EDC Week, Team No-Fun, Ridin Solo, LeBron shows up...

[joeku]

Finally recovered my latest trip, and thought I’d take a crack at my first TR. This might be a little tame compared to some of the other classics here, but I also thought I could add some decent info on spots I hit or tips that newbies might find useful. I was reading through Brooklyn Marc’s TR in McCarren on the way out and on the flight, made me want to come straight back as soon as possible haha!

Dates: July 9-20, 2016. EDC Week. This is not my first trip to Vegas, more like 10^th ish or so and I’ve lurked on here for a few years, but first TR.
First 4 days I was in town for work, so not much to report on, but the last 4 days was my best friend’s bachelor party. The group:
Me, 30M
JJ, 27F, my GF, there for first bit only
Fire, 30M, getting married next month
Doc, 27M, brother of Fire and also my friend
The Wolf, 30M
Hook, 29M
SVE, 30M

A quick word about the group: JJ and I are fairly experienced Vegas people. The rest of these guys either have never been, haven’t been since they were younger than 21, or only been with family and done touristy things. Before this trip I think I was more pumped for our weekend than any other time I’ve visited. Many of my past trips have been work only, or a bringing sand to the beach situation with JJ. Not that trips with JJ aren’t a blast (I actually have a trip report or two to write about NYE 2014 and Halloween 2015 with her which were both nuts), but I was looking forward to showing the rest of these guys what a truly great time in Vegas can be.

Back in February, Fire chooses Vegas and June 16-19 as the location and dates for his bachelor party. I’m both excited because it’s EDC week and the club and pool lineups are super stacked, but also the airfare and hotel rates are jacked up quite a bit. Myself, Doc and SVE are from Michigan, The Wolf and Fire from Chicago, and Hook is coming from DC. I’m good friends with everyone either from college or meeting through Fire.

Doc was the best man, but is in Med school and super busy this spring studying for exams. Since I have much more experience and contacts around town, I was tasked with planning basically the entire weekend, while consulting with Fire to make sure he was good with it all. Thankfully, the group which initially started at 12 guys got whittled down to 6 after various cancellations and back outs over the months, which I’m grateful for because planning everything for 6 is much easier than the big crew.

Days 1-4
Like I said, not a whole lot to report on these days, since mostly I was working. JJ flew out with me from Detroit, the 7:30 AM flight we had a squad of bros and bro-ettes chatting pretty much nonstop behind us. I already had trouble sleeping the night before, and now neither of us can get any rest on the plane (normally we'd be joining them in 8am drinks, but the first bit is work focused and I want some rest). We arrive at McCarran like 9:30 AM on Day 1 and I’m still hype to be back in Vegas, even if I have to work for a few days. Grabbed a rental car and since JJ is going to be on her own for the first few days, head to Walmart to stock her up with some liqour, wine and beer, sadly I won’t be able to drink any of this!

We checked into our room at Aria, no $20 sandwich this time since they offered mobile check in, which I think is a great feature if you want to avoid the long line and don’t really care about a comp upgrade. You just click in the email they send, then they email again when the room is ready and send you a barcode on your phone. Take your phone to the mobile checkin kiosk which scans your barcode and prints the room keys. Very fast and no wait. Room is 15^th floor with an OK view of the Palms/background mountains. Whatever, this is a work trip and I got the room on a casino comp anyway so I’m not complaining.

I was able to hang at the Aria hotel pool a couple hours each day, which I enjoy for decent sized pool, good ambiance and good waitress service. Went to Aria’s gym which I was very impressed with, one of the better hotel gym’s I’ve used: good free weight section, tons of cardio machines, plenty of weight machines and a decent view out to Aria’s Sky pool, which I think is just their adult only pool with like $50 lounge chairs? I don’t know, didn’t check it out, it’s not Liquid, it was part of the main pool complex but sectioned off somewhat. Anyway, impressed with the gym, the only thing lacking was a proper squat rack, but I didn’t need to use that anyway this trip.
JJ had a decent time on her own the first few days, hung at the pool, got happy hour at Todd English Pub, walked the strip to Luke’s Lobster at Fashion Show and brought me back a delicious lobster roll. But she didn’t go out hard at night since I had to meet with my business partners most nights. She entertains herself drinking in the room and walking around, or playing slots and getting free drinks.

After 3 nights, we check out of Aria and into Palazzo where I’ve got another room comp for 2 nights. They had some convention coming in during the week so were busy, but again no sandwich and got 45^th floor strip view, only caveat was it was a handicapped room. Fine with me for that view, the bathroom is just the handicap accessible style. Palazzo and Venetian rooms are some of the best I’ve stayed in, very large, and all suites. Also just a short walk over to Wynn/Encore so easy for XS/EBC/Surrender/Intrigue. After my 4^th night, the work business is finished and I get to start my vacation!

[joeku]

Day 5 - Monday

JJ and I start the day by chilling at Palazzo’s pool, and to be honest we were both underwhelmed. It’s a very beautiful and fancy pool, water is cold, good views of Wynn and Encore in the distance and some shaded areas. But the pool itself has some bits of trash floating around it, and even one corner has that foamy, gross looking shit floating on top. I determine the problem to be inadequate circulation of the water. There’s a good amount of filters around the edges, but it seems the water is stagnant. Don’t get me wrong, most of the water is crystal clear, but we did see multiple bits of toilet paper in the water, some cups ,and even a bandaid (gross!). The other thing that bothers us is the amount of children splashing and playing in the pool. Both of these were much better at Aria’s hotel pool. Aria had almost all adults, and the 1 or 2 kids there were quiet and respectful. Palazzo seemed to have packs of kids splashing around like it’s a Holiday Inn or some shit, which is disturbing for those wanting to have a chill day. Also the waitress service to the chairs was super slow, way worse than Aria’s pool. Towards the end of the afternoon I noticed a semi private area of the pool on a trip to the bathroom that seems to be mostly adults, with some 30 something women getting after it. Damn! I missed the right spot today, so maybe it’s only myself to blame for the pool situation this day. Still, JJ and I put down some mojitos and daiquiris on our own and had a decent time at the pool.

It’s Monday, and I’ve been in contact with Bobby Y about doing XS tonight with JJ. The bachelor party and I have set up a back wall table at XS for the upcoming Saturday night on EDC weekend. Neither JJ or I have been to XS. We were debating between Marquee and XS and ended up choosing XS, even though Dash Berlin was playing Marquee who are more our type of music than RL Grime who was scheduled for XS. But getting to check out XS before the big night next weekend, as well as meeting Bobby and establishing that relationship for the first time seemed more important to me. We listened to some of RL Grime’s tracks earlier in the day and thought we could do well trying something different. JJ and I are both big dance music fans (taken a couple trips to Ibiza for that madness) so many times the DJ is a bigger factor than the venue for us. So XS it was.

We start the night with my biggest mistake of the trip: trying to walk too far in Vegas. We had dinner reservations at Sake Rok at the fairly new Park next to T-Mobile Arena. I thought we’d be able to walk it from Palazzo after JJ said she was wearing her “comfortable heels” that she’s been able to stay on her feet all night in the past and not have any issues. I figured, well if we leave 45 min ahead of time, we can mostly stay indoors if we go Venetian -> Casino Royale -> Harrahs -> Forum Shops ->Caesars -> Bellagio -> Tram to Monte Carlo -> The Park. Well I was correct that it was mostly indoors, but once we got to Forum Shops it was clear I had made a huge mistake, this distance was going to be way too far for JJ to make it comfortably. The quicker pace we set made her “comfy heels” turn into “blister heels” and she quickly got some blisters. Such a rookie mistake! I KNEW that you can’t reasonably walk more than 1-2 properties down the strip. Should’ve just taken Uber, I honestly don’t know what I was thinking, or why I believed JJ would be fine walking. We finally get to Sake Rok 30 min late, luckily they were dead so didn’t mind moving our reservation back. JJ’s feet are ruined.

Sake Rok is a pretty cool space, with mediocre food and a dancing servers gimmick. They had a DJ spinning, we sat at the sushi bar thinking we could watch the sushi chefs doing their thing, but the seating was low and the sushi bar so high that all we saw were the cuts of fish waiting to be prepared. Whatever, we get some prosecco in us and it’s no problem. Every 40 minutes or so the servers break out into SERIOUS choreographed dances. They did the Men in Black / getting Jiggy with it and honestly had the same moves as in Will Smith’s video, these girls are TALENTED. There was also a Madonna number, and something else I don’t remember. When it happens, the lights go down and the DJ changes the track to their dance song. It was kinda cool, but also kinda gimmicky. JJ and I start on our bottle of wine, enjoy some of the dishes, aren’t impressed by others, and have a pretty nice start to the night. When it’s time to go, I run over to CVS and grab some blister bandaids for JJ because she can’t walk more than 10 steps at a time. We get in the Uber back to Palazzo and that’s when I realize we might have a problem. JJ is hammered already! The all day pool drinks plus the bottle of wine has turned JJ into droopy eyes, slurring speech when talking to the Uber driver, and I’m worried she might get denied entry at the door to XS. We get back to our room and I tell JJ I’m worried she might be too drunk already, I don’t want her to get obscenely drunk at the club and get herself into trouble. She takes slight offense to this (she drinks more often than I do, so when I haven’t been preparing for big nights out she can sometimes outdo me), but I say let’s just both have some water in the room while we get ready for XS. She puts on her glasses and flats to be more comfortable, I get a decent deep house mix going on Mixcloud (love this app for long house, deep and EDM mixes btw, perfect for pre-party or just chilling and listening to some great 1-2 hr mixes), and we get ready for the night.

[joeku]

Day 5 - Monday cont'd

I had texted Bobby earlier in the day that we wanted to do the 1 Goose / 1 Moet bottle special for XS Monday night. He asked if I wanted a nice booth upgrade from our small table for 100 shake and a little early arrival. Sounded great to me! The bottle special is only 395 + tax/grat, super good deal for the venue I think, even though it was our first trip there. So we head over XS, I text Bobby when we are walking over to let him know I’m on time and if he needs to leave somewhere else. I always try to keep the hosts helping me out fully aware of when and where I am when preparing for a night at one of their clubs. I hope I instill in them that I’m not going to be a flake or a late arrival. For the hosts who do so much to set stuff for me, I like to also keep my word so if I say we’ll be there at 11pm, I’ll be damned if I’m not right on time. We get to tables line at 10:43PM as promised, there’s a decent line for GA but no line for tables, get through their extensive security check (which we’re grateful for, Pulse nightclub attack is only 2 days old at this point so I am FINE with extra security – we got enough liquor ordered that we don’t need any extra party enhancers). Meet Bobby, hand over his shake and he says he’s got a GREAT table for us but has to go meet with another client. No problem, of course there are bigger fish than a 1 bottle special even on a Monday.

Eric walks us in, and I get my first glimpse of XS…

OH. MY. GOD. It’s SO beautiful! The décor, the LED lights strung across the ceiling. That DJ booth setup with the open air back and view into the impossibly gorgeous pool and patio behind. The opening DJ has Calvin Harris – This is What You Came For ft. Rihanna playing out, and it all fits so perfectly together for me. After 4 long days of work, I’m FINALLY on vacation. I have chills running down my back, goosebumps on my arms. I immediately become 10x more excited than I already was about the night. We get to our table and it’s back wall table 170. Holy Shit! This is a huge ass booth for just 2 people lol. Perfect placement with a straight on view to the DJ booth, right next to the stairs down into the main room, lots of foot traffic from people going to other tables or the bathroom or bar, and a nice big open floor space in front of our table, our own little dance floor! Bobby Yeadon is a legend in the game! We got table 170 for under $500. Insane. I immediately text Bobby and tell him he is a boss of bosses. Dyana is our server, super hot and they’ve got a bit more dressed down uniforms tonight, tight sleeveless T with booty shorts and fishnets. We confirm we are doing the bottle special and also order some red bulls and waters, then go check out the property a little. We are both loving XS, in awe of how beautiful it all is. And we are no club newbies. We did a tier 2 DF table at Omnia last Halloween, also a Tier 1 table at Hak the same weekend. Been to Marquee multiple times. We check out the patio, and tonight they only have a very small area open outside, it’s still super cool. I think XS with the indoor/outdoor set up really might beat the rest in Vegas for overall aesthetics, I compare it to Ushuaia in Ibiza for sheer club beauty.

OK, enough ranting about the venue, you can see the 360 tour on their website for yourself. Get back to the table, tip the waitress $40 cash up front to let her know we will take care of her, as well as the runner Peter. I like to throw these guys a little cash at the start of the day/night and find they really keep the table spotless and make sure we aren’t waiting for anything all night. Also give our security $20 in case we have a problem later, security can be your best friend. Normally all of these amounts are higher but since we only got 1 bottle and just the two of us, I’m ok with just a little cash. The runners always seem SUPER appreciative of these tips no matter the venue, and they are the ones bringing fresh ice, clearing empty glasses from your table etc so they can really help out make the table less cluttered.

Our bottles show up, and we quickly polish off the Moet while enjoying the opening DJ drop some tropical and deep house to warm up the night. Club is mostly dead for a while, but starts picking up at midnight, and by 12:30 it’s mostly full, with many of the back wall tables sold. It’s then that I’m starting to notice the “bringing sand to a beach” phenomenon, but JJ and I are still having a good time. We dance some on our mini dance floor, head to the main dance floor and groove for a bit while the main back screen behind the DJ booth drops and raises a few times. Back to our table and start to work on the Goose as the music begins to shift to a dirtier, more trap infused mix, still a couple of big room bangers thrown in for good measure. At 12:55 RL Grime comes on and he throws down a really solid set. Plenty of trap and hip hop inspired beats, but he has a wide range to play out, keeps the energy up and the dance floor bouncing. A nice different set than the standard Calvin/Afrojack/Swedish House Mafia type sets that are common in Vegas now. He is getting into the music in the DJ booth which is cool to see, JJ and I are dancing in the booth, high fiving people walking by, but generally keeping to ourselves. After a while I notice that we only put a 2 inch dent down the bottle of vodka, so I turn to JJ and say “look we only drank this much vodka so far…we need to do some work” and then we did do some work. Start crushing RBV’s, shots, and general juice mixed cocktails. We get rowdier and rowdier at our table, still pretty much just dancing to the beats on our own. The shopping cart and my personal favorite, the deli slicer make their appearances in my awful white-guy dance repertoire. Eventually JJ says she’s ready to take off, so I pour the remaining vodka into two water bottles, one which I had to chug just to make the space, probably a good thing because we are both completely shit faced at this point. I don’t remember much of the walk back, but we make it safe to the room and take care of business.

[joeku]

Day 6 - Tuesday

JJ and I wake up around 10 the next morning, not much hangover since I think we drank water before we passed out. We grab brunch at Yardbird Southern Food in Venetian – pretty tasty chicken n biscuits, if it’s typically expensive like most things on the Strip. I check out of Palazzo since JJ is flying home that way and my comp is up. Drop JJ at the airport then take the rental car to Sunset Galleria to look for a new shirt to wear to EBC this Friday with my guys (yea, I’m that vain that I need a new shirt for a pool party lol). Grab one at H&M and then the texts from JJ start. She’s at the airport and is feeling sick. Not just your standard hungover nausea headache sickness, more dizzy, heart racing, anxious, can’t sit still, and just a general bad “something is wrong with the world” feeling. Ah, I tell her she probably is going through alcohol withdrawal symptoms, her body after running on booze for 4 days straight and then the super binge last night, is not happy it hasn’t had a drink in 12 hours. Happened to me once on a previous Vegas trip, and it is a very scary feeling. I tell her try sipping a beer and keep drinking water. She calls me and says she’s about to have a panic attack or pass out, not sure which. I try to calm her down on the phone and tell her she’ll be fine, today will suck big time and maybe tomorrow too, but it’ll get better. 10 minutes later while leaving the mall she calls again. She fainted in the women’s restroom, and absolutely cannot make her flight. I go pick her up from the airport, check in to Tropicana where I have another comp and let her sleep off her sickness in darkness.

The rest of Day 6 is very uneventful. I go to a laundromat to do some laundry, take a nap myself since I haven’t had much sleep, and get dinner alone at Trop’s beach café which isn’t too bad. JJ re-books her flight for the next day. I also head to bed early since there’s a few things I want to do Wednesday.

Day 7 - Wednesday
I drop JJ at the airport again, this time without her bag since it was already on the plane yesterday and she passed out 10 minutes before boarding time, she’ll get it back in Detroit. I do a quick workout at Tropicana Gym which is small, crappy, and hot with the sun coming through the windows. At least the gym overlooks the pool area, which is decent for a lower tier Vegas hotel. I head down to the pool to get some sun and check it out. The pool itself is fairly large, deep, and very cold. Refreshing on a hot day like today. Their pool drinks are cheaper than Aria or Palazzo. Think it was $11 for a margarita/mojito at Trop, vs. $16-18 at the others. Pretty decent vibe today too, music is a great volume of not too quiet like at Palazzo, and slightly louder than Aria. Slowly a very, very large group of young people start filtering in and they are here to turn it up! At first I make fun of them for booking a cabana at Tropicana hotel pool, but as more and more stream into the pool area, I see they have the 2 large cabanas, the island daybed, and 2 more daybeds and they are putting the drinks down. So many of them it seems like 100 or so, a Scottish guy hanging next to me asks if it’s a reunion or something, and I agree it must be some sort of high school reunion for EDC the coming weekend. Today I’m just sipping some drinks and not trying to get too hype, gotta save it all for the coming bachelor party. So I mainly just watch this big crew get drunker and drunker, couple of the bigger girls start twerkin on one of their daybeds and I can’t help but laugh and enjoy the views while keeping to myself. Eventually I head back to the room and change for the night.

After grabbing a quick Asian bowl at Trop’s food court, I walk/tram over to Aria and do some gambling to try to keep my casino comp up for next visit. I play craps for a couple hours, get some Coronas down, and catch a lucky streak on the table and finish ahead $800. All right! I text my group coming in tomorrow that I almost won enough for another bottle of Dom this Saturday! After the successful gambling I walk over to Cosmo and grab a drink at Bond. Bond is one of my favorite bars in Vegas, there’s a DJ spinning a good mix of known big room stuff and some underground house, even some techno mixed in which I can get down to. All the Cosmo bartenders know how to mix a cocktail, so I order a Bulleit old fashioned, and this one again doesn’t disappoint. I just sit there boppin my head in my seat while the DJ plays and these two cuties are dancing just next to me. I don’t have my courage enough to chat em up yet, but they still ask me for a photo (I swear guys, it’s so easy to approach women in Vegas, usually they approach you!). I consider using one of the other TR’s line of “one nice picture, one naughty since we’re in Vegas” but I chicken out. Oh well, I’ll just enjoy the music and the sights around me, from inside Bond you can actually see Paris, and they have some really cool lights around the place, also great foot traffic with people walking through the casino.

I just have the one drink, because by now it’s 10PM and late happy hour at Todd English PUB at Aria/Crystals has started. Half off all draft pours is always hard to pass up, and they have an amazing selection of Belgian beers on tap. I head over and get some Tripel Karmeliet’s ordered. Normally they are $14 I think but for $7 it’s a steal in Vegas, and at 9% you don’t need many to get going haha. Also one of the only places I’ve ever been to that has my favorite beer on tap. After two of those bad boys I’m starting to feel the party coming out of me. The bar is real quiet but I’m still feeling good. Get some happy hour wings (totally massive! Biggest wings I’ve had), and a couple sliders down (mediocre, had forgotten me and JJ tried on a previous trip, oh well), and head out.

My plan for tonight was to end up at Light. Laidback Luke is playing, and for a Wednesday, I think that’s definitely the biggest party in town. Make it to Mandalay Bay by walk/tram around 11:15 and text my host there Sam Sheikhan, about a walk in for a tip. I get near the club and the GA/Guestlist lines are so long, all the way down that avenue almost backed into the casino. OK! I’m pumped that tonight is going to be a busy, fun time. Lots of people probably arriving today for EDC and with not much else going in the big clubs tonight, Light is the best choice. I get to the front of the club where tables line is, call Sam who immediately answers and finds me, tells the door holding the tables rope that I’m one of his guys, and the door security pulls the rope for me as I cut in front of a table group walking in. Quick security and ID check, then Sam walks me into the club through some back hallways shit! I get real excited, going through the back narrow hallways makes me feel like a mafia boss heading to the restaurant in Goodfellas. Eventually we get inside Light and the place is already going off! All tiers are busy with almost all the tables sold, and it’s not even 11:30. Sam and I have a brief chat, he doesn’t even seem pissed that my bachelor party group chose EBC and XS rather than Daylight or Light, he had talked to me and provided quotes the week before. Guy is a real professional. Sam walks me to one of the owner’s tables and pours me a stiff ass drink from one of their bottles! I tell him thanks again and I’m not gonna hang around this table and be a bottle rat, so I head up to the back bar areas where there’s tons of room to chill, move around, and meet people. Light isn’t tier 1, but they do have tons of space for the GA crowd, and still bring in some great DJ’s from time to time, so depending on the DJ, it can be a great slightly lower cost option, but still has an almost super club feel to it. Also a fairly large dance floor. I stand back in the back bar area, which also are rarely packed even though the club is busy, and enjoy the show. I’m hitting the vodka tonics at a moderate pace, really just enjoying the music and light show, chatting with strangers I run into, most everyone seems real happy and friendly here. That light wall is still super impressive. Eventually I head down to the dance floor and Laidback Luke comes on. Starts off with some big bangers and then he starts switching it up into an extremely skillful, varied set. LL is known as a very technically skilled DJ, and while he has some big singles of his own, is usually a flawless mixer and DJ. At some point he throws in Limp Bizkit into the mix and it fits perfectly hahaha. The dance floor is a big too crowded for me after a while and I head back to the bar area, just dancing and watching the show. 3:30 rolls around and I’m about ready to call it a night. Watch some drunk girls almost fall down the steps to the exit, then head out myself. Make it back to Trop without much incident, I held back a little since the coming weekend was going to be very action packed. Not a bad night for riding solo in Vegas.

Quick note about Tropicana – not a terrible choice for budget minded hotel. Seems slightly nicer than Excalibur and Luxor since they did the remodel a few years ago. Hotel pool was decent, room was OK, not terrible not great. Trop would be a solid cheap option especially if you were planning on going to Wet/Hakk or Daylight/Light during your trip.

I’ve seen a few glimpses of their pool party Sky Beach Club, it’s definitely a large space with a couple small pools, lots of nice looking couches, daybeds and cabanas. The day I saw it open it was like 11am or 12 when I left my room, so the space was very quiet but had some people there. Seemed like they were trying to play more hip hop type music that day? I think that’s what they are going for? Hard to say if it’ll last, seems you need to bring in major DJ’s these days to bring in the crowds. Looked like a nicer space than Liquid, maybe about the level of Daylight?

[joeku]

Day 8 – Thursday

Finally the day I’ve been waiting for! The bachelor party all arrives today, but most of them at night. I had already told these guys the #1 rule of Vegas is don’t go too hard the first day, and with the last of them scheduled to arrive 9:30 PM, plus a daybed scheduled for EBC the next morning, I really want everyone in good shape for Friday morning. SVE arrives first during the day and I pick him up, we grab lunch at Lindo Michoacan which is way off strip but super authentic and really huge portions! After lunch we hit Albertsons for beer, mixers and some Wild Turkey – a staple of this crew back in college and holds some nostalgia for Fire and I. Then head to MGM to check in where I’ve got us 3 standard queen rooms to share between the 6 of us. The check in line at MGM is an absolute shit show. Snaked around and around the ropes, it looks miserable. Luckily one of our rooms I got on a casino comp so can use the VIP check in line, wait is like 3 minutes rather than what looks like 2 hours. Some casino staff are even coming around with cases of corona and bud light and giving them out to anyone in line who shows ID. Free beer in line you know that line is a nightmare! I’m thankful we got to skip the line, one my mantras for this weekend was no waiting in line. Want to treat these newbs and especially the bachelor like ballers lol. I don’t even try a sandwich for a room upgrade, can see the agent is exasperated and exhausted. I imagine they are going to be sold out this weekend anyway with EDC, so I’m just happy our 3 rooms are next to each other on the same floor. We get 15^th floor with a view of Trop and Mandalay Bay, I’ll take it! At least we don’t have parking garage view. The Grand rooms at MGM are quite nice, recently remodeled, nothing special, but a standard, solid room. Whatever you do, don’t get a West Wing room, they are tiny, and really awful. Stayed there once for part of a NYE trip and we would’ve been better off at Excal or Stratosphere I bet.

SVE and I play an hour or so of blackjack while we wait for the Wolf to show up. I tell him under no circumstances will I play a 6:5 table, so we find a 3:2 table with a $25 min and play a couple shoes. SVE wins a tiny amount, and I end up +$175 before the Wolf gets to MGM. Alright, closing in on that Dom!
The 3 of us head up to the rooms and drink some beers that we’ve iced down while waiting for the rest of the crew. Fire and Doc get in about the same time, I’ve sent a sedan from Presidential to pick them up and start them off with the VIP experience. They are taking a long time to get here, but once they arrive we find out Presidential upgraded them to a limo, and they stopped at the liqour store to bring me a bottle of Booker’s bourbon to say thanks for planning the whole trip. I don’t start on the Bookers, we have the Wild Turkey 101 to drink first. Eventually hook arrives at like 10:30PM, his flight from DC got delayed a bit, and we all catch up in the room drinking beers.

Now, I’m already not sure how this weekend is going to play out. Fire and Doc I know can rage hour for hour with me at all parties, but the Wolf, Hook, and SVE are more subdued, drink a beer at the pub type people. They’ve mellowed out as they’ve gotten older, quite different from the glory college days and few years following. So I haven’t planned a full party schedule. Thursday night we are just gonna chill at some bar and catch up, then EBC Friday, nothing planned for Friday night because I’m worried some or all of these guys are gonna be too wiped out. We have golf Saturday morning which I think is probably a mistake, but it’s one of the only things Fire said he has to do at his bachelor party. Saturday night we’ve got a table at XS for Kaskade which is going to be the big night, then everyone, except me, flies home Sunday during the day. I can already see in the hotel room that getting these guys on my level may be a struggle, all of them worked this morning super early, and the yawns are starting to come out, they’ve all had long days, and fairly long flights (I envy you guys on the West coast with those short flights, I’d probably be in Vegas every other month at least!). Now, Doc and SVE are single, while myself, the Wolf, and of course Fire are not. But what I learn upon his arrival is that Hook recently separated from his wife, which he seems excited about. OK, another guy we can try to hook up with some Vegas girls this weekend! It may be a struggle for hook, he isn’t the most attractive guy, and he’s definitely more round than the rest of us, but still a super nice guy good at conversation, just takes a little work to get him going.

Once everyone is settled, we walk over to Beerhaus which is in the new Park alongside NYNY. Great beer list, decent prices for what they have, and a really solid late happy hour food menu. Also I like their indoor/outdoor seating, with some bags, giant Jenga and other lawn type games out on the patio. The $4 happy hour chicken sandwich is an insane value. Everyone grabs some food and a couple beers, but we have to finish quick since they close at 1am. We head back to MGM and everyone pretty much goes to bed by 2, even I want to be fresh first thing in the morning for EBC.

[KinStock77]

good stuff so far man!

[kp3205]

Great TR so far. I always hit up Todd English for happy hour. I still have not been able to beat the egg timer though.

[TimWhalen]

Awesome stuff so far. Shout out to the bourbon drinking. Look forward to the rest of the report.

[ENC012E]

great start, looking forward to the rest!

[Cirilo Medina]

XS BLEW MY MIND this last weekend! We had table 160, right next to where you were. Perfect location to take it all in. And Lindo Michoacan FTW!!!

[maxutilsperusd]

A bottle of Booker's as a thank you, I need better friends, lol.