Vegas/49ers
Oct 5, 1999 | 2:12 pm
#1
Original Poster
In Memoriam, Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 6,879
Vegas/49ers
Slick Willy does Vegas.
SNA-LAX-LAS on UA. Uneventful flights except to note that getting from the 60’s gates at LAX (where UA Express lands) to the 80’s Shuttle gates is a long way. Landed in LAS 15 minutes early and the lines for a taxi were 80+ people long. So I cross the street and jump in taxi that had just dropped of people at the airport. FYI...this is big no-no for taxi drivers. They can get fined a lot of money if they get caught avoiding the lines. Anyway, I jump in and plead for a ride to the hotel. The taxi guy leaves the meter running from the people before and just tells me to pay the difference. I ask what the pandemonium at the airport is about and he informs me that President Clinton was just there and the place had been “closed” for a while. The President is staying at the Venetian. Good, because I want no part of the Secret Service running around my hotel.
Auh2o REALLY does Vegas.
I arrive at the Mandalay Bay and go to the check in area. Lines, lines, and more lines. 25 minutes later I am greeted by “Sunshine” (and she looks every bit like her name) who explains that ˝ the computes are down and that the agents are sharing terminals right now. No problem. As she is checking me in she asks about my relationship to the former U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate. Wow. Honestly, Sunshine did not look like she could spell Senator much less know about a deceased Senator. She apologies for not having any Suites left, but puts me on the 34 floor (the top floor of Mandalay but the Four Seasons is in the same building on 35-39) in a House of Blues theme room. The room is regular size, with average decor, and about the only difference I can see between this room and a regular room is the carpet is plaid, there is CD player, and the view is great. Overall, the rooms at Mandalay are not spectacular, unless you are a bathtub fan. The bathrooms are almost as big as the rooms, marble, with separate Jacuzzi tubs and showers. Censored. XXX. Bleeeep. Censored. If put on a torture rack, I still won’t divulge the rest of the trip although I will give some restaurant reviews (all in Mandalay).
Border Grill.
I met Shadow for lunch on Friday and we trekked over to the Border Grill for some upscale Mexican grub. Great Margaritas and a nice view of Mandalay’s 11-acre pool with its own wave machine and beach. We have nice lunch, chat for a hour or so and Shadow leaves for the airport. I head to pool to await the arrival of the rest of my group.
Aureole. Chef Charlie Palmer (well menu by Palmer). “To reach the dining room, you descend stairs that wrap around a 42-foot-high wine tower, built of steel and laminated glass, that holds nearly 100,000 bottles of wine”. Even better is watching the “wine angels”, women in skin-tight black catsuits, who rappel on ropes up and down the tower fetching bottles of wine. I really enjoyed this restaurant, more for the ambiance than the food though.
Lupo.
“Wolf” in Italian. “Wolfgang Puck’s first original restaurant in Las Vegas”. The food is very much like California cuisine, and not really all that Italian. However, considering they seated 7 of us on Saturday night with no reservation and only a 20-minute wait, I am not complaining. However, it is really loud because Rum-Jungle (Mandalay’s night club) is across the hall.
House of Blues.
Typical chain, but a great place for lunch. Not crowded at all. Great blues/jazz.
The stadium formerly known as Candlestick.
LAS-SFO on UA. Rudi has graciously provided me with a pair his famous SF49ers season tickets to the game in SFO vs Tennessee. So I head to airport on Sunday morning, with less than an hour sleep and significantly deprived of cash (the tables in Mandalay were not kind to any of us). Flight delayed because of weather in SFO. What! I call SFO and talk to the friend picking me up. Nope. It’s sunny and 70. Huh? I am getting a bit leery of SFO weather delays. I explain my situation to the gate agent show her my tickets, and ask how to get to SFO faster (the flight before us was still in LAS). She whispers to me that the flight I am on will take off before the earlier flight because we have 40 passengers going to NRT and they are going to hold the NRT flight until we land. We land at SFO at 12:45 PM (about an hour and fifteen minues late) and the game starts at 1:15 PM. Surprisingly there is no traffic to The Stick and I am in Rudi’s seats 3 minutes after kick off (lower reserved, 33 rows up, corner end-zone, just under the over-hang in case of bad weather).
The Niners pull off a close one with a great goal line defensive stand on a two point conversion. SFO-SNA on UA. Straight back to SFO where I realize I have lost my boarding pass. No problem. I love e-tickets. Wow. What is it about this Sunday flight? The first class cabin almost cleared the plane of booze in 50 minutes. It was like a charter party flight. I was in bed and sleeping by 11:00 PM Sunday night. However, I am still feeling the liver and financial damage.
FYI. For a full review of Vegas hotels and resuaurants see the September 15, 1999 issue of Wine Spectator (or www.winespectator.com)
[This message has been edited by auh2o (edited 10-05-1999).]
SNA-LAX-LAS on UA. Uneventful flights except to note that getting from the 60’s gates at LAX (where UA Express lands) to the 80’s Shuttle gates is a long way. Landed in LAS 15 minutes early and the lines for a taxi were 80+ people long. So I cross the street and jump in taxi that had just dropped of people at the airport. FYI...this is big no-no for taxi drivers. They can get fined a lot of money if they get caught avoiding the lines. Anyway, I jump in and plead for a ride to the hotel. The taxi guy leaves the meter running from the people before and just tells me to pay the difference. I ask what the pandemonium at the airport is about and he informs me that President Clinton was just there and the place had been “closed” for a while. The President is staying at the Venetian. Good, because I want no part of the Secret Service running around my hotel.
Auh2o REALLY does Vegas.
I arrive at the Mandalay Bay and go to the check in area. Lines, lines, and more lines. 25 minutes later I am greeted by “Sunshine” (and she looks every bit like her name) who explains that ˝ the computes are down and that the agents are sharing terminals right now. No problem. As she is checking me in she asks about my relationship to the former U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate. Wow. Honestly, Sunshine did not look like she could spell Senator much less know about a deceased Senator. She apologies for not having any Suites left, but puts me on the 34 floor (the top floor of Mandalay but the Four Seasons is in the same building on 35-39) in a House of Blues theme room. The room is regular size, with average decor, and about the only difference I can see between this room and a regular room is the carpet is plaid, there is CD player, and the view is great. Overall, the rooms at Mandalay are not spectacular, unless you are a bathtub fan. The bathrooms are almost as big as the rooms, marble, with separate Jacuzzi tubs and showers. Censored. XXX. Bleeeep. Censored. If put on a torture rack, I still won’t divulge the rest of the trip although I will give some restaurant reviews (all in Mandalay).
Border Grill.
I met Shadow for lunch on Friday and we trekked over to the Border Grill for some upscale Mexican grub. Great Margaritas and a nice view of Mandalay’s 11-acre pool with its own wave machine and beach. We have nice lunch, chat for a hour or so and Shadow leaves for the airport. I head to pool to await the arrival of the rest of my group.
Aureole. Chef Charlie Palmer (well menu by Palmer). “To reach the dining room, you descend stairs that wrap around a 42-foot-high wine tower, built of steel and laminated glass, that holds nearly 100,000 bottles of wine”. Even better is watching the “wine angels”, women in skin-tight black catsuits, who rappel on ropes up and down the tower fetching bottles of wine. I really enjoyed this restaurant, more for the ambiance than the food though.
Lupo.
“Wolf” in Italian. “Wolfgang Puck’s first original restaurant in Las Vegas”. The food is very much like California cuisine, and not really all that Italian. However, considering they seated 7 of us on Saturday night with no reservation and only a 20-minute wait, I am not complaining. However, it is really loud because Rum-Jungle (Mandalay’s night club) is across the hall.
House of Blues.
Typical chain, but a great place for lunch. Not crowded at all. Great blues/jazz.
The stadium formerly known as Candlestick.
LAS-SFO on UA. Rudi has graciously provided me with a pair his famous SF49ers season tickets to the game in SFO vs Tennessee. So I head to airport on Sunday morning, with less than an hour sleep and significantly deprived of cash (the tables in Mandalay were not kind to any of us). Flight delayed because of weather in SFO. What! I call SFO and talk to the friend picking me up. Nope. It’s sunny and 70. Huh? I am getting a bit leery of SFO weather delays. I explain my situation to the gate agent show her my tickets, and ask how to get to SFO faster (the flight before us was still in LAS). She whispers to me that the flight I am on will take off before the earlier flight because we have 40 passengers going to NRT and they are going to hold the NRT flight until we land. We land at SFO at 12:45 PM (about an hour and fifteen minues late) and the game starts at 1:15 PM. Surprisingly there is no traffic to The Stick and I am in Rudi’s seats 3 minutes after kick off (lower reserved, 33 rows up, corner end-zone, just under the over-hang in case of bad weather).
The Niners pull off a close one with a great goal line defensive stand on a two point conversion. SFO-SNA on UA. Straight back to SFO where I realize I have lost my boarding pass. No problem. I love e-tickets. Wow. What is it about this Sunday flight? The first class cabin almost cleared the plane of booze in 50 minutes. It was like a charter party flight. I was in bed and sleeping by 11:00 PM Sunday night. However, I am still feeling the liver and financial damage. FYI. For a full review of Vegas hotels and resuaurants see the September 15, 1999 issue of Wine Spectator (or www.winespectator.com)
[This message has been edited by auh2o (edited 10-05-1999).]
Oct 5, 1999 | 6:08 pm
#5
Join Date: Apr 1999
Location: SFO
Programs: No status anymore. Former CO PLT, NW PLT, AS MVP
Posts: 502
Now that sounds like the auh2o I met!
Great report, and it sounds like you had entirely too much fun, even at the expense of your wallet!
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Michael
OnePass Platinum
Great report, and it sounds like you had entirely too much fun, even at the expense of your wallet!
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Michael
OnePass Platinum
Oct 5, 1999 | 10:55 pm
#8
Commander Catcop
Join Date: May 1998
Posts: 10,259
OH GOODY! MOre money for MileCrazy and Me to use towards the KIT KAT Casino and Club.
Well glad you had a good time AuH20 and CMDR CATCOP thanks you for censoring the stuff that would make my hair and his hair stand on end. (You can tell me about it at the PIP!)
And it's just under two weeks to VEGAS FOR ME!
[This message has been edited by Catman (edited 10-05-1999).]
Well glad you had a good time AuH20 and CMDR CATCOP thanks you for censoring the stuff that would make my hair and his hair stand on end. (You can tell me about it at the PIP!)
And it's just under two weeks to VEGAS FOR ME!
[This message has been edited by Catman (edited 10-05-1999).]
Oct 6, 1999 | 2:38 pm
#10
Original Poster
In Memoriam, Original Member
Join Date: May 1998
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Posts: 6,879
QL - I don't "merit" any upgrades. However, "as she is checking me in she asks about my relationship to the former U.S. Senator and Presidential candidate". I guess they were watching the check-in list for famous types. 
Oct 6, 1999 | 7:57 pm
#12
Join Date: May 1999
Location: New York City
Programs: UA MM-1P, Hilton Life Diamond, Marriot Life Gold, ICH Spire
Posts: 4,080
auh2o: So, are you Barry's nephew or what? In 1965, I couldn't believe that anyone voted for him. By the time he passed away, I would probably have voted for him for anything, given the opportunity, which probably means we both changed a little
shadow: Some years ago, I was on a bus in Louisville, Kentucky, going to work at Churchill Downs (long story why), and someone remarked that we were passing the "Kentucky Derby Museum". I replied that I wanted to go in and see if they had a statue of my wallet.
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I'm only in it for the mileage
shadow: Some years ago, I was on a bus in Louisville, Kentucky, going to work at Churchill Downs (long story why), and someone remarked that we were passing the "Kentucky Derby Museum". I replied that I wanted to go in and see if they had a statue of my wallet.
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I'm only in it for the mileage