Brian K's 1999 Las Vegas
Summer Tour Trip Report

I woke up very late Wednesday morning, or should I say afternoon. It was around 11:00 am when I finally rolled out of bed. The reason was a late night of .25 video poker and $5 blackjack in the Tropicana's casino combined with several of those frozen drinks from the bar in the back of the casino. I've read the discussions in the newsgroup alt.vacation.las-vegas on the best .99 Margaritas in town and have also seen the comments on the alcohol content in those drinks. The frozen drinks at the Trop cost much more than .99, $5 to be exact, but you do get your moneys worth, alcohol wise that is. You can't tell from the cool refreshing taste but these concoctions are potent. They must have around twelve different flavors of Daiquiris as well as Pina Coladas and Margaritas. I'm somewhat partial to the Peach and Mango flavors but they will let you taste each one if you're not sure which to cool off with. Be careful though, gambling (let alone driving) should not be attempted if drinking more than one.

(On a side note: To avoid that expected though unwanted hangover the next morning always take three or four aspirins before going to bed. Works for me anyway. Now back to the trip report.)

Since I woke up late Tootsie made her own coffee run this morning and was back in the room by the time I got out of the shower. We then spent an hour or so in the casino before taking in the most popular daytime show in Las Vegas. The Illusionary Magic of Rick Thomas. This show is held in the same showroom as Folies Bergere. I received two free tickets to this show from the Trops slot club. 2-for-1s or discounts can be found in the "Whats On" and "Showbiz" magazines. Our seats were near the stage slightly off to the right but we had a great view of all the action.

Rick puts on a very good magic show and has all the elements covered. Bird tricks, cuts girls in half, disappears and then reappears in the audience, passes his body through his assistant, he even has several tigers in the show. He mentioned during the show that there are only 100 white tigers in existence and he has two of them. Seigfried and Roy have the other 98. Don't know if that is true but I do know that we enjoyed the show and would recommend it to everyone.

After the show we spent a little more time in the casino before I had to take another side trip to Excalibur. As I mentioned in an earlier day of this trip report I am a pro wrestling fan. And since two stars of WCW were appearing at the Nitro Grill Tootsie and I split up for the afternoon. I walked over to Excalibur to see Lex Luger and Miss Elizabeth who were scheduled to sign autographs. They were supposed to be at the Nitro Grill from 5 to 7. I made my way up the escalator at about 4:45 only to find the longest line that we would encounter during the entire trip. At the top of the escalator, which was blocked by the line of people, I pushed my way through the crowd and got back on the down escalator returning to the casino. I found a two deck hand dealt $5 Blackjack table and settled in to wait out the crowd. Two hours later and $100 richer I colored up and went back upstairs to check out Liz ; ^) ,,,,,,,, and Lex. Only a few people in line but they were out of pictures. I took a couple of my own and headed back to the casino.

While I played Blackjack I had an interesting discussion with a pit critter at Excalibur. I mentioned that I was only playing $5 per hand but during the course of the game and after I was up a little I started raising my bets trying to cash in on the run of luck I was having. I must have been betting about $20 per hand when I was approached by the pit critter. He started watching my play and struck up a conversation with me, asking if I had a card, where I was from, that kind of thing. I did give him my slot card but was told that it was only for slot machines and that I would need a table game card to be rated. I wouldn't think that they were sweating my play, I'm strictly a basic strategy player, no counting. Maybe he was just doing his job but it did seem kind of strange. Since I was about to leave I declined his offer for a table game card.

After my trip to the Nitro Grill I thought I would try something that I had read, I think, in one of Billhere's newsletters. That being if you pickup a house phone in any casino they will place a call for you to any other casino. I had a meal comp for two at the coffee shop at Excalibur received from Excals slot club. It is an anniversary meal for two just for being a member of the slot club. I was going to call Tootsie back at the Trop and have her meet me to eat dinner. Well I'm here to tell you that free phone call does not work at Excalibur. The operator told me that I could only call rooms at Excal. So after I walked back to the Trop to get Tootsie we made the trip across the strip again for our free dinner.

First we went to the slot club booth to exchange the card for the meal comp. After a short wait we had the comp to Sherwood Forest Cafe as well as a comp good for four drinks at any Excalibur bar. The meal comp was for $30. We found the coffee shop, no line to speak of, and had an uneventful dinner.

After dinner we went back to the Trop for the evening. Tootsie went to bed around 10:00 pm which is much too early for a night owl like me. I decided to hit the strip and see what kind of trouble I could get into.

Since we hadn't been downtown yet this trip that was my destination. I took the MC/Bellagio tram to center strip, crossed over to Bally's and started walking north looking for a bus stop. I soon found one right across the street from Treasure Island and wouldn't you know it, the Pirate battle was in full swing. Waiting for the bus, I watched the show for the first time. There was a huge crowd on the sidewalk in front of TI as well as many folks in and around the bus stop watching. I could feel the heat from the flames from where I was standing, it must be really hot right out front. I would also venture a guess that the buses won't stop during the show either because several passed without slowing down. Thinking that the heat from the flames during the show keeps the buses from stopping (yeah right) I decided to walk down to the next bus stop. Same result there. Now I know that these CAT buses have different schedules and that they all don't stop at every bus stop but this is ridiculous. I waited almost an hour total at three different bus stops and not one bus stopped. They should call these benches surrounded by advertisements "bus watches" because thats all I did was watch buses drive by.

At this point I'm getting kind of hot, not to mention the temperature is still around 100* so I continued walking, from Harrah's to the Desert Inn. Not too long of a hike but I'm not in Las Vegas to hike. I ducked into the DI for a quick beer. Now I see why the locals call this place the Deserted Inn. The place was dead. A couple of blackjack tables and one craps table were open, virtually no one on slot machines and only a couple of hookers at the bar. I put a twenty into the bar top VP machine and was quickly rewarded with a free beer, from the bar tender. After I finished my free $20 beer I headed back outside, crossed the street and went inside the New Frontier. It looks just like it did when it was just the Frontier only no hired union picket line workers outside playing their propaganda over loud speakers. The casino had about as many people playing as the DI. They should have renamed it the New Deserted Frontier. Tired of walking I sat down at a $5 blackjack table and colored up a couple of hours later even. Next I tried my luck at craps and did pretty good winning about $100.

At this point it was getting pretty late, I had all but given up on getting downtown so I started back towards the south end of the strip. A "bus watch" is located in front of the New Frontier so I sat down and waited. After watching about five CAT buses pass without stopping, two of which were empty, a strip trolley bus drove up. We (me and several other pissed off former CAT customers) flagged him down. He wouldn't stop at the "bus watch" either but he did motion for us to walk over to the parking lot beside the Fashion Show Mall. We boarded the trolley and after one stop at Caesars Palace were dropped off at New York New York.

That was Day 5 of "Brian K's 1999 Las Vegas Summer Tour".

1999 Summer Tour Trip Report © Copyright 1999, Brian K