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Only a hour flight away from Las Vegas we visit frequently, sometimes once a month. I'll be sharing our trip reports, tips on making the most of your stay in Vegas, reviews of restaurants and shows we have seen, along with my thoughts related to our favorite place to get away from it all.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Palazzo & Bellagio January 2012 trip report

I left San Jose on January 16th, and had a uneventful flight and arrival at McCarran until I got down to baggage and at the foot of the escalator was the limo driver with my name on his sign. Great, I don't have to track my driver down this trip, terrific start to my trip. As I greet my driver the first thing he says to me is what hotel are you staying at?  Thinking that was a strange question I replied Palazzo while glancing at his sign again to make sure it's my name on there when I notice in fine print it also says Cosmopolitan.  As I'm reading this a second driver comes running up with a sign with my name on it and this one is from Palazzo. Oops! I had 2 limo drivers thanks to my host at Cosmopolitan forgetting to cancel out my limo ride when I canceled my stay there four weeks earlier due to a better offer from Palazzo.  Knowing that my Cosmo host isn't the most organized person, I had double checked the week before leaving to make sure that reservation with Cosmo had been canceled and it had been, but never thought about the limo pickup and I guess the host didn't either!

I felt sorry for the Cosmo driver and offered him my apologies. The Palazzo driver said not to worry about it as Cosmo would just end up telling him to pick someone else up, but I still felt bad about it. Obviously the two drivers had also run into each other before I arrived and knew something was wrong hence the question from the Cosmo driver about which hotel I was staying at.
Once I arrived at Palazzo, it was a quick check in with the VIP lounge and I was settling in to my room with the usual Treasure Island View in about 5 minutes. My host had a nice basket with snacks and drinks waiting for me. The offer for this trip was $700 free play, $150 upfront food & bev, limo, vip check in and Fortuna or Rialto suite which is why I canceled out the Cosmopolitan offer since it was much less free play.

After unpacking I was eager to start gambling but disappointed to discover that half the Palazzo casino floor in the area of the player's card desk was curtained off due to renovations and some of my favorite slots were MIA. Fortunately on the other side of the casino my favorite Hangover slot was there and greeted me with a bunch of bonuses but unfortunately my record as worse bonus picker in the world remains intact so my wins were low.
After playing Hangover and a few other penny slots, I decided to try my luck at Venetian's high limit room and while walking over from Palazzo enjoyed their lovely "Year of the Dragon" Chinese New Year Display which would officially open the following week.
Once at Venetian's HL room, my favorite $1 DaVinci Diamond slot didn't want to give me any wins so a few hundred were quickly lost in that slot. I tried the $10 Butterfly slot but the best I could do was the win above. Finally hit a spin on $5 WOF but it only paid $200.