As you already know by now, I have a problem where I rarely reject going on a trip when invited. So I recently went to Vegas for a few days last weekend staying from Thursday through Saturday. I stayed at the Luxor for the first time and it was interesting having a room in the pyramid. The elevator actually moves diagonally, which extends the amount of time traveling up the floors since you're traveling the hypotenuse and unfortunately there aren't any windows in the elevators, but it was still cool nonetheless.
As for the hotel rooms themselves, this broke my string of staying in suites in Vegas, but seeing how we really weren't in our rooms very often, this wasn't a problem at all. The Luxor has solid rooms and the price was affordable: 2 queen beds at $220 for the weekend.
When I arrived in Vegas at 11am on Thursday, Wes had already been there for 2 hours and was 4 drinks deep; a little drunk to say the least. But he still played some Blackjack and Pai-gow with me while we waited for Justin and Liz to arrive. Our group was quite amusing this trip. Since Wes had recently introduced Foursquare to them a week earlier, they were a little addicted in checking into places, more so than me. We were constantly trying to check-in to places and talked about which badges would be fun to get...yeah, nerdy to say the least. :)
On Thursday night, the group decided to go to Tao nightclub at the Venetian for some clubbin' action. Wes's friend Sara knew of promoters who could help us get free cover, VIP access, a table, and bottle service. However, some of you might already know my utmost hatred for Tao based on an earlier experience one time. A few years ago, I tried to get into Tao with 3 of my other buddies since we were convinced that this club had the best-looking girls when we walked by the line one night. We had learned about Tao's pretentious, gender-balance enforcement where guys weren't allowed to get in without an equal ratio of guys-to-girls. So we picked up 5 girls to enter line with the 4 of us. While we waited in line, a bouncer came up to us and offered to get the girls in earlier and for free and we'd just see them inside, so we obliged thinking it'd be good for the girls. Big mistake. By the time we reached the front of the line, a different bouncer said to us, "I see 4 guys and no girls, you guys aren't getting in." And of course, the original bouncer who offered to get the girls in earlier was no where to be found. In other words, Tao is a crooked establishment with a terrible protocol and I vowed to never go back there. But since my friends all wanted to go and we were guaranteed all this free service...
Yep. That's a picture of me being scarred for life. But here's the story to go along with my 2nd Tao experience:
So we arrive at Tao at 9:45pm and are waiting in a general area with the promoters. First of all, I'm trying to be on my best behavior and not be a debbie-downer 'cause I literally hate this place, but I try and have a seat at the jewelry store and they tell me I can't sit there, so of course, I give them a stare back and then finally get up and leave, trying to keep my composure. So we're waiting, 10pm rolls around, and the promoters are ready to take just the girls into the club since they get free drink until 11pm. So they start herding up all the girls in our group like sheep (about 15 or so) and take them into the club while we wait outside. And then that's where I'm like, "here we go again..." Then the promoters get us into the "VIP" line (I must emphasize these quotation marks because I thought VIPs didn't have to wait in line?). Meanwhile, our ladyfriends are inside and saying how they feel like they're about to get raped. After about 30 minutes of waiting in the VIP line, we finally get into the club at around 10:40. I waited an hour to get in for this shit!? First of all, our table was overly crowded with like 20 or so people and there was only one bottle to serve of all them. In other words, I didn't get a lick of the complimentary bottle service. Fortunately, one of our ladyfriends was nice enough to grab me a gin and tonic that they got for free. However, after 11pm, they stopped getting free drinks and those vodka cranberries they were drinking skyrocketed to $14 a glass. So we try checking out the venue, which I will admit is nice and has potential, but with it being overly dark in there, it's really hard to tell what anyone looks like. In addition, the dance floor was literally PACKED. It felt like trying to weave one's way through a mosh pit. Tao was pretty much what I expected: nothing special. When we finally left at 12am, I was satisfied that the only good thing that comes from Tao is the phrase "Fuck Tao Hen-Hao!" "Hen-hao" in Chinese means "very good". :) I was also very proud of myself for not spending a single dime at Tao.
Friday was a much better day. I found myself very successful at the Blackjack table at MGM Grand netting $180 in one sitting. Later that evening, we enjoyed a dinner buffet at the Excalibur. We headed back to the Luxor since the girls had to go up to the rooms before going out for the night, so I found a Blackjack table downstairs where I won a very quick $80 by the time they were ready. This night we decided to pick a lounge/club that was more chill and hopefully way less pretentious and fortunately we were successful! We ended up going to Blush at the Wynn where Sara helped us again get in for free, but this time we didn't have to wait at all. Blush is not nearly as big nor popular as Tao, but I was really pleased with the place. My drink of choice for the night was the Long Island Iced Tea, which turned out to be a great decision: strong at 4 shots a drink and $15 for each. In my opinion, a great deal in terms of Vegas nightclub drinking. Oh and I might also mention that you get a free glass of champagne with your Foursquare check-in! FTW!!! I ended up having 6 Long Islands on the night and I was good to go for the rest of the night!
We ended up leaving Blush around 3am and getting back to Luxor around 4am, but I wasn't ready to call it a night yet. I ended up playing Blackjack with Liz and Justin and I have no idea how I was able to rack up another $100 in my drunken stupor. But I'll take it! That pretty much concluded a solid Vegas trip, so until next time, Fuck Tao.
