Day 15 Monday July 28, 2003

Got up this morning disappointed that today was the day and I was going home. I always hate to go home and usually it’s a long day but I’m not flying the red-eye home today. My flight is at about 4pm so I don’t have much time to enjoy the rest of the trip.

I finished packing up and throwing away everything I didn’t need. Housekeeping made out pretty good today getting about 15 cans of soda and a ½ case of bottled water as well as some snacks I never did open.

After I checked out of the room and loaded up the car I went to the coffee shop for one last comped meal before it was time to go to the airport. I just had an order of chicken fingers and then it was time to head out of the Fiesta and down to the airport.

I still had plenty of time so I took the long way to the airport so I could drive down the strip one last time. On the way I filled up the gas tank and from there it was non-stop all of the way to Alamo to return the rental car. Just a few minutes after I got out of the car the shuttle bus arrived. This ride was uneventful and shortly after I was in the line to check in at America West. The line was long but moved fast. It would have moved faster if the agent didn’t decide to tell another agent about how her kid didn’t want to go to school this morning. I’ve got no problem with talking with co-workers but let’s talk and work at the same time, especially there is a long line of people waiting to be checked in.

The line at security was short today and as always I got stopped with my bag of casino chips and had to have it hand searched. Security went through the bag and I was on my way to the terminal.

The flight boarded and left pretty close to being on time. When we took off I had a great view of the strip and then we turned to the south and headed out of the Vegas valley.

We are climbing to 37,000 feet and the flight will be 4 hours and 45 minutes. The movie didn’t appeal to me tonight. I’m not sure of the name but it had John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in it. I didn’t watch it and instead tried to sleep a little. I got a little sleep but for the most part was awake the whole flight. We landed in Newark on time and I headed to baggage claim to get my stuff.

My things came out pretty fast and from here it was to the monorail to go to Avis. The monorail seemed to be running very slow tonight and this one was packed so I decided instead of cramming into this one to wait. About 20 minutes later the next one arrived and in a few minutes I was at Avis. There were 2 agents here and both had a customer. I think these were the 2 slowest people in the entire state of NJ. I still can’t understand why I can pass through the counter in less than 5 minutes most of the time but it takes others nearly 20. I finally got to the counter and the agent found my reservation. She said you have a Cadillac reserved and radioed for someone to bring it around. The only reason I reserved a Caddy was because it was only $7 more than a mid-sized so I figured why not! Someone radioed back to her they didn’t have any Cadillacs left. She asked if I needed it for size or if there was some other reason. I told her it doesn’t matter the reason and I reserved this car months ago and what the hell was the point of having a reservation if you’re not going to have the car. I felt like I was in an episode of Seinfeld like the time they didn’t have Jerry’s car even though he had a reservation too! She called the manager and he found one and a few minutes after I was on my way to space 20 and my Cadillac Deville. This car only has 6,000 miles on it and is huge. After about 45 minutes I was finally on my way home.

Traffic was pretty heavy on the NJ Turnpike considering it was after 1am. On the way home I was starving so I stopped at a 24-hour drive-thru McDonald’s. I don’t usually eat this crap but at 1:30am there isn’t much else available. It’s not like north Jersey is Las Vegas! There were 4 cars ahead of me and after another 20 minutes in line here I was finally on my way. I thought this was supposed to be fast food. I could have had a sit down dinner in this amount of time. When I got to the window I realized the guy they had working there was moving in slow motion like it was too much work for him to take food orders and keep people moving. After this ass at the window handed me my food I told him he sucked and went on my way. I know that’s not nice, but he did suck and deserved to be told.

Finally at 2:33am I pulled into my driveway and this trip was officially over. Now if it weren’t bad enough that the trip was over, while I was away there were some storms here and I walked up the sidewalk to my front door to see there was a tree limb laying on top of my roof and in front of my door. What a day this has turned out to be.

Total win/loss for the day $0
Total comps for the day $5

Final Thoughts

• America West continues to offer the lowest fares from Newark

• Airport security is becoming a real pain in the ass but it’s not security’s fault. It’s the passengers that decide they don’t have to follow the rules.

• Service employees seem to be getting worse by the day doing whatever they want instead of helping the customers.

• Alamo continues to have the lowest rates in Las Vegas when I am out there

• Feel Good Soup is still great even though they changed the broth

• Ticket in/ticket out machines are great

• Fiesta Henderson still has the best low limit craps game in town with good dealers (even though they lost quite a few that moved to Sunset Station)

• I really like the Rio and this was my first stay there in over 5 years

• Rio treated the tournament players really well with good food and beverages

• I never do well in tournaments and this trip was no exception

• One of the best comp deals in town is the 4 Queens parking ticket coupon for free dinner with 1k in action

• Palms and Hard Rock are still 2 of my favorite casinos even though I rarely win there

• I did finally have a decent win at the Hard Rock this trip

• Pioneer in Laughlin has the best craps game in town with $3 minimums and 10X odds

• Monte Lago is very nice but will never survive and neither will Hyatt

• I had a great view from my Flamingo room

• Weather was in the 100’s every day and in the 110’s for the first part of my trip. It was VERY humid for Las Vegas too

• Texas Station has pretty nice rooms

• I did well on penny slots of all things I played about 35,000 hands of video poker and hit one royal flush

• My next trip is in December for the 6th annual Christmas-Birthday trip. Watch for a new report (with the new format) in January!