Step Down

I've been a bit of a poshy the last few years.

A lot of stays at Cosmopolitan, Aria, Encore, The Conrad, etc. I'm looking forward to taking a step back and staying at a good, old "fun first" joint. I stayed at NYNY a ton in the early Vegas days. I stayed there 6 times in the '13-'16 era, when I was trying to maximize every penny I could save on overhead. I wasn't getting offers for the high end MGM resorts back then as I was spending a lot less on gambles. Back then I might do $7-10K coin in all year at MGM spots, whereas last year I dropped in $41K.

But man, some of those trips were fun. True low-rolling; playing MyVegas all year to squeeze out a few discounts, staying at NY or Monte Carlo or Luxor, whoever would comp me a few nights. I was over the moon for Vegas and couldn't get enough, it was an obsession and I scraped and clawed for every penny to afford those trips.

These days the resort quality has gone up, and the save is not nearly as hard, but maybe the fun factor isn't what it once was. Yes, I'm solidly upper middle class now and can afford some of the nicer things on trips, but on next week's trip I'm looking forward to maybe capturing some of that old sense of low ball fun.

Enter NYNY. It's got one of the best casino vibes on the strip, always has a good energy and now that the rooms are reno'd I can finally come back into the fold. Sure, the rooms are still small, sure, the bathrooms are still tiny and the tub/shower combo is still in effect, but to hell with it. I'm looking forward to playing and staying somewhere where you don't have to put on airs, where if you're wearing a polo shirt you're in the top 5% best dressed, and where if you tip someone $5 on a drink they really appreciate it.

Yeah I'll still hang at Cosmo and Venetian, and probably a little Wynn and RW, but knowing the home base and the first and last resort I see every day is going to be unpretentious NYNY makes me happy right now for some reason.