Brief Trip Report -- Spas and Cook E. Jarr

[redietz]

A friend got us into the Linq and Caesars spas. Linq had a salt room. I'd never been in one before, but the walls are made of salt and even though it's a dry room, you can taste the salt on your face afterwards. The Linq schedules your stays in that room, and you can zone out for 45 minutes. Caesars spa was spectacular, as usual. Caesars has multiple steam rooms, a three-hot-tub area with an ultra-hot tub, a cold tub, and a large warm tub. They also have a snow room -- it is as it sounds. It snows on you in there. I tolerate snow rooms a lot better than the cold tub. The cold tub makes my chest seize up -- yowza.

Finally took the High Roller, again thanks to a friend. Very cool. I was amazed how you don't perceive motion once you get above 60 or 70 feet.

And finally, Cook E. Jarr is still performing at Paris, and is still a hoot. The guys gave him some Tasty Kakes and Philly pretzels (Mr. Jarr is from the area) and took some photos. Cook E. Jarr may be the only lounge performer who routinely asks for the Monday night score between songs, and interrupted his performance to make a halftime bet via his phone while on stage. He won the bet (second half Over).

As usual, the week between rodeo and Christmas was a great value in Las Vegas.

If you want to check out a spectacular music venue, venture into the Brooklyn Bowl next to the Linq. Very unusual. They obviously invested a fortune into this place; I hope they get some crowds. Huge, very wild venue with, as the name says, some bowling lanes. The place is cavernous and seats about 2500.

[Rob.Singer]

Aside from all the shake & bake in that report....I've been to Caesar's spa a number of times, and I went to the one at GVR for the first time ever this week. GVR's is sooo much better it'll have you wondering why you ever bothered with anywhere else.

Why you guys continue to be enamored and infatuated with anything CET is truly amazing. In fact, the only thing they do better than anyone else the High Roller--and that's because no one else has one.

[redietz]

Rob, I never play anything at CET except maybe on average one futures bet a year. So I would hope you'd exempt me from the enamored category.

I try to keep up with urban slang, but I'm unsure what "shake and bake" refers to. I'd appreciate it if you'd explain.

[Rob.Singer]

I don't include you in the CET boy's club. But if you do what you say you do then why do any of it at all anywhere on the Strip? These 7-Stars CET groupies who got themselves trapped and are continuously being manipulated like mindless puppets, are being kept a million miles away from what the rest of the world is like.

I took a few hours out of our GVR stay this week to use an offer I got at the Rio. I went over, checked in to get the $150 in free play along with $50 in food, went to the bar to play BP, and the pay table not only was 6/5--it paid 150 for all quads. So after cashing out $123 my wife wanted to try their Dim Sum restaurant. I should have known better because it was full of noodle-slurpers. We went in and the first five wait staff who tried to serve us did not speak English so we got up and left. Actually, there were few people in the casino and 90% of them were Chinese. The place has turned into a dim and dingy, dirty & empty cesspool that caters to Asians.

Upon leaving I went to the front desk and got a comment card to fill out, and I held nothing back. I also cancelled our trip to NO and Biloxi this week from the offers we received a few months ago. I'll never go into another CET dump again.

I know the CET addicts will say "the other CET properties in LV are much nicer than Rio" but having been to all of them hundreds of times, they're really not. Any place that caters to foreigners first while not really caring about the gringos isn't worthy of our business.

I got a reply from CET mgmt. already, profusely apologizing for our bad experience with an offer to make things right--we can use the same offer again. Nowhere did they explain why a restaurant in LV has so many wait staff that can't communicate with American customers. Nowhere did they explain why their 7/5 & 8/5 BP bartops from the past now had pay tables worse than any Indian casino. And nowhere did they explain why the place is so dirty and the rooms are such pits these days.

Conclusion: only fools even go into a CET property anymore. Fools and foreigners.

[jbjb]

They were probably just spill overs from Gold Coast. I think the Asian:Other ratio there is 465395:1

We don't care what a place looks like: http://gamblingwithanedge.com/that-place-is-a-dump

[redietz]

LOL -- I just stayed at the Gold Coast and the Orleans. The last time I visited the Gold Coast, in August, the GC had better vp than the Orleans. The Orleans appears to have improved in the interim.

Rob, I kind of like Paris. Rooms are nice. Suites are very nice. Restaurants are elegant and varied. I can understand passing on Bally's (kind of run down), Cromwell (overpriced, young and, well, young), Linq (don't know what they're shooting for), and even Planet Hollywood (too hip for me). But Paris is pretty cool.

[Rob.Singer]

Paris is inundated with foreigners from Europe. The rooms are small, even tiny, the restaurants are terrible and as far as "cool" goes, it's the tower PERIOD. It along with all the Strip casinos are magnets for the conventions crowd, who are notorious for being cheap and not gambling. Their Diamond lounge is famous for opening at 4pm for all the mooches who just can't get themselves to shell out twenty bucks for a burger.

[jbjb]

I'd rather just hang out in the front bar at Cosmo...

[james40]

I got such a laugh out of imagining the elderly white couple slumming at the absolute worst of the Harrah's properties in Las Vegas, going into a Chinese restaurant and being outraged that is was filled with...wait for it...Chinese. Then complaining to management.

Christ, you can't make this shit up.

[Alan Mendelson]

Rob, I must admit, you really go to extremes to get $150 of free play. You actually checked in and stayed at the Rio for $150? Was it worth the effort? LOL

[jbjb]

Rob, I must admit, you really go to extremes to get $150 of free play. You actually checked in and stayed at the Rio for $150? Was it worth the effort? LOL

Nobody said he had to stay there. Just check in, get the money, and check out if necessary. Why leave money on the table if it's easily accessible?

[mickeycrimm]

Nobody said he had to stay there. Just check in, get the money, and check out if necessary. Why leave money on the table if it's easily accessible?

Check in, run the freeplay, go up to the room and mess the bed up, steal some soap and shampoo, throw some towels on the floor, throw the keys on the coffee table, then leave.

PS: I spend so many nights in hotels when on the road that I never have to buy soap, shampoo or toilet paper at home.

[coach belly]

Check in, run the freeplay, go up to the room and mess the bed up, steal some soap and shampoo, throw some towels on the floor, throw the keys on the coffee table, then leave.

What's the point of messing the room up?

Why go up to the room at all...for the soap?

[redietz]

Paris is inundated with foreigners from Europe. The rooms are small, even tiny, the restaurants are terrible and as far as "cool" goes, it's the tower PERIOD. It along with all the Strip casinos are magnets for the conventions crowd, who are notorious for being cheap and not gambling. Their Diamond lounge is famous for opening at 4pm for all the mooches who just can't get themselves to shell out twenty bucks for a burger.

LOL -- thanks for the tip regarding the Diamond Lounge.

[Rob.Singer]

Rob, I must admit, you really go to extremes to get $150 of free play. You actually checked in and stayed at the Rio for $150? Was it worth the effort? LOL

Alan, you know better than that and if you read my earlier post them you'd have gotten it the first time. I understand james40 being confused because he's a simple hack. But you know better.

Remember saying we WERE STAYING at GVR for 3 nights--a resort far classier and better than anything CET? The check-in at Rio was just that--a check-in to get the free play and food comps. We left after having lunch at All American Grill. jbjb got it. And no, why would anybody stay at the Rio when it's a dump filled with slant eyes and we have a room at GVR?

Now you'll go on your rant about how unfair it is to the Rio and your sacred CET to do what I did to them.....Was it worth it? Of course, and it was the day after I hit the $2 royal. I did take both tp's and two hand towels, I messed up a bed, turned the TV and lights on, put the Do Not Disturb sign on my door, and called in on checkout day to say I had to rush out to the airport, couldn't stop by the front desk, and my TV checkout wasn't cooperating so I'm calling in to checkout. I've done this without issue over a thousand times all over the state, and it was always to grab the offers and disappear.

[jbjb]

I've had as many as 4 different hotel rooms at the same time in Vegas casinos just to pick up offers. Didn't give one penny's worth of play either. Yeah they stopped coming after that, but so what.

[Rob.Singer]

And after a while if you go back in and play ONCE, the offers start all over again. My highest is 7, but most trips were 3 or 4.

[jbjb]

The Boyds are the easiest in my experience.

These guys would love the Cosmo rooms.

[Alan Mendelson]

Well Rob you are a retiree and I guess you have plenty of time to drive to Vegas, check in, let them put a $300 hold on your credit card for a week ($200 if you're 7 Stars) then run the free play thru once to net a hundred bucks. For you it must be a nice supplement to your pension and social security. I can't argue with the strategy if you have nothing else to do. It beats hanging out at the Senior Citizens Center. Keep doing it.

[Rob.Singer]

Alan we're leaving to drive up to SF in an hour for the next five days to meet my sister and her husband, who are there for their anniversary. Then we're all spending Christmas at Red Rock before coming back. Our son and his family are coming up for New Years, and our daughter and her family are coming for a week in Jan. Yes retirement is sweet, and I'm busier now than I ever was as a working stiff. You should try it sometime. The world can make it without your participation.

Rio only put a hold of $200 on my cc, and I had to pay about $65 in stupid "resort fees" because I have a gold card. The only reason I did it was because we were going to be in town anyway so why not? I used to stay & play at the Rio at times so I wanted to see if it had improved, stayed the same, or went downhill. Turns out it was worse than that.

If you choose to (or have to) keep working then I'm all for it. In fact, I encourage EVERYONE to work at least two jobs. That way I can bestow non-stop thanks every month when my social security deposit gets made. Most of the younger guys won't ever see any of it, but who cares?

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays. While I can understand why arci's in his usual holiday slump (chuckle chuckle, sniffle sniffle ) the rest of you ought to be is the greatest of moods! I've revived the forum for you all, and maybe now Dan can throw one and all a Christmas party at the Rio.

I won't be able to make it.