When last I left the story, it was the end of Saturday evening and we had seen UFC, and had finally found somewhere to eat (a theme for the weekend as most places seem to close around midnight in Vegas…odd for a city which promotes gambling, drinking, and one would assume the good friend of drinking…eating). We now continue with Sunday morning.
We got up early on Sunday morning and knew we had a lot to complete in the last few hours. Our plane left at 11:50pm, so we would need to be at the airport by around 9:30 in order to make it through ticketing and security.
Our first trip was the Bellagio, where we enjoyed the best breakfast buffet I've ever experienced. Not only was there a variety of fish, a pancake station, fresh waffles, fresh whipped cream, tons of fruits, various sauces for the pancakes etc, fresh squeezed orange juice, really good coffee, amazing desserts, and an incredible variety of hot and cold foods (including herb roasted beef…simply amazing stuff), it was all piping hot and incredible tasting. Even though it cost $21.00 each, it was the best buffet I've ever had.
We went back to the hotel and packed up before going over to the MGM Grand to pick up our winnings from the night before. Our next stop was back to the Bellagio again. Both Ryan and I had about $100.00 to our names, and we decided that we would gamble it all at the Bellagio. If we lost, we'd be able to say “Hey, we played $25.00 craps at the Bellagio.”, if we won…well wouldn't that be wonderful? We had a soft rule that we would gamble until we had either a lot of money (over $1500.00) or none. On the way over I presented a scenario “You're up $400.00, what do you do?”, Ryan said he didn't know.
We got to the $25.00 tables and put down our $100.00 each. The pit boss looked at the three of us, decked out as we were in dirty three day old shorts, wrinkled shirts, and running shoes, and said “You gentlemen realize this table has a $25.00 minimum correct?” I replied with “Yep, we've always wanted to play craps at the Bellagio, and this is the table we want.” He smiled and proceeded to take our money.
The first roll came up craps, and we lost our $25.00. The next couple of rolls were 11's and 7's, which got us back in the game. We then proceeded to go on a nice little winning streak with our chips growing and growing. Andy, our dealer, kept giving us suggestions which kept on winning us money. Our palms were sweaty and our hearts were pounding, and finally I couldn't take it anymore, I walked away from the table after cashing my green chips in for 4 blacks and 3 greens. I had turned $100 into $475. Not bad for half an hour's work.
We were both totally high on adreneline, so we decided we'd go to Ceaser's palace and play one roll of $100.00 craps. Ryan would put down the inital roll, I'd put in the odds. If it came in, we'd split it 50/50. We looked for a $100.00 table, but couldn't find one. So we asked a pit boss where we could find a $100.00 minimum craps table. He looked at us wide eyed and asked why we wanted a $100.00 table, just put $100.00 down on a $25 table. I said that it was a dream of ours to play on a $100.00 table, so he asked his supervisor if he could change the table limit, and he let him.
Ryan put down his $100.00, and immediately rolled craps, which eliminated him. I then said “Screw it” and stepped up with my $125. I put it down on the table, and rolled an 11. I then played a little while longer and after a few rolls had about $300.00 in my stack. I cashed out up another $175, and left Ceaser's. At that point I was at $650 on the day.
Our next stop on our whirlwind Sunday was to hit The Gun Store on Tropicana. Ryan and I wanted to shoot guns, so we picked our weapons (Glock for me and a Barretta for Ryan). All you need in Nevada is ID, and pictures of dead American heroes…which we had in spades. We picked out our targets, and proceeded to the shooting range where we learned to load and fire our weapons.
First off, guns are loud. Second, guns are scary, third, the the friggin' M-16 next to Ryan was terrifying…it lets out a 3' fireball with each round of bullets! HOLY SPIT! Years of video games has made me a pretty decent shooter. I got a little distracted at first, but my second set of shots were right in my target's head. Ryan's first shot hit his target right above the eyebrow! his next three or four were clustered right around the same area. After getting our shoot on, it was time for pictures, and then time to get out of dodge.
We then decided we'd hit the outlet mall for one last stop for Ryan, where we all grabbed some little things, and then headed to New York New York to the ESPN Zone for some dinner. After dinner Ryan and I got into our dressier clothes (dress shirts and khaki's), and headed back to the Bellagio. At the Bellagio we both put down $200.00 on the $25.00 table. The pit boss didn't say a word to us about not being able to afford the table, and our good friend from earlier Andy didn't seem to recognize us until some of the table chatter started. We had a run of bad luck which brought me down to $100.00. Not even my hot hadn was making me any money. However, our good dealer friend Andy wasn't giving up on us, and when the dice passed to a guy named Adam, our luck turned around. Adam rolled a seven a couple of times, made the point a couple of times, and finally, when we had a ton of money on the line, and had all placed bets for the dealers on the pass line, Adam rolled a hard ten, prompted by some table chat we had made which included “I don't think you want a high five do you Adam? You don't roll a ten, you don't get a high five!” That hard ten brought me a tidy $115.00. Shortly after he rolled a seven and was out, but I was up again. By this point I was up to over $850.
As we left the Bellagio, we walked to the front of the hotel and watched the water show (although since we did the Ocean's 11 slow walk away earlier in the day, we didn't repeat it here).
We went back to Ceaser's Palace one more time to just try it out on the $25.00 table. Unfortunately nothing came in, and we both lost our $125 stake, but we were up overall.
We did one last shopping trip through the Alladdin, where I picked up a couple more gifts for Char as well as a set of real Vegas dice, and headed out to the airport.
We got to the airport around 9:40, got in a huge line for America West, then got in an even bigger line for security…the line was absolutely insane, and took about 40 minutes to clear. I shoved everything metal into my bag, and cleared security quickly…what a waste of time that is.
Our plane arrived ontime, and we boarded…but someone needed to go on this flight and it was overbooked, so they asked someone to leave the plane. Since it was an international flight, that guy's bags had to get taken off the flight…which then meant that we had to wait around until his bags could be found…for about 45 minutes. Then as we were taxing down the runway, a woman had a panic attack, and had to leave the plane (with her bags)…another 45 minutes. We finally took off about 2 hours late.
I fell asleep in the air and had a sudden panic attack, my heart went nuts and I panicked. Luckily a walk to the washroom was all I needed, and I was okay. We finally arrived in Toronto at 8:30 in the morning.
I came back with a bunch of souveniers, a ton of great memories, and seven little Benjamins, who pretty much paid for all of the fun we had for the weekend. While the trip was so packed full of things, even still there are things we didn't do. We didn't go to the Star Trek experience. We didn't ride one of the roller coasters, and we didn't visit the Monte Carlo (which is the only Casino we've never been to), and we've still never been to Sam's for breakfast. I'm pretty sure I had a good time…I'm just still a little overwhelmed. Four days since I've gotten back and I'm just NOW starting to feel like I've caught up on sleep and am coming down from the adreneline overload we were on.