Summer Lovin'

[AxelFoley]

Date: 6/9/2016 – 6/13/2016
Hotel: Cosmopolitan
Cast: About 10 of us in total, a majority are a part of my Vegas crew that comes to on yearly Vegas trips. 3 new guys tag along this year who are friends with one of the Vegas crew guys. All of us our in our early to mid-30s.

I know this is going to be a fun trip when two days before the trip, we change our flight to an earlier time. 5 of us from the Vegas crew are on the same flight leaving out of Chicago and supposed to arrive in Vegas at 4:00 p.m. Four of the other guys will arrive around 9ish and the last guy coming from NYC will be arriving early around 10:00 a.m. The rationale is that we have 4 days so we should pace ourselves the first day so we don’t all crash by Friday night. We will arrive at a decent time, check into our rooms and relax before going to EBC @ Night.
Well, one of the guys, B, decides two days prior that rather than waste half a day since out flight leaves at 2:00 p.m. central time, and nobody will be working that day anyways, why not just leave earlier and spend extra time in Vegas? I vote against the plan knowing that if we get to Vegas early, we will just start drinking and by the next day, we will be in bad shape! Well, the other guys who are on our flight either are indifferent switching the flight or don’t want to. B informs us that he not only has a bunch of MonteCristo # 2 Cigars for us that he got from his recent trip to Cuba. I point out he is going to share it with us regardless since and he agrees. B then brings up that although he will share the cigars in Vegas, he definitely won’t share the 50+ Southwest Drink coupons he has. I call his bluff and he texts an image of the tickets to the group chat. By the end of the night, we have all re-booked our flights to the one leaving Chicago at 7:50 a.m. and getting into Vegas around 10:00 a.m.

5 of us get to the airport around the same time since we used Uber XL to pick us up and head to the airport. We have our Vegas playlist blasting EDM and hip hop in the car. We get to the airport and knowing that it will be a heavy day of drinking, we all head over a restaurant in the airport and eat as much as we can. Soon we head to the gate and board the flights. I’ve flown on flights to Vegas at all times of the day and no matter what time I get on the flight; the Southwest flights have always been high energy. We are all sitting next to each other and sitting in the window seat in our row is some middle aged woman. The moment she sees how excited and high energy we are (along with the bachelorette party of taking up rows behind us, and the group of guys in front of us, she sighs and puts on her Bose headphones… I hope they do a good job blocking out the noise!
Soon we are up in the air and the drink orders come. Being veterans of flying southwest to Vegas, we each order two Dos Equis knowing that it might take a while before the flight attendant to have another beer ready for us when we finish up the first one. B, being the smooth guy that he is, when the flight attendant comes over to take our orders, he also ask him how many of the girls in the group behind us ordered drinks, we find out all 6 of them did. B tells the flight attendant that he will cover their drinks and to bring them a second round of whatever they are drinking along with the first. Once the drinks come and we are having a good time, one of the girls behind us taps me on the shoulder and says which one of us paid for their drinks. I point to B and before you know it we are all chatting it up having a good time. We find out they are staying at the Aria and they plan on being at night swim on Sunday so we should meet up. B gets one of their numbers and then we start chatting among ourselves about the upcoming plans. B doesn’t get them anymore to drink because they are light weights and they can’t really drink more than 2 drinks… or it could be because it is about 9:30 a.m. in the morning hahaha. We continue to pound back the drinks and chat occasionally with the group behind us. Soon we land in Vegas and have a nice buzz going on. I get one of the numbers of the girls on the plane since she was cool and I tell her I’ll shoot her a message so we can all meet up at some point. I give her a hug and we go to meet D, whose plane has landed early from NYC. We get in the cab line and head off to the Cosmo!!
We get to the Cosmo at 11:00 a.m. fortunately we can check in. I am sharing a room with L and D, we have the two-bedroom suite at the Cosmo (one room has two beds). I slide front desk person a $100 sandwich to see if they can do anything for us. Shot down, not even waiving the resort fees! Ahh well, worth a shot. We all decide that we should head to Tao Beach to relax during the day… and by relax I mean turn up!

Next Up:
Tao Beach Club

[Mjscantlin]

Great start! Keep it coming! We leave tomorrow and I'm trying to pass the time by reading these reports.

[KinStock77]

Great start can't wait to read the rest!

[Schuffler]

Sounds exactly like the beginning of every one of my trips to Vegas. Party on the Southwest redeyes!

[LXJEDi]

Nice. Great energy from you guys! More plz

[Cirilo Medina]

Vegas is a marathon, not a sprint. Some of us sprint marathons!

[kp3205]

Great TR so far. Funny how we are all willing to change plans/stay longer when someone is willing to pick up the bar tab...lol.

[AxelFoley]

We decide that since we are already feeling good and we are still very excited that we are actually in Vegas, we decide that pacing ourselves so we can make it to all the events is not going to happen and we should heat to Tao Beach right away. We quickly change into our swimsuits and the 5 of us head over to the Venetian. B picks up a butane lighter at one of the shops at the Venetian for the cigars.
We head to the Tao Beach and pay like $10 for general admissions tickets. When we walk in the DJ s spinning some great hip hop/trap music. The place is not jam packed like the pool parties that I have been to on the weekends, but there is are a few people there and more trickling in. Before we make our way to the bar to grab drinks, we quickly realize that the unrelenting Vegas sun will only get worse as the day progresses so we decide to that we should have get a daybed. After talking to the host and giving him a modest shake, we get the bed at a good discount. The shade, being able to sit and having the waitresses come to you make this an easy choice and great investment.

The group was starting to feel the effects of waking up at 4:00 a.m. to get ready to head to the airport (plus I rarely sleep longer than an hour or two before I fly because I am too excited). Luckily, when the waitress comes back, she has the cure for us. D ordered these frozen red bull vodka pitchers. I hate red bull vodka, but I swear, in the unrelenting Vegas sun with fatigue on the horizon, this was nectar of the gods. After gulping a cup of this stuff, I was feeling energized a few minutes later! I felt the energy pulse throughout my body! I was ready to go! The crew was energized as well. We placed food orders and some other drinks with our waitress and did our rounds around the pool party. B and P pull over these two girls and chat with them on the bed while me, D and L walk around. We see a group of 6 girls 2 guys and without skipping a beat, I walk up to them start chatting (for a split second, I was going to skip that group because of the guys and go talk to a group of three girls near them, but hey, It is Vegas, you never know will happen and you don't want to leave this place saying to yourself "what if..."). So I sack up and walk over to the group. Whenever I see a mixed group, I always talk to the guys and try to figure out the situation. I don’t want to disrespect anyone and I want to have a better sense of which girls are unattached. I quickly find out the guys aren’t with the girls and met them a few minutes ago, so everyone is fair game! The girls were from Montreal and sounded too damn sexy! D and L focus on two girls and I focus on this nice curly haired girl. The other guys talk to the remaining girls and everything is going well. I invite the girl back to my daybed for some drinks and she comes on over. Soon D and L come back with their girls as well… they start dancing once “Trap Queen” comes on. I chat with curly-haired girl and learn that girls graduated from sort of nursing program and are here until Sunday, they are staying at the Aria.

We get along real well and having a blast when one of the guy that was talking to the other girls in the group comes over to our day bed to make small talk with me and the girl. He tries to hit on her but it doesn’'t work. I play it cool because hey it is Vegas, and nothing wrong with a little friendly competition. She pretty much acts annoyed with him and gets up and ask me if I wanna hang out in the pool for a bit. The guy doesn't take the hint and awkwardly stays in the area. Even ask me if he can get one of our beers! I politely inform him that his stellas are located at the bar and he should probably head there to quench his thirst. He moves a little further away from our area but is still in the vicinity so I head with the girl to the pool.

We chill a bit with drinks in hand by the pool with our feet in the water and chat for a while. I turn around and D is making out with her friend and L is getting a lap dance on our daybed. P and B, I have no clue where they are and the guy is still awkwardly near our daybed, I almost feel bad for him and want to give him a pity drink but quickly decide not to. The girl tells me she has to go, she presses up against my body grabs my face and gives me a kiss and slaps my butt the runs off to get her stuff.. I felt like a piece of meat!! (and actually enjoyed it, I can appreciate an aggressive woman) How come I never run into women like this back home! I guess people just love to let loose in Vegas, I love it! She comes back with her phone and I put my number in her phone and she shoots a text to it. I head back to the daybed and eat my long ago ordered and no longer hot burger which I force feed myself since I know it will help in the battle against getting drunk to quick. B and P bring a few girls over and we chat with them for a bit but none of them really catch my attention like the hot girl from Montreal. I check my phone and see I got two or three text from the Canadian girl that I was chatting with. The first text was Hi followed by where she was staying and her itinerary for the stay, looked like we would be at Marquee Nightclub Friday night.. .She also sent me a pic of her hand covering her boob asking me if I would like to see what is under her hand. The picture looks like it was taken in the Venetian elevator. Man, I wish I could post the picture on this forum! Not sure if she expected me to keep that picture private but I def showed it to all my friends, who started high fiving me and we ordered a round of shots... I text her back a meme of Ron Burgandy saying to stay classy San Diego and I tell her I will be at Marquee tomorrow night, we should meet up. A few hours later she responds to me cool, looking forward to it.

After a few more drinks, we call is a day and leave Tao to head back to the hotel and get some rest before EBC at night. At this point, everyone else in our group has arrived and we plan to meet up at 8:00 p.m. to get some food to eat before heading to the night pool party, but first things first, I go to my room and take a two hour nap. Got to recharge for tonight!

Next Up:

EBC @ Night... she brought her boyfriend and doesn't care!

[matt1983]

This is looking great so far.

Ugh about the guy who couldn't take a hint.

[BuckeyeFan]

Great report so far....

[AxelFoley]

After taking a healthy nap, everyone is up and we meet up at 9:00 to get some food. We go to The Henry in the Cosmopolitan. This ends up being our go to spot for food the rest of the trip. After eating and some light drinks, we hop into some cabs and head to Encore for EBC @ Night. By the time we get there is a little line, nothing like what EBC during the day is but still long enough. Fortunately, we have a lily pad with our names on it.

The funny thing is that when we initially planned on EBC @ Night, only 5 people said that they wanted to come. Everyone else said that they would be too tired to make it so count them out. Because of this, we got the lily pad with the $700 minimum. But, coming to Vegas several times before, I should have known better. Once people are actually in Vegas and feel the energy and excitement of the group, their nays turn to yay. So we show up with 10 folks. The host is fortunately the one that we spoke to before on the phone about the lily pad reservations. He is like, I think you are a few more than 5. I tell him, I think you might be correct in that assessment. And the extra 5 guys also decided not to pick up general admission tickets like I suggested. Got to love planning for big groups. No worries, we slide the host $200, and he lets all of us walk in without problems. Got to love Vegas, I guess it’s true what they say: Money talks…

We walk into the place, and it is clear that this place is going to have a great turnout. With Skrillex spinning tonight, I wouldn’t expect anything less. We get seated. We actually get a really good lily pad location so no complaints. Our waitress comes and we order 10 waters, two pitchers of beer and a bottle of Grey Goose. So much for that $700 minimum. I am not against spending money, especially in Vegas, but I am a fan for prior planning. We could have easily secured two lily pads side by side if folks could commit earlier! But no use complaining, it is Vegas! After the drinks comes the crew quickly disperses and goes to find groups of girls to talk with. The music is great and the colds drinks are delicious in the warm Vegas nights.

I see the group of Canadian girls from earlier at Tao and head over there to say hello. I walk over there with D and L. We start chatting and having a good time. We get introduced to one of their other girlfriends. She seems a little standoffish but meh, we are all having too good a time to notice. Soon L starts making out with the same girl as earlier. And the standoffish girl just leaves. We go a little closer to our lily pads so we can all get drinks and make some for our new Vegas friends. The girl L is talking to gets in the pool with him and they start doing their thing. A few minutes later the girl I’m talking to is like Oh shit, so I ask what’s wrong. She tells me the girl L is with has a boyfriend and he is here with them tonight. The guy I walking straight towards the direction of L and his girl. He has two of his buddies with him to. He gets towards the pool and yells at her to get her ass out the pool.

I generally do not pass judgment, especially in Vegas.. but folks, you can’t make out with other people with your significant others at the same event as you. Never a good idea. The guy and his buddies flash L a dirty look but as they look around, they see that his 7 friends (all of us are on the taller side and in good shape) are staring at them letting in a way that lets them know that escalation right now wouldn’t be in their best interest. They get the picture, flick off L and head back with his girl. The girls me and D are with apologize and head back with their friend. Before leaving, I tell the girl if she is free and doesn’t have a bf of her own lurking around EBC @ Night with her, we should catch up later, she laughs and says she will take me up on that offer.

Skrillex kills his set. We mingle with more girls and have a great time. L decides to leave early. One of my friends’ P, is talking to girl that is about 4 inches taller than him. He is about 5”11ish so she is just really tall. Very pretty too, but I could see a lot of guys being intimated by the height. Apparently, he is the first guy that talked to her all night. Moral of the story is to just go for it! Soon they kind of walk off and off and do their own thing. After a few more rounds, we get ready to close out. D manages to find a girl to bring to the hotel room with him. I don’t know how he works so quick, guess some guys have it. While we are gathering our stuff and handling the bill payments, I text the Canadian girl to see if she is around. She is! I tell her to meet me at our lily pad and a few minutes later she comes, alone.. that is a good sign. I throw down my contribution for the lily pad and hop in a cab back to my place with the Canadian girl, D and the girl he was with. We are chatting in the cab and head up to the room. We hear music playing from the living. It is coming from the living room and the lights are on. L is making out with the Canadian girl who had a bf! She had her top off. She covers her top up with a pillow and we are all kind of shocked. Her friend just shakes her head, laughs and walks with me into the bedroom. D heads to the other bedroom with the girl he was with. All I hear before closing the door is “I have a bf and I don’t care, Vegas bitches!!” Vegas indeed drunk topless Canadian girl.

Next up: Marquee Day Club Plunge Pools!

[AxelFoley]

It is Friday morning and me and my guys send the girls to on their way. I tell mine that I will keep in touch and maybe we can meet up at some other point in during the trip. She leaves with her friend who was with L. D’s girls tries to hang around a little longer than time would allow. She ask all sorts of questions about what D is doing for the rest of the day, what club and day party he will be at etc, etc. D is a very blunt person. After not getting the hints before about leaving the room, D just tells her he isn’t sure where he is going to be, but what he does know is that wherever he ends it, requires her leaving the room now so he can get ready. She finally gets the picture and rolls out. I could see her being the kind of “Vegas girlfriend” for the weekend that would undoubtedly cramp D’s style and ruin his mood for the trip. Glad she finally heads out.
We still have some time to kill before heading to the line at MDC. Fortunately, it is only an elevator ride away so no cab lines to worry about. Most of the crew is already finishing breakfast and drinks at the Henry. One of the guys, K is eating steak and eggs. Every year, each day… each meal is steak and eggs. To each their own. I eat a bowl of oatmeal and drink nothing but water because I know what awaits me ahead. We finish eating and trade stories from the night before. We make fun of L for not having the decency to take his antics to the room or the bathroom instead of the living room. P ended up taking home the tall girl. I think he had a bit of buyers remorse because he said he didn’t like being the little spoon in the equation... made him feel emasculated!

We all make our way to the escalators and head up to MDC. We get there and there isn’t too much of a line since we get there at about 10:55. We meet up with Cliff who we negotiated a great deal on Cabana with a plunge pool. If you guys ever get the chance to book one of those with your friends, I would highly recommend it. We walk into our cabana and take it all in. The first time I came to MDC, I had a daybed and just remembered seeing the plunge pool and wondered why we didn’t book one! So after a two year wait, I finally got one! We quickly order a few round of drinks and two bottles. Cliff had a bottle of Dom sent on the house to us. We start getting amped up. Another large group of guys is seated in the cabana next to us. We chat with them briefly because they seem like a friendly cool bunch.

Once the drinks start to flow, the place starts filling up and everything is going well. The cabana next to us has what seems like a large group of girls come to them. A handful of us decide to go and scout to bring back some talent. Plus, I enjoy walking around and mingling with folks, isn’t that this place is about?!? Before we can even get up and leave, a bunch of really hot girls come to our cabana and ask if they can hang out with us for a bit? We say of course and before you know it every is getting acquainted. I still want to walk around to I go with D since nobody else wants to leave our new guest. Me and D chat it up with these cool girls from NYC. We must have talked with them for about 20 minutes or so and decide to head back to the cabana. The girls are still in our plunge pool so I go in and chat with them.

It is always interesting to see the group dynamics at play. I quickly determine the personalities of that group and see who the leader is. I spoke with her a bit. She talked a good game and being easy on the eyes helped her too. She was going around talking to a couple of the guys in my group, massaging this guy’s shoulders, or flirting with that guy. That can make things confusing and lead to friendly fire! She comes back to me some more starts chatting, offers to pour me drinks! I mean I can’t lie, I almost fell for the charm too! But I politely decline, and go talk to one of her other friends.. I will let her chat it up with the other guys, I just want to relax in the plunge pool. By the time 1:00 p.m. rolls around, I ask the waitress what our total is so far. She says $3,000! Now to some that might not be a lot, but in terms of spend, that is high for the group this early on. It is clear that these girls have been helping themselves a little too much, and my friends are two busy falling for them to notice. I tell the waitress that from now on, only I can order for the group. At this point one guys in my group, G is plastered. So is one of the girls with us. G and the girl chat a bit she looks very drunk as well. They stand near the plunge pool and I don’t see directly what happens, I only catch it out the corner of my eye, it looks like the girl just falls into G and they both go into the pool! Out of nowhere, MDC staff came out of nowhere to see if they were ok. G’S leg is bleeding so they take him to get looked at by medical staff (who knew they had them on site!) and they tell him to stay out the pool, keep the bandages on, and if they see him get in the pool, they will kick him out. Seeing how drunk he was, that is a good enough deal for us, we thank them and G is given nothing but rescue water and real water the rest of the pool party. He looks very sad as we all enjoy the plunge pool.

The girls eventually leave. K and L are the only ones that get numbers from those girls. I think two or three other guys in the group tried to get numbers but go shot down. It happens, it’s a numbers game! I decide that I will relax a bit in the plunge pool and enjoy the music and beverage. Randomly, some guy who is drunk comes in the plunge pool too. Uninvited. He refuses to leave. Some of the guys are getting mad, but I refuse to get mad since I am on vacation. I give him one of our waters and tell him to hydrate and calmly let security know he is not welcomed. The quickly get him out of the pool. Life is too short to get worked up over small things like that… Vegas flies by quickly , no time to sweat the little stuff. We mingle with more girls and eventually head back to the hotel after the pool party closes. Looking back on it, the plunge pool was an amazing experience, and I never had girls come up so effortlessly, but I miss walking around and chatting it up with random people. It is harder to do with the plunge pools. Shade wise, it can’t be beat. On the way to the bathroom I saw folks in the regular cabanas sweating with buckets of melted ice, those cabanas are not too well shaded!

[Cirilo Medina]

Nice!!!!

[AxelFoley]

Nice. Great energy from you guys! More plz

Thanks! I only get to go once a year, so gotta make it count!

Sounds exactly like the beginning of every one of my trips to Vegas. Party on the Southwest redeyes!

I love southwest! That is my airline of choice to Vegas, flight staff is always so upbeat!

Great TR so far. Funny how we are all willing to change plans/stay longer when someone is willing to pick up the bar tab...lol.

Free beer can change the tides of war! Can’t pass that up!

Vegas is a marathon, not a sprint. Some of us sprint marathons!

Unfortunately, not everyone is built to run, but doesn’t stop them from trying!

[AxelFoley]

Everyone is starting to feel the pain of battle… we all head back to our rooms and get a few hours of sleep in. We plan on doing Marquee tonight. I put my head down on the way too comfortable pillow around 7:30… the room is pitch black thanks to the shades. I wake after what feels like an hour and grab my phone to check the time. It is 10:00 p.m. I run to the other room while shooting text to the group text saying everyone get ready and meet downstairs at 10:45. I am down there with D & L by 11:00 and P and B show up at 11:15. Everyone else is passed out or MIA.

We get through on GA because of our awesome host. The thought of having to drink bottles of liquor at this point is too daunting, so we get beers and walk around. P & B are huge EDM fans, moreso than the rest of us. We are a little EDM’d out so the rest of us hang out in the hip hop area outside. P & B literally spend the next two hours running back and forth between the inside and out area. We are too worn out to do much and just hang around and enjoy the music. A group of girls wave at us, but I can’t place their faces with a name. I don’t remember where I know them from, but the one girl that was waving, I know I know from somewhere. I blame the excess drinking and funky sleeping patterns. They were some of the girls from our southwest flight. I walk over and say hello. Introduce them to D and make small talk. L says hello as well. They invite us to their table they have in the hip hop area. We oblige and chat with them for a bit.

They pour us some drinks as a thank you for buying rounds on the plane for them. We talk about our trips so far. It’s cool to sit back and just talk for the sake of talking sometimes, instead of trying sleep with somebody. It is pretty refreshing at times.
After we finish our drinks they offer us more, we decline but chat a little longer. Soon we decide to head off, offer to buy them some shots but they say they have more than enough liquor. And they refuse to accept cash from us. So I hug the girl that I chatted with the most and we wished everyone a great rest of their trip. P is pretty amped up because apparently Cedric Jarvis, who was the DJ, brought Hardwell to the stage. P is having a good time and spazing out since he loves these guys. It’s good to see him enjoying Vegas in his own way. Some guys come to Vegas to chill with the guys, some come for the women and some come for the DJs… as long as your having fun, that is all that matters.

B was a little bummed out that we didn’t tell him that the girls from the plane invited us over. I told him we were too tired to give up good seats to come find him. Oops. We go to the EDM portion of the club since it seems to be very high energy. Though, I find it way easier to talk on the hip hop side. We mingle a little bit, and around 3:30 or so, we head back home. Guys need to save up their energy for EBC the next day!