Time to move to the Rio!
I am not a big breakfast eater and I had a buffet comp waiting at the slot
club. I sent Dan, the big eater in our little family, down to get the comp and
pig out. I had another muffin I had brought and the last of my juices. I took
my time getting dressed and getting organized.
Dan came back up to the room and told me that they couldn't give him the comp
without me there. Bummer. But it wasn't too bad. He paid for the buffet himself,
but it was only $5.
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With the closing of the coffee shop at Main Street Station, the only place in the hotel to get breakfast is the buffet. Normally, I am not a big buffet fan. I don't really want to stuff myself with all I can eat, just enough to be satisfied. Usually, I feel I can get better food at a better value in a sit-down restaurant. An exception to this rule is the Main Street Buffet, which we've consistently found to be above the Vegas par for atmosphere, quality of food and value.
It was Monday morning about 9 am, and there was virtually no line. A family arrived just ahead of me, quickly paid and went in. The price was $4.95(?). The buffet is in a large, elegantly decorated room with a high ceiling. Absent were the long rows of serving tables like those at Circus Circus, which make you feel like you're being herded past a feeding trough. The serving areas are along one wall of the room, and along two extensions of the kitchen area that extend into the middle of the room, dividing it into two sections. You don't have to visit the serving areas in any order. Instead you can just walk past them about 10 feet away looking for what you want.
I started healthy with a plate full of sliced honeydew, cantaloupe, watermelon and peaches. Within a minute or two of sitting down a friendly waiter took my order for a glass of orange juice and coffee, which arrived about two minutes later.
My next course was a little more traditional, scrambled eggs and a slice of bacon. After finishing these, I returned one last time for a Danish to have with my coffee. Among the foods I passed on were omelets, hash browns, and (is this a breakfast food?) pizza.
If you are of the male gender, be sure to visit the men's room around the corner from the buffet, where you can relieve yourself on an actual section of the Berlin Wall. Women, you'll have to settle for this :
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With a good variety of good food and reasonable prices, the Main Street Buffet is the buffet for people who don't like buffets.
We quickly were able to pack up our suitcases, computer and camera bags and get them ready for the bellman. We were a little too efficient because it was only 10am and I wasn't ready to head to the Rio. I'd rather just hang out at Main Street than get to Rio and not be able to check into my room. Dan went downstairs to play a little and check out some things I had told him about while I tried to get a few more minutes of sleep.
He came back up and we called the bell desk at 11am. The bellman came up in about 8-10 minutes and took our bags down. Dan got the car out of the parking lot and I checked us out. Total charges were $46 for food, movies and phone charges. I had made quite a few calls at $0.50 each. Because I hadn't played more than a few hours, I didn't ask about comps. I'll save the points for our next visit.
I walked out the front doors just as Dan was pulling up. The bellman put the bags into the back of the truck and in 2 minutes we were off towards the freeway.
We arrived at the Rio and pulled into the valet at check-in behind a carload of Barbie dolls. Now I remember why I'm always reluctant to stay at this hotel. It's the beautiful people haven and Dan and I are not members of their club. :-)
I left Dan out front and went in to the registration desk. There was a short line, but it moved very quickly. The woman at the counter was wonderful and very friendly. I showed her the email I got from Visiting Vegas after I won their contest. She confirmed I was to get a free buffet for two and two tickets to ride in the Parade in the Sky along with our free room for two nights. I asked if I could get a room in the Masquerade Tower on a high floor with a nice view. She said "Sure!" so I pushed a little more. I wanted to exchange the parade tickets for tickets to the Titanic Exhibit, but she told me the Rio and Titanic were separate things and they couldn't comp tickets to it. Oh well, at least I asked.
I got our keys and charge slips and headed back towards the front door to find Dan. I had hoped to catch him before the Valet took our car. It's much easier to park in the self-park at Rio if you're staying in the Masquerade Tower. But he was waiting for me inside.
We walked through the casino towards the Masquerade Tower elevators and showed our keys to security to get to the elevators. One of the benefits of a high room in this tower is the two separate elevators. By taking the elevator to the right you bypass the first 20-something floors. We got off on the 29th floor and headed to the right to look for our room 29013. (Dan noted it's easy to remember because it's two prime numbers. I informed him that officially indoctrinated him into the Geek Club. :-) )
I saw the sign that said room 29001 - 29014 were to the right and assumed that we'd be at the end of the hall, but we were the first door on the right. That's kind of nice and will save me the walking and walking to get to the room when I'm tired.
We opened the door and it instantly looked familiar. It was exactly the same as the room we had stayed in before. Immediately to the right is a kitchenette area with a coffee maker, refrigerator and drawers on the right and a nook for your suitcase on the left. Past that on the right is a vanity with lighted make up mirror, hair dryer, small stool and sink. ON the other side a mirrored closet with an iron and ironing board and safe. At the end of that "hallway" is the bathroom with a tub/shower combination, small sink area, and toilet. ( photos of our room from a previous stay can be found at http://www.travel2vegas.com/noind/rio.html )
In front of you the room opens up to the 5 panels of floor to ceiling windows, the L- shaped couch, coffee table, tv stand, king sized bed, 2 nightstands and a small table with two chairs, a phone with a data port.
I rushed straight to the window to throw back the heavy drapes and reveal a view of the mountains to the north west of the strip, Palace Station, Downtown, I-15 and the strip from Stratosphere to Venetian, Harrah's and Caesar's parking garage as well as the pool area and high roller suite area below us. It's really a big change from our little room at Main Street Station.
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We called the bellman to bring up our luggage. It took about 5 minutes and we were quickly unpacked and had our drinks and snacks in the refrigerator.
We got ourselves organized and headed down to the casino to check things out. We looked at the pastries available at the coffee shop at the bottom of the elevator and planned tomorrow's breakfast. They have amazing sweets there along with muffins, bagels, scones and other yummies. We checked out the shops and the Titanic Exhibit. I sure hope we have time to do this. On our last stay, they had those Russian Treasures and we didn't get around to doing it and I've regretted it ever since.
We walked around the casino and found my Sneaky Queens video poker that I love so much. Then we headed back towards the entrance and I headed for Toscano's Deli. Dan wanted to go to the El Rancho sale and to see the Car Museum at Imperial Palace. I wasn't particularly interested in either and I was hungry. I grabbed a sandwich and some goodies and headed back to the room. I stopped briefly at the slot club and updated my address and got a new card for the machines (my old one with all the holes in it doesn't work in the new readers)
During my first visit to Las Vegas with Sonya nearly 5 years ago, we looked out of our rooms at the Circus-Circus at night and noticed the conspicuous lack of lights on the El Rancho across the street to the north. "Look Sonya! It says "COMING SOON: COUNTRYLAND USA!" During the early to mid-90s, country music and cowboy fashions were making the comeback they tend to make every dozen years or so. At that time, it was easy to visualize a casino with sawdust on the floor, men and woman in Wranglers, cowboy hats, and pointy boots crowded around the tables and big-name country music stars in the auditorium.
On later trips we noticed that as New York New York, Monte Carlo, Venetian and Pairs Vegas went up, the alleged future home of Countryland was losing letters and looking increasingly tattered. I even asked online what was the deal with the El Rancho. All I could find were a few LV Sun articles about the El Rancho passing through a series of owners who either went bankrupt or found themselves charged with securities fraud. There were a few other hair-brained ideas floated as well: a science fiction-themed resort called Starship Orion, and fitting Countryland USA with a pair of hotel towers shaped like big cowboy boots.
Last year, I read an article on the Web by Vegas investigative TV reporter Darcy Spears. Anonymous security employees had given her a tour, and she wrote of a dark, scary place littered with dead bugs, live electrical wires hanging from the ceiling, toxic chemicals seeping through the kitchens, and a corner of the casino mysteriously occupied by shiny new flashing slot machines.
Those of you old enough to have watched television in the early 70s may recall a show called Night Stalker. The pilot for this series was about Las Vegas newspaper reporter Carl Kolchak, who discovers an actual vampire stalking the dark alleyways behind the Strip at night looking for victims. Although Kolchak eventually drives a steak through the creature's heart neither the editor he works for nor anyone else believes him, so no front page byline for Kolchak.
Well, I could easily imagine the El Rancho being the perfect home for such a creature. Or perhaps the Phantom of the Opera might have a cousin in Vegas, the Phantom of the Casino who lives in the bowels of the El Rancho, emerging late at night to run the slot area described in Darcy Spears' report.
Alas, as fun as it was, the mystery comes to an end. The El Rancho has been sold again to a group with enough financial backing to actually do something with the property. So the El Rancho is being liquidated, and for the first time in 9 years, the public can now enter the El Rancho and purchase anything not nailed down.
I drove down Las Vegas Boulevard and a security guard directed me into the parking structure. There were no more than dozen cars there, and I was sure it was okay to park in the valet spaces. The floor of the parking structure was coated with a layer of dust, palm fronds, fast food containers, and other litter blown in by nine years of desert winds.
Click Here to Download ElRancho Exterior and sales area mpg - 2.3 mg - 57 seconds
As I made my way to the door, I saw some people trying up a mattress in the back of a truck. You've got to be pretty brave or pretty poor to sleep on a mattress that's been in an abandoned hotel for years!
The air inside was dusty and musty, but other than that, the casino area wasn't that dirty. It was probably cleaned up since Darcy visited. There were no slot machines or gaming tables - only signs reading "Keno" or "25 Cent Slots." There were rows of furniture from guest rooms - all with price tags. There were a few amours for $225, various dressers for $50 -$150, lamp tables for $25, and lots of 19" color televisions for $45.
You could also buy a carpet from a guest room for $75. The carpets were all still in the rooms - not available for pickup until a later date. Floors 6 through 14 were open so you could select which room you want the carpet from, then purchase it in advance downstairs.
There was a guy operating the elevator, I guess so you wouldn't go somewhere you shouldn't. I asked him if there was a high-roller suite I could look at. He told me there were two suites per floor, but nothing really fancy. I got off on the 6th floor.
I entered one of the suites, where there was a convertible sofa with the bed folded out. The carpet and walls were pink. The window overlooked the courtyard area, from which I could see the empty pool way to the left. Immediately below the window was just bare ground with palm trees. Ironically, the palms, well adapted for the hot dry climate, did just fine with little or no care for nine years, while the rest of the landscaping had completely disappeared.
Click Here to Download El Rancho Interior mpg - 2.3 mg - 1 minute
Back downstairs again, I found a room with stacks of bingo cards on one side, and stacks of slot machine glass fronts on the opposite wall. I found a decent glass from what I believe was a progressive video poker machine. It showed the pay scale for one through 12 coins, with "Jackpot" being paid for a royal flush with 12 coins.
I returned to the registration desk, which was now being used as the cashier area. In addition to the video poker glass, I also purchased a deck of El Rancho cards, 4 coin cups and 5 drink stirrers.
I went back up to the room to put the surprise I got for Dan into the refrigerator and eat my sandwich. It was a great sandwich.. just a boring roasted Turkey on sourdough, but it really hit the spot. Dan called me on his cell phone to tell me about the El Rancho sale and the goodies that he got.
After eating, I headed down to do some gambling. I spent quite a while on those Sneaky Queens, but didn't end up winning. I moved over to the far end of the Masquerade Village casino and played the Bingo slots. I'm not a huge fan of slot machines, but I love the new machines with the bonus features. Basically you pick a bingo card and a method of getting bingo (Anyway, horizontal line, X, cover all, etc.) and then you spin the reels. It's five lines and I played just one coin per line as I couldn't see the benefits of paying max coins. As you spin the reels, periodically a bingo ball comes up and turns around to reveal a number. If it's on your card, the ball bounces off the reels and "marks" your card.
When you get Bingo, the machine goes into bonus mode. Five balls, each labeled with a letter in BINGO fly around and situate themselves on the screen. You pick one of the five to determine your bonus amount. As the music plays, the four you didn't pick dissolve and reveal their bonus amounts, so you can determine how well you picked. After that, your bonus amount is revealed, credited to you and you are asked to pick another bingo card.
I was having fun and doing well on the game. I even hit 4 sevens for 400 coins. If I had gotten the 5th or a wild symbol, it would have been 4000 coins! That's a lot of nickels! :-)
After about an hour I cashed out even and went upstairs to take a break. I talked to Dan on the cellphone (I love those things.. how did we exist before them?) and he wanted to know how hungry I was. I was still full from the huge sandwich, so I passed on joining him for a late lunch/early dinner. He said he was heading over to Monte Carlo's brewery for something to eat and a beer and then he'd get us some drinks at the grocery store.
I decided to take it easy and just watch some news on TV.
For quite some time I had wanted to visit the Automobile Museum at the Imperial Palace. I forgot to bring one of the widely available coupons for free admission, so I entered the IP from the entrance on the Strip, across the street from Caesar's Palace, where I picked up an auto museum admission coupon from a stack on a table next to the door.
The casino layout is of the Circus-Circus school of casino design. You must navigate a labyrinth of gaming machines and tables, mirrors, and flashing lights to get where you are going. At one point, I took the wrong elevator, misled by an "Auto Museum" sign placed near the elevator.
I finally found the correct elevator, which also services the parking garage. This makes the museum easily accessible from the parking garage, but if you don't bring a free admission coupon, it will cost you $6.95 to get in.
Stepping off the parking elevator at the 5th floor, the first thing I saw was a beautiful late-1960's convertible Jaguar sports coup. Next to it is the entrance to the museum, and a gift shop.
This has got to be the most stunning collection of classic cars I've ever seen. All of the cars are available for purchase, with prices ranging from about $15,000 for a mid-1970s Chevy Malibu with only 10,000 miles, to more than $1 million for restored a Duesenberg. There were quite a few cars that had been owned by celebrities as well. Some of the former owners include Elvis Presley, Liberace, Sammy Davis Jr., Marilyn Monroe, Jackie Kennedy, Sylvester Stallone, Ferdinan and Emelda Marcos, and the Binion family, which owns and operates the Horseshoe Casino in downtown Las Vegas. There is even a black Cadillac that Presely had bought as a gift for his dentist.
There were several Duesenburgs and Rolls Royces, as well as some exotic sports cars from small European companies I've never heard of. But not everything is ultra expensive or exotic. Among the more "ordinary" vehicles were a Ford truck and a few 1960s and 70s American sedans, all were immaculate condition with 15,000 miles or less. The most surprising of these was a late-1960s Volkswagen Bus "camper edition" with its awning and camping equipment fully deployed.
Another memorable vehicle was a 1930s rear-engine Mercedes that was the prototype for the Volkswagen Beetle. It is a little longer than the Beetle, which came to the states after the war, but the same lines were there, behind the Mercedes hood ornament.
By the way, no, there is no car there that was once owned by Adolf Hitler. I asked about this on the way out. I was told it hasn't been there for several years. I asked if someone had bought it. The woman claimed to have no information.
(editors note - She's not completely truthful. The car has been there over the last couple of years, but they rotate the collection frequently so there are always different cars available for viewing. Chances are that the particular car Dan was looking for was still part of the collection, but not on display.)
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On my way back from El Rancho, I thought I'd have lunch and a beer at one of Vegas's best brew pubs, located in the Monte Carlo resort. I ordered a Cajun chicken sandwich with Jackpot Pale Ale. If I had had a chance to read my beer review on the way in, I would have ordered the High Roller Red instead, but I did enjoy the sandwich and the atmosphere.
Dan came back through the casino with bags of drinks (water, juice and sodas) and I put them in the refrigerator. We watched some news together while he related the things he saw and bought, including some things for me to give away on my website.
I noticed a helicopter hovering over the strip. I could see it out the window from the sofa where we were sitting. I said, 'What the heck is that copter doing out there?' Then on the news it cut to their traffic copter who was hovering over the La Concha and Riviera to talk about the new giant ferris wheel restaurant thingie they want to build there. When the story was over, the helicopter flew away. That was kind of neat. Or maybe I'm just easily amused.
After dark we headed down to the strip. We got downstairs just as the Masquerade show was going. For some reason when we stay at Rio, we always end up coming out of the elevator just as a show is starting or ending. The people standing around watching the show always make it impossible to get anywhere, so regardless of what reservations or schedule we might have, we always end up watching.
This show was a variation on the disco show that Dan rode in last year. It was more 60's I thought, but Dan said the songs were all familiar. Whatever. We caught some beads and found them to be different this year. Instead of beads, they are little dice. Too cute.
After the show we made our way to the parking garage and got the car. We headed across the strip and drove behind Bally's onto Audrie somehow (sorry, Dan was driving and I was just pointing, not paying attention to how he did it) and we ended up behind the Aladdin and Paris parking garages.
We parked in the garage at Paris and took the elevator down to the walkway to the casino. The hallway is sort of long and boring. I was hoping they'd have something interesting there, but it was just wallboard ads for their stores, shows and the hotel.
We came down an escalator into the shopping area. I was instantly hit with how much it felt like Disneyland inside. I should preface this by saying that I'm a big fan of that "outdoor" feel inside the casinos. I love the atrium at Sam's Town, the Caesar's' Forum shops and the shopping area at Venetian. It wasn't the fake clouds on the ceiling at Paris that made it feel like Disneyland to me, but the ¾ height building facades on both sides of the "street" I think.
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The casino is rather small, but they have a pretty good selection of games. I was with Dan the anti-gambler, so we didn't play, but we walked around and got a pretty good look at things. I wanted to get up on that bridge thing that goes over the casino to the elevator to the Eiffel Tower, but you had to have a ticket to get up there. What a rip off. I just wanted to take some pictures.
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When you first come into Paris from the parking garage into the shopping area, you see this statue of the guy sweeping. There are a number of statues of Parisians around the shopping area. Many of them, including this one of the couple kissing, are beautiful! Below are pictures of the casino interior as well as the entrance to the Convention Center area. |
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We wandered around the casino for awhile. The rows are sort of tight in the machine area so people with wheelchairs might have trouble, but otherwise it seemed clean and comfortable. There seemed to be a wide selection of machines although I wasn't struck my any outstanding pay tables. I did notice that most of the face plates on the machines were specifically designed for Paris. I also noticed slot machines that, instead of Red, White and Blue were in French (bleu, blanc & rouge) and in the order of the French flag.
We made our way out front to take some pictures and look around. I really liked the patio seating area of the restaurant right out front (Mon Ami Gabi). The misters were going full blast and it seemed like a nice place to watch the Bellagio fountain show.
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| This is the view of Bellagio from Mon Ami Gabi in front of Paris. | |
Click Here to Download 360-degree view of the front of Bellagio mpg - 2.1 mg - 51 seconds
We walked past Aladdin's construction and across the street to Bellagio to catch a fountain show. Dan rushed ahead of me as he wanted to get to the center to video tape the show. It was the Con Ti Partido show that always makes me cry. I'm such a sap. J It's just so beautiful. I can't capture it on film or videotape. It's just such an amazing show. I love the sounds of the water exploding out of the lake… those popping sounds as the jets shoot the water hundreds of feet into the air. It's really something.
Click Here to Download Bellagio Fountain (Con Ti Partido) mpg - 3 mg - 1 minute 14 seconds
We decided to rest our legs and little and wait the 15 minutes for the next show. This one was Luciano Pavarotti's rendition of "Rondine Al Nido". I'm not familiar with it, but it was beautiful. Not as emotional as Con Ti Partido (which always makes me cry) but still nice. We didn't see any of the others like Singing in the Rain or Luck Be a Lady on this trip..
Click Here to Download Bellagio Fountain (Pavarotti) mpg - 2.4 mg - 1 minute
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The top row is the fountain show, Con Ti Partido. The middle 5 pictures are from the Conservatory |
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These last two pictures are of the glass sculpture suspended
from the ceiling in the check in lobby area.
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After the second show, we made our way into Bellagio through the shops. We walked through the casino and watched the people dancing at Fontana and the piano player in the bar by the lobby. We made our way into the conservatory. They had half of it blocked off and the stairway to the gallery is closed. The flowers were beautiful. Lots of purples in lilac and hydrangeas. But it didn't seem the same to me. It seemed a little sad. Maybe it was just my own feeling of impending doom as I looked at it. It's expensive to keep those flowers blooming and the piped in scent smelling pretty. I suspect that the conservatory is the next thing on the chopping block at Bellagio.
Click Here to Download Bellagio Conservatory mpg - 0.9 mb - 21 seconds
We left Bellagio and got semi lost trying to find the walkway back to Paris. I had been carrying a big bottle of water and desperately wanted to find a drinking fountain where I could fill it up again. I certainly didn't want to pay $2 for a bottle of water in the gift shop if I could just refill mine. I couldn't find a fountain anywhere. You would think that in a desert town like this there would be more places to get water to drink. Dan thinks that putting up fountains would cut down on the money they'd make selling overpriced bottles of water. He has a point.
We finally found the walkway back to Paris and were pleased to see a moving walkway actually moving AWAY from a casino. I didn't think that was possible. :-) We took it down to the sidewalk and crossed the street to Aladdin and Paris.
Click Here to Download Aladdin Construction (night) mpg - 1.2 mb - 30 seconds
In front of Paris and that beautiful fountain I found a seat on a ledge next to the building. A couple from England sat with me and we chatted about …. What else? The weather! :-)
Click Here to Download Paris Fountain mpg - .7 mb - 18 seconds
After a brief rest, we walked back through Paris towards our car. The casino is small, but it seems to have a good selection of gaming. I'd stay and play there without hesitation. The restaurants all smelled wonderful and it seemed like the people inside were enjoying themselves.
It was easy to get back to the car and we drove over the freeway on Flamingo and headed up Valley View. We wanted to get down to Palace Station's parking garage to shoot some pictures of the Strip for my sister.
We got on the freeway at Sahara and went back to Rio. We stopped in the coffee place right by the Masquerade Tower and each got a piece of cake to take up to the room. Dan got a White Chocolate Strawberry Napoleon and I got a chocolate mousse cake. Both were wonderful! We took them up to the room and watched a movie (American Beauty) on the tv.
After the movie was over we took a walk down to the pool area. Let me take a moment to gripe here a little bit. I love swimming at night. I don't understand why these casinos don't recognize people like me and keep the pools open until late. I don't need a lifeguard or a bar or a towel boy. Just leave the waterfalls running (Rio turns theirs off) and some towels out on a counter and I'll behave myself. I just love a late night swim just before going to bed.
We didn't swim, but we took off our shoes and stood on the steps of the pool. The water seemed to be the same temperature as the air outside. It was probably 80-82 degrees outside. It was very nice out there. When I noticed it was after one am I wished Dan a happy birthday and we went back upstairs and got some sleep.
