Day 1
Friday March 25, 2022
Up super early today but not much earlier than I get up for work when I'm on day shift. I got ready and hit the road around 4:30am in the rental car I had picked up yesterday at Avis inside the local airport that is currently a waste of real estate.

I booked this with a discount code through work and got a base rate of $41 and all in for $55.

They gave me a red Ford Mustang Convertible with 11k miles on it. Not exactly what I had expected but for a 70 mile drive, it will work.

The drive to Newark was the usual with a little bit of the morning rush hour traffic along the way.

I opted not to gas up the car and take advantage of the fuel service for going under 75 miles for $15.99. With gas prices on the rise this is actually a decent deal. I'm sure they will change this price really soon.

Next up was the air train to terminal C. I only had a carry on so checked in on the app and went right to security. This was a very long line. Not as long as back on Halloween but close. Again it moved quickly. Then there are always the people that feel they don't need to wait in line. One ass clown with a group of about 8 decided he didn't have to wait in line and cut in front of me. A moment or two later two more of his group passed by me and joined him. Dude, you picked the wrong person to cut in front of. Every time the line stopped I slammed my carry on into their heels. Hopefully they get a good surgeon for their Achilles surgery. Other than the long line and these ass clowns there were only one or two more jerk offs at security that felt like they were above the rules.

I booked this flight back on January 14. Fares were a bit on the high side, especially compared to what they have been for the last few years. Because of this I decided to use my Diamond Elite airfare through Caesars worth $600. Because of this I also upgraded the flight to first class. The round trip price was $1075 minus the $600 for $475. This is only a little more than the coach round trip price was going to be without the Diamond Elite trip so a pretty good deal all in all.

Since I had booked I got an e-mail that my flight had changed. I was not amused until I looked closer at the e-mail. The time change was only 10 minutes but the the aircraft was changed and now my first class seat was now a lie flat seat. If only the flight home was switched to a plane with lie flats because it's a red eye on April 1st.

I found my gate and waited for boarding to begin.

When boarding began I was in group 1 and took my seat 1L. It was unusual being on the right hand side of the plane because I'm usually on the left. However when I originally booked that seat was already taken. As soon as I got settled in a couple came and asked if I would switch seats with them so they could sit together. Originally they were in the same seat until the aircraft change and she had seat 1A. Yeah sure, that's my usual seat anyway.

This is flight 600 non stop to Las Vegas scheduled to depart at 8:30am and arrive at 11:23am with a flight time of 5 hours and 53 minutes.

Before we took off the captain informed us that the flight was going only going to take 4:52.

We took off on time. After we were up to our altitude breakfast was served. We had a choice between, you guessed it, a waffle or egg whites. I chose the waffle. This also came with fruit, yogurt and a Nonni's Biscoti.

After I was done eating I put the seat down and slept for most of the flight out to Las Vegas.

We landed at 10:40am and taxied to the gate. Head winds must have been really light to get there this quickly but you'll get no complaints from me.

Because cousin Wendy and Stephanie were coming in at noon I needed to wait for them to arrive. I wandered around and played some penny games in the airport. Had a few good hits and walked out with a nice profit to start the trip.

Down at baggage claim I found Wendy and we waited for their luggage to arrive. And waited. And waited. They made an announcement that there was confusion out on the ramp and it was on it's way. “Confusion on the ramp” was probably code for “staffing shortage”.

We headed right for the rental car shuttle to get the rental car. Rates are still insane for car rentals and I once again got the best rate from Avis using a discount code through my job. I got a base rate of $210 for an 8 day rental (because of the early arrival today and late departure on the first). This is more than double what I used to pay in the old days. I also applied a coupon for a free day that I earned through a promotion Avis was running last year that dropped the base rate to $184 and all in for $305.

I wasn't sure if my name was going to be on the board when I arrived because it's been pretty split when it is or isn't. Today it wasn't. This is getting really old in Las Vegas and it's probably time to contact Avis about this.

My car was in space C27 and they had me set up in a Kia K5 with 15,000 miles on it. I gave the car a once over, noted the excessive scratches on it and headed to security for the quick exit.

We left the airport and passed the gas stations at the corner of Las Vegas Blvd and Warm Springs and Chevron is charging $5.55 a gallon. Holy shit! We hit Jack in the Box for lunch. Oddly their dining room is still closed so it was through the drive through we'd be going. After I got the bags and parked the car we realized the order was not ours. Shit. How am I going to get this fixed? The drive through line is long and the doors are locked. Here's where it gets strange. I walk up to the door and figured if I pounded on it someone would come. In the dining room there were two people that looked homeless. One was even smoking a cigarette. WTF??? One of them came over and went outside and I slipped in. The manager fixed the order but WTF is going on here with a locked dining room and two homeless people in the dining room?? I paid for the meal with the gift card Yahtzee Mike gave me for Christmas 2021 and it's now dead. Thanks for lunch Mike.

When we were done eating we made a few stops so we could all gather some supplies for the week. After stops at 99˘ Only and Albertson's we were on our way to Desert Club Resort by Holiday Inn behind the Linq on Koval. I helped get them settled in and then went off to my hotel for the next 2 nights to check in, the Orleans. I've just started recently playing at Boyd properties again just as a room play as I'm low on places to stay that aren't downtown or in the Caesars portfolio.

One thing I'm not used to doing is waiting in lines to check into hotels as I have higher status cards at most places. Unfortunately it's Friday in Vegas and there was a line so I had to suck it up and just deal with it.

I booked this online just by plugging in my dates and these nights came up comped. I couldn't get comped nights at Suncoast which was my preferred choice so opted for Orleans since it's been many years since I've been here and even longer since I've stayed here. When I checked in I was given room 2167. Turns out this is a suite. It's split into a separate living room and bedroom.

The living room has a couch, chairs, dining room table, wet bar and two TVs.

The bedroom has a king bed, night stands, dresser, work desk, closet, flat screen TV and a view of Allegiant Stadium.

The bathroom has a shower stall, toilet, vanity and TV.

I got my stuff set up in the room and then hit the casino. I started off with penny slots for a while and took a small loss.

For dinner I went to the Copper Whisk Cafe. I ordered the prime rib special for $19.99. It comes with soup or salad, mashed potatoes and vegetables. I opted for the salad. The prime rib was quite good for a cafe. I would get this again if I were in the mood for it.

After dinner I was back at it in the casino. I decided to play triple play video poker with progressives for each line and a super jackpot for a dealt royal. The individual royals were $1600, $1100 and $1100. It didn't matter because I didn't hit any of them. I opted for deuces wild for a change. Not a bad session never being down $100 and never being up more than $50. No major hands other than holding a single deuce and hitting wild royals on two lines. I did just under 3k in action and cashed out with a $1 win!

I hit a few penny games and won back much of what I lost earlier. It was now going on 1am here and 4am back home and other than maybe an hour or so of sleep I've been up for 24 hours.

I stopped at a ticket cashing machine to redeem my tickets and the stupid machine spit out $440 in twenties. Are you effing kidding me?

That pretty much wrapped up the day and I came up to the room and went to bed after what had been a really long day.

Total win/loss for the day + $182
Total Comps for the day $149