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Thursday, November 27, 2014

A look at SLS Las Vegas


Day 10 Monday Nov 3, 2014 - part 3 

From the ashes of the under-utilized-in-the-modern-era-but-once-a-classic-casino-hotel Sahara rose the casino resort called SLS Las Vegas. It's nomenclature? Modern, ultra-cool, and misread (from the back of a Mercedes, but who would call a resort the SL5??).
It's desired clientele? From what I can glean, good looking, young, rich people who have for some reason fled the Cosmopolitan and the Palms and Hard Rock before that looking for 'some place with a decent cartoonish one-eyed statue out front'.
We self-parked and then ran the gauntlet of the porte cochone. I figured we must have exited in the wrong place because we ended up walking along car lanes and across car lanes and through other car lanes. Because the place wasn't busy mid-afternoon on a Monday, we didn't get turned into strawberry jam by some good looking, young, rich person driving a Mercedes SLS00.

I had high hopes for the SLS. Their website looked ultracool, for one thing.

One of the things about SLS that I love is the fact that it isn't MGM and it isn't CET. We need more competition on the strip, and fresh ownership blood is a really good thing.

Back to the property itself, there has been a lot of thought given to the design notes of the SLS (is it 'the' SLS or SLS or?...). The rooms exhibit notes of post-modern over the top understated sultriness. The casino and public areas? They exhibit notes of overstated pre-modern under the top sultriness. Except the ceiling itself, which exhibits design cues signaling 'we didn't have money to finish this, or a vision, so we just spray painted the fucker flat black'.

And yet... there are so many pleasing whimsical design elements that I found myself really wanting to like SLS.

It was full of promise, with a really interesting set of restaurant choice, lots of creative and innovative elements in the fittings, and hey, full pay video poker.

We signed up at the slot club and found a decent bank of full pay slant top video poker machines. I hate to say this, but I've seen the pattern before... (the) SLS is loaded with full pay video poker, as most places are when they open. My jaded side fears that this will be chipped away at until, less than a year after opening, the offerings will be as dismal as anything else on the strip. Well, here's hoping, prove me wrong, the SLS, prove me wrong! Keep the good paytables!

Putting our horrible losses of the morning behind us, we set out to give the new kid on the block (hey, that would be a great band name!) a decent amount of dollar play, and then we'd see what kind of offers cropped up in future.
The high point was getting the sign-up spin bonus. I won $5. Yay me.

Mrs. Flusher played on my card and we started hacking away. Fifteen minutes later, I was down $400 not having hit a goddamned thing. At least my drink arrived before I stormed off to take pictures.
Whimsical design element.
It's weird how bad luck at one place could follow me to another place.
The Quad Queen also continued to struggle and dumped $300, in not much longer than my 15 minutes of fame - when I came back from taking pictures, she was done.

I'm sure (the) SLS will enjoy our $700 donation and see us as gamblers worthy of some comp room and freeplay offers in future. We'll see.

Overall my impression of SLS was very favorable. Great selection of video poker, prompt drink service, engaging and refreshing design. If I can mentally put aside the strange streak of bad luck we had, I will definitely want to return for a stay and get to know the SLS better.


A nod to the Sahara.
We hauled our sorry asses back downtown. I was down some $1500 on the day, almost twice the maximum daily loss I've ever had in my 52 trips to Vegas

Now what??
There are lots of eateries at SLS, some of them (unlike the buffet) still open for business. Growing pains.
Obviously, the pool area. Not well attended this day.





Stunning main entrance.
This is actually pretty goddamned cool.
Artisan pizza.
The kaleidoscope is only visible from certain angles - not to be missed!




Ironically, a rug wearing Sean Connery for a change.




    3 comments:

    1. I haven't been out to Vegas since SLS opened. Sahara used to be one of my favorite places to play in Vegas. The pictures of the remodel just make me cry.

      ReplyDelete
    2. I'm hoping the fact that your humor is intact means good things are around the corner...besides SL5's...

      ReplyDelete
    3. Queen & RF/er.I enjoy your writings,thank you.I hope you're successful in monetizing them! Welcome to the swingy world of $1 VP.I once had a month where I played nothing worse than 99.54% EV,mostly SDB,NSUD,& 9/6 JOB.I played advanced strategy,penalty cards accounted for,at a high level of accuracy.Playing $1 single line of these games,I lost 20K for the month,on 300K coin-in,or 6.67% with no royals for the month.Next 2 months,won 25K total playing same games.

      ReplyDelete

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