We decided to give Sun Country a try for this trip to Las Vegas. The price was right, so why not! The lines in Terminal 2 at MSP are always short, but TSA pre-check saves you from having to remove shoes, and separate liquids, which is nice no matter how you look at it.
We ate at the Barrio in Terminal 2. Looks like John had the torta.
I had tostadas, which were pretty good.
Our bags came into the other terminal in LAS, Terminal 3, which was new and nice but lacked the character of Terminal 1. We took Uber from the airport to The D, our accommodations for the first two nights of our trip. We were quickly checked in to the hotel and we got changed and settled into the room and headed straight for the Golden Gate for a bit of blackjack. I think we stayed out until about 2am and called it a night.
Friday morning we headed over to the Downtown Grand for breakfast at Freedom Beat. We had been hearing some good things and wanted to check it out. They had a gamblers special breakfast deal. You had to run to the players club desk, but it was half off the basic breakfast, so a great price. I think we saw advertised it on the menu or a table tent.
The breakfast potatoes were not bad. Not my favorite of all time, but not bad.
Hallway at The D- very cute, very Vegas!
The Vegas Club demolition....
After breakfast we got some bottled water for the room at Walgreens, got ready to roll for the day and headed over to Main Street Station for some video poker. The session was pretty uneventful for both of us.
We decided to have lunch at Grotto at the Golden Nugget.
Both pizzas were very good and a large portion.
After lunch we played some assorted slots at the Golden Nugget, then went down to the El Cortez so John could make a deposit onto the Stations sports betting app. John took out cash from the ATM at El Co and got some free play out of the deal as well. I think you can only do that once a year or once you earn a certain number of points.
We played blackjack at the El Co for quite awhile with a fun group of guys from California on a guys weekend trip. One amazing addition to the El Co is beer tubs in the center of the gaming pits. If you need a beer, the server is ready and waiting all the time, you just let her know what you want, give her a tip and you have a beer in seconds. This is either fantastic or dangerous! Turned out OK for us this time as we did pretty well at blackjack and got quite a few drinks at the same time.
We decided to go back to Binion's Steakhouse for dinner again as we enjoyed it so much on our last trip. John had the ribeye, which was cooked as ordered.
I had the prime rib and it was excellent as well. The service is always great too. We also used a coupon form the Las Vegas Advisor coupon book for 25% off our meal.
After dinner we went over to The Golden Gate and played some blackjack. I think we both lost our buy ins very quickly and we were tired, so we called it a night kind of early, around midnight I think.
I forgot to take the before room pics at The D, so you get a messy room pic instead. Sorry!
The room is basic, but newly remodeled and for the price, not a bad place to stay at all.
Saturday morning we went to Magnolia's at Four Queens for breakfast. We've been there on just about every trip for awhile now. The food is very solid and so is the service.
After breakfast we packed up our stuff and checked our bags with the valet. We went to The El Co, I took out cash and did the free play deal, no wins on that free play though.
We had lunch at American Coney at The D as we both had comps to use up, so it was super cheap. The food was better than I remembered though, I forgot to take photos.
Up next, a few nights at the Bellagio. We took an Uber from The D. This was our first time staying there. While I tried for an upgrade to fountain view, it was a busy weekend and I was not successful. We did get a nice pool view room though.
Had gotten a Hyatt credit card, so two of our three nights were free, Saturday and Sunday, I paid for Monday and paid the resort fees. Not bad redemption for a credit card sign up though.
The room was very clean and well cared for and quite spacious.
Overall, we really like staying at the Bellagio. The location is fantastic and it is easy to get to a lot of our favorite places. We had good experiences with every employee we spoke to as well.
After settling in at the Bellagio we went over to Caesars and walked around a bit. We had a BOGO for Spago, so we had another meal. Making up for skipped meals on previous trips I guess! Bolognese for John.
I had the Spago chopped salad. It was really good and worthy of being on the menu since the dawn of time.
I think we went to the room and changed for the evening. Then we went down to Petrossian Bar by the lobby.
I do love that the fancy bars offer the bar snacks though. Makes the speedy drinks a bit easier to take. We sat at the bar, so it was interesting to watch the bartenders at work. I suspect most of them have been there for ages.
We both had some MyVegas free play to use. I had the $50 and $25 and no wins to report, and John had just the $50 free play. He had the huge win above on that, which was impressive.
Then he selected this machine and got a little more work done on a winning day. He got this up to $317 before the win storm ended!
Hello fountains....
Next, we headed over to the Cosmopolitan. We managed to find spots at the bar in the sports book so we could watch football and play video poker at the same time. John got something like 6-7 quads on double double bonus, so he had a good night. I was almost out of my buy in when I got four aces with a queen.
So we decided to try the updated Blue Ribbon restaurant at the Cosmo for dinner. The food and drinks were still great and the service was perfect as well.
west coast oysters
hanger steak for John
wild mushrooms side
sashimi plate for me
After dinner we headed back to the Bellagio and called it a night around 11pm I think. We had to get up early for the Vikings game on Sunday anyway.
We tried to go to Tom's Urban at NYNY for breakfast and to watch the game, but there was a huge line of people outside for some sort of private players club event. Rats, we missed the invitation! So we had to think fast and tried Double Barrel, but they were not open yet. We need up at Todd English Pub at Aria.
John had the standard breakfast plate
I had the breakfast sandwich with avocado. the food was all OK, but not anything we'd wish back for. It was serviceable and they had the Vikings game on TV at least. We left at halftime and went to the Cosmo to watch the rest.
I got bored with the game so I played slots a bit.
We had lunch at Holstein's at the Cosmo. It was busy and we sat at a low table in the bar.
We got some bottled waters at Walgreens and went back to the Bellagio. I went to sit by the pool for awhile. I think John watched football in the casino. Then we went back to NYNY to use the MyVegas Bar at Times Square $50 comp for drinks, while watching a bit of football. Next, we went to Hooters for some blackjack. The power unexpectedly went out, which was strange, but we both lost our money, so we decided to head over to Gold Coast to play some blackjack and use some free slot play coupons. I think we did OK on blackjack, but drins service was sometime slow and they had a lot of new dealers being trained in.
We decided to have a super late dinner at Ping Pang Pong.
Something or other with chicken. John liked the restaurant a lot, I thought it was OK. After eating, we grabbed a Lyft and headed back to the Bellagio and hit the hay.
Monday morning we went to the Cosmo for the Wicked Spoon buffet. We had a BOGO coupon to use. Luckily or unluckily, depending on how you look at it, I did not step on dog poo on the way to the buffet, unlike our last trip in May. The food was very good once again though!
After breakfast, we went down to the pool for some quality vitamin D time. The pool area was quite nice, not too crowded and the chairs had nice padding on them. This large pool was a nice temperature, the pool I sat by the day before was freezing cold, so only some of the pools are heated I guess.
After pool time, we were starving again and we went to Lago. It was too late for lunch so we sat at the bar and had some snacks basically.
After eating we went downtown to the El Co so John could cash out his sports betting app account. I think he did OK since he had money to get! After that we wandered down to the Golden Nugget and had a few more snacks at the Chart House.
After eating again, we went over to the Golden Gate for a bit of blackjack. I don't recall the results, so it must not have been that great. We grabbed an Uber and went to Paris for dinner at Mon Ami Gabi.
This drink looked great, but t was way too strong and generally terrible.
I had the hanger steak and I don't think I'd get that again as it was not very tender steak.
Tuesday morning we had to be up hecking early to make our flight. We used a MyVegas comp for the buffet at Bellagio. It was OK, but the beverages are self service now and they did not yet have the yogurt with the berries and honey out yet. Boo. That is my favorite! Also, we did not find any hash browns. That should be some sort of potato crime!
A couple token Bellagio garden shots. It was closed off as we walked by for some reason so we could not walk inside.
We packed up our things after breakfast and took Lyft to the airport. Our flight home was uneventful. We paid a little extra to get the exit row on the way home. We had three seats all to ourselves so there was tons of space, which was really nice.
I kept putting off this report thinking I had to comment on the tragic events that happened in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017. The events made me extremely sad and then angry that something like that could happen in one of my favorite places to vacation. But I don't know that I have anything constructive to add to the discussion. I do know that it won't stop us from going to Las Vegas. We have another trip planned soon and are going as planned. So hopefully things will return to normal soon, especially for the sake of people that live and work in Las Vegas and depend on tourism to keep their jobs.
