Tuesday, August 17, 1999
Woke up a bit late this morning at 9:15 am. After eating breakfast in our room, Dan decided he wanted to head back to Venetian to take some pictures out front in the daylight. I asked him to get some pictures of the construction at Aladdin and of Paris while he was out. I wanted to put in some more video poker time at Main Street Station. Dan left about 10 am and I got dressed and went downstairs to play triple play video poker.
[Dan]:
I turned my truck over to the nice young men with black and white stripped shirts at the Venetian main valet. My plan was to shoot a few interior shots with the tripod, and then some day shots out in front. I did get some good shots, but in the mall area I couldn't help but notice flashing strobe lights all over the place. I walked into a store and observed a couple of employees working right in front of one of the flashing lights, which was labeled "Fire Alarm."I asked if it was a just a drill. "There're testing, and they have to do it when you're all here." he said with a sarcastic tone of voice.
After a couple more shots, I decided to try the coffee. While I was in line, they I noticed I was covered in a thin layer of sweat. I thought perhaps that it was the exertion from carried all this camera equipment and the tripod. No. It is warm in here. The air conditioning needs some help. I got an iced coffee drink, which allowed me to cool off a little bit, but made it impossible to evaluate the coffee properly. It was also hard to relax with the audio fire alarms now going off - wheeeeEEEE-wheeeEEEE-wheeeeEEEE. Maybe next time….
Sonya was going to be mad, I thought. The Madam Tussaud's wax celebrity was now Harrison Ford. A pretty good Harrison Ford too! (Sonya - Indiana Jones outfit on him too. I saw the picture in the brochure and was sorry I didn't get to take my picture with him. I have a bit of an Indiana Jones fetish.)
I went out to the front and shot some daytime pictures. I almost photographed a couple splashing their faces with water from one of the small fountains in front. It seemed like a tacky thing to be doing, but then I thought that if I had walked up from MGM Grand I'd be splashing myself in the fountain too.
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I returned to the valet hoping to hop back in the truck and head south for some spy shots of Paris and Aladdin. No such luck. I made my way through a throng of downcast tourists, only to be told it would be 20 minutes. I though the point of using valet to save some time! I should have self-parked. Meanwhile I amused myself watching the other frustrated drivers, as well as the valet. Between the cabs, the limos, the valet drop off and pickup, it looked like a Manhattan intersection. By the time I got my truck, 30 minutes later, I wanted to go nowhere but back to my own hotel.
I played for over 2 hours on 400 credits. I'd go up and down, but most of the time I managed to hover about 350-450 credits. I like winning, but I think I like breaking even just about as much. I got a number of natural 4-of-a-kinds and a couple of 5-of-a-kinds to get the scratch off cards that Main Street gives with a natural 4-of-a-kind. I managed to get 5 of the scratch off cards by the time Dan got back.
Turned out that he didn't get to Aladdin or Paris because the valet at Venetian took forever. He decided to just come back to the hotel instead of going on as it was getting close to lunch.
He sat with me and played Jacks or Better, even getting a 4-of a kind (5's) and a scratch off card. We cashed in and headed off to the Monte Carlo to taste the beers at their brewery.
We parked at the valet at Monte Carlo and quickly found the brewery. The décor here is heavy industrial. The tables and chairs are steel and the bar is dark with loud music and televisions everywhere. (Today must have been a slow sport day because every television was broadcasting women's bowling.) The beer spigots on the bar have interesting handles. They are tools - screwdriver, pliers, wire cutters, welding torch, etc. I thought it was kind of clever.
The service was not good here. It took us about 5 minutes of standing at the door to get someone to come and seat us. Then they took all three groups of us at once and she said, "I guess someone can sit here. Who wants to sit here?" It took another several minutes for someone to come take our order. I'm hoping our experience wasn't the norm as it was a nice brewpub, but my favorite still has to be Main Street.
We ordered a pizza and Dan had the beer sampler. There was a card on the table advertising their "Steak and Stein" special for $10.95. It's a T-Bone steak, beans, corn, steak fries and salad with a 16oz beer. Not a bad deal, but we picked the pizza instead.
Basically you get a 10" pizza (may have been 8", I didn't have a ruler) and you get to pick any three toppings - chicken, sausage, pepperoni, red onion, bell peppers, mushrooms, Canadian bacon, etc. We chose chicken, sausage and red onion. The crust was very thin, but crispy and flaky. The sauce was sort of tangy, but not too spicy. It was a good pizza, probably best I've had in a casino so far.
Dan's beer review to follow: (COMING SOON)
After eating, we wandered out to the pool area. It was much smaller than Mandalay Bay's pool area, but it has all the same elements. There was a wave pool and probably the fastest lazy river I've seen! That thing was whipping people around the corners. It looked really fun. Also, their lazy river goes under a waterfall at one point and it really looked like fun. The people in this lazy river appeared to be having much more fun than at Mandalay Bay. I don't know if that's attributable to the river or to the people.
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The wave pool was smaller, but seemed to have bigger waves to me. Again, the kids seemed to be having a very good time.
We got out of the heat by the pool and got our car from the Valet. The valet pickup is in a different location from the drop off. I liked that it cut down on the congestion in the valet area, but again, someone could have mentioned this to us when we dropped off our car.
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Construction at Aladdin 8/17 Back of Aladdin and Paris |
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We drove down the strip and got some pictures of Aladdin and Paris. We turned down Koval to get a picture from the back and ended up stuck in a huge traffic mess where they are doing construction on Koval behind MGM. It seemed to take forever to get the half a block to the entrance to the MGM garage. We watched a number of cars zoom up along the dirt shoulder and one truck even went over the big dirt mound at the end of the construction zone to get into the garage. I kept trying to convince Dan to go, after all, we'd just spent all that money to buy him a new truck, and he should use it, right? He waited for the light. Wimp! J
We got a spot in the parking garage right by the escalators on the 4th floor. Not a bad parking space considering it's MGM Grand. On the way up, I noticed that security had blocked one of the elevators and were standing there with an Asian couple. I'm not sure what happened, but I thought that it had better be good to tie up one of the two elevators in the garage!
We rode down the escalators to the ground floor and walked into the mall area. It was nice to be back in the air conditioning! I think the desert heat was starting to get to me. I just couldn't tolerate it for any period of time at that point.
We walked through the mall without stopping for anything. We came out in the lobby and made our way through the casino to the lion habitat. It's quite a walk to get back there, but it's worth it if you're a fan of the big cats. It's crowded, but not anything like I was expecting.
Basically, it is a room for the lions, surrounded by Plexiglas windows on all sides. There are trainers inside with the cats who interact with them and play with them for our viewing entertainment I guess. At one point, one of the lions decided to go to the bathroom and one of the people inside got the pleasure of mopping up the mess with a towel. I bet that smelled lovely.
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It was closed when we were there, but for $20 you can get your picture taken with a lion cub. I'm not sure how I feel about that. I worry a lot about how animals are treated and I hate to see them exploited, but I'd love the opportunity to hold one myself. I'd be torn, but I think I'd have to spend the money. I like to think that the handlers are responsible and put the interests of the animal above money. I know it's not usually the case, but I can dream, can't I? These animals looked healthy, happy and well taken care of. I'm glad to see it.
I browsed around the gift shop for something for my niece and nephew and could hear Elvis music in the casino somewhere. As we came out of the gift shop, there was a big stage in the casino where the "Heroes of Rock and Roll" were performing. I was too shy to take a picture, but Dan grabbed the camera and got up there to shoot the fake Elvis. I thought he did a great job as Elvis and even looked quite a bit like a young Elvis. He even did the thing where he wiped the sweat off his face and threw the towels into the crowd. The girls were screaming and having fun. It was a good show.
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We walked back through the casino and lobby and into the mall. Downstairs they have a shop where you can buy frozen cocktails in a variety of different souvenir glasses. I'd wanted to taste a mudslide for awhile and I asked for a free taster. The guy working in the booth was very nice and we chatted a bit about the different drinks. Dan tried a "190 Octane" that is made with Everclear. I'm not sure who can finish a 32 ounce one of those! He also tried a Hurricane. I was tempted to get one, but we were headed for the car. Probably should have paid more attention on the way into the casino.
It wasn't too difficult to find our car as it was right at the top of the 4th floor escalator. However, getting out of the garage was a challenge. Why do they always make those things a maze to get out of? We finally found our way out to Las Vegas Boulevard and onto I-15. We were headed downtown, but Dan missed our exit and we got off at D Street to get to our hotel.
I don't recommend this exit if you want to keep the mystique and illusion of Las Vegas being posh and full of prosperity. It puts you off at the rescue mission and then we passed a bunch of downtrodden people sitting along side a fence. There's a little too much razor wire in this neighborhood for me to be comfortable.
Dan was no help as he kept saying, "but look how close we are to our hotel! It's just a couple blocks out of the way." I don't like to think about homeless people and crime when I'm on vacation.
Back at Main Street Station, we took a well-deserved rest and watched the news. It was interesting to watch the coverage of the Ted Binion murder trial as it was going on just a few blocks away. If we had more time, I'd probably have gone over to the courthouse to watch some of the proceedings.
Dan went to Holy Cow to taste their beer while I went back downstairs to the casino. I felt the need to pay for our free rooms at Main Street I guess. I lost about $50 and headed back to the room to get changed. Dan's Holy Cow beer review to follow: (COMING SOON)
We called Caesars Palace to find out what time the new IMAX movie was playing at the Omnimax. The operator told us that the movies play from 2pm to 10:10 p.m. every 70 minutes. She lied. We arrived, expecting to see Wildfire at the 7:50 showing. Turned out that the movies were every hour with Everest at 2, 4, 6 8 and 10 p.m. and Wildfire at 3, 5, 7 and 9 p.m. I got tickets for the 9 p.m. show while Dan parked the car in the garage.
I played a slot machine for a little while waiting for Dan. When he arrived, we went to the food court. I wasn't hungry, but Dan got a big plate of Chinese food and an extra fork. I had a few bites of his chow mien and some sort of chicken stir-fry thing.
We played nickel video poker by the exit to the parking garage to kill time until Wildfire started. At about 8:45 we cashed out and headed towards the Omnimax theater. I was surprised that there were so few people in line for the movie. I guess people aren't interested in fire fighters as much as they are mountain climbers as there were lines for Everest. Go figure.
We got our seats about 2/3rds of the way up on the center aisle and settled in for the movie. The movie, Wildfire - Feel the Heat, is about forest fire fighters, smokejumpers, water-bombing helicopters, bucket planes, etc. It was a good movie. Lots of good visuals as usual and exciting! There were some scary moments for me. I'm terribly afraid of heights and I had to close my eyes a couple of times when they were repelling out of the helicopters. Too much vertigo for me.
Dan:
The reason Everest still has a crowd is because it has what most IMAX films lack - a story line. Feel the Heat had some great visuals of firefighters training and fighting fires, but would have been better if it had drawn the audience in emotionally. Perhaps the film could follow some trainees through the rigorous training process, finishing with an exciting wildfire as its climax. Instead, it was rather like those educational films you dozed through in elementary school, but with great cinematography. Also, they should lose the speech at the end about "the men and women of fire crews across the country that dedicate their lives to protecting your lives and homes." This was probably included in exchange for fire management's cooperation in making the film. Showing people thanking the firefighters for saving their homes and holding big "Thank You" banners would better make the point as exhausted firefighters leave a fire scene.I find it a little sad that what are probably to two most popular IMAX films, The Dream Is Alive and Everest are both associated with tragedies (Dream is about the Space Shuttle. It was released a year or two after the Challenger disaster, and its footage includes at least one of the Challenger astronauts on an earlier mission). I suppose that is just what draws people in though. Hopefully in the future there will be an IMAX film with emotion as compelling as its cinematography that does not depend upon tragedy for its appeal.
After the movie was over, we decided to walk over to Bellagio to see the fountain
show. We arrived just a moment or two before the 10:15 show. It was Con Ti Partido
and gave me gooseflesh. I think that song is just so beautiful and add the fountains
and it was even better.
We walked through the shops and casino and into the lobby. I wanted to see what they had done to the atrium. It was all done up in flowers and plants. They had some great fuschias hanging and they had ponds with beautiful arrangements "floating" on the surface. At the front there was a gazebo and two "women" with dresses made of spanish moss and roses. It was pretty and much less crowded than when we were there in December. In fact, I noticed that the floor in the atrium had the same mosaic tile as the lobby, but with butterflies and dragonflies. I don't think I saw the floor through all the people last time.
We walked out front to see another show. We watched from directly across the valet. Probably not the best viewing place, as there are trees in the way. A better spot would be down below, on the other side of the road up from the strip. I said to Dan, "I wonder what song it will be. I vote for 'Luck Be A Lady'." About 10 seconds later the song started and we recognized the first few notes of the song by Frank Sinatra. Thanks for listening Steve! The fountain show was good with Paris in the background. There was some lady yacking and yacking through the song next to Dan, but I love the song enough to ignore her, although I was tempted to push her over the edge when a taxi was coming up the road!
After the show, we walked back through Bellagio, back through Caesars to the parking garage. And I wonder why my feet always hurt at the end of a trip to Las Vegas! We got the car and headed down the strip.
Dan has been asking me to play blackjack with him at Sahara for the last couple of trips. Tonight was our last chance, so we stopped and valet parked the car. I stopped in the restroom while Dan found us a $1 table. We ended up in the last 2 seats at the first table inside the door. We sat at 3rd base, which is not my preference because I'm so bad at blackjack.
We each bought in for $20, which is a lot of silver. I played $1 per hand for awhile, but then it got boring and I started to increase my bets. We played for about 90 minutes, having a pretty good time. There were some interesting characters at our table including one guy who was acting like he was going to die if he didn't get drink service pretty soon. Our cocktail waitress was apparently just out of the mental hospital or something. She was a total trip. Very strange and once we got her over to our table, she kept trying to give us other people's drinks. She was weird.
Despite the evil dealer, we all had a great time. The thirsty guy started doing the exact opposite of basic strategy as strategy wasn't working for him. I couldn't believe it when he hit a 16 against the dealers 2 card with a green chip on the table! It was fun.
Dan was having a good run. Not as good as the young guy (I would have carded him) who kept getting blackjack after blackjack, but he managed to finish up $43 at the end of our play while I ended down $3. Not too bad for someone who can't add.
Dan:
A few hands into the game I was down to about $14 or so, and that frustrated me. I decided to try the betting technique where you double your bet every hand and you'll soon be ahead again (provided you haven't bottomed out). It worked.
I decided I'd experiment more with this technique, but the problem was I wasn't losing. I had a great string of 19s and 20s with two blackjacks in arrow. Unfortunately, I was only betting $5 through most of this. I realized was I was missing and increased to $10. The streak leveled off a little, but I was still doing well. I decided I would quit at $100, but I didn't quite make it, quitting after turning $20 into about $65.
The only bad advice I got from Dan was when he added wrong and told me I had 21 when I really had 12. I can't add once you get more than 3-4 cards with an ace in there. I don't blame him… much.
The thirsty guy thought it was funny when Dan kept insisting that strategy said I should hit a 12 and I busted. I slugged him in the arm. I think the whole table worried about Dan when I was dealt another 12 on the next hand.
We ended our night really late and we had to get up early to get out of town the next day.
