numbers hit, I win $1600. Gotta say, this was a pretty big deal for me...as said earlier I'm by no means a high-roller and winning an amount like this is the biggest I've ever hit there in 6 trips and was literally half of my budget for the trip. So instantly I'm up to $2300 in pocket and am only down $500 of my spending limit for the 3 1/2 days, which, in my eyes, means I'm actually UP $2300. Good times.

Had to work the next day so no chance of staying another night (which I would have done), so after a too-long (layover in the stunningly boring Long Beach airport) flight home and a cab from SFO it was all over by 7p Saturday night.

All in all a good trip, a couple speed bumps, can't say I was "wowed" by Mandalay Bay. The place is big, and there seems to be a lot going on, but there really isn't much excitement. I didn't spend much time in the casino at all, aside from to eat and to have a couple drinks. They did pay my ass at the end though so I guess props for that. All in all a learning experience and more knowledge to make the next trip even smoother. Because you know what coming back with all that money means. It means I've already booked Vegas trip #4 of the year for Xmas week. Details to follow.

I'm ridiculous.