Panic in the Desert

[JDM]

Intro. This won’t be a clubbing trip report as that is not what we were in Vegas for, we were in Vegas for Widespread Panic (WSP), the HRH pool and lots of craps and we crushed it all.
Cast of Characters = Me trip organizer, married, loves to drink and play craps, hates to sleep; E, good friend, wild man loves to drink also married; H great kid, youngest of the group, SO but not married also a wild man (It was Me, E and H as the three amigos most of the trip) S, old high school friend can be a bit of a cheap, but usually pretty fun and single; Y, decent friend same thing, cheap, but usually pretty fun though and SO: PB, looking for love in all the wrong places and destroying his inheritance as he does it.
We knew a ton of other people in Vegas as well.

[JDM]

Day 1 –Flight is delayed by about 2 hours, so we start drinking then a quick flight in into Vegas around 1:30 p.m. and head to the HRH. E, H and I check into a suite in the HRH tower the others got two rooms in the casino tower. Great suite, plenty of room and glass table tops everywhere that come in handy as our room became the defacto party room for the weekend. Stash our stash and load up at CVS across the street with Two Handles of Sobieski Vodka (by far the best cheap vodka made, as it is better than every Vodka outside of Grey Goose and Kettle 1 IMO and is better stoli, belvedere, ciroc etc… at $20 a handle) 1 handle of Jack mixers and 4 cases of beer and waters/Gatorade. We looked like alcoholics walking back to the room, oh wait we are.
It was about 4:00 at that point so we decided to hit up the Rehab pool area for the last few hours of operation. S and Y were taken back at the drink prices and really didn’t drink while the rest of us hit up rockstars, Miami vices and buckets of corona. Great service by the talented Gina (as it was for the whole weekend) and decent scene there for a Thursday afternoon and you definitely noticed the WSP element starting to arrive. After that we all headed for the room for drinks and then dinner at Johnny Smalls. Good meal (got the $20 all you can eat small plates) which is a great deal for Vegas and our bartender was outstanding and hooked us up with a bunch of random mixed shots to get things rockin. After that it starts to get a bit blurry, but we hit up the shadier side of the strip for some low limit gambling. I started out getting crushed on the craps table at Oshea’s and was down about $500 before we moved on to Casino Royal where I proceeded to lose another $200 before drunkenly stumbling back to Oshea’s for a round of car bombs, before going on a heater until about 4:00 a.m. and winning back $800 to put me up $100 for the night. During my run everyone left me (I could be solo until 9:00 a.m. and most of my friends wouldn’t think twice because I always show back up no questions asked) but you can’t leave the table on a heater so I stayed and am sure glad I did. Finished off the night at the HR at the center bar and went to bed at about 5:00 a.m.