Arrived Sunday the 4th. The airport wasn’t too busy, but long checkin lines at the Tropicana. Got there at 3pm. but they didn’t have a room ready. We had booked the garden room and asked for a balcony room facing MGM. The guy told us we would have to wait 2 hours before the room we wanted was ready. So we came back at 5pm. and they gave us room 5202. This room sucked. Was on the end of a hallway next to a dark
corridor of offices. It was a large room with one bed, and the rest of the room was just big empty space. The balcony..what a joke, was a sliding window that opened onto a ledge overlooking airconditioning equipment and a bunch of cigarette butts. We raised all kinds of hell with the manager, and got upgraded the next 3 nights to a Paradise tower room on the 10th floor overlooking the strip. This turned out ok, as we had booked  several months ago and got a 45 dollar a night room rate. There are rumors the Tropicana is going to be the next place to close. I ask a maintenance man and I dont know if he knew for sure or not, but he just said there were rumors and no one had been told anything for sure yet. Well I hope that garden room they gave us is the first one to go under the bulldozer..LOL

We ate at the new Toby Keith Bar and Grill at Harrah’s. The food should have been good, but the service sucked. They didn’t bring everything that was on the order, but the portions were huge. The chicken fried steak sandwich was big, but overcooked, it was crispy on the inside too.. lol.. Like most chain places, the waitresses were more worried
about bringing more drinks and beer to the people than doing their foodservice job. I did expect more, but im sure Toby thinks they are running his place ok. 6 bucks for a Bud Select in a bottle seemed a bit high to me although the food prices were ok.

NFR. We had tickets for Monday night, and went to the Cowboy Christmas show at the convention center Tuesday morning and bought tickets for Tuesday night also. The NFR is really great to see live, if you enjoy rodeo. Lee Ann Rhimes sang Amazing Grace Tuesday night after a memorial tribute to rodeo cowboys of the past who have passed on.

We rode the new double decker strip bus downtown. These busses are really nice. I noticed they have a machine in front of the bus stop at MGM you can purchase your bus passes before you get on the bus. It was nice to see the Golden Gate is still there. Had a few shrimp cocktails and bottled Killian’s Red. Its a nice place to relax, and everyone is
friendly and talkative, not like at the fancy places on the strip. We ate at the Alladin buffet. I ask the waitress if they were going to change the buffet next year when it becomes Planet Hollywood casino, and she said no, that the buffet was one of their best money makers and they would only remodel it, not change the menu. That was good to hear.

I noticed at the old Westward Ho, they had a sign out front, if you have any chips, you can turn them in at the Riviera until sometime in March.

One night we went to the brewpub at the Monte Carlo. Their draft beer is really good, and at 4.50 for 16 ounces, a good price too. Ordered the nachos and got a huge plate with all kinds of toppings for about 8 dollars, almost too much for two people to eat.

CARROTTOP!!!!  If you like to laugh this show is a must see! He is at the Luxor now. Got a good deal on tickets at the tickets4tonight booth at the Hawaiin Marketplace. Was about 56 dollars for two tickets, and well worth it.

Leaving Las Vegas Thursday. GET TO THE AIRPORT EARLY! We got there around 11am, our flight left at 1pm. The security line was about half mile long and im not kidding. It made a double loop overlooking the baggage claim area, and then some. Took almost an hour. Lots of people got to the airport only one hour before their flight and were almost
crying in the security line, and im sure they missed their flight.

All in all a pretty good trip this time!

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