Don't feel bad, I've been to Vegas at least 50 times and I've never seen that sign.

The investigation is still ongoing. They won't be allowed in to make repairs until it's over.

The time to tip him is BEFORE the flight. You might have gotten front seat then.

Oakland is at the other end of the Bay Bridge, although the airport is somewhat south of there. The other major airport in the Bay area is San Jose. You would need to take a shuttle to get there (about $75) but you should know it's also an option. Just as with SF and Oakland, it has flights to/from Vegas every 90 minutes or so.

Yup, it's like a video game. Start counting down until it's exactly 24 hours before and click your ass off. No matter how fast I think I click, the best I've ever done is about the 10th available spot, like 25th overall.

Not only that, but for the nits out there, EoS - Planet Hollywood accepts the 2 for 1 sandwich coupons (Entertainment Book and others) but the EoS - Caesar's Palace does not.

This is a great example of how to do a proper Las Vegas trip report..well done, sir..

Ah, that makes sense then. Both times I just turned up at the airport and checked in there. If I ever fly Southwest again I'll know for next time. Thanks

Yeah, fair enough. Actually while I was looking up at the window I could see movement in the room which I'm assuming was the FBI or similar.

Hahaha, I prefer post 'thanks for not killing me' tip tbh

Nits gonna nit

Thanks for the nice feedback Stuey!

Looks like you received your response. Yes, check in 24 hours in advance to get the best spot in line. One thing to know is if people are already on the plane there go the exit row seats. Also if someone is connecting from another city they check in X hours before you and will get a better spot in line.

As for me no worries about the 24 hour thing since I have been A-List for several centuries now. You get auto checked in and are in the spots immediately behind business select (the most expensive ticket).

This is a great TR

Just read your TR and am enjoying it thoroughly. Sounds like you are making the most of the trip after Martin couldn't make it.

As far as your poker rate at the V, make sure you check in with them to see how many hours they have for you so far. They could be off.

GL on the rest of your trip. Looking forward to the rest of it.

Definitely a great trip report. Glad there’s more!

Helicopter weight balancing is real. Even when I paid for the front seat (with Maverick), they let me know in advance it wasn't a guarantee, but obv I'd get my money back if I didn't get the front seat.

Great TR. I thought I was going to be there this week, didn't work out, been nice to 'be there' with you.

Hey TwoPlusTwo,

I woke up early again this morning, still pretty hyped about the helicopter ride from yesterday. This evening I have tickets to see Elton John’s Million Dollar Piano at Caesars palace, I went to the same show last year and it was class so really looking forward to that. So after downloading some movies ready for the flight the next day.



(Not bad office views)

I decided that as yesterday seemed to a Spanish themed day what with the Mexicans, Spanish speaking on the helicopter and then tapas that with Elton tonight I would make today a British themed day. When I had gone to In & Out Burger the other day I had noticed that near Linq there was a Gordon Ramsey’s fish and chips restaurant right next door. As I live in Tbilisi and the nearest Fish and Chip place is probably 2000 miles away I decided to take full advantage of this and head for a traditional British dish.

I’m walking down the strip towards the fish and chip place and as I’m walking I closely pass two dominatrix girls who were there taking pictures with the tourists. To my surprise and shock as I’m walking past the one with blonde hair whips me fairly hard on the ass with her leather whip haha I think it made me jump more than the electric shock from earlier in the trip.



After the whipping I limp over to Gordon’s Fish and Chip place which has a super cool British theme. Outside is a fire hydrant painted in British flag colours and to get inside you need to walk through a British phone box which I thought was pretty clever.

We don’t have fire hydrants like this in the UK and phone boxes have pretty much disappeared since mobile phones still clever. I get to the front of the queue and order the classic fish and chips with tartar sauce and for drink I get a sticky toffee pudding milkshake. The place was rammed and I was very lucky to get a table. Nice life being Gordon Ramsey, slap your name on something and watch the money roll in. I saw that he's building a Hells Kitchen right on the strip in front of Caesars, will be worth a visit next time for sure.







Anyway, I was abit surprised and disappointed when I couldn’t see tomato ketchup on the list of sauces when I ordered. Fish and Chips is vastly improved with tomato ketchup but the food was still really good regardless and the milkshake was probably the best I’ve had so far this trip, really really nice. British music was playing over the stereo and if it wasn’t for the big TV screens showing American football I could have been in a small fish and chip shop in a seaside town back in England. After my food and the nostalgic day dreaming I get up to leave, head towards the phone box door and see the massive tomato ketchup dispenser, doh!

Head back to the Venetian and asked them at the Poker desk to check how many hours I needed to do to get the poker room rate. They confirmed that I needed to do around 12 hours for the whole trip to be covered. It was past 12pm now and with Elton John and CUT tonight I knew it wouldn’t be easy. I said in my previous TR post that my goal for this session was to win $2k, I’m going to slightly upgrade this goal and say not only do I want a 1,000 BB winning session I also wouldn’t mind taking this bad beat jackpot down which now sits at around $220k. People are going totally mad for this thing and everyday the waiting lists are massive. One guy at my table said he'd driven from LA just for this jackpot. I even saw a bunch of dealers sitting and playing to try and win it. It was kind of strange seeing them without the Venetian uniform on and playing poker rather than dealing. I don’t know, if I worked in that card room 40+ hours a week I don’t think I’d want to spend my free time sat in the same poker room with the million to one shot that my quads 6s are beaten. There was also the $300 high hand jackpot running every 30 minutes. I sit down at my standard $1/$2, coming off two fairly large losing sessions I really wanted a win to boost moral and confidence. Playlist for the session:



Things started off quite well when managed to stack someone with AA on K836… A... we got it all in on the turn and he looked a bit disgusted on the river so not sure if I had him beat all the way or not. Not long after that I called a raise on the BTN with A2 flop comes K84. The player I was playing against seemed fairly tight and I felt like he almost wouldn’t cbet without something so when he bet $20 on the flop I decided just to flat and see what the turn brings. Turn is an A but I still wasn’t very happy when this didn’t really slow him down and he bet $30, I flat. River brings a 2 giving me top and bottom pair. And he bets $60. Fairly tilting spot really, I think normally I can get away from this but I ended up paying him off and getting shown AK. Pretty annoying river as it’s about the only card that’ll cost me more money. I had a fairly even starting stack for most of the session tbh, would go up to $100 profit and then back down to $20 loss. I was up around $100 when I saw a limped flop multiple ways with KT, flop comes KQJ and a guy just ships like $80 into a pot of $22. It’s folded back round to me and with top pair, open ender and backdoor flush draw outs I decide to call with the terrible pot odds. He had pretty much the best hand for me here and showed A5 so I just needed to dodge the T or heart and we’re golden. Alas the J on the turn brought me down to the one 9 out which we bricked on the river. Back down to level again Not long later an older guy limps in MP and there are 4 other limps, no one really seemed to be folding to my pre flop raises so when I looked down at TT on the BTN I decided to make it slightly larger than normal and raise to $20. The old guy (same guy from A2 v AK hand) calls and everyone else folds.



Flop comes Q73 and I cbet $35 pretty much just hoping he folds but he calls the bet pretty quickly. Turn brings a 7. The guy had been pretty friendly with the table talk and in a previous hand had even shown a card to a player during the hand. On the turn he said to me “if you check here then I’ll let you pick and see a card and we see a river”. Imo him saying this makes it even more likely he’s drawing here and wants to see a free river card but as I wasn’t sure and thought I’d have a big advantage by knowing one of his cards I decided to take him up on his offer (also makes things a little more fun ). True to his word he lets me pick a card, I choose the right hand side card which is the J . So either he has QJ off suit (unlikely), somehow has pocket Jacks (unlikely) or has a flush draw, flush draw for sure the most likely option. The river brings 7 and he checks. Now when it came to river value I didn’t think there was too much point betting my hand… By seeing the Jack of clubs I know either he’s on a draw which now almost never calls any value bet or he has me beat so didn’t think there was much point in betting here. I check behind and he tables AJ. As I said before there is currently a high hand promotion running in the Venetian which basically gives $300 to the best hand on any of the cash tables, every 30 minutes. I’ve put in a bunch of hours at Venetian and not even got close to winning the high hand so after tabling my hand I was glad when the dealer announced “high hand table 8, sevens full of tens!”. I thought I most likely won’t hold for the full 25 minutes remaining but at least my hand will be put up on the TV screens around the poker room so I have a little glory. Within 10 seconds of the dealer shouting my hand out and before they even had chance to put it on the TV screen a dealer on another table shouted out “High hand! Quad aces with a K” lol. So after a week of playing at the Venetian my high hand sweat totaled around 10 seconds haha.

It got to around 18:30 and with Elton starting at 19:30 I decided to call it a session and head back to the room to get ready. I ended the session one zero short of my goal of $2000 at $215 profit for the session. Still happy to have a winning session under my belt. I head back to my room to pick up the Elton John tickets. As we had booked these tickets in advance and Martin hadn’t come to Vegas I had a spare ticket. For the last few days I was debating what I should do with the spare $160 Elton ticket. I had thought about giving just throwing it out there on Tinder but with CUT straight after Elton I thought it probably wasn’t worth the a $500 date. I had offered it to a friend who has friends here to see if any of them were interested but when none of them really were I decided in the end I would just enjoy the show better if I go alone rather than sat next to a stranger the whole time, extra arm room as well I make the walk from Venetian over to Caesars palace.







(The rare spiral escalator)





I always somehow end up getting lost in Caesars palace so eventually when I find the concert hall I queue up and take my seat.



Me and Martin having a selfie



One thing I really like about Vegas shows is if it says 19:30 on the ticket then you’ll bet your last dollar that’s what time it’ll start. No messing around, no warm up act, I took my seat at 19:25 and Elton bursts onto the stage bang on time at 19:30. As I said before, I’ve seen this show last year with Martin and Joe and it was 10/10. His voice was amazing and the whole show in general was great. This year I enjoyed it a lot but I thought last year was probably better. Elton mentioned at the start that he’d caught a cold and was losing his voice and even though 90% of the singing was spot on you could certainly tell he wasn’t 100% on some of the long notes. I always find it funny how in these types of shows that if the people at the front row stand up to dance or cheer then the people in the second row have to do the same and then the third row and so on, it’s like a Mexican wave of people standing and then sitting and then standing again, all controlled by a few people in the front rows. Elton played all the hits and told some funny and interesting stories and overall the show was still great.







At one point the first few rows are brought up on the stage to stand around the piano and take selfies. I saw this last year and thought it would be class to do so when looking at tickets for this year I had a look how much front row / get up on the stage tickets would cost. Let’s just say they weren’t cheap so I’d have to settle with my $160 front row of back- bottom section seats haha. I remember from last year that it took quite a while to get out of the concert hall and then out of the Casino with the amount of people all leaving at the same time and with CUT booked for 22:00 I left literally as Elton was waving and walking off the stage and was the first out of there.

Head back to Venetian and on my way past pop into the Poker room again to check how many hours I have left before I can claim the room rate for all the nights, they confirmed I had 5 hours remaining. I also wasn’t sure if I needed to do 48 hours to get the whole thing taken off or they just do it per day (i.e you did 6 hours over your trip so you have one day discounted and the rest full price) they confirmed it was the latter which was good news for me because by this point I was starting to get a headache and feel pretty tired. The last thing I really wanted to do after CUT was sit in the Poker room till 5am, with check out at 11am and the most brutal 24 hours of travelling back to Tbilisi looming ahead. Before I left the Poker room I also cashed out my poker room comps which I put towards my CUT meal. In total I had a $46 comps voucher (must have had a few hours left from last year)

Anyway, I arrive at CUT and get brought to my table. As I said before, Joey had recommended CUT on the first ever trip I'd had to Vegas and every single time I’ve been to Vegas since I’ve had to pay it a visit. By far it’s the best meal I’ve ever had each time I’ve visited and never seems to disappoint. Food is 12/10 I’d say, service 10/10 and atmosphere is 9/10. Place is expensive but worth the money for a rare once a year treat. I order the tasting of New York which comprises of three different types of steaks and three different sauces to compliment each steak.







The small Japanese wagyu on the right is by far the best, it's like eating meaty butter. I also ordered the fries and mac & cheese. The mac & cheese is totally unbelievable and would certainly recommend.



Unfortunately I had filled up a little on the onion bread before the steak arrived and quickly emptied the mac & cheese so with still two steaks left I was totally stuffed. The wagyu costs around $40 a bite and I couldn't bare leaving it so I forced it down. I take my comps off the bill but with the tip added on top I pay for the most expensive meal I have all year round.

After a complementary dessert sampling I'm done.







By this point I’m so full and tired and with the prospect of the flight back tomorrow decided to scrap the 5am grind and just head back to the room. The daily room cost without the poker room rate is $379 and with the poker room rate it’s $120 so you can a decent discount but it just didn’t feel worth the $200 saved and I would be tilted as **** if I had forced myself to play till 5am, ended $600 down and spent the travels home tired and depressed.

I head back to the room around midnight. Final night in Vegas is over! Just one more day in Vegas before my flight. I’m laid in bed thinking about the horrible flight home the next day. When I booked the flights I remember thinking that’ll be a terrible flight but future Tom will just have to worry and suffer at a later date… Well now I am future Tom and the flight home is tomorrow and will not be fun, dam you past Tom! Firstly, I take off from Vegas to London at 15:00 Vegas time on Wednesday, land in the UK at 9am on Thursday, have a 11am flight from London to Dublin, then 4 hours wait in Dublin airport before my flight from Dublin to Munich, a further 4 hours in Munich airport before finally flying from Munich to Tbilisi and arriving in Tbilisi at 3:30am on Friday morning, yuk! Then I have 3 days in Tbilisi to recover before being back in the office on Monday morning. Lots of tight connections as well and after the plane runbad I’ve been having this trip I was just hoping for a smooth flight back to Georgia.

I go to sleep full of wagyu and memories of Elton. Next day I wake up to a message from Martin:



Mother of god… Can someone run worse than I have with the flights this trip??? So much for a stress free trip! Basically means that I arrive in London 2 hours later than I planned, which means I miss my connecting flight to Dublin and then have no way of getting home, Georgia isn’t the easiest place to get too. Looking like the nightmare flight home has just got 10x worse and now most likely no time to relax and recover from jetlag before starting back again at work.

I’m trying to sort the flight issues as we speak so logging off now. When / if I get back to Tbilisi I’ll make a final post with full trip debrief, P&L and last day stories. If you never hear from me again it means I’m still in Vegas and the city got me

Wish me luck…

Thanks for the feedback Champ

Thanks for the nice works and room rate check, it's exactly what I did after reading this

Thanks for reading and glad you're enjoying

Shame you couldn't make it. I'd love to meet guys off Twoplustwo in real life whilst in Vegas. And I tried with extra money but the girl said it's up to the captain so probs should of slipped him $20 before getting on as someone else suggested doing.

Maybe you can find a semi-cheap one way flight to Dublin or Munich and pick up your itinerary somewhere in Europe.

No he will have the same problem as his friend Martin. If you miss a leg the airlines will cancel the entire ticket. He just has to board the delayed flight and has to have them rebook the connections. This way it is actually the airlines responsibility to find him a connection and it is also their liability if he doesn't get there on time. According to EU law he might even have a claim to 600 EUR compensention if he reaches his final destination more than 3 hours late.

Maybe this won't be such a bad thing in the end since you have that super long routing. They might rebook you to a more direct routing from Dublin once you miss your connection there.


EDIT:
I just realized your flights are not all on one ticket (that is why Martin couldnt come to Vegas in the first place...). In this case pig4bill might be right, you could go to wherever your other ticket starts.

This whole story illustrates the riks in connecting flights on seperate tickets. If you have it booked all on one ticket, you don't have these kind of problems. I realize for some connections this might be the only way to do it, but sometimes online travel agencies (OTAs) will book these on one ticket, too. I believe it is then their responsibility to rebook you, I am not quite sure. Because they take on some risk of you missing connecting flights if they sell you such a ticket, it might be more expensive than booking seperate. You are basically buying insurrance.

Good luck! Were you the youngest person at Elton John?

Good luck!

thanks for sharing and good luck getting back to Georgia; crappy luck with the delay

Only by about 10 years, I was surprised

One of the best TRs I've read in ages. Great work.
That Waygu steak looks tiny.

Your return schedule look horrific, I hope you can catch up with the schedule after the 2 hour delay. Safe travels home.

well done.

Fantastic last meal and Trip Report, but I must ask one question..

Orange Juice?

beat me to it

we need answers, OP