saveLV.com

I love this web site savelv.com and I would love it even more if I lived in Las Vegas. In one of my previous post I mentioned about a great deal that I got on tickets to see Nathan Burton with an added bonus of a free buffet, you can print these out online before your trip with this link Nathan Burton + Paradise Buffet and you don't have to venture out on the strip looking for them. Print this out and take it to the ticket box office, they will give you tickets with a detachable free buffet tear off on the bottom of the ticket. So that you are aware there will be taxes and fees attached of about $5 for each ticket, your final cost will be over the $20 advertised deal. This is a 1 hour 4 pm show. Wasn't the best magic show running on the strip but getting the buffet and show tickets at a discounted rate makes it all worth while.

Bellagio

We always try to get over to see the Fountains of Bellagio when we are in town because I love to see the fountains set to the music. These pictures are taken from inside The Conservatory and Botanical Gardens an area often forgotten but is a must see for any visitor. This garden changes; I believe with every season; and has the aroma of many a fresh flowers. No matter how much you want to DON'T touch or interrupt the dancing water!!!

Valley of Fire

The Valley Of Fire is a State Park about an hour outside of Las Vegas. We have talked about making the trip over several times and were so impressed with Red Rock Canyon (visited 2 years ago) that we decided this was the year. First let me say that although the pictures that we took are beautiful they do not however do justice to the beauty of this park. Not counting the two hours that we had in driving my husband and I spent 4 1/2 hours driving through this park stopping, walking and climbing and taking many, many pictures. Outside of the colored neon that is Las Vegas everything there is tan or brown, its the desert and I don't expect it to be green like OHIO so when you see something that is not tan or brown it really stands out as beautiful. This is a day activity and probably earlier in the day the better. It was very hot and although we did take a small cooler of bottled water with us we didn't take enough as desert walking makes you very thirsty. The hubby and I consumed six 16.9 oz bottles of H2O and two 10 oz bottles of diet Pepsi and were still so thirsty. There is a gift shop that doesn't sell water (they should consider this as they could make a small fortune) but they have a water fountain that you can drink from but cannot fill water bottles (I assume because its very expensive to get water in the desert). Fee is $6 per car and this is a drive through and stop park. They also have fee based camping if that's your cup of tea but I saw no water hook ups. In my opinion if you have a rental car its well worth the drive to see a different side of Nevada.

Shows in Las Vegas 2009

We went to see two shows this year, three if you count Big Elvis's free show at Bill's Gambling Hall. This was really a good free show and I would encourage anyone with some extra time to see it. We went the cheapo route, no BIG name shows this year. Went to see our first topless show Jubilee at Bally's. It was very tastefully done. All of the women in the show have non augmented breast. We used a BOGO and were offered upgraded seats row 1 (not the table seating). We paid $35.00 for both seats. This show has been running in Las Vegas since 1981. We missed the opportunity to see Folies Bergere before its final running earlier this year so we decided to give the old a try. The second show that we went to see was The Magic of Nathan Burton at The Flamingo. We couldn't find a BOGO offer for this show but somehow deep down I knew there was one out there. I waited in line at the box office and asked about a BOGO and the young man told me that they didn't have the coupons and that he wasn't sure where we could get them. I said ok and thank you and left w/o buying the tickets. I told my hubby that we needed to walk The Strip and see if someone was offering them and thats what we did. Within minutes of going outside there were two young street magicians doing card tricks and money tricks, they had the BOGO coupons with an ADDED BONUS of a coupon for two free Paradise Garden Buffets to be used within 7 days. They request that you watch their 5 minute magic act to get the coupon and they have a great sence of humor. They will ask you for a money Bill to preform a magic trick on, have a one or a five ready. They will give it back to you after the trick but ask you for donations before you put the money away, you should donate it to them for their coupon (thats what we did). The tickets ended up costing $50 for two and the bonus was that on Friday for the dinner buffet was a seafood buffet that was regularly $22.00 per person. A great deal for free. My advice is look for BOGO's, I was inline behind people buying show tickets that I knew there were discounts out there, if they would have just looked in one of the many free magazines all around Vegas they could have gone cheaper.

Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner!

Winner, Winner Chicken Dinner! The only quad that I missed taking a picture of was my biggest hit, I hit quad 3's on a DDB machine paying me 400 credits or $100. I mainly played JoB and still managed to lose most of my bank roll this trip. Guess you can't win every time. I usually play quarter video poker at $1.25 a spin unless I am losing badly and then I play nickles. I rarely play reel slots but was low on my budgeted cash for the day when I hit 10,320 credits or $103.20 on a penny machine (first pic above and on the right). Maybe I should take a second look at those penny reels. I was only betting .60 a spin on a 30 line machine and cashed out for $120.00.

More winning shots

Me and Moneymaker

We were staying at the Rio during the start of the 2009 WSOP. The highlight of my trip was running into the 2003 WSOP champion Chris Moneymaker, who I must say is a SUPER nice guy. I made eye contact with him walking down the hall and asked aren't you Chris Moneymaker and before he could even answer I asked do you mind if my husband takes a picture of us? He said sure and put his arm around me and posed while my hubby snapped the picture. He handles his fame with dignity and was so willing to stop and give a poker fan an opportunity to have her picture taken with a poker millionaire. Kudos to him being a down to earth poker star.