Last week I booked a night in Vegas on Travelworm.com. After driving all day I get to the hotel with my girlfriend and they have no record of our reservation and are completely full for the night. Being the responsible company that Travelworm is, when the hotel notified them that they were full, they didn't bother to tell me I didn't have a reservation. So after an hour on the phone with Travelworm they send us to another hotel saying they had booked us an upgraded room. We go to the new hotel and what do you know, they are completely full. After another hour of yelling at Travelworm over the phone, and having them tell me that the only open room in all of Vegas was at Arizonas Charlies East, I get them to admit that if I can find an open room in Vegas they will pay for it. What do you know, 5 minutes later they call me back and found us a room at the The Orleans. We drive over there and finally Travelworm comes through, we check into the room and it is a super nice suite, two rooms, a bar, dining room table, 4 TVs, the works, and I didn't have to pay a dollar more than my original reservation. So it all worked out in the end, but there is not a chance I will ever use Travelworm again.
So now onto the good stuff. We decided to stay and play at the The Orleans. I had never been there before, it is about two blocks off the strip, but they had $5 dollar double deck games, which is my game of choice. The penetration wasn't great but would vary with different dealers. I know I fit the casino counter profile but I have never been barred, or even experienced heat before, so I don't worry much about cover. I was spreading $5 - $40 and we stayed and played for about 6 hours. For the last two hours there were pit bosses standing right behind me and starring at the table but I didn't really worry about it. There was a guy at the table next to us with at least $8,000 sitting on the table all in black chips, and I couln't imagine the casino watching me over him. All of a sudden, on a hand jumping from $20 to $40, I get tapped on the shoulder and, "Sir, we can no longer allow you to play blackjack at this casino"... and some other rambling about how I could play any other game in the casino. I kinda laughed and mumbled something about it being only a $5 dollar table, and the pit boss actually looked embarassed.
In the end I left with about $350 and got away with staying in a deluxe suite for the standard room price, and they had a great 99 cent breakfast at 4 in the morning. You gotta love Vegas.
