Vegas with Zip-Code Man
 

Shuttle Happens

This trip to Vegas had twofold purpose: to cover NetWorld for my Meme Update newsletter and to see Dave Rottweiller, the Zip-Code Man ( www.zipcodeman.com ) perform at one of the booths. I reluctantly paid $105 for a round-trip ticket from Los Angeles to Las Vegas on the United Shuttle. I say “reluctantly” because everybody else was only charging $68 but I figured I could justify the 50% more because United would upgrade me to First Class, such as it is on Shuttle, and make it easy for me to switch flights should I desire. When my upgrade on the return flight showed up as waitlisted 100 hours before the flight I fired up United Connection and saw there were only two First-Class seats left. The following flight, however, had five open seats so I called the 1K desk and asked to switch. But I got an agent who quoted some rule I’d never heard of that they can’t switch Shuttle flights even for 1Ks without reissuing the ticket for an extra $72. I told her I thought that was outrageous and asked if she was sure because I’d never come across that restriction before. She was sure. So I posted a frustrated flame to FlyerTalk. Everybody else said they had never heard of that. Auh20 reminded me to just call back and get someone else. I did and they switched the flight with no problem but by that time there were only four seats remaining and I remained on the waitlist.

Hunnybear and I woke up early for a morning run. There’s a bird sanctuary between Admiralty Way and Washington St. and a running/cycling path through it. Apparently people, over the years, have released unwanted pet birds there so we see and hear many unusual birds and their songs, including a full-grown chicken. The birds spread out over the man trees in the neighborhood all the way to our apartment building about a half-mile away. There was one songbird living in a tree right outside our window of the variety that copies songs from other birds. Apparently it also copies other sounds because every morning we wake up to that bird perfectly duplicating the sound of a car alarm—one of those alarms that switches noises every five seconds between ambulance, fire truck, French police car—it’s unmistakable.

Hunnybear drove me to LAX in the white Nissan Altima and got me there about an hour before the flight. There was one person in line at the 1K checkin and since I was not checking bags I decided to go up to the 1K room and check in. I did, saw that my return flight had still not cleared, and said hi to the nice agents there before retiring to the Red Carpet Club for a decaf and surfing. I tried out the MyPoints Connection free Internet software. It worked OK but had a banner taking up about 10% of the screen space. I got to gate 85 about 15 minutes before flight time and asked the humorless agent if this door led to the front of the plane. After a moment she said, “yes,” and I ran by boarding pass through the machine. She had been standing there running a whole stack of boarding passes through the machine, I guess from the other door.

I settled into seat 1C after a nice stewardess rearranged some luggage for me so there was room for my two bags. She took a bible and the demo oxygen mask out of the left front compartment so I could stick my laptop bag in there—it just fits. My other bag squished so it wasn’t as much of a problem. As I settled in I noticed my seat opponent was Robert, a coworker of Hunnybear’s! This was not an uncommon occurrence when she used to work at PricewaterhouseCoopers, Afirmwith160,000employees, but now that she was with a small start-up it was unusual. He was going down to the same show and we had a great time talking about how the government was doing its best to destroy the industry. “When they came for Microsoft, I said nothing because I didn’t like Microsoft… when they came for me, there was no one left to say anything.” We got shushed by the flight attendant during the safety demonstration.

I was sick of the lack of service on Shuttle flights so I decided to take matters into my own hands. I ordered a half-dozen jars of caviar from Homegrocer.com and brought one with me. When the plane reached altitude I whipped it out of my bag, along with a hand-carved wooden caviar spoon from Thailand, and began enjoying some true first-class food along with my LaCroix in a plastic cup. Near the end of the jar I went up in search of more water but the stewardess was in back picking up trash. I looked in a couple drawers to see if I could help myself when the captain came out of the cockpit and glared at me. “Do you need something?” he asked. “I’m looking for some more sparking water.” “She’ll help you in a minute.” He then went on to explain that since people didn’t want to pay high prices for these flights they were forced to cut back on First-Class service. I didn’t argue but I was left feeling once again like United just doesn’t care about service on the Shuttle. I will probably switch my Vegas business to National.

It was a short flight but the winds in Las Vegas were gusting up to 55 mph so we had quite a challenging landing. It was the first time in years I’d been nervous about the flight. We docked at gate D33 and I proceeded to the Alamo lot to pick up the convertible I’d reserved through Priceline for $39/day (normally $42.50). They gave me a dirty white Chevy Cavalier. I gave Robert a ride to the convention center and while I was there I checked in and went to the booth where Dave Rottweiller was to perform. I found the booth but they told me he wasn’t performing any more. He was kind of sketchy on the details, though, so I called Dave’s room at Bally’s and left a message before I went to check in at Mandalay Bay, where I had taken advantage of “player’s package” at $99/night including a bunch of coupons.

I had requested a high floor with an airport view but settled for the 20th floor. The room was very nice, with a marble bathroom, separate tub and shower, and floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the fleet of decommissioned United DC-10s and 747s parked in the desert. I could also see a couple of the red-striped white planes with no other markings that I knew to be the secret Area 51 government shuttle. My room wasn’t cleaned yet so I dropped off my luggage and headed down to Wolfgang Puck’s Trattoria del Lupo for lunch. I used a coupon for complimentary appetizer, a delicious beef carpaccio presented with shaved onions and chunks of parmesan cheese. The entrée was a superb grilled fontina sandwich with a side skillet of homemade sausage in a tomato-pepper sauce. I paid only $10 plus tip for the whole thing.

I played only three hands of Pai Gow Poker when Dave Rottweiller showed up. He wanted something cool so we went to Rock Lobster for a smoothie. The bathrooms in Rock Lobster were extremely funky. There was a long curtain of small metal beads to pass through. On the other side was a single enclosure of translucent green glass. There was a small LCD television mounted over the toilet-paper roll. Our waiter, Tom, was excellent and made one of the fancy drinks for Dave without the alcohol. I had a large bottle of San Pellegrino ($4.50).

Dave and I wanted to try out the fabled pool at Mandalay Bay but we both forgot our bathing suits so we shelled out $50 each for a pair at the Pearl Moon Boutique in the hotel. The pool was so popular they instituted very stringent policies on entry: each guest must have a separate room key. So we had to go back up to the desk to get Dave a key and then back up to the room to get my ID so I could get him a key. The whole process took about 15 minutes. But when we saw the pool it was all worth it. They had a sandy beach with thousands of lounge chairs surrounding an enormous wave pool. A couple times a minute this pool would generate a huge crashing wave! People were body-surfing and just enjoying the action. We played in the wave pool for a while then decided to try the Lazy River. The gusty winds felt freezing cold upon leaving the pool despite the 90-degree weather.

I was looking forward to floating around the Lazy River in an inner tube but they wanted $10 to rent them, again a concession to overcrowding I think. Fortunately I’d been eating enough dessert lately that I was extremely buoyant. I impressed the lifeguards and Dave by floating around under my own power. This pool is great and would be terrific for children but I suspect the price keeps families away. They charge $35 for each additional guest regardless of age, making the hotel far more expensive than most in Vegas for families.

After swimming we went up to the room and I happened to see the “manifest” on the maid’s cart. I looked to see what my status was but my room was not listed. It apparently only listed room that were occupied overnight. One entry, though, said “VIP.” I was curious that they would put a VIP on the 20th floor, less than halfway up the hotel. Maybe it was his lucky floor.

We decided to go for a drive in the desert and ended up at the Hoover dam, which I had previously visited with Hunnybear. I took some pictures this time with my new digital camera so that there’d be a record of the dam in case terrorists ever blow it up. The drive through the desert was beautiful with the sun low in the sky and the top down. The winds were still up, gusting wildly. We could see dust storms in the distance, coloring the air orange.

Dinner was at the Charlie Palmer steakhouse in the Four Seasons part of Mandalay Bay. We had planned to dine at House of Blues with the two-for-one coupon provided but they were closed for a private party. We started with the best calamari I’ve ever had. It was hot, served lightly dusted with flour and sautéed perfectly in olive oil. I followed that up with an 11-ounce filet mignon, seared rare to perfection and well aged. Spinach and roasted potatoes, a la carte side orders, were superb. After the Lazy River Incident I passed on dessert. Dave had salmon, which looked great. Service was aggressive but not polished—they replenished our bread but not the butter and the steak knife was dull—and for a bottle of water they charged a beyond-outrageous $8. I let the manager know that the water charge marred an otherwise excellent meal.

I cut Dave loose and called it an early night.


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[This message has been edited by QuietLion (edited 05-13-2000).]

[This message has been edited by QuietLion (edited 05-13-2000).]

Nice.

When at Mandalay next time ask for a House of Blues room. If you are relly nice they will usually upgrade you to one. They are a bit bigger, decorated a bit better, and are on the top floors (not the top,top as that is the Four Seasons, but just below).

What a great report, QL!!!

Very nice report, Quietlion. http://216.167.74.240/forum/smile.gif

Caviar on Shuttle!? You're my hero! http://216.167.74.240/forum/smile.gif

Quietlion, next time try Southwest. I went from Las Vegas to LAX last week for $62. It was an internet special so I got double credit!

Granted they don't have first class, but their people are friendlier and I know i'll be on time.

I like National too but they are a "wanna be". I only fly them to SFO since they go non-stop from LAS.

Legal Monopoly

I woke to a stunning desert sunrise after waking several times during the night to the sound of loud voices in the hallway. It’s not infrequent in Vegas that I hear couples fighting late at night outside my hotel door. I’m not sure exactly what the fight was about but I heard one voice saying something like “lost the nest egg!”

I played some Monopoly and Pai Gow Poker to no avail then picked up Dave at Bally’s. I had a coupon for free lunch at Rio so we drove over there and visited the former king of Vegas buffets, the Carnaval World Buffet. We parked on Level 3 and walked through the casino to the other end of the hotel to the buffet. Two years ago there was a one-hour line to eat lunch at this restaurant but now we were practically the only ones there. The food had gone way downhill. Everything tasted sort of the same. Rio was a cool hotel-casino built in a bad location. When it was hot and new people came but now that there are coot hotels built in great locations no one comes.

After lunch we decided to go for another drive in the desert. We got on the freeway and headed north, then took US 93 into the desert wilderness. The temperature had fallen so low since yesterday that I turned the heat on but left the top down. The scenery was breathtaking. Stout stubby cacti punctuated the barren plains of scrub brush, dividing the valleys between the rocky foothills into miniature fiefdoms, each ruled by a bushy-topped green Napoleon. We drove about 45 minutes then turned around.

I continued to get hoovered playing Pai Gow Poker at Bally’s while Dave went for a swim. Then we headed over to the great black pyramid, Luxor, for a show by Blue Man Group. We had both heard great things about this show from several people so we paid the $71.50 each for last-minute tickets, third row center. Frequently the best seats come up for sale at the last minute and this was no exception. We were so close we were in what they called the “poncho” section. That meant everybody was issued plastic ponchos in case we got sprayed with parts of the show. The ponchos looked like large dry-cleaning bags. After a lifetime of being told not to put these things over my head I did just that. Ah, sweet release. As it turned out we kept dry except for a huge blue Sphinx-shaped glass of margaritas I ordered at the bar. The show was superbly original, like Cirque de Soleil without so much Soleil. Three blue aliens express themselves through rhythm, music, and comedy in an extremely interactive show. Highly recommended.

As we walked through the casino to find the series of walkways and trams to take us to Paris for dinner, I once again noticed the unusual thing about Vegas: smoking is allowed here. People smoke indoors! Coming from Washington State where everyone is too healthy to smoke, and moving the California where when you cross the border the sign says, “Welcome to California. No Smoking,” it seems almost alien. One thing that didn’t seem alien was the enormous line at Excalibur for Krispy-Kreme donuts, Hot Now. We passed it up, though, with Le Village Buffet awaiting us.

As we walked through MGM Grand we saw a premiere party for the new movie Battlefield Earth with John Travolta. Apparently the mayor of Las Vegas was set to give Travolta a key in the middle of the MGM lobby in about 15 minutes but we didn’t stay for it as we already had keys.

The Paris buffet was extensive but uneven. Picking and choosing we certainly got enough to eat but several dishes I tried were overdone. I filled up on king-crab legs and passed up the made-to-order crepes in favor of bananas Foster for dessert. The waitress spoke French to us but didn’t understand the French I spoke back. Just like the real Paris.

I retired to Mandalay Bay to lose even more money at Pai Gow Poker before retiring.


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Liberace lives

I needed to retrieve my car from the Luxor, where I had left it last night prior to imbibing the large blue sphinx-shaped triple margarita, so I walked through the casino, over the walkway connecting Mandalay Bay to Luxor, past the talking camels, through the casino, and found the valet parking. When I got back to Mandalay Bay I popped into the casino host to see if my prodigious hoovering qualified for any ex-post-facto comps and it did. They credited one night at $99 plus tax, which I thought was very decent of them. They also graciously offered me a special rate for my next stay. It’s nice to feel your business is appreciated.

I was set to meet Dave Rottweiller in the Rainforest Café in the MGM Grand for brunch so I used the video checkout and hauled my bags down to the valet-parking exit on the lower level. There was one old guy there taking tickets behind a huge marble counter. His entire job is to tear off the stub, hand it back, and say, “Through the glass doors, turn right, wait across the driveway for your car” several hundred times a day.

It took only 10 minutes to drive across the street to the MGM Grand so I was early for Dave. The Rainforest was a gimmicky place with mists spraying all over and wild-animal sounds piped in. Teenage waiters wore safari suits and served overpriced food reminiscent of Applebee’s or Red Robin. They were out of the veggie burger that Dave wanted and we took the opportunity to decide to eat elsewhere, elsewhere being Emeril’s. Also in the MGM, Emeril’s was one of my favorite lunch places in Vegas. We split a phenomenal New Orleans-Style (fried) sushi sampler and I had a half-pound of spicy peel-and-eat shrimp while Dave had a portabella mushroom pasta dish. As a rule I don’t eat dessert but Emeril’s had their world-famous banana-cream pie so we split a piece.

After lunch we decided to visit the fabled Liberace museum, which we had passed when driving down Tropicana toward the Hoover Dam. We walked in to the sounds of piano music while I told Dave that I really liked Liberace in that old Star Trek episode. We entered the lobby of the museum and were able to see through openings in the walls several jewel-encrusted pianos, candelabras, and so on. We decided that was enough and left without paying the $6.95 admission to tour the whole museum.

We took one more drive in the Chevy convertible down the strip. Dave pointed out which hotels he thought they should spare when they level the whole city. We drive all the way downtown then looped back and took the freeway to the airport where I dropped Dave at Frontier Airlines. I had some difficulty finding it as it is not listed on the signs for either terminal. We said our goodbyes and I headed back to Mandalay Bay for another hour of losses at Pai Gow Poker. Five minutes before I had to go, my luck turned and I began a short winning streak, but I needed to race the car back to Alamo. I cashed in, took the incredibly fast new route to the airport by way of Russell Road and I-215, and made my way to the incredibly hard-to-find Alamo lot. Thankfully the bus driver warned us about it’s being hard to find on the way out. Alamo checked me in every bit as quickly as Hertz or Avis and the shuttle bus dropped me at United.

There was a long line at the First Class/Premier counter so I just headed up to the gate. On my way I passed a Monopoly machine and figured I had five minutes to play. Jackpot! I parlayed $5 into $12.35! I tried to cash in my nickels but that slot island was only set up for losing, not winning, so I hauled my nickels all the way to gate D39. I arrived there just after the 20-minute cutoff so I once again lost my seat assignment. The agent joked that there was no First Class and I would have to sit on the wing but then handed me a boarding pass for seat 1D. I raced over to the slot cashier, changed my nickels, and raced back onto the plane where the stewardess asked if I was the last of the Mohicans. Yes, I said, seat 1D. I put my bags into the dwindling overhead space and ended up switching to 1B so that a mother and six-year-old daughter could sit together. Her 10-year-old son was also on the flight. All three of them were Premiers.

Service was nice on this Shuttle as I’m coming to expect on the LAX-LAS-LAX run. We pushed back 15 minutes late because of a fuel-gauge problem but somehow made it up en route. I sipped a Black Label and soda out of a plastic cup. I had brought mixed nuts but didn’t break them out because I was still full from Vegas. We arrived at gate 80 and I was outside on the street in two minutes waiting for a taxi.

The taxi driver was from Eastern Europe and apparently so was his meter! It was running faster than a turkey at Thanksgiving. I pointed it out to him and he turned it off, asking how much I usually paid. I said I’d give him $15 including tip. He was quite embarrassed and said he’d been having problems with it and thanked me for helping him out. “You help me this time, I help you next time.” I can’t imagine he could get away with cheating people in LA for very long without the taxi police coming down on him so I tended to believe him, especially after he told me he had five cabs, lived in Redondo Beach, and was married to a doctor.

He dropped me at home, where I scarcely had time to download my email before Hunnybear arrived. She was so nice to come home to.

The end.


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MilesMan: I'm not sure caviar would go too well on MooWest, though. http://216.167.74.240/forum/wink.gif

What Style!!!
QL yet another 1st Class Trip Report, if you keep this quality up I'll have to expand my list of praise prose http://216.167.74.240/forum/wink.gif

Stewart

Much of interest, thank you. Query: could you describe N.O.-style sushi? Spicy cooked fish belted onto rice with nori, or what?

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Cheers
Michael *G

violist, there were four pieces: two lightly fried California-like rolls, one naked fried shrimp, and a single piece of narrower roll with crab or something inside. I can't go into the roue or liaison at this time.

[This message has been edited by QuietLion (edited 05-14-2000).]

http://216.167.74.240/forum/smile.gif And, of course, I love the jokes, especially the obscure references.

I didn't find anything obscure. http://216.167.74.240/forum/smile.gif

I'd never go into a roue if I were you; the liaisons would be trop dangereuses. Thanks for the description: still curious: Japanese or regular rice, wasabi or some Avery Island alternative, ...

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Cheers
Michael *G