By popular request... a new Vegas trip report.
Chinese tourists
Kevin and Katie were coming to Vegas so I booked a one-way ticket on National Airlines. My return ticket was on the hated United Shuttle so I could fly with Hunnybear, who was on a circle trip from Lansing, Mich. She would meet us in Vegas Friday night. I reserved a complimentary two-bedroom suite at Caesars, where I had been particularly lucky lately, and booked complimentary show tickets as well. My excellent host Maria was on vacation so I had to deal with the useless hosts remaining.
My taxi didn’t show at 9:45 a.m. and when I called the dispatcher I was told someone else took it so they sent another one. It arrived in about 10 minutes and whisked me to the airport. The upper level was all backed up so the driver took me to the lower level and Terminal 6. I had him stop near an escalator and paid him $15 including a generous tip. When I tried to go up the escalator I found it was going the wrong way, as was the next one I tried. Finally the third escalator deigned to carry me up to ticketing. There were 10 or so people in line at the National checkin and for some reason the First Class line was missing. I nosed up to the counter and asked the androgynous Pat-like agent what happened to the First Class line. S/he said s/he had removed it because there was no one here. “I’m here,” I said. “Yes, but so’s he,” she said, gesturing at the unshaven, rumpled man at the counter in front of her attempting to use food stamps to purchase an economy ticket.
I weighed my options and decided I didn’t have much leverage complaining about customer service with an airline that didn’t know if would be in business another week so I went up to the gate and stood in the long line there to check in right behind a uniformed United pilot. “Yeah, I don’t fly United Shuttle any more either,” I said. He laughed and explained he was just going home. I told him I used to be a 1K until the problems started. He nodded in sympathy.
When I reached the counter I discovered all the computers were down so they were checking people in by filling out a little white form in triplicate instead of punching keys. The boarding passes were already printed out so I got my pre-reserved seat, 2D. My new favorite stewardess, Nicole, a cute spike-haired blonde from Jersey, was on board. She knew I wanted coffee but they no longer made pre-flight coffee because the constraints so she offered me orange juice, mimosa, or water. I chose a small bottle of National brand water and settled into my leather easy chair, firing up Monkeyboy to play a little practice video poker. I declined the breakfast breads, being a couple pounds overweight.
It was just I in F until the operational upgrades started and then they filled the cabin with non-English-speaking Chinese tourists. Nicole made hand gestures trying to ask them what they wanted to eat and drink but very little communication went on. We pushed back from the gate a few minutes late—and pushed, and pushed, and pushed! We pushed backwards all the way out of Terminal 6 and onto the ramp in front of the end of Terminal 5. There we waited. And waited. And waited. Police cars and fire truck drove by and
they waited. Finally the captain got on the PA and informed us the airport was shut down for an emergency involving Air Canada. It was open now but all backed up. I blamed Canada as we waited and waited and waited. Finally we started our second engine and taxied—all the way around to the other side of the airport to take off at the farthest possible runway. We took off 50 minutes late and the wrong runway added another seven minutes to the flight since we had to fly way out to sea to make our left turn.
Once aloft, I fired up Monkeyboy and relaxed. Patrice, the other First flight attendant, brought me a mug of black coffee but the Chinese girl next to me grabbed it and held on for dear life. Patrice tried to talk to her to ask her if she ordered one but it was no good because she didn’t speak English so she just brought another mug. The girl took one sip and ended her black-coffee experience after that. None of the Chinese tourists had acknowledged Nicole’s hand signals about wanting to eat but as soon as they saw the breakfast breads they all wanted one. By the time Patrice had brought them all out we were descending and she had to wrestle them away, uneaten, from the non-understanding foreigners. “We’re descending!” she said slow and loud, making dive-bombing gestures with her hands. There was a bit of turbulence on the way down, enough to make my seat opponent grab for her air-sickness bag and spend the remainder of the short flight with her head between her knees. Finally the tourists gave up their bread trays and we landed an hour late in Las Vegas.
I turned on my cell phone and as I was listening to the three messages from Kevin I got call waiting and sure enough it was Kevin. They had been waiting for me an hour so I told them I’d be right down to National baggage claim. I found the chauffeur from Caesars Palace but no Kevin and Katie. Finally I found them wandering around lost. We took the escalator down to Ground Zero and hopped in the white-and-tan limo. The driver took the freeway and soon we were at Caesars Palace. Kevin gave the driver a generous tip and we headed to the VIP lounge only it wasn’t there any more so we followed the directions to the new one. It was busy so we waited a few minutes behind a guy complaining loudly about the crappy service he gets here and finally asking to be checked out and move to Bellagio.
We checked in and found our suite up in the Palace tower with a view of the Bellagio fountain show. In fact it was a better view than I had when I stayed at Bellagio. The huge living room was lavishly appointed and each bedroom had a master bath with Aveda toiletries. We dumped our luggage and went down for a bite of lunch at Café Lago. I had a nice “chicken BLT salad,” basically a Cobb salad with different dressing. Kevin and Katie each had salmon. Kevin left a generous tip and I went to the high-limit room to play a little video poker while they went to play Pai Gow Poker with a live dealer. We all got hoovered.
At five I cashed out my meager remaining credits. The service was indeed crappy as it took 18 minutes to get paid and I got excuses rather than apologies when it finally did come. I found a useless host and asked her where I would pick up our Lance Burton tickets and what time the show was. She came back with the information that the show was at 7:30 and the tickets would be delivered here. I asked several times if I should just pick them up at the VIP lounge since we were going for a swim now but she just didn’t get it and wanted to go pick up the tickets herself and give them to me. After the third time I tried to explain that it would be easier for me to pick them up at my convenience, she said she would head to the VIP lounge now to get them. Fine, I said, I’d accompany her. “Oh! Well if you’re going there anyway, there’s no need for me to go!” and she did an about-face and disappeared. I got the tickets and went upstairs to change.
The safe in my room was locked so I put my valuables in Kevin and Katie’s safe and we went down for a swim in Caesars’ beautiful pool. The sun was low and the sky was hazy so it was a very pleasant experience despite the 110-degree heat. We pooled for only a half-hour then prepared for the evening. I sent Kevin to the Bar by the Barge to get us drinks in large souvenir glasses for the walk to Monte Carlo while I went to the cage to get a safe-deposit box. This was the only hotel in Vegas where I’d been required to leave a cash deposit to open a safe-deposit box: 50 bucks!
They were out of large souvenir glasses so we got small non-souvenir glasses and headed down the Strip to Monte Carlo, throwing the glasses away in the nearest trash can when we were done. We took a detour through Bellagio and showed Katie the Chihuly ceiling piece on our way out. Since there were three of us we walked unscathed through the timeshare vultures and arrived at Monte Carlo around 7:05. This gave us a few minutes to play cards, or so I thought until I looked at the tickets and found the lying ho had lied to us and the show actually started at seven. We hustled into the Lance Burton Theater and got our excellent seats in row G center. We hadn’t missed much. The show was superb as always. It was my third time and I still had no idea how he did most of the tricks, although I was beginning to memorize his patter, including the adlibs that were exactly the same every show. Kevin played a couple hands of blackjack and got hoovered before we walked back to Caesars palace for dinner.
The evening’s feast was at Nero’s, the gourmet steakhouse. The short squat maitre d’ greeted me like an old friend and seated us in the indoor section away from the slot machines. Kevin selected a nice inexpensive Shiraz. I ordered a Caesar salad, extra anchovies, and a filet rare that was excellent. Katie had yummy sea bass and Kevin had New York strip medium. We all passed on dessert and Kevin left a generous tip as I signed the charge to our suite.
After dinner we played a little Pai Gow Poker and I won a little. We went back up to the suite and watched a few rounds of the Bellagio fountain show before bed.
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