Greetings from Las Vegas. This is Day 7 of our trip report, covering Monday, October 17, 1999
Getaway day. Not from Las Vegas, but from our vacation villa at Sun City Anthem. The maximum allowed stay is seven days, so with great reluctance we packed our bags and made ready for departure.
On the way out, we learned a couple of interesting things. I think I had mentioned earlier that the only requirement to stay in a Sun City Anthem vacation villa was that one of the party be at least 55 years of age. I also said there would be an almost complete absence of any salesmanship.
But this is not quite correct. As a condition of staying in a villa, an appointment with a sales associate must be scheduled at the time the villa is booked. Our own sales rep, Jim Gibbons, assured us that the meeting is a get-acquainted session at which the advantages of buying at Sun City Anthem are laid out and questions are answered, but it is very low-stress and the villa stay is not treated as a quid pro quo.
The second item concerns the conditions for staying in a villa over the weekend of the millennium New Year celebration in Las Vegas. I mentioned to a Sun City Anthem staffer that booking a villa over that period seemed like a great way to avoid the extortion-like prices being charged to stay at Las Vegas resorts over that period. But these people are no dummies. For the millennium celebration, they are charging something like $1,500 a night.
Whatever the price, the villas are proving so popular that Sun City Anthem will soon start construction on 12 more to supplement the 18 villas they now have.
After loading the car with luggage and checking out of our villa, we spent another 90 minutes or so going back through the models to gather additional decorating ideas. Then we left Anthem and headed in the direction of our next temporary residence, the Rio Suites resort.
First we stopped for lunch at Koo Koo Roo on West Sahara. We've eaten there several times before, and the restaurant's specialty of marinated skinless flame-broiled chicken is a healthy dining option.
Next we paid a short visit to Kreiss Collection, in the same plaza where Koo Koo Roo is located. Kreiss Collection is a California-based chain of upscale furniture stores with outlets in affluent areas both in the USA and abroad.
Here is our definition of "upscale furniture store": As we entered
the showroom, we were immediately attracted to a handsome L-shaped sofa near
the door. I had to look twice at the price tag to make sure my eyes weren't
deceiving me and that an extra zero had not been added by mistake. The price
of this item is $10,890. Gulp and double gulp! There's an old saying that goes
something like this: "The rich …..they are different from us."
It was a sobering realization that this one piece of furniture costs about as
much as we're likely to spend
landscaping our entire property.
We were now ready to check-in at The Rio, but not without a quick stop at the offices of Huntington Press to pick up our copy of the October Las Vegas Advisor, affording my first chance to see the actual mention of my calendar project in LVA's "Fast Track" section.
If you ever have need to visit Huntington Press for any reason, such as to pick up a copy of the Advisor or buy any of their many books, you should know that they are located literally in the shadow of The Rio, meaning easily within walking distance. The office is in a nondescript, pale-yellow building at the very corner of Twain and Procyon.
Parking our car in Rio's Masquerade Village self-park garage, we went to the VIP Services desk to see if they were ready for a 2 p.m. check-in. They assigned us a room on the 25th floor of the Masquerade Tower but said the room would not be ready until 4:30 p.m. Being hot to trot, I used the next hour in the company of another player at a Rio blackjack table, netting $800 for my effort. Thus, when it finally came time to obtain our room keys, we completed our check-in already up nearly a thousand bucks after only two hours of gambling on this trip. Since we are on a getaway package carrying no specific gambling obligation, it is a delicious feeling to be up this much before we even completed our check-in.
After settling into our room, we went down to the public area and walked around a while to see some of the changes that have occurred since our last visit in April. The Beach Café is closed, and I think that might be the area where the new noodle restaurant, called Mein, is going to be. The corridor leading past Buzio's to Rio's expanded convention facilities now hosts two new eateries, the Sao Paulo Café and the Star Deli & Bakery.
Roz went for a workout at the Rio's spa and I returned to the room to write an installment of the trip report while watching the demise of the Red Sox at the hands of the Yankees.
Then we went to late dinner at the Carnival World Buffet. It's been a couple of years, I think, since we've tried this buffet, believing as others have that it has gone way down in quality and value. But our package on this trip includes a couple of freebies for this buffet, so what the heck.
Pleasant surprise. They seem to be doing a good job with the buffet these days, and we found it quite enjoyable. Roz was able to find plenty of vegetable-based items for a healthy meal, and I focused on two plates of grilled veggies and meats, one from Rico's Brazilian Grill and the other from the Japanese teppan station.
A new addition since we were last at this buffet is a pizza station, with a variety of pizzas being cooked in a special oven right before your eyes. The pizzas are delicious, Roz and I agreed, and I heard several diners commenting on the quality of the pizza as I walked around the buffet area.
And so ended Day 7.
--Best wishes from David …in Las Vegas
