Expedia is the ABSOLUTE NUT LOW when it comes to customer service. I used to use them religiously until I got burned a few times. The worst example of an internet based business-
- no actual human you can talk to
- ridiculous refund/cancellation policies and fees that are only possible via the anonymity and lack of accountability the internet allows

Cliffs- **** Expedia.

Your TR is sounding good and what a nightmare journey for you and let down for your friend. Did you do the Dublin leg to avoid the UK air passenger tax?

I should clarify; I live in the United States and have flown internationally and the same is true; always cheaper or same price direct from airline. What I meant to say was that I am not sure if that is true for someone that lives internationally (I would assume it is true, but not sure about airline taxes in different countries, etc.).

Gamerjoba! Wish you good luck!

I prolly missed it, but how long will you be in Vegas (assuming, of course, you make it!)? I'm arriving Thursday (Oct 26), solo, for a quick trip for poker and a concert Friday night.

Earl of Sandwich is on my list, too. Mmmm.

It obviously sucks - but as mentioned purchasing flights or hotels on expedia is not great.

Regardless, demo Vegas for all it's worth

Hahaha, agreed!

Thanks! Yeah, if you go via Dublin then it works out about $400 cheaper than flying directly from London.

Thank you!

I think international might be different as you say. We checked all the options and Expedia was the cheapest.

Thanks, food and flops would have been good!

Ah, I don't think I actually mentioned how long I'll be here for. I fly out on Wednesday 25th so just miss you which is a shame! Poker and Earl would of been perfect

Thanks Grando, Yep, lesson learnt for next time!

Hey TwoPlusTwo,

So I woke up this morning before my 5am alarm. I can never get a good night sleep when you have an early flight due to the fear of sleeping in. I looked at Martin’s unused bed in the hotel room and remembered that it’s just me now. The weather outside seemed a lot better, I checked the flight and everything looked like it would be running. I headed over the airport from the hotel in good time and checked in and explained to them what had happened to Martin. I made my way over to the Dublin to London gate. Dublin airport is pretty confusing imo and I have once before been waiting for my flight there, queued up to get onto my flight only to be told when they scanned my ticket that my flight was in a different terminal. So I made extra sure I was actually waiting at the correct gate this time. Before taking off they did an announcement on the tannoy “If Martin Wall is on this flight please can he make himself aware to us” I look down to Martin’s empty seat and sigh. I had a fairly tight connection in London and the flight taking off from Dublin was delayed about 20 minutes but we managed to catch the time up mid-air and landed on time. We’re taken by the Virgin Atlantic bus to a special security area, go through security again and straight into the Virgin gates.



I really like Virgin planes, don’t know what it is but they just seem to look nicer than other planes. The service inside is always great as well. So I do the obligatory Facebook ‘I’m going to Vegas’ post and get onto the plane, movie-less, dollar-less and friend-less but we’re finally going to Vegas for 8 days of fun!

Also, one pro of your mate not making his flight is the extra arm room



Anyway, next post finally from Vegas. Enough runbad for one trip, time for the run good! GL me.



HERE WE GO!

Wat? They didn't even sell his seat? Now they really don't have any excuse for not letting him on in London.

Sorry about all the troubles, but Vegas alone doesn't sound too bad to me! Have a great time and run good.

(BTW, I was hired for a U.S. writing job (newspaper) in Tbilisi about 20 years ago, but they wouldn't pay my airfare from the U.S. and it would have taken months to make enough to pay the fare, so I turned them down. Would have been interesting.)

No, they were going to upgrade him

Hey TwoPlusTwo,

So I finally land in the entertainment capital of the world, something that less than 24 hours earlier I thought wouldn’t be happening. Zero problems or complaints about the flight over. As I said, I think Virgin Atlantic are a great airline and have never had any issues with them. The plane was actually pretty empty and not only did I have the two seats next to me free but the whole two rows infront of me were also empty. I never really get that, the night before I had checked how much flights the next day would be from London for Martin and according to the Virgin website the flights were $2k+ and then half the plane was empty? I know airlines have to be pay taxes and have food costs etc but why not just flash sale these off for $300 if you know the plane isn’t fully booked…

As we’re taxiing to our gate I look over at the strip for the first time! From where the plane was pretty much the only building I can see is the big gold Mandalay Bay hotel, my eyes are instantly drawn to where approximately where the 32nd floor is and I think back to the terrors that happened there a little over two weeks before. Totally horrible and crazy.

The plane finally gets to the gate and I get through customs and get my bag. I notice that my suitcase has a large rip in the top of it so will have to decide If I should gamble going back with a ripped suitcase which could cause my belongings to be released all over the plane if the rip gets any worse, or buy a new case in Vegas.



Anyway, a ripped suitcase isn’t my most pressing concern right now. I have arrived in Vegas with zero dollars to my name and I need to somehow get a taxi to the hotel. I find an ATM in the arrivals section and withdraw $100 (no doubt with the worst exchange rate known to man). The plan is to use this until later when I’m able to withdraw the full trip roll from the cashier desk in the hotel. With a few fresh green bills in my pocket I flag a taxi “Venetian no tunnel please” and away we go! Question, does anyone know what happens if you don’t ask for no tunnel? I think the driver still needs to ask you if you want to go the tunnel way?

I arrive at the hotel and use the $20 in passport trick to get a ‘view upgrade’ on my room. I never really know if this ‘trick’ does anything or if I’m just given a room I would have got without tipping the $20? As I was meant to be here with Martin my room had two Queen beds so I also asked the reception lady to cancel the two beds and just go for the one king which I get with no problems. I head up to the 23rd floor and go into my room for the first time. I love the Venetian rooms, massive, clean and fairly modern. I got a really cool view of the pool area on the Treasure Island side of the trip. Slight upgrade from the Amsterdam box room!





Something else I love about the Venetian is the beds are amazing, so comfy, it’s like sleeping on a cloud. At this point I didn’t feel that tired to say it was around 2am Georgian time, I decided just to lay on the bed to see how comfy it was and the next thing I know it’s seven hours later and I’m waking up haha. It was just past midnight Vegas time, safe to say my body clock was now totally screwed. After a bit more chilling I decided it was time for my first Earl Of Sandwich of the trip (TR name really living up here). I head down through the busy Venetian Casino floor. I’m met with the sound of chips clicking, slot machine singing, people cheering etc. You’ll never find the busy Vegas Casino atmosphere anywhere else, I love it.



I walk down the strip which seems a lot quieter than normal, the taxi driver said that Vegas was a lot quieter since the shooting but could just be related to it being just a random Tuesday evening. I arrive at Earl and order the standard order: Holiday Turkey, BBQ crisps, cookie and an orange juice.





The holiday turkey is just a work of art on the same level as Van Gogh’s Sunflowers and I’m still convinced that an Earl would crush if it was brought to the UK. After cleaning the gravy and cookie crumbs from my mouth I head back down the strip. As I’m getting on an escalator to walk over one of the cross roads a cute blonde girl who was alone turns around and asks “Why are you alone and where am I going?” I inform her that my friend missed his flight and I’m going back to the Venetian to play some poker. She responds with “Ah, that’s a shame about your friend. If you’re going back to play poker then what about us?” I reply with “what about us?” She says ok and walks off. At this point I'm thinking that 99% of the time she was a hooker and 1% of the time I blew my chances with a hot girl so I send the story to one of my friends Joe who is also a Vegas regular. He pretty much instantly confirms that I’ve got more chance of winning the lottery than this girl not being a hooker haha.

I get back to the Venetian. I had planned to play in a few different places this trip but if I want to take advantage of the Poker room rate which will save me and Martin around $2k then I need to put the hours in at the Venetian. To get the special rate you need to play 6 hours a day but as I hadn’t played any hours on Tuesday and later in the week I’d be going to San Fran I need to average around 8 hours a day in the Venetian which as I’ve kind of lost the poker bug a little won’t be that easy.

I withdraw my $2.5k holiday roll from the cashier desk, sit down at a $1/$2 table, buy in for the max ($300) and away we go! As I said before I’ve not played now for about 10 months so was a little nervous but I quickly find my grove. One thing I’ve noticed is that players in $1/$2 just don’t seem to improve, I’ve been coming to Vegas for 4 years and the level of play seems around what it was 4 years ago with most players making the same mistakes and the same 7 handed to a flop etc. Guess that’s a good thing for me.

Fairly early on I see a limped flop with J7 from the SB. Flop comes 468 and it’s checked to an American guy in MP who bets $5, BTN calls and I decide to peel. Turn is K, I check, flop bettor checks and now the BTN bets $14. I call with my gutshot and flush draw and MP player folds. River 7. I check again and now the button bets $50. My first instinct is just to muck and I pick my cards up to fold without really thinking. Just before I throw them across the line I have a little think, the BTNs line seemed strange and there was something that just seemed a little fishy. I put my cards back down on the table and replay the hand in my head again. After a little while I decide to call and he turns over…





The very next hand I get dealt the beautiful sight that is Aces on the button. A guy in MP had raised to $8 and most likely steaming from the previous hand the CO also calls with his short stack. I 3bet to $33. Original raiser goes ahead of 4bets to $88 with about $200 behind (dream) and the CO ships for like $30 total. I’m not sure what the best line is here but in these types of games I don’t really like messing around and prefer to just get it in as I think players will find it hard to fold any semi decent hand. I decide to rip it in and after a shortish tank MP decides to fold. Steaming CO turns over T7o again and I turn over my AA. Flop comes A46r and MP shouts “I had AK, you should have just flatted, you would of got it all” not sure I believe him as he only mentioned it when the flop came and not many Aces left in the deck. Turn is a 5 giving the CO an open ender but luckily justice prevailed and we held.



I played till around 6am and when the game broke and I was the guy drawn to join the waiting list I just decided to call it a night. Overall a great first session, bought in for $300 and cashed out for a solid $502 for the 5 hours work. No massive pots either, just generally chipping up and taking small pots where I could. Just what I needed as a confidence boost really.



I buy myself a Pain Au Chocolat from the Bouchon bakery downstairs to celebrate and head back to my room. Ate the Pain Au Chocolat on my bed which was a huge error due to the amount of crumbs coming off it, luckily with hotel living I knew I’d be getting a fresh bed the next day



I check my work emails and do some work calls while I’m watching the beautiful desert sun rising over the strip. I was starting to feel a little tired so head to sleep but only manage to get a couple of hours in. That’s the thing about the Vegas jetlag which always seems to get me here. You can feel so tired but your body is telling you it’s only 5pm your time and that you shouldn’t be sleeping. So after waking up and removing Pain Au Chocolat crumbs from my hair I head back over to Earl for my second Holiday Turkey within 12 hours and then back to the Venetian Poker room. I’d only put 5 hours in earlier so was well behind my daily target. At the moment the Venetian has two poker promotions running. Firstly, there is a bad beat jackpot running which is currently the highest it has ever been at $203k. To win you need your quad 6s or better to be beaten. The loser in the hand receives 50% of the jackpot, the winner in the hand gets 25% and the rest of the table split the remaining 25%. There is also a high hand promo which means the highest cash game hand in the room every 30 minutes receives $300. People seem to go mad for these promotions and start playing different because of them, earlier on I saw a guy call an all-in with pocket 6s for the off chance that he makes quads and they’re beaten haha. My strategy with these things is just play my normal game and if the Poker gods pick me to win then happy days.



The session is going ok and I pick up AK in MP. A guy had limped in EP and I made it $10. The BTN who seemed to know what he was doing 3bet to $33 and the EP limper called. Looking back now I think I made a mistake by just calling the 3bet OOP but my thinking at the time was that If I 4bet then I put myself in a horrible spot if he rips it in. So I just flat the 3bet and we see a QJ4 flop. Checked to the BTN who bets $50, EP limper fold and I call again. Turn T. It goes check check and the river….A ! I’ve been playing live poker for at least 12 years and have seen a few Royals before but never actually made one myself playing live. Making your first live Royal in Vegas is a great feeling. I was clearly praying he somehow had the 89 but alas I made a bet and with me having the board totally smashed he folded pretty quickly. I turn my hand over and do a small fist pump the air “High hand jackpot is mine! Another $300 in the bank” I think but I’m quickly informed by the dealer that you need both cards in the hole in order to qualify for the high hand or bad beat jackpot. Sad times but still happy with my first ever live royal flush.

The next morning I am flying to San Fran at 6am and still needed to somehow print my plane tickets and my Alcatraz tour tickets. I was quite enjoying the session and was currently $200 up so I decided to just leave my chips on the table and headed over to the concierge desk to see if they could help with the printing. They confirmed that it would be no problems and gave me the email address I needed to send everything too. I went back to my room, checked into both return flights and attached everything to the email. Went back down to the concierge desk and they started printing everything. While I was waiting I noticed a leaflet for Helicopter tours. Doing a Helicopter tour over the Vegas strip at night time is something that has been on a my Vegas wishlist for a while and as the Poker was seemingly going well I decided why not and booked to do it on Monday evening. Cost is about $10 a minute while you’re in the helicopter but you only live once. Anyway, the printing and helicopter booking took a bit longer than expected and by the time I returned to my seat in the poker room I found someone else sat in it. Floor is called and I found out they’d taken my chips off the table and put them in the cashier desk. I needed my ID to get them back so had to go back up to the room again to get it, what a hassle. Got the chips in cash and as I’d be having to get up for San Fran at around 4am decided not to sit back down at the table. I head back to my room for abit and decide to count my cash to see how I was doing for the trip so far. $705 up through poker and basically my only outgoing so far has been multiple Holiday Turkeys and Helicopter flights so I should have around $3k. Unfortunately after maybe five counts and lots of pocket searching I discovered I was around $250 short of what I thought I should be. I normally just have the money loose in my pocket so I fear that as I was getting my room key out or whatever the money slipped out of my pocket, this is the only way I can think that I had lost the money. Losing money is strange, If I had lost the money at the poker table I wouldn’t of even blinked but losing the money most likely out of your pocket is such a tilting thing and I was so pissed off with myself. Not a life changing amount of cash but enough to be annoyed about it. Hopefully whoever found it deserved it and used it wisely. Still feel like I’m not running great so far this trip though haha. I decide to go for one last Holiday Turkey is drown my sorrows and head to bed around midnight with my alarm set for 4am to catch my San Fran flight the next day.

Thanks for reading and following so far!

OP. Heading to Malta 11th of November.. Never been before... Talk to me...

Thanks for the wishes Javanewt! I've heard many stories about Tbilisi back in the 90s and let's just say I think you made the right move by not going there then haha

What do you need to know OFA? Going for a poker trip or?

Holiday with the Girlfriend... Any things we MUST do? havn't booked hotel just yet - if you could stay at ANY one which would it be?

I'd snap call the Hilton in St Julians. Bit expensive but worth the cost imo and the location is great. Regarding things to do... I would walk from St Julians to Sliema along the coast line which is quite a nice walk. In Sliema there are quite alot of shops if you wanted to do some shopping. In Sliema seafront their should be people selling Gozo tours so I would enquire about this here as Gozo is worth a day trip. From Sliema you can also get the ferry over to the capital Valletta which is nice to have lunch at, they fire the cannons here at midday everyday in the gardens overlooking the harbor.

If you decide to go to Gozo then like I said, book through one of these tour people in Sliema and you'll be able to get a ferry from Sliema to Gozo and then a tour bus around Gozo or you can get a hire car and drive to the Malta to Gozo ferry yourself (second option is what I did when I had friends over). The Blue Lagoon is worth a visit as well but in Nov might be a little cold but guess you'll just have to decide on the day.

Mdina which is the old capital of Malta is worth a afternoon visit as well. There is a coffee shop at the top with great views of Malta but again depends on the weather. Really cool old city they filmed a few bits of Game of Thrones at.

Food wise, I really liked the Blue Elephant in the Hilton which is Thai food. Sotto in Valletta for Pizza. And steak at Caviar and Bull. And while in Gozo head to Patrick's Lounge for a v decent meal. For partying and drinking then head to Paceville which is 10 mins from the Hilton. There is also a club at the top of Portomaso tower which is right next to your hotel, good but expensive drinks and the best views you'll get of Malta at night.

And if the GF lets you play poker then I would play at the Portomaso Casino. Games are quite reggy and not that soft but always run and sometimes you'll get 2/5. Dragonara have softer games but don't always run. Most Casinos in that area have daily tourneys but check the sites out.

Have fun!

So glad you recommended Hilton. Was my #1 pick. Will defo do that now!

Thanks for the advice and great TR thus far. Maybe I missed it but is Martin planning on joining? going to be a problem now you dont have 2 beds?

Any chance you got shorted when they picked you up from the poker table?

Hope your expectations are not very high for SF. It's a filthy city and there are lots of homeless and trash on the streets.

Have you seen Vegas?

Bit partial to SF myself, trash and homeless and all. When someone says "The City", I think of San Francisco. Helps I grew up in Marin, and have spent many happy vacations there since.

Awesome TR so far, really gets my mouth watering for some Vegas action! This time next week...