My birthday trip to Vegas is one month away, but I’m so looking forward to it I thought I’d start early.

We used to go to Vegas four or five times a year, but now it’s only two or three times. We are just too busy with work, and we have a new granddaughter who was born in August. Plus, flights got more expensive, and my husband has his own business so doesn’t travel as much. No more diamond with Delta, which is very sad. Knowing we won’t get upgraded to first class is a little depressing, but he has lots of drink vouchers!

We’ll be staying at our timeshare at the Elara. I love this place. The rooms are beautiful, it has a nice pool, and the location is perfect for us – right across the street from Aria. Of course, in Vegas right across the street is a 15 to 20-minute walk!

We have two dinners planned. My b-day dinner at Sparrow + Wolf and a dinner at Pampas – I’m a foodie and my husband loves meat. Granted, I love meat, too, so I enjoy Pampas. We don’t have a Brazilian meat joint here. I got a pretty good deal on Groupon, and it’s on the way to the Aria.

We are doing the tasting plus wine pairing at S+W, and I cannot wait. It’s a bit extravagant, but you only live once. I spend most of my money on travel, food, and wine, so this fits right in. (I buy my clothes from Goodwill, lol.)

We usually go snowboarding in the spring, but my husband is still recovering from long Covid (doing much better) and a back issue, so that’s definitely not happening.

Other than eating, we’ll be drinking a lot of wine/champagne while playing mainly PLO at Aria. We usually know someone at the table, and the dealers remembered us. I hope it’s the same this time. Should be because we were just there last fall. We did miss our winter trip, though.

I’m going to update this a little with how my poker is going live. So far this year, I’m down $1,700, but $1,000 of that is because of crazy $25 double board PLO bomb pots and a couple of luck boxes.

I have a NLHE game tonight and a PLO game Friday night, so I’ll post about those soon.

Roll and shoe picks will come closer to the date.

Nice, looking forward to your sparrow + wolf review and some big PLO hands

Happy birthday Mrs. newt, and congratulations on the grandchild. You always write a good TR, I'm in!

Thank you, golddog. I'm actually not a huge fan of children -- she's technically a step-grandchild (I never wanted my own) -- but I'm really looking forward to running around our woods with her, coaching her in soccer, getting her a pony and teaching her to ride, and teaching her to play poker!

go go go

I'm looking forward to this one. Have fun!

I remember you staying at Elara last year and it's somewhere I've looked at the past few times as I like the idea of having a kitchen if I'm there for a week or more so I can eat healthy and spend less $$. It was Vdara for me last year but I might be tempted to do Elara next time

If you don't mind me asking...what was/is the financial deal you got with the Elara when you booked it in terms of any upfront $$ and what you pay per visit?

Looking forward to reading along.

A Vegas timeshare must be frustrating because you usually only get a week or two per year. But you usually want to do Vegas more than once a year.

I had a co-worker that had a self-organized "timeshare" in Hawaii. They got together with 4 other families they knew and bought a condo. They split up the time and get over 2 months each.

Looking forward to it all.

Happy Birthday and run good

feel wrath, we have a timeshare with Hilton Grand, and Elara is a Hilton Grand property, so I don't actually know how much it would cost to stay there. A quick search says ~$300/night for a king suite, but I have no idea what other fees there are.

pig4bill, our base is Vegas, but we can go to any Hilton Grand, plus they've added a few properties over the years. We could go all over the place, but we almost always choose Vegas, and our timeshare "points" cover multiple Vegas visits per year.

We got the timeshare off market years ago. It's a pretty good deal, but they keep upping the maintenance fees, so not as great as it used to be. It technically costs us money to stay, but we get multiple stays at much nicer places than we would ever want to pay for.

The one difference from many other timeshares is that we actually own property in Vegas. It's probably only a few square feet, but it's ours! LOL.

Another hotel we absolutely love with our Hilton Grand is The Quin Central Park. We stayed there a year ago at Christmas time with our timeshare -- the room would have been around $500/night.

Having a kitchen is a must for us. I love leftovers, and if we are somewhere for many days, it definitely saves money on going out. Plus, we can keep our champagne chilled!

Well, last night's poker sucked, to say the least. I could not connect with the board. Never had a pair higher than 88, lost my one AK suited to pocket JJ that just called pre -- although I didn't lose too much. The one hand I hit my draw the other sticky player hit the same draw. Lost $500 in a 1/2 game vs. bad, loose/passive, sticky players. (Won $400 Monday, so not too worried about it, but still not what I had in mind.)

Didn't swoop or even chop a double-board bomb pot, either.

Let's hope PLO on Friday night goes better.

I had a game Tuesday where nothing went right and the host/dealer beat me nearly every hand. she limps, I raise with A8, I turn 2 pair but she flopped set 4s. she limps with Q2, I raise with KQss, flop Q, she flops 2 pair. I raise with AK, she calls with T6, she rivers a boat. I complete with T9, flop a T, she has AT.
I don't want to go to her game anymore haha

Thank you -- misery loves company. That was about like my night except it was the entire table beating me

I'm not wild about the tone that's being set here.

If you can't brag about the results, minimize them and rave about how good the game was.

I am excite for the dining and poker to come in a month!

And never take poker TR advice from someone who is only a TR reader and not a TR writer!

I wish I could rave about how good the game was, but this isn't the "fun" room I play in. Nice guys and we joke, etc., but the poker action is very mild

I've always been "one of the guys," and I don't have any females I hang out with, but I am happy that there is another female player now who is fun and drinks wine with me! She's a bit younger than I am, a little bit country, and kind of crazy when she starts drinking liquor, but I like her.

She's a decent player when she's sober. However, I've seen her go through $5,000 (I was told it ended up being $7,000 and then $10,000 the next weekend), but a lot of that was in between 1/2 NLHE games when we were playing $25 double board PLO bomb pots. She has zero idea how to play PLO. I'm pretty sure she can afford it (I hope so).

She plays in all three of my rooms now, which is great. I hope she's at the PLO game tonight. My husband is going to play tonight, which should be fun. He's a good, aggressive player who brings a lot of action -- the other players love him, not just for the action, but because he's a really great guy

I hope I can rave about it in my next post!

Looking forward to it Miss Newt!

Definitely can’t wait to see your review of Sparrow + Wolf.

Have you posted interior pictures of your place at Elara anywhere?

Sounds like most guys would like her too!

Do any of these three rooms have a W or V in the name?

She is a lot of fun, and the guys do seem to like her. I'm pretty sure the friend she brings with her is a prostitute, though, or so I've been told. She's very nice and pours me wine (she doesn't play). Personally, I think prostitution should be legal, but that's a different discussion. No W or V in any of the room names. Two of them are just the names of the towns, and one is called, "The Room."

Played last night until about 3 a.m. It was a great, deep 1/2 PLO game with a $5 bring in and $10 double-board bomb pots once a round. Started off in for $800, but turned it into $2,465. The bad part is that about $900 of that came from a hand against my husband. We keep our rolls separate and play the same against each other as against others, except when we end up heads up, he gambles a bit more against me, so not sure if that extra $900 counts. He had a lot of outs, but not sure he would have done it against someone else -- and he didn't realize I had so much in front of me. LOL. There is zero collusion, etc., if someone is in the hand with us, and they all trust us. The rooms we play in are "underground" with one table each, so we have to play together the times he joins me. Everybody loves my husband, though, and he brings a lot of action.

A few pictures of the three-bedroom suit we stayed in last spring with family members:

Master bedroom:



Master bedroom from the windows (jacuzzi tub back right):



Master bath:



Bidet



Main living area:



View:



One of the other bedrooms:



Pool:

good luck , happy early b-day, those rooms look great.

looks sweet

Also in. Sick suite!

GL , early happy bday , and posting to subscribe in epic bread!