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#1
02-08-2007, 01:15 PM
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Trip Report Vegas 2/1-2/6 Long, multiple parts
2/1 Arrival and first poker room experience.
Leave Ohio behind on Delta direct to Vegas from Cincy, bright and early at 8:30 am on Thursday 2/1/07. The wife bought a package of airfare and hotel for my Christmas present not knowing that it was going to be Super Bowl weekend. Sweet! We snag a porter, get the bags and skip the taxi line (thanks 2p2!) and are off to Monte Carlo in a flash. It’s only 11am when we get to the hotel but we head to the check-in desk to try the $20 trick. Joel, a fellow buckeye sporting a Block O lapel pin, helps us out. I’m not sure how much he helped but we got a non-smoking floor, king-size bed, decent view though I don’t think we got room upgrade as we had a prepaid package. We asked for a quiet room and we were the next to last room far from the elevator, but the construction noise was still audible starting at 7am making sleeping in a little difficult. Joel says the room isn’t ready yet but we’re hungry so we check the bags and head to the Brew Pub for some food. They no longer brew their own beer (bummer) but have Fat Tire, a favorite from my trips to Colorado that is not available in Ohio, so no big loss. Lunch is average bar food, but filling enough after a morning that started at 5am. Energized and with more time to kill, it’s time for some poker. I find the poker room, ask to get on the 1-2nl list and am told they have immediate seating. I hand the wife $40 so she can kill some time playing slots and am shown to my seat. I buy in for $200. This is my first casino poker experience. I’m nervous and excited. I play tight, fold a lot of trash, bleed off a lot chips with stupid continuation bets in pots that I raised and didn’t hit when I have 3 or 4 callers and have to fold the turn. It took some getting used to moving from 6-max low stakes online games to full ring 1-2. I add $100 twice and when the wife comes back at around 4pm to say the room is ready I’m down $250, but I learned a few things. Up to the room a shower and change of clothes before a cab to the Rio for dinner and the Penn & Teller show. Dinner is at Gaylord, an Indian restaurant. The wife’s chicken makhani is delicious as is my lamb curry. I get the nice forehead sweat that indicates it is just spicy enough making the Kingfisher drinkable but no need to guzzle it. The portions were perfectly sized as a doggie bag is not practical. While waiting for the theater to open we do a little people watching; a favorite pastime of ours. Across the lobby a family of New York dirt bags sit waiting the for the show as well. Dad is mulleted, wearing his nicest, formerly white, t-shirt tucked into his acid washed jeans. His wife is wearing high-heeled knock off converse all-stars which she proceeds to remove along her socks and then picks the lint from the toes and then massages her tired dogs. My wife has an extreme hatred for feet after they pass the age of 1. She nearly lost her dinner. The couple’s children didn’t fall far from the tree but I can’t bring myself to describe them, children that have already been dealt the hand of parents described above deserve no further humiliation. Penn & Teller put on a great show. I’m a big fan but I can’t imagine anyone with a sense of humor and even a passing interest in magic could not have a good time. Their take on the cups & balls routine was a highlight as I’m a big fan of slight of hand magic and couldn’t care less about the dramatic set pieces more commonly seen in Vegas style magic shows. See it if you get the chance. Exhaustion has set upon us both; we use our fourth wind to race the cab line. Get back to Monte Carlo and crash….hard. We’ve been up for 21 hours and we’re not as young as we used to be. Friday 2/2 No poker We also have an early morning planned as we’re taking a bus trip to the Grand Canyon. The wife has never been so this was a concession that will enable me to play as much poker as I want on other days; it is MY Christmas present after all. I won’t bore you with the details, but the trip is long, leaving the hotel at 6:40am and not getting back until 11pm. I was surprised that there were 4 inches of snow on the ground at the south rim. Other than that, standard bus tour: lots of Asians, cheesy tour guide, bad movies. But we got there, saw it and returned safely without having to do the driving ourselves. more to come if there is interest. 
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#3
02-08-2007, 02:14 PM
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Re: Trip Report Vegas 2/1-2/6 Long, multiple parts
Part II
Saturday 2/3 afternoon hilarity, evening meal and night time drunken poker Ah…..After 2+ days of little sleep and lots of travel we both slept the sleep of the just. We wake-up around 9 feeling fairly rested and alert. I convince the wife that morning sex is a must since we’ve been too tired the past 2 nights. The promise of Starbucks in bed delivered by her loving husband is enough to do the trick and I start my day in the best way possible. I grab breakfast to go from Starbucks while the wife is in the shower. I finish my coffee and muffin and swap places with her, get cleaned up and then it’s off for the mandatory strip walk. Adidas store, MGM Grand, New York, NY and we’re realizing this place is bigger than it looks from our 28th floor view. My wife has the metabolism of a humming bird. She is 6’2”, 145 lbs. I call her my 300lb wife in a 150lb body because she eats nothing but sugar. She’ll be slurping down her 3rd soda of the day and casually state, “I need sugar.” “Soda is sugar,” I say. “No, no. I need chocolate or now and laters or something like that.” “Okay, sweetness, I’ll keep an eye out for something.” So as we’re walking into NY, NY at 11am she is heading towards a sugar low and needs some food. Extreme mood swings can start at anytime so when she says she is hungry we look for someplace to eat. We are met at the entrance by a woman holding out coupon cards so we stop to take a look. We’re handed the card and instantly bombarded with a series of textbook sales pitch tactics. “Wow, what a beautiful couple, where are you from?” etc. Then we’re whisked to the nearby kiosk and passed off to Jesse as they have us on the line and he needs to reel us in. Here we go. Jesse asks us what shows we want to see, do we like Vegas and all that jazz. All we have to do is go take a look at the newest resort property and we’ll get free tickets or $100 gift card and 2 free passes to the NY, NY rollercoaster. Oh boy, timeshare pitch! We get the little virtual tour from his touch screen and the list all of the places we can spend the hundred bucks. The wife is hungry so we say thanks but no thanks but we’ll see Jesse if we change our mind. We stop and get the wife a slice of authentic NY style pizza, made by a 4’8” Mexican and eat it in “the street” sitting at a table. I notice the entrance to the rollercoaster and begin thinking we were going to ride it anyway, free is better than $30 (non-balla). I also look through the little pamphlet that Jesse gave me. The wife and I had planned on eating at either Delmonico’s or Craftsteak. Craftsteak is an option for the giftcard (nice restaurant: balla, using a coupong: not). I like to live a balla lifestyle on a non-balla salary. Timeshare sales pitch, count me in! next up....the sales pitch!
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#7
02-08-2007, 03:02 PM
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Re: Trip Report Vegas 2/1-2/6 Long, multiple parts
Really long acocunt of the timeshare pitch. Poker in the next installment, I swear, including playing with a Bracelet winner and being yelled at by an online millionare pro.....So skip this one if you're not interested but I think it's worth a read.
We pay the $40 upfront costs (to make sure you don’t skip out on them) which will be returned when get to Tahiti Village-phase II. We walk around NY, NY for a little longer and then return to the kiosk and are herded with 7 other couples on to a shuttle. We’re driven down the strip to the resort, which looks nice enough. We are put in a waiting room where a giant Polynesian man strums a ukulele and sings. Our names are called and we’re given our $40 for showing up and are told to wait for a few more minutes. We watch as the mustachioed, leather jacketed, used car salesmen turned timeshare hawkers line up in the on-deck circle are handed the names of the next target and then walk in to the waiting room, “Ramon and Veronica!” The couple who’s name was called gives him a wave and he walks over and introduces himself and tells the couple how nice they look and will they follow him on a little tour. The wife and I get the little guy in the yellow sweater and tan leather jacket, no mustache and the look of a former child star from a TV show I can’t recall. His name is James and we’re told that we’re a beautiful couple, yadda yadda; standard. We’re shown the pool area and told that phase II will have a lazy river and multiple pool side bars. Yippee! It’s all smiles and rapport building, again, standard as we move upstairs for the presentation. There are about 25 couples and their salespeople each seated at their own table in the meeting room. We’re given continental breakfast options and then have a seat. We are introduced to the head sales guy, we’ll call him Bill. He goes on and on about the uniqueness of this opportunity. We’ll be owners, fully deeded with all the rights that entails. Vegas is hot, the strip is growing and there is real value in owning property. We then are treated to a video featuring Ginger from Gilligan’s and Alan Thicke of Growing Pains fame. The sales people clap at all the right moments, they stand up and applaud the Iraqi war vet that is on a 2 week leave and is there with her husband on vacation. They clap for the woman celebrating her birthday. The wife and I don’t get any applause as we didn’t indicate that there was any special reason we’re in Vegas. They have a bunch of helium balloons tied at the front of the room. If you buy today you get to pop 1 and they all contain trips to various hotspots around the world. You win what is inside. You also get to spin the large prize wheel and get whatever trip the wheel lands on. Bill demonstrates by giving the wheel a heave. All the sales people leap to their feet and begin clapping a shouting “Bonus!” “Come on Australia!” “Fiji, Fiji!” If it lands on bonus you get to pick 2. Yippee! So, Bill wins a trip to Cancun with his demonstration spin and all the salespeople go crazy and then it’s off to actually look at the unit they are trying to sell us. The place is really nice. Two bedrooms, granite countertops, pull out couches, steam shower, Jacuzzi tub, plasma TVs. It can be divided up into two 1 bedroom places, 1 with full kitchen and the other with just a kitchenette so that you can use it for 2 weeks instead of 1 or you can trade with other owners in other places around the world. It all sounds great, of course, and James does a good job of only asking questions that we’ll say yes to, classic sales 101. Then it’s back to the conference room for the nuts and bolts. I’ve gone on too long with this part than I intended, but it was just too surreal. James asks us how much time and money we spend on vacations per year. We say around $2000-$3000. And then he lays it out. $42,000 for the unit $900/year maintenance $159 to trade with other owners in the network to stay in London, or Hawaii or wherever So with 20% upfront, we’ll own a week in a $2mil Vegas apartment for life! That’s only $700/month for the next 5 years with good credit. What a deal. Of course the $900 maintenance fee could go up over time. What kind of crock of [censored] is this? But not even before he gets to the end of his spiel a salesperson is jumping up and saying, “We have our first owners!” They’re going to spin the wheel. They win a trip to Australia with the popped balloon and a trip to Cozy Mel with the wheel. The salespeople go crazy. I’ve done the match above in my head and am realizing how ridiculous this is. I know that hotel costs eat into any vacation budget but you would need to go out of your way to find any real savings with this plan so I say so. James gets a little upset asking what changed between when we were saying yes and saying now saying no. I say that I don’t see the value. We spend $3000 a year on vacations but you’re asking us to pay $42k plus another grand a year just for a room. Of course it’s nice as hell but come on. James says ok; let me get the manager to see what we can do. He brings in the New York born hard hitting lifetime salesman. He starts in on the classic if I could, would you speech. Of course we would take it for free if he was giving we would take it. He divides the unit in half, waives the deposit, cuts the monthly payment in half, all the usual stuff. We say no again, he pulls out his New York City Transit Authority badge, mentions the World Trade Center as a last ditch effort. Nope, sorry, not gonna happen. How about two balloons and two spins. Nope, thanks anyway. We’re taken down the hall, handed our roller coaster passes and our amex giftcard and were off to the shuttle back the New York, NY. On the way out to the shuttle, I ask James if the couple who bought the thing a second and half after being shown the price were plants. He says, “No, they were from California, they see a good real-estate deal and they buy.” Yeah right, buddy. Two and a half hours, up $130. 13PTBB/hr. Nice!
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#8
02-08-2007, 03:28 PM
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Re: Trip Report Vegas 2/1-2/6 Long, multiple parts
Okay, time for poker now?
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#10
02-08-2007, 03:42 PM
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Re: Trip Report Vegas 2/1-2/6 Long, multiple parts
Did the "free" time share trip myself last Dec. The Pacific Monarch people didn't press me as hard as you got pressed. They were swimming upstream anyway. From my wife's slot play we get offers of 3 free days every month at MGM. Hard for them to compete with FREE! LOL. Also, I want to tell people to stay away from the condo/hotel sales pitch. IMO, there is no way that the room rental will cover your costs. Go for the comps instead. For once, it is a better deal to put your money into a 1/2 NL game instead of into these real estate deals. LOL.
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