Post Mortem, September 2021.

Back a week now from the Labor Day trip. Highlights (and lowlights) below.

Flights:

Frontier. In was great, got to airport in plenty of time, had a couple beers with a drinking buddy from R bar, then flight on time and no issues. Actually got in 20 mins early or so. Flight out was a bit of a shit show. Got loaded onto the plane on time fine, but then sat around on tarmac for an hour with various issues then had to de-plane and go to another gate to board a different plane. Altogether a couple hours late getting in, making it a really long and depressing fly out day. Had a weird pseudo-panic attack on the tarmac coming back too, for a few seconds felt claustrophobic and panicky. Was in the window seat on a full plane, dunno what it was about. It passed in about 15 seconds and I was OK the rest of the way but may need to not sit on the window anymore.

Room:

This was the true, real downer of the trip. The Mirage standard rooms are ghastly now. Completely run down, beat up, and awful. Was on the 2nd floor and had zero view. And had flies, literal flies all over the place in the bathroom. Like, 10-20 at a time. Completely unacceptable conditions for a strip resort. Will never stay there again, unless they do a top down room remodel (and bug extermination).

Resort:

The resort part of Mirage was basically fine. Spent a decent amount of time in the bars and a little in the sports book, it hasn't been changed in the entire time I've been going to Vegas but it's still OK. 

The Strip:

Really OK, surprisingly. It wasn't the complete Labor Day shit show I expected. I pretty much stuck to the north strip as I intended so never got caught in too many traffic jams. Was able to get cabs on demand. Mask mandate may have tamped down the crush. Or maybe I just over reacted pre-trip. Spent most of my time in Mirage, V/P, or the Linq. Made it up to Resorts World one day, still not really impressed. It's nice but just has no vibe to speak of. Not going to go out of my way to visit going forward unless thy comp me some rooms.

The Food:

Nothing remarkable. Soaked up the resort credit at Otoro in Mirage, was OK. Hit Yardhouse one day. Can't really remember any other meals, which tells you a lot. Ended a lot of nights with beef jerky and Snickers in the room.

The Drinking:

Fine. A lot of Belvedere. Too much time and money spent with Evan and the boys at Dorsey, Rosina, and Electra again. A couple late nights sipping vodka tonics and playing VP. Never felt overdosed.

The Gambling:

Shite. Came back with $500 out of $3700. Played almost exclusively VP and aside from a couple quad aces I was the king of 3OAKS and two pairs. Really crap. I did manage to get up over the Mlife points threshold to maintain Gold for another year, but that was the only silver lining. Very expensive trip and almost zero gambling fun.

The Body:

Did OK for the most part. Never slept particularly well but managed to get a couple naps on Sat and Sun so that made it reasonable on the sleep tip. Was able to stay up pretty late the first night and the last. Wasn't completely wrecked in the days after, felt a little down but by Friday was back to normal. Still made it into work no problem the rest of the week.

So, in summation, meh. It really was the trip that didn't have to happen and I wouldn't have been sad not to have gone but in the end it's still better than doing nothing for 4 days here at home I guess. I took a financial hit for doing it which isn't ideal but I should be able to build up the cushion again by the end of the year. Just need to hunker down now and save the sheckels for the November and December double-whammies coming up. Both 6-nighters. Til then, I cede Vegas-ing to the back burner.