Las Vegas took my money!

The first weekend in December found Sharry, Nick and I in Las Vegas. We planned the trip a few months ago, and had been looking forward to gambling a bit and Sharry had gotten tickets for Blue Man Group. We started rough when it started to snow while we were boarding the plane, and had to get de-iced several times before finally taking off. We flew and landed without incident and checked into the Excalibur. Decent room, but they offer a nice hi-def TV with a normal broadcast signal. The view was pretty cool until you looked at the ground, it had a view on the top of the casino.

Things heard on the trip:

"Are we under attack? Maybe we're being bombed..."
At about 6:05 AM I awoke to hearing popping sounds like gunfire. It was dawn, or near enough such that a little light was coming through the edges around the window. I listened for a few minutes, and decided that it was fireworks but assumed I hadn't been sleeping long and it was still night time. Sharry could see the clock, and would not believe that anyone let off a 20-30 minute long firework show in the morning. She turned over and asked whether a war had started. Evidently, the Las Vegas marathon was starting and the the event was being commemorated with a 30 minute firework show at dawn. We're still not quite sure what the hell is with fireworks in the daytime.

"We just can't win at the place we're staying."
We lost a lot of money at Excalibur and I'm sure we'll get invitations back. The sad part is we specifically took rooms at the Excalibur because last time we went to Las Vegas we hung around there for the cheaper tables and the nicer dealers. We did fairly well there, and practically ignored New York, New York where we were staying then. This time, every time we played in Excalibur we lost, while every trip to Luxor broke even or stepped away up.

"Unless your playing 15 dollar bets, we aren't tracking you"
Players club incentives to play are nice to have. Sharry has a friend that doesn't pay to stay in really nice hotels. Certainly he plays for more money than I or Sharry does, but he didn't use to. Casinos used to give perks to all the players, especially ones that drop a couple hundred bucks an evening. Turns out you can't play 5 dollar hands of blackjack at any time in the strip casinos we went to. We were there from Saturday to Tuesday and saw no tables for 5 dollars. I had problems finding 5 dollar craps. We were still adjusting to the 10 dollar hands when we were told that if you weren't playing 15 dollar hands, they didn't care about your play. This isn't a good thing. We lost bigger than we've ever lost before, and I'm not sure I like gambling for such high stakes. Certainly, cost is relative, but man. They could at least be nicer about it.

Highlights included seeing the Seahawks win on Sunday morning while eating room service (despite assurances from everyone that the game would not be shown on TV, it was) and seeing the Blue Man Group. It was a fun show, but I don't want to know how much our tickets cost.

All in all, we had a good time. I think we'll try for a room in down town next time, or maybe change locations mid-trip next time. I'd like to see new stuff next time around. Maybe more trips and shows and less gambling.