Last year on a couple of my trips I met up in Vegas for a few hours with VegasChic, VegasChic Sister and Vegaschick's BFF and we hit it off as all of us do Vegas in a similar style! For 2016 we were determined to connect our trips when staying at Palazzo and we were able to make the end of February work for all of us.
While they were coming from Canadian and myself from California our planes arrived in Vegas within 5 minutes of each other but at different terminals. The limo driver was waiting for me at baggage claim and my first win of the trip was when my luggage was first out, is it a sign I'll be a winner this trip? Once on the road to Palazzo my limo driver who was in touch with VegasChic's driver insisted we would be at Palazzo before them, okay didn't know we were racing but it's on! However when I arrived and entered the VIP room to check in they were already there so it was hugs all around, it's time for the fun to start!
Usually our rooms are ready and waiting for us but a huge convention had been in town and had just started to return home so some of us had to wait a couple hours for our rooms. No problem for me I'll just check my luggage and start using my free play! We made plans to meet up in a bit in the casino as they had one room ready and were going to store their luggage and get organized. I headed off to the Venetian high limit room!
Gambling started out promising when I hit a bonus on $5 Pinball fairly quickly and had a nice bonus of $400.00!
Then remembering that my friend Clemi had hit 5k bonus a week ago in Kansas City on $1 Sun and Moon I decided to play it at Venetian. Sadly my bonus was only $127.00.
Played some dollar Diamond Queen which was a fail, so I went over to dollar Quick Hit the version that only has 9 lines and surprise hit a bonus fairly quickly for $329.00! It was a surprise because I picked poorly in the bonus and ended up with 7 spins plus the 5 with the wild. Moved on to $5 dollar Top Dollar and a couple other $5 slots that were fails, so I decided it was time to venture out of the HL room and try a couple dollar slots like Elvis Shake Rattling Reels. Unfortunately Elvis didn't want to shake loose of any money!
Walked around to see what was new on the floor and discovered the new Flintstones Reel Slot that plays a lot like Lord of the Rings Reels, Wizard of Oz Reels, etc...
Had a couple cute bonuses but the pays were so low, I moved on to Top Gun and the original Wizard of Oz games but couldn't get a bonus on those.
Getting a bit discouraged I walked back over to Palazzo to meet up with VegasChic, Sis and Bff, when I started to text with my friend Julie. Julie was also staying at Palazzo and had arrived the day before to play in a slot tournament. All of us decided to meet in the Palazzo HL room and have a little HL pull together. We had a blast playing tons of games like Dangerous Beauty, $5 Pink Diamonds, Shadow Diamond and other games but our best win was on a $1 Quick Hit bonus for over $400.00, so after a hour or so our pooled money was just a fond memory!
Here's our Quick Hit Bonus if you would like to see our live play and fun with Quick Hit, here's the video!
After our High Limit pull I noticed a text saying my luggage had been delivered to my room ( I had left a tip with the VIP registration clerk and she had handled valet picking up my luggage and taking it to the room when it was ready) and that I could pick up my room keys, so after collecting my keys I went to my room to change for dinner and found a snack of cheese, crackers, fruit and some candy waiting for me from my host.
My room was 42918 and had my favorite view looking out toward the high roller wheel, Mirage and toward Mandalay Bay!
It was time to meet the ladies for dinner, here's VegasChicBff, Sis, me and VegasChic.
Our dinner reservation was an early one as we had a the Aussie Hunk show to see tonight!
Boots and I started planning our trip to Vegas after we were in Las Vegas with our families during Thanksgiving. That trip we were both busy with family activities and only got to see each other briefly during Thanksgiving dinner. While Boots couldn't arrive until Thursday night due to work commitments I decided to sneak in on Wednesday and have a Vegas day/night all to myself.
My Cosmopolitan offer was for a one bedroom terrace but personally I prefer the studio so that's what I asked for. and received. My personal issue with the one bedroom terrace is the tub/shower being near the balcony and I can never get the blinds shut tightly enough in that area that light doesn't stream in and wake me in the morning.
Rooms were ready when I arrived but I had one of those clerks that didn't want to give a complimentary view upgrade even though I'm gold with Identity so we played what price for a upgraded view and finally settled on $30 per night. Normally I would have gone through a host for this view but my host had left Cosmopolitan over a year ago and I had never gotten around to having a new one assigned. Fortunately during this trip one of the senior hosts found me while I was playing the Lord of the Rings slot machine and introduced herself to me and the first thing she did was comp off the $30 a night upgraded fee for the view. At the end of my stay she also comped off all food charges and I was impressed with how often she checked in with me during the trip to see if I needed anything.
Usually I eat at the airport before my flight but I had skipped it this time and was really hungry so after dropping off luggage in my room I headed down to The Henry. Talk about timing, I had 2 minutes to order before the kitchen closed so I went with their Cobb Salad. Later I questioned the server about why they were closing so early as it was only 2pm and it turns out on the third Wednesday of every month they close the restaurant early and don't open up until the next morning while they throughly clean it. I'm glad they do that for sanitary reasons, but it was a rushed lunch on my part even though they weren't trying to get me out of there quickly it just felt uncomfortable having then clean around me.
The Henry Cobb Salad! The salad is fine, nothing special but if you are in the mood for a Cobb salad you will like it.
After eating, the first slot machine I went to is one of my favorites, The Walking Dead. It was nice to start out the trip with a win! Below I have a link to a video of some of my Walking Dead bonuses at Cosmo.
This trip I discovered the fun to be had on playing the Lightning Link Games!
They ended up being one of the few games I could win on this trip!
After a few nice wins, I celebrated with the signature drink at Cosmo, the Cosmopolitan of course!
Here's a video of a couple bonuses if you haven't seen these games yet.
I found the new I Dream of Jeannie Slot Machine which is similar to the original Sex and the City Slot.
Unfortunately no luck for me on it this time or later in the trip when I played it. I do have videos of live play and a few bonuses on my youtube channel if you are curious about this new game.
Boots suggested we give Mastro's Ocean Club restaurant a try on our February trip to Vegas and I was all for it as reviews were good and I've never eaten at any restaurant at Crystals City Center up to now.
Photo of the restaurant above, some call it a tree house, others call it other things, what do you think it looks like?
Boot's gin base cocktail which she describes in the video below. I forgot to take a photo of my Cosmopolitan I ordered but it is in the video and bubbling away as it was served with dry ice on the bottom of the glass.
I have the bread basket in the video but again forgot to take a photo of it. I was having some camera issues that evening, couldn't be me, has to be the camera. ;)
Boots had the appetizer portion of their scallops and it was great, but with the heavy butter sauce very rich!
I loved my crab appetizer served on dry ice, the portion was very generous and well worth the price, I would order this again!
Boots had a filet mignon which she liked but was having trouble eating as the rich buttery sauce on the scallop appetizer had filled her up.
I ordered the dinner entree of scallops which was a mistake because I could only eat three of the five on my plate due to the heavy sauce so in hindsight should have ordered the appetizer portion for my entree.
Sides of sugar snap peas and mushrooms. They were fresh and tasty but a bit heavy on the oil/butter.
We were too full to order a dessert which made me sad! If I return since portions are so generous I would likely order the crab again which was really a good deal in my opinion and then perhaps a second appetizer as my entree and only one side dish per two persons so that I would have room to try one of their desserts!
Photo Slide Show and Video of the food and drinks. My Cosmopolitan cocktails not pictured above is in the video, it was smoking with lots of dry ice!
CliQue Bar and Lounge opened around January 1st where the Book and Stage bar used to be. If you don't know where that was it's first floor, west tower which isn't far from the hotel registration area. CliQue's hours are 3pm to 3am with snack type food being available from 5pm to midnight.
I was there on Friday night January 22nd before dinner with my friend Boots and later returned to have a drink around 10pm with my friend Deann. Since it was Friday night I made a reservation and was glad I did as the lounge was full at 10 until we left around 11pm.
I never got to the bar area but I've read on vegasmessageboard a post that said they do have video poker at the bar but they only comp drinks for VP play up to $15 and most drinks at CliQue are more then that as you will see from the menus below.
The servers are very attractive and friendly. However since it's newly opened sometimes the staff can get confused on the orders and while service both times I was there that night was very friendly it was a bit slow, but I'm sure that will clear itself up after it has been opened longer.
Our server above recommended the Dr. Cel Ray Pepper as one of the best drinks and it was definitely a stand out, very refreshing, I would also recommend this.
Boots ordered the Off the Leash drink and it was also very good.
There was a bit of confusion with initially taking our order as our server thought the mixologist had said that only one drink that available on the table side mixology menu and since that one didn't appeal to us we ordered the drinks above. However when she served them to us she let us know that she had misunderstood and the drink we didn't want was just one he recommended and all were available, so after a taste of the two above she took those back and we ordered off the table side mixology menu.
Seating was very comfortable. It was early around 5pm so they hadn't put down the dividers that would lowered later that evening to cut off the view of the slot area from the lounge.
It took a while for them to set up for the table side mixology but once it happened it was fun to have them mix the drinks at our table. There's a video at the end that I took of the mixologist making our two drinks. I loved my drink on the left, Heated Moments which is spicy and served with a few jalapeños that have a cinnamon sugar glaze. Boot had the Chester Copper Pot and she liked the drink but the mixologist seemed to have a slight problem in our opinion getting all of her drink to drip out of the barrel so she ended up with a drink that was mainly a large round piece of ice and her drink was $30.00! Drink prices are a bit steep at CliQue but then again most of the nice lounges on the strip these days have drinks at $15.00 or more.
Later that evening I returned with my friend Deann and like most lounges the music was playing a bit too loud to make it easy to talk but was bearable.
I think Deann's drink was Luck be a Lady and she liked it enough to order two. I had the Dr. Cel Ray Pepper as a fall back drink because I was able to confirm that if you want something off the table side mixology drink menu everyone at your table must order off one of those.
We tried a couple of their snacks, the Edamame which was good but then it's hard to ruin Edamame.
The Deep Fried Oreos with vanilla anglaise sauce was yummy, and the portion generous.
I will return to CliQue again in the future when I'm meeting up with friends because I found the table side mixology fun and there are some snacks on that menu I would like to try and lately I have found Bond Bar to be too noisy at night to attempt to talk to friends while drinking there. However for those of us who are slot players and we're not looking for a snack at the time, the best meet up place at The Cosmopolitan might be in the casino while playing games with friends there as they are still among the best complimentary drinks on the strip!
For the slideshow of photos and also video of the table side mixology click on this youtube video I put together.
