Please ADD your own Las Vegas Trip Report. Date of Trip: May 14, 2006 to May 19, 2006 Hotel Stayed At: MIRAGE/MANDALAY BAY PART III Report by: ktinca <> From: california

TR—MAY 2006 A “RESTFUL” TRIP WITHOUT MUCH SLEEP III

Thursday 18th Up early again. Sleep, who needs sleep? You can just adjust by drinking a little more and starting earlier. That’s why they have cocktail waitress at pools. Down in our chairs by the river at 8am.
Not sure why the bar is not open until 9, but it forces you to start with coffee. Don’t these people realize Margaritas & Muffins are the perfect breakfast?

Stayed at the pool till around 11am, then went up to change so we could head over to the Monte Carlo for the meet arranged by MarginCalgary.

On our way out we wanted to look up the maid, to ask her to clean the room while we were out. After our conversation yesterday I was sure there would be no problem. So we found her cart down the hall, checked the room list to make sure this was “our maid”, and called to her from the door of the room she was cleaning. To my great shock…A man answered.
In all the years I’ve been going to LV, staying in a number of different hotels, I don’t recall ever seeing a male maid (cleaning person?).
Not only was he a male in his 20’s but he actually spoke English. Hopefully, I managed to hide my surprise and didn’t have a dumb look on my face.
I said “We’re in room 28211, and we’re going out for a while and would appreciate it if you could clean the room while we’re gone” and handed him a $5 tip. I’m not sure which one of us was more surprised.

Got to the Brewpub around 1pm planning to have lunch there, but we weren’t really hungry, and didn’t want to spoil our appetites for dinner, so we picked up hotdogs at Nathans instead.

Then I walked around Monte Carlo looking for some playable VP. I knew the 6 quarter 9/5 JOB machines we last saw in October would probably be gone, but hopefully some decent machines were brought in to replace them.
To my dismay, not only are these machines gone but a large number of VP machines have been removed and replaced by new video slots. I was amazed at how little VP is left at Monte Carlo. Thanks, MGM.
Found a couple of 8/5 JOB machines and played to kill time before the 2:30 meet.

I’m sure others have written of the meet. Suffice it to say it was fairly well attended, and we had the opportunity to meet some new and interesting people (who all want to talk about Las Vegas). Thanks for making the effort to set things up Marge and it was a pleasure meeting you.

After we headed our separate ways, I decided to head for the Monte Carlo Business Center to see if we could access the internet and also print our boarding passes for our flight at 4pm the next day. Told the lady at the desk that we were staying at MB and asked if we could use the center here for internet access.
She asked “Sure, do you just need a boarding pass?”
“No, we’d also like internet access”.
She: “Internet access is $7 for 15 minutes, but printing boarding passes is $1 each for the printing charge”.
“Fine”
She: “A lot of people only want boarding passes. Click on the Southwest icon and you will be taken to the boarding pass screen. Print the passes first, then go on the internet, this way you won’t be wasting internet time on the boarding passes”.
“Thank you”.
She’s a very nice and helpful lady, who has been at MC since they opened. We talked about the MGM changes at MC for quite a while.

BIG TIP. Anyone can print Boarding Passes at Monte Carlo for just $1.

Had dinner reservations tonight at Casa Di Amore, with the limo pickup
scheduled for 7:15. Driver was right on time. My wife was very impressed that it was a stretch limo, as she wasn’t expecting anything so grand.
The restaurant is on Tropicana Blvd, about 4-5 miles from the strip, so from MB it was only a 10 minute drive, but sending the limo is still a nice touch.

Casa Di Amore met all our expectations. Classic Las Vegas direct from the 1960’s. Leather booths along the walls, and some of the best photos I’ve seen of the hotels from that era. Of course the bar has the required photos of celebrities of that time. A singer, with keyboard playing old standards (Sinatra, Cole Porter, etc.) made for nice background atmosphere.

Dinner consisted of a chicken dish (recommended by the waiter) and veal, both were huge portions and included soup/salad, veggie, and pasta. A bottle of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay (medium priced Sonoma Valley wine) was $28, bringing the total for dinner, with coffee, to $69 ($44 after $25 certificate from restaurant.com). We spent 90 minutes over dinner, enjoying the music and the experience.
Not as fancy as some of the LV Name Restaurants, but very satisfying and a terrific value. I recommend it just as highly as SW or Hugo’s Cellar.
If you like the Peppermill I guarantee you will love this place.

I did feel a little silly and embarrassed using a coupon at a place that sent a limo pick us up, but nothing was said and we were put at ease by the waiter.

I was tempted to ask the limo driver to drop us off at Barbary Coast so my wife could play some Pai Gow Poker, but it didn’t seem right to treat him like our personal driver, so we just went back to Mandalay Bay.

We walked over to Luxor and played some WOF with the expected results. Then walked around looking for something new. My wife met someone who was playing either a penny or nickel Price is Right machine. They started talking so my wife sat down to play, put in a few dollars and got nothing.
But she was having fun so she asked for more cash, and amazingly enough she got to go to the Big Showcase (sorry if this isn’t the right name, I don’t watch that show). This was a lot of fun as there were many options and took quite a while.

For the first time in 4 or 5 days she was actually ahead!
So of course, I made her leave. I wasn’t being mean, I just wanted her to end the night finally feeling like a winner, which was rare for her this trip.
A nice way to end our last full day.

Friday 19th. Our last day, not even a real day as we were checking out and leaving for the airport around 1pm. We prefer this to taking a later flight, being in LV without a room, and getting home late at night.

When I went to take a shower in the morning I realized “Wow, there sure are a lot of towels here”. I asked my wife “Did you leave a note asking for extra towels?” She said “No, remember you talked to the guy and tipped him personally”. “Well, he left 8 towels. Either he thought there were an awful lot of people in this room, or he isn’t very used to getting tips”.

Breakfast outside at The Verandah alongside the Four Seasons pool. If you’ve been there you understand. If you haven’t, do yourselves a favor, go once just to find out why many would spend $40-$50 on breakfast and consider it the best value in Las Vegas.

Final stop is one of the shops at Mandalay Bay, to purchase another bag, because we don’t have enough room to bring our stuff home. I’m not exactly sure how this happens. We have enough room to bring a dozen bottles of water, a number of snacks, and various odds & ends to use during our trip. We use all these items during our stay, yet we still have to buy another bag just to make it home!
As far as I can see my wife made one purchase, a pair of sandals at a shop near the MB spa. And I think she may have taken the slippers from Mirage.

So, exactly how many of those complementary soaps and shampoos did we bring home? I hope it was enough to justify the $54 the extra bag cost. Obviously Vegas souvenirs are a top priority.

Random Thoughts, Opinions and Conclusions:

Mirage: We really enjoyed our stay there, but a lot of that was due to our suite. I still don’t feel the regular rooms are a good value at the rates they command, but the suites can be.
The pool is nice, and fine for us because we like to go in the mornings, but beware if you want to find a decent location later in the day.
Not sure why MGM is dumping the tropical motif, but the casino certainly is darker.

Mandalay Bay: I knew there would be changes, and I’m sure some will be positive, but those haven’t started yet. I can’t believe they started by changing the MB pool area, you would think that would be the LAST area they would touch.
The rooms are a disgrace, and they know it. The SOP there now is to charge top dollar, as if the rooms are still worth the price, and then do you a favor by taking something off the bill when you complain. We only paid $129 a night for our room, but you know when we checked out on Friday someone was going to have to pay $250+ for the same stained carpets.
We have been staying at MB (or THEhotel) at least twice a year for the last 7 years, but this will be the last time until their renovation is complete.

Monte Carlo: I get the feeling MGM doesn’t know what to do with this place. I hope they’re not going to consider it a lower-end property and just shove in a lot of slots.

This was the worst trip gambling my wife has probably ever had. It wasn’t because of the amount she lost, but the fact that she almost never won at anything. She also played a LOT MORE slots this trip than ever before, a fact she is aware of and one I am sure will be corrected on future trips.

While we didn’t get as much rest as originally planned, we did get to try some new things and had some new experiences. Some trips have a lot of scheduled activities, and others like this one are more “Lets take things as they come”. Both work out great in Las Vegas.

If this sounds a little negative, don’t think we didn’t have a great time. We did. We love modern Las Vegas, even if we don’t like all the changes.
We love spending mornings at the pools, and evenings dining out and seeing great shows. We love the quiet times, and the energy of the strip.

This is the third year in a row we have hit unseasonably hot weather on our May trip (yes 10 degrees does make a difference), but it just means we have to hit the pool earlier.

Speaking of weather, it was 102 when we left Las Vegas and 50 degrees colder AND RAINING when we landed in Oakland (No it isn’t supposed to rain there in May). We were easy to spot. We were the fools in shorts, that didn’t even have a coat or sweater in our packed luggage.

Looking at our calendar, it may be October until our next LV trip. This will be the first year in a long time with only 2 trips.

I will be relying on this board to keep me up to date in the meantime, just like I hope this report has helped and maybe entertained a few of you.

ktinca <> - california    3125

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