Post Mortem, July 2021.

A few days back from the 6-nighter in July. Again no blow by blow just some highlights.

Flights: Southwest on the in, Alaska on the out. Both were fine. No trouble on the in, out flight was a little delayed getting off the tarmac but not too bad.

Rooms: Cromwell for one night was fine. Got in a little late and was given an accessible room. Whatever, didn't end up taking a shower anyway. Room was small but nice enough. Nothing special, not sure why it usually costs so much. Check in was painless. 

Aria was a bit of a mess. I'm doubtful that I'll be staying there any time soon again. Casino staffing is poor. Rooms are really showing age, not up to a 5-star standard anymore. Many food venues closed during the day even on Sunday and what was open was so packed you couldn't get in. Monday night 3/4 of the slot machines on the entire floor were down and I consistently had machines all week that were slow to load Mlife or didn't accept the card at all. Taxi line was a sick joke. Constantly a line 10 people deep and sporadic cabs, was forced many times to trudge all the way over the bridge to Cosmo's valet to get a cab. I would have spent a lot more time/money on site had it been a working resort. It felt like it was about 1/2 working. In no way lived up to the "best MGM resort" title.

Food: Nothing remarkable. No meal blew my socks off. Really about the best food I had all trip was a BLT at Rock House one night. The blowout meal ended up being at Jean Georges at Aria, a "crunchy chicken" thing that was OK but not really worth $50. Soaked up the Ex Comps at least. Cancelled the Lemongrass reservation. Nothing else even sticks in the brain.

Drinks: Many. Didn't really ever get hammered, but stayed sauced most of the trip. The usual cocktails at Electra and mostly vodka/beer elsewhere. Had a couple bad experiences at the Dorsey, which was surprising, and one at Rosina. Standards are slipping at the Sam Ross bars in V/P and it's sad. Electra was still consistently good with Evan and Mario mostly.

People: Summer trips are just a shit show right now. Even though I mostly stayed off the walking strip at night I was still in a constant state of pissed with fucking humanity. Vegas does really bring out the stupid in people. I'm resolved now to really focus my trips on the slower weeks going forward. I tell myself to be patient but it's just not in my nature. Easter, Tgiving, Xmas, and one other week a year is when I'm going to have to plan trips. Conventions being back at V/P noticeably didn't help the sitch.

Resorts: Spent a good deal of time at the new Resorts World. Not really digging it. Kinda felt a little soulless. Only place I felt comfortable in there was a country bar, and I don't like country. The gambling there was drier than a witches cooter. Other than that I spent the requisite time at V/P, very little at Cosmo with no coin in there aside from a hundy. Made one foray for an afternoon down to Lux/Ex/MB. A little MGM, a little NYNY. A little Bellagio. A little Mirage. Really split most of my time between V/P and RW.

Gambling: Up and down for the trip, but the ups were up. Hit a $2K handpay on Thursday, then hit nothing whatsoever and had 0 fun for 4 days, then hit another $2K on the last night about an hour before going to bed. So cash-wise I was only down $1500 for the trip. Not bad for me. All but a couple hundy all trip went to Mlife resorts, as was the plan. I'm now up $1200 for the year at Mlife props, with over $15K coin-in. Should be able in two more trips this year to get to the 75K points needed to keep Gold for next year.

The body: Struggled with lack of good sleep again. Only got one night of a solid 6, the rest were up and down and spotty. Took one 2 hour nap during the week in 3 tries. The blow I was doing the whole time surely didn't help. Need to stay away from the stuff on trips. It's fun but really doesn't do much for me and blows up my chances for a good sleep pattern. Ended several nights early just based on feeling exhausted. Still in all I felt pretty good the last night and would have gone deeper if I didn't have a flight in the morning. I wasn't overly wrecked at work the rest of the week after getting home. So not all bad.

All in all a pretty standard trip. Some good, some bad, nothing horrible happened and nothing really amazing, aside from a couple handpays. Now likely a long gap to Thanksgiving unless I feel like I can squeeze a weekend in somewhere in the mean time. Honestly not sure I want to right now until Vegas calms down a bit. I could do with a few months of SF immersion.