In 1814 We Took A Little Trip

Day 9 Part 2 Thursday Dec 28, 2023 and I arrived at Orleans, got my room forthwith, and decided on Chinese for lunch.

Oddly, coincidentally, astonishingly, and I can't stress this enough, I got the room 1814. And now all I can think of is "The Battle of New Orleans" by Johnny Horton.

The Orleans is a lot bigger than it looks, some 1,800 plus rooms. I assume they all looked as 'gumbo jumbalaya shabby chic' as Battle Central 1814. It looks like they barely spent a french quarter on the decor.

For some reason, known only to the El Cortez and the Orleans, the showers have windows in them.

Good and different views from up here.

I headed down to Ondori, the Chinese / Sushi place. For some reason the service was extremely slow. Like 45 minutes slow. And my food, although tasty, was mostly room temperature.

Can nobody in Vegas produce a fucking hot meal out of a wok???

Kung Pau chicken, spring roll, and fried rice, lunch special, around $15. It tasted good enough. But I'm sick of the half-assed restaurant experiences.

Oh, hey, let me rephrase that. I've faced headwinds on my Vegas tribute trip dining journey. 

It was around 2:18 pm approximately and my Keno game was done. I spent roughly 2 hours getting to the D and back to pick up my winnings of $17 and change.

An absolute blowout. I put the money into admin to offset the illicit twenty from Wynn in the morning.

So now, back at Orleans, I got parked, got my suitcase up to the room, and figured out what to do.

My throat is still super irritated and I have this horrid dry cough. I wore a mask to the casino, and sat in the two rows of non-smoking machines (completely useless), and played.

It was awful. I did try to go big on some of the play, and this was the extent of any success I had.

It all just felt wrong. It wasn't fun. It was angering me. I wish I had left Vegas 2 days ago - I actually wanted to.

The last $60 went into Stupid Buffalo Degeneration and I got no bonus. I never get a bonus. The people getting these bonuses all the time must be pouring in hundreds to get them.

Half an hour, down $200, and that's it, the gambling done for this trip.

Karen really loved the burgers at TGI Fridays (and we had some good ones) so I had a tribute burger and it was shitty. I ordered it medium well and it came grey and dry. At least it was hot.

The server is never there to ask how the food is when it could make a difference. I'd already waited half an hour for a table, and I have to get up early tomorrow (like 5:30 am) and I don't have time to fuck around on my tribute burger journey.

I pointed it out, and the server was really sweet about it, but I said I don't really want anything else, I've already eaten half. I just thought you should know.

It sure looked good on the plate.

So I'm finishing down $600 on the trip. It's pretty good for 9 days in Vegas, and I got tons of comps to offset it.

I'll do a post after I get back to the Greacey Palms to do the comp math spin that will show I actually came out ahead, somehow.

I don't like it when trips end with terrible play, anger, losses, and frustration, but that's the truth of it. I've had to face a lot of hard truths in the last two years, and I'm getting good at it.

In days gone by, I would have been taking a stake of $500 or $600 on the last day (and sometimes on all days), trying to catch a hail Mary.

My savvy nature prevailed this trip, and my daily budget was often $200 - which makes it hard to get through the low spots, but overall it worked out. And I stuck to that $200 today, so yay savvy me for not making the trip a horrible loser by going nuts on the last day.

The battle of Orleans is over, and I lost.

In my next post, I'll wrap up and jot down what this experience meant, how it went, how I felt about things, and that sort of crap - and yes, the accounting spin, don't forget that.

More to come!

To 1814 we took a little trip

With a wallet full of Jackson's down the mighty Mississip'

We took a little bacon and we took a little beans

And we caught the bloody tap out in Casino Orleans