Long Story Really Long
Back Story
This is only background, so if you don't care, skip it and wait for the next post.
While visiting the in-laws over New Year's, I found out from the B&M Forum that Prince was doing live shows in Vegas. I read
Mike Weatherford's review of Prince's show in the LVRJ and decided I wanted to go. During the mid 90s, I lived in Minneapolis, but never tried to go to Paisley Park or Glam Slam. This is a regret, since I think Prince is a fine musician.
So I mentioned this to N (Mrs. StevieG) and she laughsed it off. After all, we live 2100 miles from Las Vegas, we had our first kid last year, and N is reluctant to leave her alone for a night out, let alone a weekend getaway.
On the flight back from the in-laws, the airline magazine had a small article on Prince's show. About a dozen times, I would flip to the picture of Prince and show it to Nina, interspersing it with quick flashes of ads for "O", Vegas restaurants and bars, to warm her to the idea.
We've done Vegas with friends a couple times, but never went all out on a big meal, despite being foodies. I thought for sure mentioning Picasso would win her over.
Still, she did not realize I was serious.
When I got home, I checked with my mother for her availability on various weekends to watch the little one. Next, I started looking at hotel and flight costs. Finally, I brought up the idea with N.
At this point, she knew I was serious, but she was still reluctant to make a decision to leave our daughter for a weekend.
I decided to keep looking at travel costs and convincing N to go at the same time. I started to give N options, keeping Grandma's availability in mind. My first thought was go Friday, come back Sunday, then I had the idea to just go Saturday and come back late Sunday. Effectively, we would be leaving her just one night. N wasn't committing to anything.
This is where I caught a break out of something most others would find annoying. Prince was not confirming shows until a week beforehand. He had performed over New Year's, but skipped the week after, and had only just announced he was playing on January 12th and 13th.
For most people planning a trip around seeing Prince, this would suck. For me, it helped, because it meant that N could not put off the decision. On Friday the 12th, I got confirmation Prince was playing the next week. I had looked up various hotel and airfare costs and they were more than the night before. N had to make a decision...she asked for one night to sleep on it, and I agreed.
Saturday morning, the 13th, N made a long face. "I can't believe you talked me into this..."
I raced to the Internets and started looking up phone numbers. First, Prince tickets. Easy. Next up, airfare. That was another break, the airfare had gone up from Thursday to Friday, but actually dropped from Friday to Saturday.
Next, hotel. I wanted to stay where we ate dinner. With only 30 hours, why lose time in cabs?
Along with the 3121 club, Prince has a restaurant at the Rio called "Jazz Cuisine." You can get a package for VIP show tickets and dinner. The menu looked decent, but I wanted a lot more than that.
Picasso at Bellagio was what I had in mind. But posts here had been putting Wynn above Bellagio in just about any category. I liked the idea of staying at the Wynn, and I had
just eaten there at Wing Lei in November and enjoyed it. So why not look at other Wynn restaurants?
I found
this LVRJ review of Alex at the Wynn and I was sold.
Called Alex, booked us for 7PM the next Saturday.
Though time would be tight, I guessed I would play 3 hours Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, and booked through the poker room. That was easy too.
Grandma got the call after that, and she was excited because it meant a weekend of one-on-one time with her granddaughter.
As a last bit of prep I PM'd TT to try to meet. We've never met, despite doing some online work together. I prevaricated and then missed out on Ed Miller's bachelor party, had to cancel a trip to New York on another occasion where we had laid out plans to meet, and we missed each other in AC by a matter of hours when we had planned to meet.
N and I were all set for our 30 hours in Vegas.