Vegas

I was in Vegas sunday night to tuesday morning (last week). Here's a very brief trip report.

I stayed at the NYNY Hotel. I was pretty happy with it and would recommend it. Great location central (though we had a car and never ventured south). It seemed pretty modern compared to the Flamingo where I stayed last time. In particular the bathroom was noticeably newer, which is one of my key evaluation points of hotel rooms. I am grossed out by slightly old or rusty bathroom fixtures. I remember at Flamingo the tub seemed a bit old to me.

Cheap Eats - Definitely one of my favorite places to grab a quick lunch in Vegas is the little sandwich shop in Paris right across from the buffet. It's about $6-7 for a sandwich, soup or salad and a drink. And the food is not bad at all. It also has an attached dessert shop with some gelatto, which I didn't get this time.
I finally got to the downtown area to see the Fremont Street Experience, which is pretty cool. Checked out the Golden Nugget, featured on Fox's tv series The Casino. We grabbed dinner at their coffeeshop type restaurant which again was reasonable and cheap. The Nugget is a lot nicer than the other downtown casinos (Binion's, 4 Queens, etc).

Bathtub - We were walking up the strip and saw Boardwalk advertising their $3 tables, so we stopped in to play some craps. They had what are known as mini craps tables, which is basically half the length of a regular craps tables. It's approximately the size of a big bathtub, so we called it rolling dice in a bathtub. That was pretty fun, we only lost a little bit of cash since it was a $3 table, and the dealers (croupiers?) were very amiable.

This was the first time I'd played poker in Vegas (2-4 texas hold'em). I did pretty well at that. Overall I was down a nice chunk of change by the end of the trip, but it was still fun. Next time, more blackjack & poker, less craps.