No Wynn Without an Encore

By popular demand, especially by Anna T., an Encore post - because a few more interesting things did happen...

Day 12

As I've written about, we've change how we go about our flights and stuff, because I am so over red-eyes home, and I'm not keen on the 2:30AM arrivals in Vegas on the way out.

Instead of tight timelines with single points of travel failure, we're now favoring this type of schedule.

Trip Out: Take Chippy to the Left-B-Hind Kennel, train to Toronto in the afternoon, stay over in Toronto.

Next day, leisurely daytime flight to Vegas, arrive fresh, ready to enjoy a decent first day. This means a stopover, but on the other hand, we can fly Delta - and I'm really liking Delta these days.

Trip Home: Fly out mid-day, arrive in Toronto in the evening, stay over.

Next day. leisurely train ride mid-day back to Flusherville. Go and pick up Chippy and get some milk, and start blogging the trip.

It takes more travel time, and it's a couple of paid hotel room nights in Toronto, but we save parking costs, and we don't have to deal with the stress of wondering if we will even be able to get out of Flusherville on Air Canada. If you've read the blog for any length of time, you know how many times I've had to run through Pearson to try to make the 9:00PM Air Canada Rouge flight out to Vegas. The stress is incredible, and on more than one occasion, we've had to turn around and go home.

The return trip was planned exactly as laid out above, but on United, with a stopover in Denver, which could be iffy this time of year. And by this time of year I mean from September through June.

What is this??... An airplane - for ANTS?

We had a 1:30PM flight out of McCarran - how stress free is that? There was time for leisurely tea and filters-with-ears coffee, and time to pack and even shower and shave.

It was all great.  There was time to play a bit in the morning but I didn't. I really didn't. That great feeling from the last wins was still with me, and I wanted to just enjoy it. So for probably the first time ever, neither of us did any panic last minute play at the hotel or at the airport.

The United lounge at McCarran was nice enough, I suppose. Good coffee, but they charge for premium liquor. The usual troughs of nibbly food that looks good but is never enough to make a meal out of, unless you want to fill up on a pint of oily hummus and 16 packs of Melba toast.

(Who the fuck was Melba, anyway, and why was she in charge of the toast?)

It was so long Las Vegas... we were airrrr borne.

Now, there was weather in Denver - snow to be exact, and our departure was delayed a bit as a result. We managed to get in and get out, and they even put us at the front of the wing freshener line.

In the meantime, we checked out the lounge there and had a beer and a snack.

Minty Wing Freshener. They think of everything.

After take-off, we were provided with drink service. It went like this.

"What bourbons do you have?"

"Ummm. We have Jim Beam...."

"Do you have any Maker's Mark or Woodford Reserve?"

"Nothing fancy like that."

"Oh. Delta had Woodford Reserve."

"This isn't Delta, sir."

Stony silence while I bit my tongue.

"Absolut rocks please."

There was some sort of dinner served, but it wasn't even close to the lovely beef we had on Delta. So Delta the clear winner this trip over United.

We landed at Pearson, and so did the airplane. Customs was a breeze, and in ten minutes we were at the Sheraton attached to the airport, checking in.

What a sad difference compared to the spoiled luxury rooms we'd become accustomed to. Every aspect of this hotel stay was annoying or worse. In no particular order:

• general crud all over - elevator buttons, light switches, floors, lamp bases, phone, even the lounge surfaces were cruddy, and there was refuse scattered about the lounge floor
• safe didn't work
• no answer at Guest Services after 14 rings
• worst of all, the Quad Queen got short sheeted to within an inch of her life. Actually, make that a foot.

Short sheeted by a foot. Rest your tootsies in the soft gunk of everyone elses foot gunk on the mattress pad.

There was lots more wrong with the room, but there's no point in going over it all.

We couldn't wait to get out of there in the morning. The train ride home was great, and I spent a large part of it documenting in writing the Sheraton Room of Horrors.

Luncheon aboard Via to Flusherville. Ravioli for me, some sort of chicken for her. Not super the best but acceptable. Good wine, great organic, vegan coconut chocolate bar. I stole Mrs. F's off her tray before she realized it was there, and replaced it with a hand wipe.

It was a pretty gross day out, as you can see from when we stopped in star-studded Oshawa.

We got home and the drama wasn't over. There was a huge ice storm warning about a huge ice storm, doom and gloom, take cover, breaking tree branches, running out of vodka - all the horrors of bad weather.

I tried to make arrangements for Chippy to stay over a night or two but the Left-B-Hind was full up.

So I went for it. It was getting bad on the 401 with freezing rain coming down, and I was prepared to turn around if it got much worse.

I pushed through and made it to the kennel, which is not quite an hour away from Flusherville. There was Chippy in fine fettle, and we made it home unscathed.

Sheraton was not pleased to read my comments, and they made good by giving me 20,000 Marriott points, enough for a free night, I think. So all's well that ends with freebies.

And that's it, that's really it for this trip report.

In true degenerate fashion, we booked airfare for the next trip to Vegas before we left on this trip. This was also before the Coronavirus situation went from a brushfire to a bonfire. Hopefully, we will be able to enjoy our trip.

I won't say when it is, because I don't want Norbert's step-kids rifling through our garage for beer bottle empties, or stealing my collection of 1980s TTC tokens while we're gone.

Let me close by saying the response to this trip has been amazing and touching. It really let me know that you guys truly get a kick out of reading our adventures, and encourages me to continue writing.

A Huge Thank You again to the many folks who have chipped in using the now-annoying 'buy me a coffee' buttons! Some of the donations have been ultra generous and totally uncalled for - and super appreciated, and no, I won't turn them down! Thank you.

If any of you donators out there for this trip through paypal or the now-annoying coffee buttons want an Official Royal Flusher Lucky Business Card 2.0 with the Strict Rules of Parlay on the back, let me know your address by private message on the awesome Vegas Fanatics message board, or by email and I'll get one out to you.

That goes for any coffees going forward too.

Alternatively, if you are going to Vegas this Spring (hint hint), let me know if you want a card hidden for you - it's way, way more fun this way. As far as I know, I've only failed twice on this, so chances are you can get one this way.

See you in Vegas!