July in Las Vegas, the heat, the crowds, the renovations going on at the hotels, not the best time of the year to visit, unless one is meeting up with a group of friends who know how to get the most fun out of any place they travel to especially if it's Vegas!
Prepare yourself for my longest trip report yet since I stayed 6 nights and I'm not breaking it up by hotels stayed at this time. Normally if I go to Vegas in the heat of July it's due to a fabulous birthday offer I can't turn down. This July I passed on going during my birthday to meet up with a group of about 30 plus friends for what became known as our Vegas Shore trip, a take off on the Jersey Shore TV show. However the special finale to the trip was a friend's Vegas wedding!
My Southwest flight out of San Jose was fine. My limo driver was the same man I had on my June trip and we had a nice chat on the drive to Palazzo. My room had the typical view of Treasure Island.
VIP check in was fast, and I had my usual view of Treasure Island from my suite. Waiting for me in the suite from my host was a gift of snacks and lots of Fiji water.
Unpacking quickly I headed down to do a little gambling and I ran into the walking vine ladies posing at the entrance to the Palazzo casino as I walked over to Venetian.
The week before I arrived I had read a live trip report of Trey's on the Slot Machine Forum that the Venetian Gold Room and High Limit Lounge was closed for renovations and a good part of the Venetian casino slot floor tented off and unavailable. Sadly everything was still in that state and getting worse each day as they closed more slots and floor area off. As of the date this trip report was published the Gold Lounge and Venetian High Limit room has reopened but the Venetian slot floor continues to be under renovations with a lot of slots not available.
Once at Venetian I started out playing my few favorite slots that were still on the floor but was losing on everything and my $600.00 free play went quickly. I did have a little luck on a Miss Kitty bonus.
Giving up on Venetian since the construction was getting to me, I went back to Palazzo and hit a decent bonus on Aladdin. I had a meet scheduled for this afternoon with a couple of my favorite members from the Blonde4ever board but unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances one had to cancel and the other one when she tried to call to tell me she was waiting for me at Palazzo received messages that my phone was unavailable so we never ended up getting together. Not sure what was up with the phone problem perhaps something related to her being from the UK and I assume it was trying to do a international call. Chriss, so sorry about that!
I had a brief win of $165.00 on $1 Texas Tea in Palazzo's HL room but after that went on a long losing streak.
While I was busy losing at Palazzo a man walked up and asked if I was the writer of this blog and we had a nice chat. David it was great to meet you and I hope to run into you again in Vegas! After talking to David I walked over to play Ruby Slippers and hit a hand pay of $51.50! Yep, you read that right, my luck was so bad at that point the slots were taunting me. After getting paid I walked by David who seeing the slot attendants thought I had hit a legitimate hand pay and I gave him my sad news.
It was soon time to meet Gwen (yourstarla) for dinner at AquaKnox. As I was walking to Venetian I saw some of the Carnevale performers near the Palazzo waterfall.
Gwen and I have known each other online for years and finally met in March at Teresa's 40th birthday party and then had fun again in June celebrating Liz's birthday. I adore Gwen (and Liz), she's such fun to be around both online and even more so in person.
I've eaten at AquaKnox quite a bit over the years but this was Gwen's first time. Fortunately as in the past service and food was great. Above is the Pacific White Pawns entree that Gwen ordered. This dish has a lemongrass-cavier cream sauce that Gwen said was very good.
I ordered the wild Alaska Halibut which was so delicious I did everything but lick the plate when eating it! Each of us had cocktails, with Gwen trying a blueberry mojito while I went for a spicy margarita.
For dessert Gwen went for creme brûlée that had to be great as there wasn't a morsel of it left.
My dessert a type of smore chocolate cake was yummy and again not a morsel was left. While we were finishing up dinner the Carnevale entertainers had their nightly parade and went by AquaKnox and it looked really cute.
