Palms Place/ Monte Carlo

I go to Vegas plenty of times during the year. Last year being the most, hitting double digits. It's really easy for us to rent a car or take one of ours, jump on the 15, and drive less than 5 hours to our destination. Also, the desert always has the best views.

This was in mid August so..it was HOT. Around 105 Fahrenheit and humidity was around 60%..so yeah.
 
We were headed to Palms Place which is a hotel connected to the Palms Resort & Casino.
This was supposed to be a short work trip. Leaving Cali on Friday and Vegas that following Sunday.
Our room was very spacious, comfortable, and quiet.

Even though we didn't have a strip view I was more than okay with it because we had a great view facing the mountains on the 40th floor.


There was a separate sitting area in the room with its own separate TV next to the balcony. 
Our Friday night was very relaxed in Vegas. We walked over to the Palms Casino via the SkyBridge. (Which is a tunnel connected to the palms, with walkways that take you directly to the Casino.)
We didn't do much in the way of gambling but quickly made our way around the Casino to see what was around. There's not many activities to do at the Palms (we dont go clubbing) but they do have a movie theater that seems to have great deals, probably to attract locals and tourists into their Casino. We ate at Earl of Sandwich that night, relaxed, and went to bed.


The following Saturday morning I had a few hours to myself. So I crossed the street and walked over to Einsteins Bagels, which long story short was, underwhelming. The eggs were whipped, and the whole thing was pretty uneatable to me. I ended up walking back through the SkyBridge and getting McDonalds breakfast at the Palms then I decided to play some penny slots at min. denomination to kill some time. I was surprised when I got a bonus fairly quickly on Buffalo and got a great line hit.
 
I was down to $15.22 from my original $20.00 when the bonus hit. I ended up cashing out at $127.00. On a $0.40 cent bet, not bad at all. Needless to say, I started to feel a bit better about my luck and less bored. So I decided to head over to the Gold Coast, another hotel and casino right across the street. I went to the Boyd players card desk and they handed me $5.00 in freeplay along with my card. I walked over to Rainbow Reels activated my freeplay ran a dollar through, and started to play at $0.80 cents a push.. On my second spin I got a great line hit totaling $88.00. I wasn't able to get a picture because security was next to me. I was up about $210.00. Once I got my line hit, I ran the rest of my freeplay through, cashed out, and walked back to my room at Palms Place. I was at the Gold Coast for less than 8 minutes and up another $80.00. When I got back to my room Curt was there so we headed to the strip to eat at Cabo Wabo Cantina. We had a groupon, and the food was
quick and okay..... other than that...you can get a pretty decent view there facing the Bellagio water fountains.
We spent the rest of the day in the Palms resort doing some light gaming, and enjoying the view.

That night we decided to go to the bar located in the lobby of Palms Place called, "Rojo Lounge."
The bar has a very modern design and topshelf drinks. It's a small spot with a few TVs, a couple couches, and a pool table. We sat at the bar and felt quite comfortable. Both our bartenders were outstanding and the drinks were good.

That night we decided to head to the strip. The walk from Rio to Ceasars is a far walk in itself. lol. I don't know what we were thinking, but we did, and we did for no reason because we spent very little time on the strip and headed back to the Palms. I did get a four coin trigger bonus on Pompeii though at Ballys.
.
The trigger paid me the most at $10.00 lol but I wasn't upset because I was up 5 bucks. haha
We were supposed to leave that Sunday..but thanks to our little adventure to the strip...we were in no mood to drive back to SoCal. We ended up booking a room at Monte Carlo Hotel & Casino. Before our room was ready though we headed to The National Atomic Testing Museum
.
We bought a groupon that admitted two people for the price of $23.00. Those groupons are still available according to my app. It was a fun and educational experience and would recommend to anyone to check out if they're interested to learn about the history of atomic testing.

After the museum we went to check in at Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo is great because it connected next to city center so you can navigate yourself pretty easily.

We only had a few hours left in Vegas since we were leaving at 2;00 am the following morning. So we decided to hang out and re energize for a bit before heading out to Cosmopolitan to get some secret pizza.

Secret pizza is always a cheap, delicious option on the strip. One slice is very filling, and worth the wait. Secret Pizza is located on the 3rd floor, look for the hallway with picture frames all over the walls. The rest of the day was spent playing a few slots like Texas Tina and getting even more great little hits. At the end I still had my original winnings from Palms and Gold Coast plus little extra.
 \
I headed to bed early that night around 8 pm. We woke up at 2 am and headed out the door to SoCal and straight to work.

Halloween in Vegas

What a trip. Took about 7+ hours to get to Las Vegas from SoCal on a Friday night. (I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS!) We left on 10/30/2015 at around 6pm. I had to work that Friday so leaving earlier wasn't an option, but we decided that a halloween trip would be a fun last minute idea and Luxor sent me a BOGO room deal for that weekend. We finally got to Las Vegas around 1 am and check in was a breeze. We walked around the casino and gambled for a bit and ended up going to bed a little bit after. This was our morning view in Vegas.

We woke up a bit later than usual because I was tired from the drive the night before and still was a little sleepy. But we only had one day to enjoy ourselves since we were leaving the next day, so we tried to make the most of it. We were out the door by 1 pm and made our way to one of my favorite burger places in Vegas. Burger Bar by Hubert Keller located in Mandalay Place. Mandalay Place is located in the mall between Mandalay Bay & Luxor. The host and wait staff there are always quick to get you seated, and within 5 minutes we were ready to order. I recommend trying the onion claws with a side of chipotle aioli as an appetizer, for less than five bucks, you can't go wrong. For an entree, I built my own cheeseburger ($11.00) and bought a side of fries ($3.25.) Not bad at all for a gourmet burger on the strip.

I always enjoy my meals at Burger Bar and i'm never disappointed. The rest of the time we hung out in the south strip area. When it started to get dark, we made our way back to our room so I can get into my costume. This is when the night starts to get a little hazy..haha
 
We started out walking from Luxor and making our way to mid strip. WHAT A BLAST. So many people dressed in costumes and enjoying themselves. Everybody seemed to be in a great mood and having so much fun and all we were doing was walking to the Linq promenade. If you enjoy people watching in Vegas, you'll definitely enjoy it on halloween, it's people watching on steroids, it's nuts. I had a blast walking around the strip and was stopped quite a lot to pose for pictures. (I should've asked for tips) LOL. We didn't go to bars or clubs during this time, the streets of Vegas was enough entertainment for us, it's like a huge parade the whole night. I wish I took more pictures but I was having so much fun, I forgot to. After 1 am we finally made it back to the hotel and I started playing on the ellen slots and got a decent bonus fairly quickly.

After my big win we decided to head to Ri Ra Pub which is also located in Mandalay Place. We stayed up there and listened to the band play until our beers were done and headed up to bed. Around 6;30 am LOUD alarms start going off in our rooms, and they didn't stop til around 10 am and we were already awake before then. We were very annoyed since we didn't get a lot of sleep and we had a four hour drive ahead of us. We didn't complain to the staff on site but I did end up sending them an email and they apologized that their fire alarms were going off so early and were nice enough to refund us our resort fees making the weekend trip incredibly cheap at less than $60 for two nights. I highly recommend checking out Vegas during halloween, it was quite an experience.