Funkhouser visits Vegas for R&R, with special guest star Royal Flusher

I was debating whether or not to post a trip report since this was a short R&R trip with minimal gambling bankroll. I meant to fully cash out some expiring comps, play a little, drink a little more and meet new friends. Since I did collect a fully large portion of photos of the new rooms at Harrahs Carnival South Tower, a few funny things happened, and meeting and hanging with Royal Flusher I figured I had enough content to write a semi interesting recount of my 4 nights in LV.

BTW this TR will have exclusive never before seen photos of the Canadian grommet maker himself, not some silly pictures of his hands at dinner, but full body photos of the man himself.

So on with the show....

The basics of this trip was as follows, catch a Saturday flight to Vegas for four nights on a great CET comp of $200 F&B, $50 FP, and 4 nights comp'd. Two nights at DTG with $200 FP,$60 in food comps , and a suite. Flight wise I managed a great RT fare of $220 to LV from Cincy.


Flight out of Cincy was great, little turbulence, but minimal rug rat noisy and I had the exit row booked on Delta. No delays and economy + meant free drinks to Vegas and lots of legroom in seat 19E so I loaded up on Woodford reserve and coke.




Got into Vegas around 6pm and managed a quick score of $240 on a bridesmaid slot from $20. So I treated myself to a limo ride from my favorite driver Lance who happened to be between pickups for my short ride to Harrahs. Upon arriving at Diamond check in I tried the smile, kind words, and a twenty for a free Executive Room upgrade but the nice lady at
Diamond check in politely declined and gave me my booked King NS room in Carnival tower.




Check in lady gave me a strip view on 24th floor in Harrahs Carnival south tower. Full room review to follow in later write up. Probably had one of the best views you can get in this tower as I could see the talent at the pool below during the day and great view of CP, Rio, Bellagio, and valley at night.




Headed down to the Diamond lounge to see my favorite bartender Robert for cocktails before hitting the casino floor. My habit is usually to hit the casino heavy first night hoping for a big score. Knowing I was limited to half my normal bankroll this trip, I tried to mix in more cocktails and relaxation. After two Stoli and Red bulls I was ready to kick the tires on some short pay Boner Deluxe .25 since the progressive was up around $1050.

Started out pretty good with Quad 7's twice!! The real ironic part was I got the same throw away card in a 5 just different suit.



All and all it was starting out as a good trip, but it would shortly change 3 hours into gambling for the evening...

 

Okay, sorry to leave everyone in the lurch but a massive cold has been kicking my ass this week. Hit me like a ton of bricks on Tuesday.
More on that later...

Ahh yes, so I left off on VP. So the gaming gods were treating me fairly well. Up a solid few hundred including tips and incidentals 3 hours post touchdown. Well I decided that having this good of luck meant I should play some of my usual penny slots. Big F'ing mistake. I quickly dropped $150 on the Lord of the Anal Rings - Land of Mordor slot machine which gobbled up my money and kept giving me the multiplier bonus with bumpkis, nada, zero for the hero, etc. 30 x Nothing. Worst part was some douches were standing behind me and the lady next to me giving commentary on our slot play to a group of 20 something douchebags in their pack.

MrDouche - "Ah man that game don't pay nuthing, he's wasting his money."
Funkhouser under his breath - "Asshole...grumble grumble"
MrDouche (to his buddies) - "Ah man, see I told you that multiplier don't pay nothing, I don't know why anyone would want to play that game."
Funkhouser (face turning red with anger and veins now bulging in my forehead)
MrDouche (directed to lady sitting next me ) - "Shit, see she got a losing bonus too."
Funkhouser (Flames now spouting on my head like Mirage volcano and head spinning around like linda blair in exorcist) - "You guys waiting to play these slots?!"
MrDouche - "Ahh no man, we just watching"
Funkhouser - "Well your comments are starting to annoy me, mind if you keep them to yourself or do I have to call security over?!"
MrDouche - "Mannn I hope you lose all your money" (Walking away with flock of Douchebags)
Funkhouser - "Same to you buddy, have a nice evening"

So being as superstitious as I am, I think this is where Karma changed for the evening. Next three slots I took a beating. I dropped another $150 on Wicked Winnings 2 with I think the best bonus being something like $18 on a five dollar bet. I am getting a little frustrated at this point and went on tilt, having another two Makers on the floor. Headed over to FUKU2 or PU2 or something like that. It was basically an Aristocrat slot with 4 progressives, one being up over 9K and a bunch of smaller progressives.

I think I put somewhere around another $200 thru this machine hitting a couple of small bonuses but not really going anywhere, finally cashing out around $50 of my $200 buy in. I slid over to a Buffalo machine down around $420 at this point. Got lucky an popped a pretty decent bonus after putting thru another $150 bringing me to even for the day with one nice 5 Buffalo hit. Security was all over and I got shunned for taking photo earlier so I only managed to get one pic of the bonus hit. While waiting for my bonus to finish, I noticed a bunch of commotion around the Fukme2 progressive slot I was just playing. Apparently some nice bluehaired lady and her husband popped the 9K progressive on the machine I was playing 20 minutes ago. Groan.....I'd like to say I was happy for them, but it sucks seeing someone else win that much money so close to your play. I generally try to walk away for a while to avoid gamblers jealousy. Still being even with around $5200 of coin in was not bad.

I decided that I was going to go down the street for some Blackjack to see if I could double up for the night before hitting the hay.

 

I wondered over to Casino Royale which was packed, so I had to settle on doubling back over to Mirage where I found a fairly respectable $25 double deck pitch game with 3/2 Blackjack. I think double down was limited to 10 and 11, don't remember. Had a couple of good hands out the gate with split 9's against dealer 6 ending up as 20 and 17 and dealer bust. Third hand was a 5 card draw to 20, beating out a dealer 19.

Another player sat down and things got choppy with me going 5 for 12 in winning hands. I ended up coloring up $100 out of my $350 buy in.
I rolled back over to Harrahs again sitting down at .25 progressive on Boner Deluxe. I slipped a hundred in and played about 50 hands getting some trips and 4 to a Royal before finally hitting Quad Queens.




Wrong hallway, apparently Harrahs has only remodeled 600 rooms this go around.
They were still working on the elevator banks and even the new hallways were starting to show wear and tear.




It was getting late, so I decided I wanted to make a run at Supertimes pay VP where I proceeded to dump in another $200 on a five play DDB. I think I got spinners once on a winning hand of dealt trips and a 3X multiplier, it was pretty stinky. I kicked around playing $40 to $60 on various Buffalo penny and Dragons Law machines not scoring any significant bonuses. I think I finished up the night somewhere around $6500 coin in and down my stake for the day and then some at $650. I crashed hard at 1am Vegas time, setting a 7am wake up call for morning.

 

Sunday Morning - 6/5

I woke up early thanks to the late night bar crawlers coming back to their rooms and hallway noise. I grabbed a quick shower and headed down to the casino floor to get some coffee and see where the .25 progressive was sitting. It had climbed the past 5 hours up to 1071.00 so after I got my coffee, I threw in a twenty to kick the tires. I managed to double up with a load of trips and two flush draws, but no quads after 7 or so dealt trips. Decided to move down the line and head over to the Flamingo.

The weather was beautiful this morning for the short stroll outside. 81 low humidity and only two or so panhandlers on the short walk to Flamingo via Margaritaville casino. Now I have a love / hate relationship with Flamingo. I love the retro vibe, old schoolness of the joint, and the back bar over looking the habit area. I hate what they have done to the sports books, the generally crappy slot payback, and cocktail service on the floor. You could literally die of thirst waiting for a drink.

I decided the morning strategy would be $100 on pennies and then $100 on some Triple multi-play bonus poker @ .50 level. I had found a 8/5 tuck away in the VP banks back in Jan and I had hoped it was still there. I Started out with $60 in a Wicked Winnings 2 slot and things went pretty well. I hit a bonus about 5 spins in on a $2.50 bet, but unfortunately managed to score $55.00 on 15 spins. I then decided to alternate 2.50 and 5.00 max bet on spins getting all the way down to $20 before hitting 3 ravens with some wicked ladies for $280. I played back another $40 before cashing out up $180.

Unfortunately my Triple Pay Bonus 8/5 had been pulled, so I had to settle for some .25 BP at 7/5. Played thru about $55 before getting this beauty. Of course it was the one premium quad hand I got this trip, and of course NOT on DDB.

I decided to cash out at $235 for a net profit of $400ish for the morning since I hit a few penny progressives on the way to the buffet.

Now I always love the Flamingo buffet for the free Mimosa's or Bloody Mary's but I guess that is either not available now on Sunday or until after 11am since my early morning breakfast was sans any alcohol. I finished up my breakfast and decided to stroll over to LinQ and burn threw $40 on Megamillions before heading back to the room for a morning nap. I had major plans for the evening with drinks and dinner at Ruth Chris with the one and only Royal Flusher whom I had never met. I also planned to sort out his identity and get a photo of the man himself for my trip report exclusive. Coming up next the "FreePlay debacle and does Toby Keith really love his bar and grille?"

 

Okay I had left off on late Sunday morning. One item I forgot to bring up is the GD traffic jams in casinos by the blue hairs driving the scooters. Apparently the technology is not yet 'there' because I literally got behind two Sunday drivers on the Flamingo casino floor and could not get around these old farts. I finally was able to make a mad dash to the left by the Flamingo cashier cage when 'Grumpus' as I called him made his third stop in the middle of the casino floor to get his
Bearings.



Sooo after my quick dump at the Linq on Megabucks I high tailed it back to Harrahs for morning business. Elevators were running slow this morning due
to the mass exodus of tourist leaving Sunday morning and one of the elevators being down for remodeling. I can't quite figure out why Harrahs did not re-model all the elevator cars in Carnival tower while the room remodel was going on. I guess they wanted people staying in the shitty floor wings to not feel bad by stepping in a nice elevator, so only half the cars were done during my stay.



Did I mention the bathrooms are really dark? Apparently one of the design decisions was to only put a single bathroom light around the bath mirror, I guess that explained the decision to go with the sliding frosted glass barn door on the bathroom. They also installed two flusher buttons on the toilet. I could not figure out if
these were His & Hers buttons, #1 & #2 buttons, or #mini-poop & #majorpoop buttons. I finally figured it out, but you will have to see my forthcoming room review for the 411.



Okay so I took a late morning nap for a couple of hours, and after scouting out the talent at the pool from my room window I decided to go take another shot at some .25 VP for an hour or two and then grab lunch. Since I got in late and the room wasn't really dirty I decided to pass on housekeeping and put my "Pillow Fort Do Not Disturb" door sign on the handle. Not since the gold medal "DND having Sex" door hanger I saw at Flamingo, had I gotten a chuckle from the door hanger.



I threw a hundy in a 7/5 Boner Deluxe and had a near miss around 5 hands in. Things were going south with few trips and pairs, when finally I managed to re-coup my buy in with Jacks.





Drink service was slow and I was getting pretty hungry so I decided to head over to Caesars for lunch at the food court and burn some of my comps.
Side walks were busy and I got stuck in a human traffic jam walking past Forum Shops finally getting in the building via the north casino entrance.
I decided to snap a picture of a great white dress that might look flattering on Mrs. F.



Food court was pretty packed so I had to go with some crappy Pizza and stale bread sticks. I think I managed to wring around 4 oz of grease from my pizza slice.
After lunch I kicked around CP casino not really hitting any thing. I dropped around $120 on some penny slots, before catching a Buffalo slot bonus for $50 keeping my afternoon losses to around $80 and in budget.

I walked back to Harrahs to check on my free play that came with my offer. Now when I checked in I was supposed to have $50 in FP from CET loaded and was told I could pickup at the cage in the morning. Well I show up at 8am and it had not been loaded, but the nice supervisor threw my $20 bucks in FP as an apology and told me to check back in an hour when Total Rewards opened. When I checked with TR deck at 11am it still had not been processed but they were putting a "rush" on it. Apparently CET has a separate group that loads all the offers in the system.

I was hoping by 1:30pm they would have it worked out. Luckily my visit had revealed it had been loaded, and the nice TR diamond line minion printed out my comp which I then had to go back to cashier cage to redeem....Ugh. When I finally got to the cage they were out of $20's so I had to take my play in $10 denomination. No big deal. I quickly ran that free-play thru a $1 JoB and turned $50 into $55 thanks to a flush and two hands of two pairs. I rat holed that money away for tips
and walking around money tonight. Headed up to the room to shower and meet Royal Flusher outside the Diamond Lounge at 4:30pm.