MOM, A LUAU AND A SLOT TOURNAMENT-APRIL IN VEGAS!

Mom decided instead of going to Vegas around my birthday in July as she did last year this time she would visit in April so we scheduled five nights with three at Palazzo and the last two at The Cosmopolitan.

Mom was flying out of Ft. Lauderdale and myself out of San Jose airport both on Southwest airlines. Big surprise first time I could line up Mom's round trip non-stop flights with mine so arriving and departing we were just 5 minutes difference which was great as we could both take my limo to Palazzo. Both flights were a little early too and strangely enough had our luggage arriving at the same carousel at McCarran!

As usual we had a nice limo driver and the VIP lounge at Palazzo had us registered and in our room unpacking within 5 minutes of arrival, well they had my room ready Mom had to wait for a couple hours but it wasn't a issue as she stored her luggage in my room. Thanks to my friend BC who works at the hotel Mom and I had connecting rooms already reserved on the 47th floor in the 900 section with my favorite view looking out toward the High Roller Wheel, Mirage volcano and Mandalay Bay.

While I booked using one of my usual comped room offers with free play and resort credit,  my Mom's offer was the 50k winnin' in the Rain Slot Tournament above.

Mom and I both headed down to the casino after dropping off our luggage, where I quickly had my first bonus in the Palazzo High Limit room on Shadow Diamond. Too bad the bonus sucked and only paid $42.00 on a $10 bet!

After slinking away from the high limit room, I discovered the new House of Cards slot machine.

I had a couple fun bonuses on it, but Mom had none and headed off to find herself something else to play.

If you want to see what House of Cards is like here's a video of it.

After playing some more slots I had enough points (3000) for my four entries into the daily slot tournament. I've talked about this in other trip reports so if you want more details about it, check it out in my March trip report. Both Mom and I played in the daily but neither one of us won anything this trip in it, unlike my last two trips where I came in for 3rd place and a win of $250.00 slot credits.

I don't watch the TV show of "Orange is the New Black" but I loved the slot I found at Palazzo.

If you want to see live play and a big win on "Orange is the New Black" watch this video. If you aren't a fan of live play skip to the end of the vid!

Mom had a big win on Ruby Slippers too at Palazzo which was great as she had been losing and all of a sudden her luck started to change!

Love Monopoly Jackpot Station but this trip my best win on it was $159.00.

Same thing with Monopoly Planet Go, love the fun bonus but couldn't win much on it this trip.

In March I played the new Sherlock Holmes slot for the first time and liked it. This trip I loved it when I hit this great win on it.

Here's a video of that win if you want to see how the new Sherlock Holmes plays.

After playing some slots Mom's room was ready and we both went back to our rooms to unpack and freshen up for drinks and dinner.

Mom and I met up with my friends Sheri D, Julie and her husband Paul for happy hour at Table 10 at Palazzo.

I had the Sand Dollar (Sammy Hagar’s Beach Bar Rum – Elderflower Liqueur – Fresh Lemon Juice – Orgeat Syrup – Bitter Truth Lemon Bitterwhich I like and later a Lagasse Lemonade but it wasn't my favorite-Sailor Jerry Spiced Rum – Southern Comfort – Vanilla & Pomegranate Syrups – Fresh Lemon Juice 

Sheri the lady in the green blouse had the lemon drop which was really good!

Mom, Julie, me, Paul and Sheri.

Ten drinks during Happy Hour was only $75.71!

After Happy Hour we said goodbye and Mom and I headed out to our dinner at db Brasserie.

Mom and I both ordered their Caesar Salad which is delicious but it was huge, we should have split it.

Mom liked her trout which is above.

I enjoyed the ribcap I ordered but it was a bit overcooked.

Mom's souffle was light and yummy!

Their version of Black Forrest cake was delicious!

After dinner Mom and I played Sherlock Holmes again, I really like this new game.

Had a couple fun bonuses on the new Jurassic Park at Venetian.

Mom headed back to Palazzo to play and she went to bed a winner! While I met up with my friend Claudia who lives in Vegas. We decided to pool our money and play the Sky Rider game in the Venetian High Limit room and then pennies on Dragon Spin and Orange is the New Black.

Claudia and I had a lot of fun and wins, but at the end we lost. If you want to see the fun and wins they are in this video.

After saying goodnight to Claudia I headed back to my room to admire my view and get some sleep. There waiting for me was my gift from my host.

I love going to sleep looking at this view!

Mom had been assigned three tournament sessions, one on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 9:15am! Gag, too early for me! However I ended up waking up with a bad cramp in my right leg and couldn't get back to sleep so I got dressed and went down to catch her first session.

Yes, above is what the Vegas early morning looks like, who knew? LOL!

I found Mom playing Gold Fish while waiting for her tournament session and she had put $100 in the game and she had it up to over $600.00! And that's not all, wait for what she did after the tournament session.

Mom waiting in line to get to her lucky slot!

Mom ended up with one of the best scores of the day in the tournament slightly over 13k.

When Mom had left her lucky Gold Fish game to get in line for her tournament session I briefly set down at it and lost, LOL! See my great bonus below?

Mom returned to that Gold Fish game puts her $600.00 ticket in it and has it above $1000 in no time with bonus after bonus. I have a video of some of her bonuses on my youtube channel for anyone who likes Gold Fish.

I played the Gold Fish next to Mom but couldn't get anything going so we said we would catch up later and I went off to play some Fu Dao Le! The babies gave me one good bonus.

After that I went over to the Five Treasure/88 Fortune games and had a fun bonus.

It was time for lunch and we went to Buddy V's with the intention of having one of their wonderful desserts, after all he's the Cake Boss!

Mom and I both ordered the salmon which was fresh and delicious but by now it was 1pm and we had a early dinner at Table 10 so we could make the Human Nature Jukebox show so we sadly decided to skip dessert.

After lunch I was playing The Walking Dead when Carolyn from California,  a fan of my youtube videos introduced herself. It was Carolyn's birthday and she said meeting me was her birthday present. Thanks Carolyn, I've never been a birthday present before. :) Hope to see you again and next time meet your son too!

Right after meeting Carolyn, I got to meet Dewey and his wife Michelle who like me are members of the Joker's Wild Gambling Emporium (www.jweforum.com). We've known each other for years online so it was terrific to finally meet in person and have a chat. Dewey and Michelle were having a fun and winning Vegas vacation!

Later Mom and I went back to Palazzo to play in the daily tournament which once again we both lost at.

I decided as long as I was losing that way I would try Game of Thrones, since I never win on that new game. I was shocked to finally get my first good bonus win on it!

After that I hit a bonus on dollar Jungle Wild but it was just okay.

I tried Mom's lucky Ruby Slippers slot that she won big on yesterday but no bubbles or win for me!

My friend Julie was in Vegas with her husband. Julie and I like to pool our money and have some fun in the High Limit Room at Palazzo.

We had some fun and wins on a few slots in the Palazzo High Limit room until the meanie Slot HL manager told me to stop recording. I also think he jinxed our bonus on DaVinci Diamonds we were in the middle of playing.

Mom and I had to make our reservation at Table 10 and our show so I said bye to Julie and we returned to Table 10 for dinner instead of happy hour.

They started us off with an amuse bouche which was a tasty cherry tomato stuffed with goat cheese and a balsamic drizzle. Below is our first course, Caesar's Salad. Mom and I ordered everything the same except for dessert.

We both ordered from the Prix Fixe dinner menu which is four courses for $48.00 per person!

Emeril's BBQ Shrimp, always tasty!

Scallops were good!

The speciality dessert, the Banana Cream Pie, you can never go wrong ordering this until you dislike bananas.

I ordered the Bananas Foster Bread Pudding because Gwen, Teresa and I loved this dessert when we ate here in March and it's wonderful!

Mom and I had a few minutes after dinner to play a slot and I managed to get a couple wins on the new House of Cards.

Front row tickets to the new Human Nature Jukebox show.

Both Mom and I had seen their previous show twice and also their Christmas show last year.

While we always had great seats this was the first time we had first row seats.

Turns out I must have sat in the special seat as during the beginning of the show Phil was flirting with me and later when they came out into the audience to sing a love song he held my hand during it. After the song that was the end of the flirting, LOL!

The new show in my opinion is even better then the ones from years past.

While there are still plenty of Motown songs, it's great to hear music from other genres.

The above dancing duo also appears in the show quite a bit.

The dancers invited a man and a woman on stage with them to do the twist!

After the show as Mom and I were leaving a nice lady having recognized me during Phil's kidding around with me let me know she loves my youtube channel. Thanks so much, it was nice to meet you!

Afterwards we ran into Julie, Paul, Sherrie and Bob who had always been at the show and had a nice chat.

Mom and I played some more games like Sex and the City.

A few years ago I introduced Mom to some of the fun video games like Sex and the City and Mom who really didn't like slots started to like them. I was the same by the way and only liked table games until the first Wheel of Fortune game was introduced.

Mom and I had some fun and then she headed back to Palazzo to play a few slots there before going to sleep as she had a early tournament session again.

I stayed and played some penny slots but I was losing on them and was now down for the trip again.

I decided since I was winning on the pennies I would go to the Venetian High Limit room, and just play my last hundred or two for the day and then go to sleep.

Shocker!  I started winning. First there was a Pinball Bonus, then Top Dollar.

Then I hit three spins on Cash Wheel and went to the other one and hit another spin there.

After that back to Top Dollar for a bonus!

On to some bonuses and hits on the dollar Quick Hit games.

I was having a great run in the Venetian HL room, hitting bonuses quickly with the potential of a hand pay but none of them hit big. My best win for over $500 was on the 3 spins on Cash Wheel which added up together to over $500, the rest were between $200 and $400. Lots of fun and I won back a grand or so of what I had lost.

After cashing out and leaving the Venetian HL room I returned to Palazzo for a nice hit of $400 on dollar Jungle Wild.

Luck was still with me when I quickly hit a bonus on $5 Wheel of Fortune but the wheel landed on just $150.00.

Heading toward my room to sleep I did a quick stop at Orange is the New Black, and surprise I hit the Jackpot bonus and had a nice win on it. If you want to see that bonus it's here:

Last, I had a bonus on Titanic that involved picking and for once I didn't totally suck on it. 

Next morning Mom and I ate lunch at Grand Lux and surprise Joanne (Georgiagambler) and Ruth (HappyGM) were seated almost next to us after we had ordered! I had plans this trip to get together with both of them but what a coincidence to get seated near each other and the restaurant was full with a long line waiting! We had a nice chat and would be seeing each other several times this trip in the casino.

Since they removed my favorite salad the Sonoma Chicken from the Grand Lux menu I went with the Manhattan salad with chicken. It was good but I prefer their original Manhattan salad where you could combine the chicken and shrimp together.

Mom had her usual Omelet!

Mom had her early morning tournament session while I was sleeping in and she had another good session of 11k points or so! Her last session would be Sunday morning and we were hoping it would be a good one and give her the possibility of placing in the first five!

After that it was time to hit the slots. Mom had won yesterday and I had recovered most of my losses with my streak of last minute luck last night.

When this bonus re-triggers I thought for sure I was going to hit a hand pay, well I didn't hit one thing after it re-triggered! However it was a decent win. I sort of felt like I was jinxed because I had to stop recording during it due to the slot attendant coming over and letting me know that they had their eye on me after stopping me recording yesterday during the Davinci Diamonds bonus that Julie and I had.  Learning this I decided not to play at the Palazzo HL room anymore this trip which likely saved me some money.

In fact, I decided to do the rest of my gambling that day and night hanging out at the Venetian Casino.

Unfortunately despite the wins above and below I was losing more then I was winning, it truly felt after the slot attendant gave me a hard time in the Palazzo HL room that my luck had fled.

Mom was still holding her own on the slots but I had enough for now so we both returned to our rooms to change for the luau!

Two weeks before we left for Vegas I got an invite from my lovely host to a Luau at Venetian with a drawing for 25k of free play prizes. 

Here we are entering the party. My host was the one taking our photos!

We were one of the first ones in and most were standing at the bar for drinks so my host said to pick the table for our group and we went with one in the back so the music wouldn't be too loud.

Next up it was time to get a drink. They had a full bar which Mom headed for but I went for their specialty drink the Lava Flow cocktail!

If you wait long enough all the strawberry puree floats to the top hence the name Lava Flow. Of course I didn't wait long enough and just started drinking it.  Yum!

Only seventy guests had been invited to this intimate Luau at one of the Venetian pool areas.

I'm guessing that some high roller dropped out a couple weeks previously and since I was already booked for this weekend I got invited as a fill in and was happy to accept!

There was non-stop entertainment of Hula and Tahitian dancers and once it was dark Samoan fire dancers!

There was a great Hawaiian Buffet set out by the pool.

The shrimp went quickly but they put more out after my photo.

That's Kahlua pork front and center and it was delicious even though it didn't look as good as it tasted!

Photos of the entertainment.

Always room for dessert!

Each of us who were invited but not our guests like my Mom had one entry in the barrel for the drawing of 10 prizes of free play.

When they called out a name the person got to pick a numbered coconut and reveal their prize. The third person to picked selected the coconut with the top prize of $10,000 free play! Imagine our surprise and everyone else's when the one of the ladies at our table got called up and also picked a coconut with a 10k free play prize! OOPS! Someone had made a mistake but Grazie did what was right and gave both winners a 10k prize so this went from a 25k Luau to a 35k Luau!

The winners that evening in the photo above and below. Sadly my name wasn't glad. Shocker I know, LOL!

The end of the evening was the Samoan fire dancer!

After dinner Mom headed off to play some of her favorite games and I met up with Crystal. Both Crystal and I are members of the new www.vegasfanatics.com message board. We had met up briefly yesterday and made plans to have a little high limit play together at the Venetian High Limit room. We each put $150 in and played Lucky Ladies which were not lucky. Then we played Pinball and that was a fail too. No photos of our wins, we didn't have any, LOL! While we were doing this Georgiagambler and HappyGM joined us. Earlier I had played Sky Rider next to Georgiagambler and she had hit a screen full of wilds on the Sky Rider next to me for a hand pay of $2500.00! That was not her only hand pay this trip so she was doing much better then me!

After some fun, we all went our separate ways and I was off to the penny games at Venetian and Palazzo.

I mainly just lost, so sad, and these are my best hits for the night.

Meeting up with Mom we went back to our rooms for the night. When I entered my room I found a gift of candy thanking me for attending the Luau which was a nice touch!

Next morning Mom finished her tournament session but she told me she only made 8k or so points so we think she might have only won $100 free play. We don't know what she got yet because the tournament results would not be announced until later that evening and while Mom had a four night comp we were checking her out early and both of us were checking into Cosmopolitan today. Whatever she won will be on her Grazie card for six months and Mom had such a fun time that she has decided to go to Vegas three times this year and will be back the end of July at which time she will use that free play!

Before checking out of Palazzo we ate at Grand Lux where Mom had her usual eggs and I forgot to take a photo of whatever I ate, but chances are whatever I have ordered you have seen me eat before!

Mom and I took a Uber from Palazzo to Cosmopolitan. Still loving Uber and we didn't even have to wait for it to arrive as I ordered it as we were walking out of the elevators and our driver must have been really close to Palazzo. The pick up point is now just 10 yards or so away from where the taxis drop you off at Palazzo. If you haven't tried Uber yet and want my code for a free ride it's dianae549ue.  Full disclosure when someone uses my code I also get a free ride and thanks to all of you who have used it!

When we arrived at The Cosmopolitan there were five of the longest lines I have seen there! Either my timing was really off or Vegas is just that busy these days. I'm only Gold at Cosmo so I don't have VIP check in, darn it!

We ended up waiting about 20 minutes but got lucky when both our rooms were ready and while they were not connecting rooms we were on the same floor with fountain views!

For those of you who haven't seen the Terrace One Bedroom suite in previous trip reports here you go.

After unpacking for a second time this trip (worth it!) we headed downstairs to gamble. It didn't go well and I quickly used up my free play and was losing at the penny slots.

Mom on the other hand was doing good on the penny games so I left her to play those and told her I would be in the high limit room and she could find me there. Why go to the high limit room when losing, well sometimes when the pennies aren't doing anything the high limit slots work for me. Of course when both aren't doing anything it's disastrous for the bank roll.

At first it didn't go well. I lost $200 trying to hit the Top Dollar bonus on the slot I had won the hand pay on in March. So I went to another Top Dollar game and on that one I quickly hit the bonus for $300.00, not great but hey a win! I left that game then and went to Davinci Diamonds. While I was playing Davinci a man went over to the Top Dollar I had been playing and hit a hand pay! Timing is everything. :)

There were quite a few people in the Cosmopolitan High Limit Room and quite a jackpots were being won. At one point one of the slot attendants came over and said don't worry you will hit one too. After that I did hit a bonus on DaVinci Diamonds but it only paid $630.00 while the lady two slots down on another Davinci hit the bonus for a hand pay, LOL!

I left Davinci and saw a Kitty Glitter. It's been ages since I have played dollar Kitty Glitter because even the penny version is hard to bonus on, but surprise I hit the bonus very quickly! Bigger surprise I won $1000.00 on that bonus even though I was unlucky enough only to make one kitty wild during it!

Of course to win more you have to play more and after trying some other games including $10 Wheel of Fortune, Double Top Dollar again and others, I only had about $600 or so left of my wins.

Before I left to join Mom back at the pennies and before I lost everything I won I decided to play a new Pink Diamonds that I haven't played before. I don't play many reel type slots but I've always liked Pink Diamonds and been fairly lucky on it so I decided to play my ticket down to $500.00 and see what might happen. On my very last spin I got a hand pay!!  If the 3rd seven had been another double pink seven it would have been 20k instead of the $1600.00! I have a video of playing Pink Diamond and this win hitting if you want to see it:

At the time I was playing Mom had come by and stood outside the door to the high limit room because she didn't want to interrupt my recording so she saw me hit my hand pay and was there to take a photo of me. Thanks Mom!

After my win I left to play the penny games with Mom again but before leaving I went by the snack area they have set up in the Cosmopolitan High Limit room and celebrated with a yummy cookie!

I tried Austin Powers again at Cosmo this trip but couldn't get one bonus on it. Fortunately the new Ted slot gave me a good win instead. Ted is a funny game raunchy game like Austin Powers, it will be interesting to see how it does. Here's a video of this new game:

Outside the new Sport Book at Cosmo.

Mom and I found that Cosmo had Sherlock Holmes too and while I had a decent hit on it and a bonus that was okay, Mom was doing well and winning more on it!

Dinner tonight was at D.O.C.G. I ate here earlier this year with Boots and wanted to return for their delicious swordfish.

Focaccia bread is really good.

I love spicy drinks so I went with the Spicy Paloma but for the first time didn't like my drink. I think it was the pink grapefruit juice in it, just not to my personal taste though I like grapefruit juice. Our server noticed I wasn't drinking it and insisted on replacing it. I ended up going with a glass of Riesling.

Mom and I shared the Crispy Artichoke appetizer which I had also enjoyed with Boots earlier in the year. This is really good!

My Swordfish Milanese wasn't quite as tasty as the first time I had it but I still enjoyed it. Mom also had the Swordfish.

We shared a side of Cauliflower, great flavor!

For dessert we shared their wonderful Caramel Budino!

After dinner Mom and I walked to Caesars Palace as we had VIP tickets tonight to the Matt Goss show!

There was a line when we got to the Matt Goss showroom. We made the mistake of getting in line not knowing that we could have walked right up to the lady to be seated due to having VIP tickets.

The man who seated us and another gentleman who also had a VIP ticket was quite funny and part of the show at times. They were sold out that evening and he put us at a nice table for 5 or 6 right above the circle that was closest to the stage. Quite the kidder he had us convinced for a few minutes that we were at Matt Goss's private table because they were sold out.

They give you this to hold on to for the Meet and Greet with Matt after the show.

It's an intimate room so the majority of the seats are good.

Mom with the gentleman who was seated with us. Unfortunately I forget his name but he was very nice. Later after the show started the last two people were seated at our table.

While everyone around us had drinks for some reason the cocktail server never came to our table to take our drink order until about 15 minutes before the show ended when the other couple at our table finally got to order a drink but the three of us had given up, LOL!

Various photos of the show!

Matt dancing with a newlywed he pulled from the audience. He also did some joking around with her husband.

Matt and one of the dancers standing almost on top of me, LOL!

Matt is very personal, has a great voice and really knows how to work a room.

Below is Matt's step father who he introduced and then told a couple stories about his deceased Mom and his step father who now lives with him in Las Vegas.

More photos of the show.

Mom and I didn't go to the Meet and Greet after the show as she was getting tired.

On our way back to the Cosmopolitan we stopped briefly at the Bellagio Conservatory to admire it.

By the time you read this they will have dismantled it and will be working on their summer display.

When Mom and I entered Cosmopolitan one of the Bond girl dancers/posers was right there.

It was midnight and Mom was really tired so she went up to her room to get some sleep, while I met up with VegasMonkey from the vegasfanatics message board and his cute fur baby Peppo! Peppo is quite the charmer!

VegasMonkey and I decided to pool $500 each and play Diamond Queen together. Sadly it was a fail but we will get them next time! VM then went on to play Pinball and Double Top Dollar and won several hand pays! I ended up getting a bonus on Davinci Diamonds and a few hits that made up for the loss during Diamond Queen or it would have made up for it if I hadn't continued to play a few HL slots!

VegasMonkey and I left the Cosmo HL room and went to play Buffalo Grand together. VM got two nice bonuses from Buffalo Grand but nothing for me. We said goodnight after Buffalo Grand as we would see each other tomorrow. I continued to play penny games but lost at them all. It was during this time that I cashed out with a ticket of $100.33 and walked from the game I was playing near the cashier to over where they had the Walking Dead game. Silly me, somehow I dropped my ticket and someone must have immediately grabbed it because I retraced my steps and couldn't find it. I did see a lady stick a ticket in a game that looked to be the same amount as mine in a slot and I did ask her if she had seen any tickets on the floor but she said no. I walked off still looking for the ticket and she quickly cashed out of the slot without playing it and disappeared into the crowd.

It was during the time I was looking for my ticket that I was recognized by a nice young man who was so excited to meet me and he took me over to his Dad who was playing Buffalo Stampede (and doing quite well on it) and said see Dad I told you it was her! He was so sweet and I'm really sorry I didn't get their names and chat a bit more but I was still looking for that darn ticket which I never found. At this point I decided this carelessness on my part was a signal to go back to my room and get some sleep which I did. Photo below is one of the areas I was walking around looking for my ticket.

While I had ended up losing money at Palazzo going to bed this night despite the losses toward the end and the lost ticket I was up a bit at Cosmopolitan! Of course I had lost at Palazzo, so wasn't ahead for the trip.

Next morning Mom had gotten up a couple hours before me, had her coffee and was playing slots while she waited for me to get up. The photo above is one I took while looking out the window waiting for elevator to join her.

After meeting up with Mom I had time for a quick bonus on 88 Fortunes before our lunch reservation. As I was playing 88 Fortunes there was a pretty young girl also playing it a couple seats down and she noticed I was recording. As I was leaving 88 Fortunes Cathy one of my youtube/blog fans came up and introduced herself. Turned out the pretty girl was her daughter and had mentioned to her Mom that there was a lady recording her slot play and Cathy guessed it had to be me. It was really fun to chat with Cathy who was having a winning trip including a big jackpot on Pharaoh's Fortune that she had hit at Venetian.  We like a lot of the same things so I'm sure on a future trip we will be getting together to play slots!

Mom and I had a lunch reservation at Milos so we said bye to Cathy and her daughter and headed off to lunch.

We both ordered off the three course lunch menu for $25.16 per person. Am I the only one that finds the 16 cents tacked on a bit humorous?

Their grilled bread was good.

I went with the Greek Mese Plate, it was excellent. Tarama, Tzatziki, Hortopita, Salami, Manouri Cheese, and Olives.

Mom had the Nova Scotia Smoked Salmon.

We both ordered and enjoyed the Shrimp Saganaki with cous cous, tomato and feta.

For dessert mom ordered the fresh fruits of the season.

I loved my Greek Yogurt!

Mom at the entrance of Milos.

After lunch Mom and I played slots. That great bonus on Flintstones is Mom's bonus. There isn't a great bonus on Flintstones for me to share, LOL!

I was back on my losing streak but fortunately I had plans to meet up with some friends. Mom decided not to join us she was tired and going to rest up for a while in her room.

I met up with VegasMonkey and he decided to join me in meeting up with our friends from the Joker's Wild Message board and also my friend Brian who I know from Facebook and Trip Advisor. Everyone was on time, and we had a nice chat before we decided to play some slots.

 VegasMonkey, Serensea, Zeus, me and Brian. Taking our photo is Serensea's husband and Brian's partner Allan.

VM had some work to do so he headed off, and Serensea's husband went looking for some Buffalo games he wanted to play. The rest of us headed off to the Lightning Link games where Serensea and I played next to each other with Zeus, Alan and Brian cheering us on.

Must have been our cheering squad bringing us luck as both of us walked away winners from Lightning Link!

We had a blast and I caught it all on a live play video for those of you who like them here it is:

After playing slots for a hour everyone headed out but me. I had a couple nice wins on Wonder Four Jackpots but was starting to lose again so I decided to head up to the room and freshen up.

Walking by registration to the room elevators I took this photo of the ever changing illuminated pillars.

After freshening up Mom joined me and we headed to Scarpetta to meet up for dinner with VegasMonkey!

Cisbatta bread, slices of stromboli bread, one with mozzarella and broccoli rabe, the other was mozzarella and salami, all were yummy!

Delicious dipping sauces of mascarpone butter, eggplant caponata, and olive oil. 

This was VM's drink, I think it was a lemon drop.

Mom skipped a drink tonight, while I had the Berry Smash which the server promised they would tone down on the sweetness. It was great, and had just the right amount of sweet.

Mom and I shared the Diver Scallops appetizer that had cauliflower, golden raisins, caper and marcona almonds. We both liked it.

Mom had the spiced duck breast and I think VM had this too, if he didn't I forgot to take a photo of his main. The duck breast was served with red quinoa, asparagus, and figs.

VM also ordered their famed Spaghetti with tomato and basil. I had a taste of it and it was delicious!

My main was the Kobe Beef Rib Cap and it was perfectly cooked and I liked it better then the one I had at db Brasserie. In March I had ordered the Rib Cap at Gordon Ramsay's Steak Restaurant at Paris and so far that is the best one in my opinion. The Rib Cap was served with gorgonzola potato gratin.

We also had a side of Broccolini Rabe which was nice.

For dessert Mom and I shared the Grand Mariner Soufflé, it was delish!

After dinner it was time for more slot play as this was our last night. I had a nice bonus on Lightning Link but that was about it with the penny games. I couldn't get anything going with Austin Powers, Ted and various other penny slots.

I decided to see if the dollar games wanted to treat me better and I recalled Cathy's jackpot at Venetian on Pharaoh's Fortune and decided to give it a try. No one was more shocked then me to get a bonus on it pretty quick. In the past I can never pick well on even the penny version of this game so I was surprised when I did fairly good with my picks. Still not a jackpot but the best I have ever done with this game.

After my bonus I tried the Pharaoh's Fortune on the next slot and had a nice hit on it of $450.00!

Things were looking up so I tried Kitty Glitter again but it was a fail this time getting a bonus.

Yesterday I had gotten a hand pay on the new Pink Diamonds game, tonight I tried the old one that I usually play only betting two credits instead of the max of three and I hit for $200.00.

After that I tried Pinball, Top Dollar and Davinci Diamonds but was just losing so I returned to the penny games.

I was playing the new Jurassic Park game when I was recognize by two of my youtube/blog fans, Sabrina and Chris from NY! Was great to meet you two, hope to see you again in Vegas on a future trip!

I had a couple bonuses on JP but nothing great.

Mom who had been around playing her favorite games, including one terrific chocolate river boat ride on Willy Wonka which is a video on my channel, decided to go to sleep. That sounded good to me so we both returned to our rooms to pack up for leaving tomorrow morning!

I never get tired of this view!

The next morning my host took off my room charges except for tips of course. Mom didn't have any room charges except for the upgrade to the fountain view as she was using my 2 night comp I get for a friend for being a gold identity member. As we were entering the elevator to go downstairs I ordered a Uber X and it was there waiting for us as we left Cosmo. The Uber pick up is just down a bit from the taxi line.

Mom got in a terrible line at TSA, while I breezed through TSA pre which only had about 5 people. Once Mom finally made it through TSA we went to Sammy's Beach Bar & Grill for breakfast except they had just stopped serving it so Mom ordered their Seafood Bisque soup and I had the chicken sandwich, no bread please. I usually grab a bite at this sit down restaurant at gate C and the food is reasonably priced and tastes fine. Mom and I had flights within 5 minutes of each other so we didn't have to say goodbye until the very last minute. It was a good trip, Mom lost very little and had lots of play. I lost more but also have lots of play and fun.

Flight home for both of us was uneventful. Mom had such a good time on this trip she has decided to return the end of July between our two birthdays. While I have a couple trips in between that one I will be with her, staying at Palazzo again and then 2 nights at Aria if things work out.

I'm sure my regular readers have already guessed I'm heading out for another Vegas trip, this time three nights at Palazzo. Reason for trip is to cheer for my friend VegasChic in the big $2500 Grazie buy in 550k Twin Stakes tournament she has entered! Also lots of friends of ours are coming in that weekend and we are having a high limit pull at Cosmopolitan the 20th so wish us luck with that and also luck to VegasChic!