Vegas IX: July 19-29, 2015 (10 Days, 16 People, and 1000 Great and Horrible Memories)

[maxutilsperusd]

Day 6 (Friday)

Friday is when everyone but JKart is showing up so I’m excited yet expecting this to be a bit stressful. I had everyone book Friday and Saturday at SLS through jackcolton.com and was pretty apprehensive about that working out with so few reviews of the service, and especially when current rates were $500 a night and we had booked at $99.

Some people are arriving as early as 8:55am and as late as 10:45pm, so I figure getting everyone together and into a pool and a club on a guest list would be easier if we just went to Foxtail Pool Club and Foxtail Nightclub today. I had been looking forward to checking out LiFE but that had just closed 2 weeks before the trip. Luckily, Foxtail Nightclub ended up with the DJs that were supposed to be appearing at LiFE.

So Nikki and I wake up and start packing all our stuff. Funny had woken up early and started gambling again. When he returns he says he’s up around $700, not bad for someone who has had zero luck in everything else during this trip. I get a text message from Bubbly who is dating Marine and is best friends with the couple Gray and Foodie. They were all flying from DC together and arrived on time, and were at SLS but they couldn’t check in until 11am.

Now if this wasn’t clear Nikki and I are drinking ridiculous amounts of alcohol throughout these first 5 days. I finish the very bottom of a 1.75L bottle of Bulleit Bourbon so then we don’t have to lug that to SLS, and Nikki has gone through half a case of Red Bull and two-thirds of a 1.75L of vodka. So if this trip report is looking pretty tame it’s not for lack of inebriation.

We make it over to SLS around 11:45am, I do the $20 trick which gets us upgraded from a Story Superior King to a Story Signature King Suite. So that’s a corner room with an extra alcove room with a second couch, a few little tables, and a second 55in TV, perfect for entertaining the group. Booking the rooms through jackcolton.com worked flawlessly so I suggest anyone planning a trip check the prices there since they are sometimes substantially lower.

We find everyone including Ginger and Jean Paul who ran into Bubbly at check-in. We go up to the room for some drinks, and eventually head down to Foxtail Pool Club. I’ve put us on the guest list, but Bubbly has also found a contact while they were waiting to check into their room. It’s definitely not what you would call full. but the age demographics and ratio are great and it’s as nice as the photos look. It’s definitely an option if you are looking for a bit more of a laid back day at the pool. The one real problem with Foxtail Pool Club is the complete lack of shade in the pool, so make sure to bring copious amounts of sunscreen or get one of the reasonably priced cabanas.

We’re offered a daybed at $250 food and beverage minimum, but Bubbly, Marine, Gray, and Foodie decline and then proceed to buy $40 pineapples filled with alcohol because they seem to love burning money and doing things wrong. Nikki and I just run back upstairs and drink some more since we have endless alcohol, there is reentry, and I’m willing to walk 50 yards to save $80.

Funny is slightly less antisocial with more friends around, but he’s still not socializing outside of the group much. Navy arrives a bit later, and for the rest of the trip he proceeds to make my life more difficult.

He starts with a joke about my Ray-Bans being fake (you know the ones I just got Monday), definitely a nice way to greet a friend who made the trip happen. Early on in the planning stage Navy wouldn’t commit to the trip, it took hours of talking by Bubbly and I to get him to come. He’s old friends with Marine and they haven’t seen each other in ages, he lives in San Diego (about as close to Vegas as one can get), and yet he still was wishy-washy for months. I end up securing his room on my credit card on the off-chance he eventually decided to go and the day before it was non-refundable he said yes. So he’s already been more difficult than every other person who just said “Great, let’s go!”

Navy’s girlfriend, Stick, has decided that she really wants to see Calvin Harris tonight at Omnia. I tell him it’s a little late for that at this point (more like a lot late), and I think most of the people in the group wouldn’t want to spend the money to do it and I have people coming into town late enough where I don’t want to have to change things on them. He’s confused on why I’m not cooperating with his new plan to totally fuck over everyone else to satisfy his girlfriend, and I’m confused on how he thinks that this is at all reasonable.

Eventually after getting some free lounge chairs and enjoying them a while, we leave the pool with the whole group hungry. I was planning on doing Umami Burger since I’m a burger guy, but Foodie is dying to do happy hour at Katsuya, so she takes most of the group there, while Nikki and I go up to the room to drink more because god that’s the only way I’m going to deal with this many people with this many opinions. We eventually decide to go down and join them, we sit at the bar right near them, the food is fantastic and actually pretty reasonable if not exactly filling, so Foodie gets a thumbs up on this change to the plan,

Funny had been talking about seeing a comedy show while in Vegas, and while I love comedy, finding an hour or so in the schedule and spending $50-100 per person didn’t seem super appealing so far. I then remembered reading about SLS using the Sayers Club early in the night as a temporary location for a displaced comedy troupe. I look it up online and it’s only $10, so convenient and cheap, count me in.

I ask the rest of the group, and besides Funny, they all are totally uninterested. Whatever, comedy isn’t for everyone and they’ll find something else to do. We get to the club a few minutes after the supposed start time, pay $10 per person, and find that the $10 also includes 2 drink tickets; this is now worryingly cheap. The venue is nice enough, about 60% full, and almost immediately after we are in our chairs the MC starts the show.

There are around 6 comedians all part of the Bonkerz Comedy Club, and they vary widely in skill. A couple were god awful, just not funny in the slightest except for how bad they were, a couple more were horrifically racist, sexist, and homophobic, and a couple turned out to be quite funny, making jokes about their colleagues and Vegas in general. Halfway through the show I got up to get my first drink. I handed the bartender a $20 and asked for change, tipped $2, and got the strongest Jack and Coke I’ve ever had poured by a bartender (I’ve had my fair share of doubles, too and this was stronger). During one of the particularly racist comedian’s sets I get up and get my second drink along with one for Nikki and mine again is just as strong. By the end of the show I’m barely able to feel my legs and I’m immediately regretting how drunk I am with the night so early.

I’m pretty sure Bonkerz is in the process of finding a new home, but as bad as some of the comedians were it was still definitely worth $10 and getting drunker than planned.

[maxutilsperusd]

Day 6 (Friday) Continued

We go back to our room, and then I get the next batch of wonderful news from Fail and Gabby. They landed, but somehow Fail has managed to lose his ID either on the plane or at the airport.

I don’t know if any of you have seen what happens to someone without ID in Vegas, but it’s not pleasant. Pretty much you are barred from doing almost anything fun or interesting. I’ve seen it once before, a girl drove over from LA without her ID and she was KO’d from every pool party, every club, gambling, and even a show required ID.

So Fail and Gabby are in a taxi on their way here, and now I’ve got 1 or 2 people out for every event depending on how willing Gabby is to leave Fail behind.

I start texting people to meet up at our place for pregaming. Turns out Marine and Gray are sleeping, and won’t be woken up, so that’s 2 more down for the count. Navy’s set up Stick’s mother and brother at Circus Circus not because he hates them, but because he’s an idiot. Turns out immediately upon arrival at their room, the toilet started overflowing, so Navy is busy dealing with that. Ginger and Jean Paul just show up at the planned time for pregaming, so they are currently my favorite travel companions. Fail and Gabby arrive and drink in sorrow. Eventually Bling arrives but he’s good friends with Fail and Gabby so while he too is pregaming, I’m not sure if he’s coming or staying with them in solidarity.

Eventually just Nikki, Funny, Ginger, Jean Paul, and I head down to the club. We get in on the guest list, and Funny pays the GA cover.

Stafford Brothers are DJing, and we’ve had a great time seeing them at Tryst previously. It’s hard to explain how different they and other “party” DJs can be compared to what you typically find in Vegas. There’s lots of crowd interaction. They pour shots and champagne into people’s mouths (and down girl’s chests, when their aim is off) from the DJ booth. Overall it’s always a great time.

Foxtail Nightclub is a small venue, but the layout, the go-go dancers, and at least some of their DJs make it a viable option for a cheaper night out that’s still a blast. Biggest problem is it’s probably one of the loudest venues I’ve ever been to. Not sure what they were thinking but it is far louder than Marquee or XS, so earplugs might be useful for people who are more sensitive.

We use reentry to go up to the room for some more drinks and when we get back into the club we are surprised to see Bubbly, Foodie, Fail, Gabby, Bling, Navy, and Stick all inside! Turns out Bubbly and Foodie left their respective sleeping guys in the room and came down and ran into Fail, Gabby, and Bling. Bubbly talked with her promoter contact and Gabby used her sex appeal to convince them to stamp Fail in with just a photo of his passport on his phone. Navy and Stick made it in somehow as well, bringing along Stick’s younger brother, who I guess we can call Twig.

Gabby is known for getting really drunk, and Bubbly is named bubbly for a reason so they are dancing the night away with increasing amounts of inebriation. Stick is the only person in the crowd standing perfectly still and looking at her phone the whole time while even Funny is “dancing.” She’s either got a severe case of Resting Bitchface or she is unhappy, but at this point I’m pretty done worrying about that. Navy is way overdressed in a full black suit, the classic “so overdressed that you look like a bouncer” problem that people on this forum sometimes say doesn’t exist, but definitely does at the lower tier venues. Twig is actually having a good time, he’s only 21, so this is probably the best club he’s ever been to.

We continue drinking and dancing the night away, with Gabby having a wide array of wardrobe malfunctions. Eventually even Bubbly is looking at us with a “Save me from this crazy girl!” face, but she eventually settles down. We leave a bit after Stafford Brothers finish their set. We went over to 800 Degrees Pizza but sadly their hours are determined by demand and they were closed way before their stated 4am close time. No pizza for us.

So overall for a day with an absolute fuckton of things going wrong, things worked out pretty great at the end, except maybe for Navy and Stick, but if you can’t have fun with the Stafford Brothers you just aren’t a fun person.

[klacey11]

This TR is awesome!! Looking forward to the rest
You are truly a champion for coordinating with so many people and trying to make plans that would make everyone happy!

[PorkChopExpress]

Day 6 (Friday) Continued


Gabby is known for getting really drunk, and Bubbly is named bubbly for a reason so they are dancing the night away with increasing amounts of inebriation. Stick is the only person in the crowd standing perfectly still and looking at her phone the whole time while even Funny is “dancing.” She’s either got a severe case of Resting Bitchface or she is unhappy, but at this point I’m pretty done worrying about that. Navy is way overdressed in a full black suit, the classic “so overdressed that you look like a bouncer” problem that people on this forum sometimes say doesn’t exist, but definitely does at the lower tier venues. Twig is actually having a good time, he’s only 21, so this is probably the best club he’s ever been to.

LMFAO at this entire paragraph. I feel like I've seen each one of these people every time I'm out. Keep it coming!

[braden801]

+1 for team Funny

[maxutilsperusd]

Saturday (Day 7)

We wake up pretty early and start rallying the group into action. Eventually Nikki and I get Funny, Marine, Bubbly, Ginger, Jean Paul, and Bling all pregamed and ready to head over to Marquee Dayclub to get in on the guest list. Navy is being dysfunctional and wasting time doing something with Stick or her family. Gray and Foodie are spending the day shopping and eating, while Gabby and Fail are working on getting Fail a better ID alternative than a photo on his phone.

My plan was always to take some combination of a limo and maybe a cab with the whole group since I figured that would be easy and now we had a perfect 8 people for one stretch limo. Well turns out SLS didn’t just have one waiting outside so that was a failure on my part. If you are planning on taking a limo somewhere, prebook it, there isn’t always just one sitting outside waiting for you, even if you feel like you’ve always seen a few just idling outside every time you’re in a taxi line.

So we split the group in half and take 2 cabs to the Cosmopolitan. We’ve had our fair share of interesting, boring, racist, and knowledgeable cab drivers over the years and this trip was no exception. Luckily, for this cab ride we had a pretty nice British guy, who was doing some light chit-chat. After a bit Marine notices a large amount of smoke in the air on the horizon.

We all being to look to try to see where it’s coming from and eventually we see the smoke almost appears to be coming out of the High Roller wheel at the Linq. Eventually when our perspective changes it looks like it’s further away, near the Cosmopolitan. After a bit more time we realize it actually is the Cosmopolitan that’s on fire. Now this is a dark black plume of smoke, something straight out of photos of 9/11, so I figure it’s a major fire. I’m immediately thinking this is going to cause too much air pollution to be at any pool, one of my favorite places in Vegas is probably about to burn to the ground, people are probably dead, and now I need to both find something for us to do now and later tonight since we were going back to Marquee Nightclub tonight for Porter Robinson.

If you managed to miss the story about the fire I highly recommend looking at the photos online and reading about the danger of artificial palm trees, it was quite the sight to see.

So the cab driver is offering to reroute us to Wet Republic, which I consider, but with how much the cover is going to be with none of us on the guest list I decline. I always have a backup venue guest listed just in case things go wrong so I have him take us to the Venetian since we are also on the guest list for Tao Beach.

The air definitely has some smoke in it when we get out of the cab but we figure we’ll get up to the pool and see how things are there. We make it up there, get in a line that is surprisingly long for Tao Beach, and get inside.

I immediately see I’ve made a mistake. While Tao Beach is usually one of the more subdued pool parties the place is already packed and is filling fast. I then realize that the Tao group owns both Marquee Dayclub and Tao Beach, and sure enough they evacuated everyone and told them to head over to Tao. So the pool is full, the daybeds are full and there are people everywhere. Eventually we have the girls start getting free drinks from the open bar and that goes well for a round or two, but eventually the bar is completely overwhelmed and the girls wait and wait and miss out on the next round due to the cutoff time.

I put on a ton of sunscreen since it’s finally actually hot in Vegas, Bling is wearing this gigantic, ridiculous gold chain and a speedo, Bubbly is all pissed off at Marine for stealing her drink, and overall this just isn’t working well.

At this point pretty much none of us are interested in staying here, so we resign to going to Walgreens to drink away some of the failure, and decide to head back to the Foxtail Pool Club at SLS.. The reason I didn’t immediately reroute us to SLS was that they were throwing a beer festival and rock concert that night at the pool and figured it would need to close early so they could set up. I end up getting a text from my promoter stating that Marquee will be open tonight, which is reassuring since Nikki and I had been wanting to see Porter Robinson again ever since we saw him at Nightswim a few years ago. We eventually get into the Foxtail Pool, but it’s closing in around an hour, so we hang out there, have a good time, but it’s definitely cut short.

Navy eventually joins us at Foxtail. He’s now talking about how Stick wants to see Calvin Harris at Hakkasan tonight since she didn’t get to see him last night at Omnia and she’s seen him 3 times before but she really wants to see him again, and I’m just laughing at the absurdity of that plan. Even the other members of our group are now looking at him like “What are you thinking man? Who is this girl?” He eventually also brings up another plan of Stick’s to see Skrillex at XS tonight which the other people immediately shut down due to them not being fans of dubstep, so his insurrection of the group plan fails again and he’s again pissed off at me for not accommodating his last-minute change, even though I had our plans posted for 2 months before the trip and he waited till 2 weeks before the trip to even decide he was going to come.

As bad as this day is seeming to go, there is a silver lining. On exit from the pool party they are giving out free passes to the Las Vegas Beer and Music Festival. While planning the trip I originally thought we might try going to that in between the pool party and nightclub, but the small margin of error to make the timing work and the $50 ticket price both made it seem like a bad idea, so I didn’t plan on trying to have us go. So getting free tickets meant that we could leave early guilt free, which would work out perfectly. I also got another text from my promoter for tonight at Marquee reaffirming that they are still on for tonight since the fire was much more minor than it initially appeared. So while Saturday was looking like another rough day, things were starting to work out.

I get back up to the room and begin trying to book a party bus to take us from SLS to the Cosmopolitan tonight, but my first and second choices of transportation companies are both totally booked for the night. I call the concierge at SLS and they first tell me they found me one, but then she regretfully informs me that the company said the AC wasn’t working on it and she wasn’t sure why they were trying to offer it still. She calls a few other places, and eventually the best she can do is an F150 limo, but the more I think about it, the less I’m interested in dealing with an unknown company to get something that wasn’t even what I was looking for. Again, if there was one thing I learned from this trip it’s that you should book transportation as soon as you know when and where you are going (with a caveat coming later).

Today was hot, stressful, both too sober and too drunk at certain points, with not nearly enough pool time and our 7 days in Vegas is finally catching up with me. I’m tired and when it comes time to go to the Beer and Music Festival I sit that out. Nikki stays with me and we get in a solid hour and half nap.

[maxutilsperusd]

Saturday (Day 7) Continued

I start again rallying the troops trying to get the group together to pregame before we go to Marquee. Ginger and Jean Paul want to stay in, so they are out. It turns out Marine and Gray went a bit crazy with the free beer and got way too drunk, so they are both KO’d again and this time it’s so bad that Bubbly and Foodie are stuck taking care of them. Funny is not ok going to the venue that was just on fire that day, and while that sounds absolutely ridiculous it was really just somewhat ridiculous considering how bad it looked in person. I still have no idea where Navy and Stick ended up and at this point I really don’t care.

So the group ends up being just me, Nikki, Gabby, Fail, and Bling. So that’s another thing I learned, make sure your group can properly Vegas before booking transportation for them. Had I booked it a few weeks out I would have ended up with a party bus meant for 15+ people and we’d have had 5 in it. At this point I’m glad I didn’t end up getting a party bus, since that would have been disappointing to say the least. We get in the cab line, ask the cab director if we can get a 5 person cab, he says there aren’t any there waiting, they can’t call for one, so we can wait to see if one shows up. I decide it’s worth 10 minutes of waiting to keep everyone together and things easy. 10 minutes go by and while a couple of likely car models go by they are all handicapped ones with a ramp taking up the extra seat. So the group splits up, Nikki and I in one cab, and Gabby, Fail, and Bling in the other.

We get a cabbie who loves talking. He’s talking and talking about who he is and what he’s done, and he’s driving and driving but not particularly quickly. He decides to go in the back way, which I’m not opposed to even if it’s a bit more expensive, it can be significantly faster than getting trapped on Las Vegas Boulevard. Problem is he’s missing every light and driving like a snail, so while we are the first cab to leave SLS we arrive a good 5 minutes after they had arrived. Fail had decided to go to the bathroom, and Gabby and Bling split up just to see how much frustration they could cause me when I’m trying to get us in line before the guest list closes.

Eventually I get the group back together and into line. Things are going smoothly and then I find out that Fail only ended up with a paper version of his license. He’s pulled over to the side while a manager dashes all hopes of him getting in. Gabby and Bling leave with him and I text them to go to the Palomino strip club, my plan for where we would eventually go after the club anyway.

Nikki and I get inside, get on the dance floor and start dancing. Porter Robinson comes on and has an absolutely amazing set. Great visualizations, great song selection (more DJs need to remember to include some Daft Punk), amazingly sexy go-go dancers, and we have a blast. Biggest complaint was it was pretty damn hot inside and they were using mass quantities of artificial smoke. Not sure whose bright idea it was to turn the smoke machine to 11 the same day of the fire but that stuff was absolutely killing my lungs and my throat which are already pretty thrashed at this point of the trip.

Both Nikki and I are entirely too sober, so we eventually decide we’ll leave our front, center spot on the dance floor as soon as he leaves or plays a bad song to get drinks. This eventually seems like it’s never going to happen and neither of us can take the heat or the sobriety any longer so we grab drinks and watch the spectacle from afar. Really I have to say he’s put on one of the better sets out of the 50+ we’ve seen in Vegas, so if you haven’t seen him I highly recommend it.

I’ve been messaging Fail from the dance floor and I find out he made it into the Palomino, and they are having a good time. We actually leave before Porter Robinson finishes his set, something Nikki and I rarely ever do, but his set was definitely a long one and we had danced harder that night than any night of this trip or maybe any of all our trips, so we were exhausted.

I call up Palomino, they inform me it’s an hour long wait for transportation. I tell the dispatcher that the first guy to pick us up gets a $20 tip, and magically a driver is there within 25 minutes.

We get to the club, and all the seats around the stage are taken. Eventually Gabby and Fail find us. They were upstairs, a part of the club I had never explored. Gabby is a little drunk, and keeps talking with the bartender up there. Nicole ends up getting a drink, and I eventually get us back downstairs since talking to a lone bartender isn’t my idea of a good night out.

We ask a dancer if all the seating is reserved, since there are some tables with signs and some without, and she points to one and says it’s fine if we sit there. Awhile later a bouncer comes by and says we can’t sit there and we are taking up too many chairs with the 4 of us sitting there, which is just nonsense but whatever. So we move to another spot, and eventually get one chair and then 2 chairs by the stage. Gabby and Fail keep wandering off and sitting in different spots, but Nikki and I are having a fun time at the stage. Nikki gets another drink, one of the dancers smashes Nikki’s face into her breasts, and after that Nikki is tell me to tip everyone all the money, so things are fun if not a bit more expensive than usual.

Eventually Fail and Gabby come by saying they are leaving, which while disappointing it is understandable since they had been here significantly longer than we were. We continue having fun for quite awhile, when suddenly Gabby runs over to us, mascara streaming down her face, bawling. She says they were having a heated argument outside and Fail left, he said the marriage was off, and he took her engagement ring back. So now I’ve got Gabby just crying and being emotional, and I’m trying to pay attention to her, so now we’re awkwardly consoling her while I’m just tipping dancers for the inconvenience of having to witness Gabby’s emotional meltdown. Eventually she calms down, we stay a bit longer, but ultimately it’s clear that Gabby needs to be somewhere else so we go outside. Usually I’d take the transportation from the club home, but they said it would be around a 45 minute wait since one just left, so we take a cab, and since we are staying at SLS it’s not much more than I would have tipped anyway.

I highly recommend going to the Palomino without a fighting engaged couple, it is a much better experience, and before things went poorly we were having a great time even that late night at night.

So we get back to our room and Gabby is just talking about everything. Everything that’s good about their relationship, everything that is bad, how he’s blaming her for him losing his wallet since they were fighting at the airport and he thinks he lost it while he was getting a drink to mellow out after that, etc. Overall it’s a very emotional talk between the three of us.

Gabby’s always been a pretty touchy feely kind of person and her hands have been on both mine and Nicole’s legs during this long talk on our bed. Now if I was a man with fewer moral hangups I could have probably turned this into a threesome, but instead I don’t wreck a potential marriage and ruin countless friendships (now my second missed threesome opportunity in Vegas). Nikki eventually just falls asleep due to exhaustion and Gabby and I continue to share extremely private, personal stories for around 3-4 hours while the both of us drink copious amounts of Jager.

Around 9am, I realize I’m totally fucked since I haven’t slept, we are having to move all the stuff to Encore, and we have to get down to Encore Beach Club by a decent hour to make the guest list.

[EastCoast]

Jesus Christ. After reading this TR I want to cancel my next Vegas trip. I am heading to that Miami thread.

[ocam]

Well written - very comprehensive and good style. I've learned that you need to carefully choose your Vegas crew - it's not worth taking pity on people. Just cut your losses with the boring / flakey.

I think though that this shows the pitfalls of relying on GA everywhere. Where you have tables booked and people have their money committed, they will make more of an effort to join the party and stay with the group (especially when they know their failure to appear will leave you in a tough spot with the bill). Though probably won't make a difference if you lose your ID....

[maxutilsperusd]

Well written - very comprehensive and good style. I've learned that you need to carefully choose your Vegas crew - it's not worth taking pity on people. Just cut your losses with the boring / flakey.

I think though that this shows the pitfalls of relying on GA everywhere. Where you have tables booked and people have their money committed, they will make more of an effort to join the party and stay with the group (especially when they know their failure to appear will leave you in a tough spot with the bill). Though probably won't make a difference if you lose your ID....

Overall my new opinion is that I'm only going with 8 or fewer people on future trips. I've had much more success getting people together and to clubs and pool parties on time when the group isn't so large. More than half of the 8 previous trips were just Nikki and I and we operate as well oiled machines together, making it to every event early without any stress. I'm excited for our next trip in September to Life is Beautiful with just the 2 of us.

One of the biggest things that I haven't mentioned but directly affected my problem of getting people out is I didn't put in the effort to make sure we were all located on the same floor in the same tower at each hotel. This would have greatly helped with communication and coordination along with better cell coverage and everyone having phones with wifi calling. I hadn't consider this necessary before this trip, but if I was ever forced into this large of a group again I think proximity of the hotel rooms would definitely be a big priority.

I'm definitely never going with some of these people again just because I don't think they are right for the scene. I think the biggest problem is pretty much none of them had an appreciation for the music, so it was never "I can't wait to see Porter Robinson!" and it was more just wanting to relax and experience Vegas at their own pace. You can do that in Vegas, but then you better be buying presale tickets and most of these people were just too cheap to do that.

[Dyur21]

Great report, you clearly put a lot of work into organizing the trip it sucks that no one would stick to your plan.

[LXJEDi]

Well written - very comprehensive and good style. I've learned that you need to carefully choose your Vegas crew - it's not worth taking pity on people. Just cut your losses with the boring / flakey.

Tremendously impressive levels of patience from you maxutilsperusd, great TR! Agree completely with you ocam, have too learned the hard way that the wrong choice of company can really bog down a Vegas trip, I would actually rather go solo than hang with a group that is likely to flake, or worse yet show up with problems you have to deal with all trip.

[maxutilsperusd]

Sunday (Day 8)

With my newfound realization of how late/early it is I immediately get into action. Gabby offers to help cleanup the room a bit, so the two of us are throwing away the red cups that litter the room and boxing up all the bottles of alcohol. Gabby leaves after the place is in pretty ok shape to go back to her room with Fail, to have what I can only assume was a pretty intense conversation.

Nikki wakes up during the commotion and she begins packing all her things. I jump into bed and set my alarm for what is now only an hour and a half away. Luckily the copious amount of Jager from last night and the extreme lack of sleep causes me to immediately pass out.

I wake up feeling awful. Like really, really bad. Jager in large quantities isn’t the best on one’s stomach and while I can function on 4-5 hours of sleep, 1.5 wasn’t nearly enough. I’m completely nauseous, but luckily the Story Tower at SLS doesn’t have proper ice machines so you are given large Bud Light buckets full of ice at the coffee shop downstairs, which happen to make perfect “emergency might-throw-up receptacles”. At this point I’m not capable of doing much of anything but lying in bed and trying not to make use of the bucket. Nikki, the amazing person that she is, finishes the packing, gets out my swimsuit and a t-shirt, and generally keeps the show going.

I get into contact with Funny, who instead of going out last night had spent the night at the tables at SLS and now is up around $1200. He’s been given an $80 comp for food at SLS for all his table play, which he wants to use at Umami Burger, but I’m spending about 95% of my concentration on not throwing up. Nikki decides to go down and perhaps bring back some food for me in the hope that eventually I’ll be able to eat it. She ended up getting the Ahi Tuna burger for herself, which she says was absolutely amazing and eventually brings up a Manly Burger and some extremely greasy onion rings for me.

I’m contacting everyone else warning them that I’m not in the best shape and that I should be running around 30 minutes behind schedule, but that they should continue on to the next hotel without me. JKart has landed, and it’s decided that she’ll just meet us at Encore to make things easier.

I take a shower, constantly almost hurling, but eventually I get through it still with my stomach contents intact. After that I’m feeling better and eat a few of the onion rings and finally start drinking again. Whiskey this time, Jager is off my list of approved alcohol for the rest of the trip. At this point it’s time to check out, so I call the bell desk, and head down to the taxi line.

Luckily SLS doesn’t seem to have anyone better to give one of their branded town cars to, so they offer us that for $15 which is practically what a cab would have cost. The added space and perfect climate control is a godsend in my diminished state.

We get to Encore, get our bags taken by a bellhop, and I try to pull myself together for getting my room. I get in line and we find JKart waiting right near where the line is so Nikki stands with her and catches up. Encore’s check-in line is maybe 20 people long, but they come by and offer free branded bottles of water, another miracle. I get up to the receptionist, don’t bother with the $20 trick this time since I’ve heard it doesn’t typically work at Wynn/Encore, but ask for a high floor room facing the strip if it’s possible. She looks through the computer and offers a 24th floor room facing the strip, but says for $35 a night she can give me 60th floor with a perfect view. I take her up on the offer, since I figure we’ll again use my room as the gathering point, so might as well make it the best of the group.

I walk over to Nikki and JKart and I hear about her interesting morning. She arrived at 7:45am and decided instead of taking a taxi or shuttle that she would walk to Encore. That’s a long fucking walk but she’s an active person in amazing shape, so she goes for it. On her way she stopped at a bagel shop and ran into one of the Jonas brothers and even had the forethought to take a photograph as evidence.

We head up to the room and I’m as impressed as I was hoping to be. Having stayed at quite a few budget oriented properties in Vegas it was quite the step up from our usual. I highly recommend splurging on Encore on a Sunday and Monday if you can find a decent rate.

I eat more of the onion rings, drink another Crown and Coke Zero, and I’m actually feeling back to my normal self. I give Bubbly a call, expecting to ask them what room they ended up in, and find out they haven’t even left SLS yet. I’m shocked at the lack of understanding of our time table, and tell them that they need to immediately get in cabs. Funny is in line at this point, so he’s mostly on time, and Ginger and Jean Paul are already checked in and saying that their room is so nice they are going to spend some time making use of it and are going to skip out on EBC.

One word of caution with regard to high floor rooms: cell service is typically less stable, especially with more budget carriers like T-Mobile. I highly recommend groups decide on an internet-based communication platform like Facebook or Hangouts instead of relying on SMS and calling. Getting ahold of a large group of people can be very difficult when half the time everyone is drunk and not necessarily checking all their different social and communication platforms.

We’re guest listed for EBC with DJ Snake DJing, but today guys are having to pay a $50 cover charge even on the guest list. I was expecting more like $20-30, but Encore Beach Club is worth the premium. The problem is now that Bubbly, Marine, Gray, and Foodie are all so far behind that I’m not sure if they are going to make the close time.

Turns out instead of coming to Encore in swimsuits, they had those in their bags, and then handed their bags to the bellhop without tipping so it takes them 30 minutes to get their bags to their room instead of the 10 it took for ours.

So it’s looking like they are going to be cutting it super close so I set a hard deadline and say if they aren’t here by 1:50pm, we’re heading down without them. Funny eventually gets to our room, and I’m making drinks for the 4 of us, trying my hardest to convince JKart and Funny to drink enough. Funny isn’t having it, and essentially stays sober, while JKart is thrifty enough to see that drinking in your room is worth going for.

After 5 minutes past the deadline we write a note saying we’ve left and post it on the outside of our door in case they don’t get any of the messages or texts that we have sent. Eventually Bubbly calls and says they are just going straight to EBC so we head over and look around for them. We don’t see them but keep our eyes open and we eventually give up on that and get in the staff guest list line. There’s only one group ahead of us and after we are checked off and Funny and I pay our $50 we are inside.

Eventually I get a call from Bubbly saying that they ended up getting lost, found Encore Beach Club after the list had closed, and they now wanted $30 per girl and $50 per guy so they were going to check out Encore’s European Pool instead. Timing (or money) is everything in Vegas.

Encore Beach Club is as great as always. Fun crowd, perfect music, and beautiful girls on the island poles. JKart regrets not pregaming harder and I tell her we’ll buy some Heinekens and I’ll just ask Vibram, her boyfriend who cancelled last second because he was sick, to reimburse me, since he should have been here buying them for her anyway. She gets drunker than I’ve seen her in years and has a blast even with the suboptimal circumstances. Funny is too sober, but after a few Heinekens he too is having a good time.

Eventually we realize that Funny might be focusing a bit too much on JKart, so it’s decided that we’ll have to pull him aside and tell him she’s off limits so he can refocus on not our friend’s girlfriend. Nikki and JKart eventually are so inebriated that they want to dance on the pole together, but decide that falling off the island isn’t a great plan, so they go for one of the poles on the side of the venue instead. Funny tries his luck with some girls, but overall nothing is going anywhere so he ditches out a bit early.

We stay until DJ Snake finishes his amazing set, and by then Nikki, JKart, and I are exhausted. Overall we all have a great time, and most of the group sadly missed out again.

[maxutilsperusd]

Sunday (Day 8) Continued

We head back to our room, and I immediately devour the burger from this morning. It’s cold as can be but I instantly know it was once something magnificent and still pretty perfect for how starving I am. I set an alarm for 8pm, just in case we end up passing out. That was a good plan since we all end up on the wonderfully comfortable Encore King bed passed out..

We all wake up, JKart not even remembering falling asleep, and JKart and Nikki are both now starving. Jkart starts looking on her phone for a cheap place to eat nearby. She’s uninterested in our mainstay of McDonald’s but finds "Kabob N More" just north of Encore on Las Vegas Blvd. Nikki and JKart decide to walk over there and get some to-go food, while I try contacting the rest of the group and getting them ready to start pregaming. Ginger and Jean Paul had spent the whole day in bed with room service and said that they’d be up in a bit.

I get a hold of Fail and Gabby who decide to come pregaming with us right now. They arrive and I start pouring more drinks. Gabby tells us she wants to check out Nightswim but that she’s not wanting to leave behind Fail with how rocky their relationship is, so they are going to explore the strip instead (Don’t lose your wallet in Vegas!). JKart immediately notices the ring is back on, so things are looking as if that was more temporary drama than it had originally appeared.

Eventually almost everyone finally shows up to pregame, minus Navy and Stick (not something I’m going to complain about at this point) and we’ve for once got a decent sized group. We pregame and get ready for the night, and Marine and Gray both pour themselves red cups that are far too full and strong for the short amount of time they’ll have to drink them before we are in the guest list line. The group, now full of 10 people in various states of drunkenness heads down.

We get near the guest list line area and neither one of them has come close to finishing their drinks. Marine is known to be one of those people who has problems with authority (weird since his career is all about authority) so he’s not listening to me saying that he needs to drink faster so he can throw it away. Eventually a hotel employee sternly tells him he can’t stand there drinking and needs to move to the casino floor or off the property. I’m shaking my head and trying to get us away from the area so they can get their shit together.

Luckily they finally finish and we get in the guest list line. Both of them are already showing signs of being on the drunker side of good so I try to keep them from looking and sounding drunk with little success. We make it through the guest list line but I doubt things would have gone smoothly had we had to wait another 15 minutes in line because by the time they are in the pool they are definitely plastered.

We all stash our clothes in the bushes near the hot tub, do a quick dip in the refreshingly hot water and head into the pool. This time there are a larger number of oversized beach balls than the previous week. I’m a big fan of the beach balls but Funny looks like he’s in war zone and is scared for his life. Marine and Gray, in their extremely drunk state, are the too-rowdy people who everyone hates, so I apologize to anyone they might have annoyed.

We eventually go up around 12:30am for another round of drinks with our awesome view. People drink slowly and this takes much longer than it would have for Nikki and I, but we make it back down and inside right when Will Sparks is coming on. My drinking more in the room plan definitely works better with fewer people to corral, but still easily saved our group several hundred dollars.

Will Sparks has an even better set than the last time we saw him. Nikki and I are big fans of the Melbourne Bounce subgenre so the music is absolutely perfect for our tastes. JKart is a bit too sober, but I’ll credit her for going all-out during the day and she has a great time anyway. Funny eventually retreats from the pool to the hot tub with the look of someone with a bad case of PTSD after getting hit one too many times in the face by a beach ball. Ginger and Jean Paul are having a good time, although I think Jean Paul also thinks it’s a bit too crazy.

The new Nightswim stage that they introduced this year really makes the venue unbeatable. The dual screens with video of the DJ, the pyrotechnics up top, and the amount of visual stimuli provided by the numerous screens, lasers, and lights really puts XS in a whole different category compared to the competition. What was already the best is even better in 2015.

Almost all of us leave when Will Spark’s set ends, but Funny stays behind in the hot tub. Turns out his luck off the casino floor finally improves and when he decides to leave he has a towel he doesn’t really need because he’s already dry from sitting along the edge of the hot tub. He notices a girl is trying to get a towel but there’s a long line, so nice guy that he is, he give his towel to her. They start talking, head into the casino where he gambles while they talk and drink some more, and finally he gets a girl back to his room!

So all you on team Funny, he finally succeeded. I’m telling you all “I’ve got a great view up in my suite upstairs” is a pretty great closing line, partying where you are staying has some advantages.

Meanwhile everyone else comes up to our room for post-gaming drinks. We talk and catch up long into the night which with all the partying most of us haven’t had a lot of time to do. Eventually JKart takes the couch, and Nikki and I fall asleep again in one of the best beds I’ve slept in.

[ocam]

Thanks for the update. Funny finally made it - classy move on his part. Didn't need to have a strategic "isolation" plan.

A tip for that North end of the strip for a quick bite is Tacos el Gordo. Cheap and tasty and has good reviews. I ate there a couple of times on my last trip.

One of the reasons I don't like changing hotels is precisely because of the issue you had. Get back late from the club feeling awful, but then can only sleep for a bit while needing to pack in a panic. Then you have to get to the next hotel, check in, etc (hoping your room is ready)