Sign up for a free
ESPN
Zone account & the print off the welcome e-mail you'll
receive. This will give you a free $20 dining, game or merchandise credit,
a 40 point game card to use in their arcade & a mini cooler. If we each
do this, we'll have $120 for a nice meal.
Sign up for (or bring if you
already have one) a Southwest
Rapid Rewards membership card. Having one of these will allow
you to get a buy-one-get-one free Margarita by the Yard at La Salsa Cantina.
If all of us want one, three of us will need a card.
To
Pack Checklist
Your
ID, a little patience & a "free crap" attitude.
Many of the discounts we'll receive on this trip will require you to join
the Player's Club for certain casinos. It usually takes a few minutes &
is free. You usually get a plastic membership card & sometimes you'll
get e-mail or postal mail offers (which you can opt-out of anytime). Granted,
it's sort annoying, but harmless.
Comfortable
shoes. Vegas requires a heckuva lot of walking. Unless we're
dressing up for dancing, I'd suggest tennis shoes just about all the time.
Gym
clothes. Usually you only have one pass to the Orleans spa,
meaning you only get to visit the fitness center once per stay. Good thing
you know the coupon king...anyone wanting to work out everyday we're there
is welcome to.
Cash
in low-denomination bills. You'll need it for tips. Just
about everything else can be paid for with credit cards. ATMs of major banks
are tough to find - meaning you'll probably pony up ATM fees.
Laptop.
You can certainly bring one, but high speed internet access in your room
will coast $9.99 a day (sorry, no coupon to save ya here). I also wouldn't
try dial up...most Vegas hotels charge per call (even if it's local).
A
light-weight jacket. This may sound awfully stupid, as record
temps have been reported in Vegas this July, but trust me, you may need
it. They keep the casinos a chilly 65 degrees, so you may want one at some
point.
Your
cell phone.
As mentioned earlier, even local calls will cost ya, so use your cell phone
to make any calls. It's also a good way to find one another if we split
up. Be carefiul though, you're not allowed to use a cell phone while
on a casino's game floor.
A
good digital camera.
Plenty of photo opportunities. Just be careful about using them
inside casinos near table games. Casinos think you may be scoping
their layout for a heist or something..
Rolaids
or Tums. Even if you don't hit a buffet in Vegas, there's
an emphasis on food that might weigh down your stomach like a brick. The
3/4 pound hotdog or 8 pound hamburger for example.
VEGAS
SCHEDULE
Ver. 2.0
Ver. 2.0 Update: A few things in the schedule have
been tweeked, w/ explainations as to why. All changes
appear in red text. Also, I've added additional tables on free
drinks & how much has been spent on stuff - everyone keeps asking
me how I got this stuff, so I thought what the heck.
Note:
This is just what Katie and I came up with. We can
do everything or nothing from what you read below. I've tried to make
things affordable fo all, which drives some of the things on the schedule.
Thursday
- 9/4
Morning
Drive
or fly to Vegas
Afternoon
- Kasey,
Katie & Brooke arrive around 1 or 2 p.m. and will check-in,
drop off luggage & possibly explore strip casinos
- Ross, Emili and Ryan are still flying
Evening
- Pick
up the G'ville crew close to midnight
- Do a
very quick drive up the strip
- Check-in
the Floridians & grab a good, cheap meal at The
Courtyard Cafe ($1.29 breakfast to the 'pricy' $7.99
16-ounce T-bone steak special)
-Sleep.
Or drink. Your choice.
Friday
- 9/5
Morning
- Sleep in most likely
- For early risers, The Courtyard Cafe
offers $1.29 breakfasts until 7 a.m.
- For the rest of us, there's Seattle's Best Coffee
& Kate's Corner for breakfast grub.
Coupons for both are in your funbook. Skip the breakfast buffet
- bleach!
Afternoon
-
Katie, Brooke, Emili & Ross visit the spa for treatments.
Ryan & Kasey do some gambling at the Orleans and bond over
beers (as well as the constant view of buxom cocktail waitresses)
-
In the late afternoon all of us catch
the free shuttle to the strip to explore a few casinos. Bellagio,
Caesar's Palace, Paris, The Imperial Palace and the Flamingo
are all near Barbary Coast, where we'll be dropped off.
-
Possible activities could include:
free drinks
at Barbary Coast
a free
3 p.m. penguin feeding at the Flamingo
outdoor habitat (they have 13 penguins and other wildlife inclluding...shocker...flamingos!
a
free tour of the Caesar's Palace Forums 50,000 gallon aquarium.
If we time it right we can see divers feed the fish at 3:15
p.m.
seeing
the 250+ car Auto Collection at The Imperial Palace
casino (I have free passes)
free
gaming lessons at Paris (blackjack 4 p.m., roulette
1 p.m., craps 5 p.m.)
Evening
- Get
dressed in clubbin' gear. You too Ross.
- Ride
to Ellis Island Casino for a cheap,
filling dinner. This is home of the famous $4.95 steak dinner
(salad, garlic green beans, roll, potato & a 12-ounce filet
slice of steak). If you'd like to see a pic of the steak, click
here
- Consume
plenty of free drinks at Ellis Island
(I've got coupons, baby!), as we get ready to head to The Palms'
nightclub, Rain. Drinks there will
not be free or reduced, so do the hardcore drinking
at the Island. Ross, this is also
a great place to play blackjack, primarily because we'll have
matchplay certificates, which will minimize your losses.
- Leave
our car at Ellis Island & grab a
cab if all of us are intoxicated. If one sober person remains,
drive to Palms.
- Get
in with VIP passes I got for about $2 a person off Ebay. We may
still need to wait in line, but hey, we won't be paying the $20
cover at least.
-Dance,
have fun. Either walk back to The Orleans
(which is a few blocks away) or if high heels make that difficult,
grab a cab.
- Sleep
or drink - your choice. Bowling anyone?
Saturday
- 9/6
Morning
- Sleep in most likely
- For early risers, The Courtyard Cafe
offers $1.29 breakfasts until 7 a.m.
- For the rest of us, there's Seattle's Best Coffee
& Kate's Corner for breakfast grub.
Coupons for both are in your funbook. Skip the breakfast buffet
- bleach!
Afternoon
-
Kasey & one other person should probably walk to Palms to
retrieve the car. If the car is at Ellis Island, a bus with a
$1.50 fare can get us to within a few blocks of the casino.
This is a great afternoon
to recover by the pool. I highly suggest holding onto Orleans
drink coupons until this day - drinks are free while you gamble,
but aren't free when you're at the pool.
- After your fingers
are wrinkled, I suggest a little more casino hoppin' - this time
at the south side of the strip. Casinos include The
Luxor, Mandalay Bay, Excalibur, MGM Grand & New York New York.
Possible activities
include:
free lunch
at NyNy (hot dogs, pretzels & ice
cream- your choice, thank Ebay again for this
one)
ride The
Manhattan Express roller coaster at NYNY
(I have one free ticket and can get $4 off for anyone else who
wants to ride)
grab a
Margarita-by-the-yard at Luxor (they have a buy one get one
offer if you have a Southwest frequent flier card).
Yes that's 3 feet of margarita!!!
free motion-simulator
rides at Luxor
and self-guided tour of a replica of the tomb of King Tut (more
Ebay stuff, not sure how many I have)
check out
the Lion Habitat at MGM Grand. The
lions sleep 16 hours a day, but last time Katie and I went they
were playing with trainers. I
also read that if you get there in the morning and pony up $25,
you can have your picture taken with one of the Lion Cubs. They're
about 16 weeks old each.
Evening
- Have
dinner in Downtown Las Vegas, possibly at Jillian's,
a Western-style place where you can also
supposedly ride a mechanical bull.(It's more of a
Gameworks or Dave & Buster's-style place. I got it confused
with Jilley's at The New Fronteir Casino on the strip.)Two of us could
eat free, as I
now have 3 two-for-one coupons, meaning we eat there for half
price.
-
Katie & Brooke will entertain themselves on Fremont St. will
catch Candyman at Fitzgerald's
at 10:30 p.m.(the show moved
to a new casino & the passes I have are now no good)
while the rest of us will catch Ovation
at Lady Luck at 9 p.m. These tickets
are my gift to everyone - each would cost about $30 or so if you
got em' yourself :)
- By the
time the show is over, the Fremont Experience
should be lit and ready to roll. The best view is supposedly from
a balcony at Fitzgerald's. Ironically
I have plenty of free drinks for us at that casino.
- Drink
and explore Fremont Street. One of us
will need to be designated, unless we want to attempt catching
the city bus there and back for $3 each way.
- We don't
go back to The Orleans until SOMEONE has a fried
oreo and peed on the chunk of the Berlin Wall located in the restrooms
of Main Street Station.
- Sleep
or drink, your choice.
Sunday
- 9/7
Morning
- Sleep in most likely
- For early risers, The Courtyard Cafe
offers $1.29 breakfasts until 7 a.m.
- For the rest of us, there's Seattle's Best Coffee
& Kate's Corner for breakfast grub.
Coupons for both are in your funbook. Skip the breakfast buffet
- bleach!
Afternoon
- Possibly explore
Gold Coast
a bit - the sister casino to The Orleans and one we have plenty
of free drinks for. Those aching for another show, who don't want
to shell out $100 for O tickets can catch the 3 p.m. showing of
Forever Plaid at Gold Coast. It features
a lot of barbershop-style, crooning music and has gotten pretty
damn good reviews. The best part is we have 2 for 1 coupons for
it, meaning each ticket would only be about $15.
- Gold
Coast also has something I (Kasey) would like to
check out - Bingo. We have coupons that would make it cheaper
to play and supposedly there are free drinks the entire time you're
in the Bingo Room, which seats 700 or so (if you can believe that).
- If the ladies want
more hot men action, this may be a good time to catch the strip
show at The Riviera. If
the $50 price tag scares ya', I can offer up 2-for-1 coupons for
Thunder Down Under, making it about $25 a person.
-Otherwise, hang out
at The Orleans or explore other casinos
on the north end of the strip (at your own risk, they're dumps)
Evening
-Have
dinner at The Orleans. Sazio's
(the Italian place) is supposedly very good and reasonable. There's
a 20% off coupon for it in our funbooks.
- As a
final sendoff, catch John Winsor at
Brenan's Irish Pub in The
Orleans. He's a hilarious Irish folk singer who
does dirty or humorous toasts after each song. We have so many
"2 free domestic beers" at that place that we can afford
to get Winsor drunk as well.
- Sleep
or drink - I suggest you sleep this time though!
Monday
- 9/8
Morning
- No sleeping in today,
gotta pack and check the heck out.
- Breakfast either at The Orleans or
on the road, whichever works best for all involved.
- Say our tearful goodbyes and look forward to next year's Vegas
trip.
Kasey's
Vegas Expenditure Chart
Item
Cost
14 American Casino Guides (w/
free Drink Coupons)
$172.11
Orleans Funbooks or Drink Coupons
(via Ebay or Trades)
