#VegasHalloween 2021 -- day 3, part 1

Halloween, a bittersweet day in my world. 

As a child, Halloween was always an exciting time. Yes, there's a historic, religious origin that gave way to the commercial silliness of today. Be it the promise of candy, the creepiness of the afterlife that dwells in the hallways of haunted attractions across the United States or the convenient excuse for adults to showcase their creativity and be anything other than who they are, Halloween is fun for all ages. If you're into any of those sorts of things. 

I can't explain my attraction to horror, the undead or the creepiness that lurks down a dark corridor of an abandoned building, but as a kid I was drawn to the challenge of bravely navigating the local haunted house during my earliest years living in Small Town, Indiana. There were years in my life when Halloween came and went without much fanfare, but more often than not, partaking in the Halloween festivities became an important part of my fall. And for the past 15 seasons, I have worked in the haunt industry. All but one of those years as an employee of a corporate amusement park's Halloween weekends. That's another story for another blog. 

For the seventh time in 11 years, I spent my Halloween in Las Vegas. I won't recount all of those trips, either, but I will note that my first was in 2011, prior to this blog. 

This year's Halloween trip wasn't a sure thing. Under different circumstances, perhaps I would have skipped Halloween in Vegas this year. I haven't made them all since 2011, obviously. But it was a wedding I was not obligated to attend that prompted my trip to Sin City for Halloween weekend. 

After a late night playing cheap keno and drinking cocktails at the Plaza, I had a hard time rolling out of bed before 9 a.m.

No big deal, I had nowhere to go that morning, but I did want to wager on some early NFL game. I am rarely in town on a Sunday morning, particularly during the football season. After not betting on college football Saturday, I had to have a little action on Sunday morning. Having lost $60 on two UFC fights on Saturday, I wagered a healthy $20 on Sunday morning. Buffalo was hosting Miami, favored by plenty, and by 7.5 or 8 at the half. Figuring Buffalo was going to score a bunch at home, I wagered $20 on Buffalo to cover the first-half spread. 

And the score at halftime was 3-3. 

I don't bet on a lot of sports. And I usually bet something simple, often against the spread. I swear I win less than 20% of the sports wagers I make. I need to pull a George Costanza and bet the opposite of every sports instinct I have. 

Wager placed before kickoff, I ventured out of downtown. I wanted to take a little time and just drive around, seeing the areas tourists never see. Or roll down Boulder Highway on a Sunday morning, before traffic was heavy. Maybe have breakfast at Klondike Sunset. But I was slow to get going, so I had two objectives Sunday morning: Supplement my cash at a non-casino ATM and grab a fast food breakfast, preferably from somewhere I don't have access to back here in Minnesota. 

And where did I end up grabbing breakfast from? McDonald's. At least I knew what I was getting. 

Back to the Plaza, it was time to clean up for the wedding. While I was staying at the Plaza, solo, my life partner and her sisters are getting ready at Golden Nugget, where the wedding party is also staying. 

The wedding party went to the wedding chapel via a limo, I picked up the sisters. I have been going to Vegas for nearly 25 years, but never for a wedding. On Halloween 2021, it was time for my first. 

It's a block or so off Las Vegas Boulevard, and it's a nice place
to get married if you're not getting married at your casino. 

The chapel of choice was The Little Vegas Chapel. No fancy casino chapel for this party. We went to some nifty little building a block or so off Las Vegas Boulevard, a couple of blocks away from Dino's Lounge. 

The wedding couple chose the Elvis wedding. The chapel was a nice little room and Elvis did a nice job of running a wedding ceremony. There were several elements to the ceremony, including a few songs by Elvis. We were invited to dance with the newlyweds during the final song of the ceremony, and thanks to the insistence of a few in our group of 16, including the bride and groom, we all danced during the final song. 

The King doesn't get a lot of love in Vegas these days, but you can count
on him to be performing a wedding somewhere in Vegas on any given day. 

After the ceremony there were a few pictures outside the building, along with those that were taken inside the building prior to the ceremony. I think that was plenty. Most folks want 1,000 pictures from their wedding day, and there's value in having those, but probably not as much as people spend for them. The photo collection the newlyweds amassed seemed to be plenty. 

A pre-wedding photo inside The Little Vegas Chapel.

This must be a classic Cadillac, right? 

Not sure how often these cars hit the streets, or what they're used for, but I suspect they send them when you don't have a wedding party to pick up, and therefore don't need the stretch limo.

Ceremony is over, it's back to the casinos, and vacation mode. 

There were two children in attendance. Young kids, too. Elementary school age. They're the niece and nephew of the bride. So it was kind of important that they be there for their aunt's unorthodox wedding. They were not staying at a casino. Their family was at a timeshare off the strip, down from Ellis Island. 

The problem on Sunday afternoon was finding a place where a group of 12 or 14 people can assemble for food and drink, with two children in tow. With no plan, our destination ended up being Saltgrass, the modest priced steak house at Golden Nugget. 

My overpriced chicken sandwich wasn't anything to go back for, but add a large beer to that, and a good one, not that Bud Light I usually drink, and a bill for about $25, or slightly less, wasn't obscene. The service was efficient, and the staff was quite accommodating to our large group spread out over two giant tables. I'd order something a bit fancier if I dine there again. 

Late afternoon is upon us and it's time to go change clothes, after a stop upstairs. The sisters were discussing their Sunday evening plans, and they had yet to be finalized, so I went up to their room, awaiting their plan. That plan didn't involve me, technically.  

With that Sunday night plan yet to be finalized, it was time for me to head back to the Plaza. No more Sunday church duds for me. It's time for casual clothes prior to some of us reconvening at Circa, where the bride and groom want to watch their Minnesota Vikings take on the Dallas Cowboys. There was no set plan for the remainder of the evening, other than the bride and groom planned to remain downtown and take in the Halloween atmosphere. I planned to do that, too. And eventually I did. 

Life downtown was much different circa April 2016

I vaguely remember that night in April 2016, and it wasn't much different than tonight.

It's January 2019. I'm sitting in the same spot I was nearly three years ago. I can't promise, but in late April of 2016 there likely wasn't much snow on the ground outside my Minnesota home. And here I am in the dead of winter nearly three years later, and there are scant traces of snow. It has been a weird winter here in the cold north.

It was a weeknight in 2016 when I was sitting at the computer, later than I should have been, and reading breaking news from the Vital Vegas blog about the sale of downtown properties to the brothers Stevens. I wrote an instant response to that late evening blog post, much to the surprise of the blog's author. (I'll take praise anywhere I can get it.) And, as I'm wont to do, I provided a copy editing recommendation. (That's something only us writers understand.)

It has been nearly three years since news broke that we were losing a couple of tiny grind joints, a dying-on-the-vine casino and a dingy strip club. (That's what everyone tells me. I am proud to say I never saw the interior for myself.) Nearly three years later I'm typing on the same laptop computer about the future of downtown, and sitting in the same seat.

I can pretend to have Vegas insight, but I'm just speculating, along with everyone else. Yet there's one thing I'm confident of, the brothers Stevens are going to hit a home run if they follow through with the plans they've announced earlier this evening.

I'm still unclear why the name makes sense, but the former site of the Las Vegas Club, and other adjacent businesses, will be a new casino resort known as Circa. New rooms, new amenities and lots of uncheap booze will soon occupy the vacant lot at the west end of downtown Vegas. It's probably not for me, but I like it nonetheless.

The basic concept of the new project surprises no one.

You don't build a new property to cater to low rollers, and you don't build a new property downtown that replicates everything already offered in the business district. Therefore you end up with the plans unveiled earlier this evening, a new resort named Circa.

Nothing about this announcement surprises me. As I noted, you don't build a new resort and hope to attract low rollers with simple, cheap rooms and sparse amenities. Given downtown casinos don't have the luxury of grandiose features that their strip counterparts do, building anew allows the brothers Stevens to design a sports book that is unmatched downtown. (It will be the largest anywhere, allegedly.)  I've never sensed that sports books are the most lucrative element of the casino, but they generate a lot of traffic, and one of the keys to success is getting people in the door. Circa will accomplish that.

The elaborate sports book doesn't appeal to me, as I'm not one to spend hours in an area dedicated to wagering on sports. I make an occasional sports bet when I'm in Vegas, but it's a tiny part of my Vegas vacation.

Other major amenities planned for Circa include an elaborate pool and a spa. I suspect both of these will be smashing successes as well.

Neither element is a surprise. It has been known that the elaborate, multi-tiered pool area Circa promises has been on the Stevens radar all along. And why not? I've never understood the appeal of a "day club," but plenty of strip casinos market the hell out of the concept, and the people who favor such an atmosphere are willing to pay plenty for the privilege.

The strip casinos wouldn't bother with turning their pools into day clubs if they didn't generate meaningful cash. Although I've never experienced the preciousness of a day club, I know people drop a lot of cash for the privilege of enjoying a manufactured party in a pool. The concept wouldn't have appealed to me 20 years ago, and surprisingly doesn't appeal to me now. But I sense plenty of people who like the downtown vibe are interested in turning their afternoon in the sun into a raucous, lustful party. And the brothers Stevens are wisely banking on it. When people are willing to pay approximately $180 per case of beer at a fancy pool on the strip, I'd try to get a piece of that action, too.

There's no question the pool scene downtown is lackluster. This brings an element of the strip to downtown Vegas. I don't expect thousands to follow, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a healthy crowd dropping fat stacks of greenbacks on expensive handcrafted cocktails served by the pool. You can't put a price on that!

Like pools, spas are a foreign concept downtown. I get it, most of us who stay downtown aren't looking for the fanciest amenities, and there would be far more options buried within the bowels of the Plaza or the upstairs floors of  El Cortez if the demand was there. (Instead we get Happy Feet on level 2 of ElCo.) But you can't attract a high-end crowd to find its way to your high-end resort if there's nothing for them to dump all that discretionary cash that lines their pockets. A top-notch spa will garner plenty of fans, even if the Golden Nugget is already catering to that clientele.

My biggest disappointment is that I didn't hear anything about a fancy or exclusive showroom. I know we have a few showrooms in Vegas, and they're not exactly hotbeds of entertainment. Nobody seems to have the space to dedicate to a major production the way the strip properties to, and the downtown crowd doesn't seem to be particularly hungry for anything more than a free movie stage. So I can't say I'm not surprised that a major showroom is not part of the announcement. There are places for such shows, and Circa clearly isn't one of them.

So how successful will Circa be? It's no secret Vegas has been taking it on the chin in recent years. Increased resort fees, parking fees on the strip, high-buck bottled domestic beers at fancy casinos less favorable gambling conditions are not helping the city's image. And Circa is not the only project in development at the moment.

But for all the disappointment Vegas delivers with each passing year, nothing is replacing it. People may choose to gamble closer to home more often. And they may choose to visit other cities. But few places are cheap to visit, and for all the ways online commerce has changed the world we live in, virtual vacations are not a thing. People need to go somewhere to enjoy life, whatever the cost. Vegas still delivers incredible value. And for those who can afford more than value when they travel, (perhaps that will be me some day,) Vegas still holds a lot of appeal, despite its sins.

Circa won't be a license to print money, but plenty of people have plenty of cash to spend, as Vegas proves year after year. And there's enough of those folks willing to spend it downtown, I'm certain. Every hotel has high-end accommodations, but only the Golden Nugget markets that vibe from top to bottom. I don't think the addition of Circa is going to oversaturate that market. And the brothers Stevens are wisely positioned to pounce on that.

Nothing is foolproof, or impervious to the woes of our economy, but Circa is the downtown opportunity that nobody has jumped on, until now.

#VegasHalloween (day 4): The beginning of the end

Our final day together in Vegas began with a cheap breakfast. A very cheap breakfast.

We all met before 10 a.m. and headed down the highway, the Boulder Highway. I enjoy gawking at all of the down-and-out motels that extend east of the Fremont Street Experience. It's an interesting look back at a simpler time, when hotels didn't need to be named Holiday Inn, Comfort Inn or Courtyard by Marriott. Unfortunately I'm always the driver on these excursions, so I can't gawk as much as I'd like to. Old buildings, especially those that are abandoned, always fascinate me.

I suggested a road trip during our visit as an excuse to experience a cheap breakfast. Thanks to the roundup of bargains by Las Vegas Advisor, our destination was Klondike Sunset Casino, a small, locals joint that had recently opened up, and was offering a $1.48 breakfast special before 11 a.m.

Cheap breakfast often means a mediocre breakfast, but not at the Klondike. Two eggs, toast, hash browns and meat came with the $1.48 meal, and it was well done. I would have liked a larger serving of hash browns, but they didn't skimp on my bacon. I added a pancake as a side order and my meal was still dirt cheap.

A couple of people chose a different breakfast special, but it was still very cheap, and everybody was happy with their meal. Add in a few drinks for those who enjoy coffee and our total bill for five people, prior to tip, was about $27. Insane!

The restaurant was nice and the casino seemed like a decent little room. There were no tables, just machines, but if you're a local who wants to play a slot machine or video poker machine and eat cheap, the Klondike seems like a nice place to go. According to online resources, the casino has a bit of a history, much to my surprise.

I had no plans to stop at Sam's Town, Eastside Cannery or Joker's Wild during our trip to the outskirts of the Vegas area, but we did stop at the Skyline Casino for a few minutes. I had to try their $1.49 shrimp cocktail, finally. I wouldn't have made a trip out to Henderson just for the shrimp cocktail, but when in Rome...

The cheap shrimp cocktail also comes at the recommendation of Las Vegas Advisor. And it was pretty good shrimp for the money. I wish I could find a decent shrimp cocktail for less than two bucks on Fremont Street, but that ship sailed several years ago.

I offered to buy a shrimp cocktail for anyone who wanted one, but only Mike took me up on it. Not everyone subscribes to "when in Rome," evidently.

After a cameo at Skyline, and a picture of Jon and a giant hot dog, we weaved our way to Seven Magic Mountains, the art installation in the desert. Travel south toward the California border and you'll pass it about five miles south of the M Resort. The Seven Magic Mountains are a series of colorful, stacked rocks. It's pretty nifty, although I wouldn't say it's a must see attraction.

What is that hot dog doing with its left hand?

We took group pictures while we were there and I shot a live video via Facebook during our visit. The woman who asked us to take her picture while she was doing a headstand was an added bonus.

We saw colorful rocks!

We were treated to a free show at Seven Magic Mountains.

Following the magic mountains we headed back downtown. Our afternoon was a bit unscheduled and erratic. Jon and Trista wanted to spend time at the pool, although the Plaza hot tub was out of commission, and there wasn't much sun to be had on the pool deck. They decided to spend a little cash and lounge at the Golden Nugget pool. The Nugget charges $30 per person for access to their pool, but there's a 2-for-1 coupon, good on Wednesdays only, in the Las Vegas Advisor coupon book. It was a Wednesday, so they used it.

Joe, Mike and I headed down the street to the Fremont Arcade. I was happy to see an arcade with pinball machines at Neonopolis, and this arcade did not disappoint. (I have said more than once the past few years that Neonopolis needed an annex of the Pinball Hall of Fame.)

Fremont Arcade has about a dozen pinball machines, most of which are games that have been produced within the past five years. There are also modern video games, the type that don't interest me much. But Fremont Arcade also has the "world's largest" Pac-Man. It's classic Pac-Man, played on a huge video screen. I couldn't pass up playing one of my childhood favorites on a giant screen.

I like what they're doing at Fremont Arcade, although it doesn't have a lot to offer those who are seeking classic games. It's no replacement for my visits to the Pinball Hall of Fame, but it's nice to see new, well-maintained pinball machines downtown. I hope it succeeds, as there's a shortage of places to play pinball these days.

After we finished we found a bar at the Fremont Casino to have cheap drinks while we waited for Jon and Trista to wrap up their afternoon at the pool. Game 7 of the World Series was beginning, and I was interested in seeing some of the game.

Between inning I was inexplicably struck with inspiration. As a reader of the Vital Vegas blog, I find myself trading quips with its author, Scott, now and then. Knowing he worked downtown, I decided to send a random tweet to see if he was around. It was after 5 p.m., and he's known to hang out on Fremont, so I sent him a note via Twitter, inviting him to come find a guy he had never met. After a sarcastic quip or two from Scott, and an appearance at the wrong bar area at the casino, he found me.

Given we're both fans of Captain Morgan and diet cola, I ordered us a round. (Scott is a bit famous for his consumption of the spiced rum.) We proceeded to chat about a variety of Vegas topics during the short window of time we had to trade stories. Even though we had never met, and our previous communication had been limited to Twitter exchanges, we could have killed an hour without thinking twice. I'm not sure all writers have the gift of gab, but put two writers together who share an interest in a subject and you'll easily travel down a road that may not have an exit ramp for quite some time.

Fortunately for Scott, Jon and Trista joined us at the bar and everybody in my group was ready to eat dinner. I told my friends to get in line for the Fremont buffet and said I'd join them in a few minutes, as there's always a line for that buffet, from my limited experience. I bid farewell to Scott and went to join my friends, only to find out there wasn't much of a line for "steak night" at the buffet. I'd never seen the buffet so empty. It was 6 p.m., prime time for dinner, and yet the buffet was half empty. Go figure.

And yes, we had Las Vegas Advisor coupons reducing the price of our meals.

Following dinner we headed back to the Plaza and went our separate ways for a while. I went up to my room to continue watching the World Series, and watched as the Chicago Cubs gave away their lead in the eighth inning, and then had to sit through a rain delay before winning the game in the 10th inning.

I decided I should head down to the sports book to watch the end of the game and hear the cheers if the Cubs were to hold onto the lead they regained in the top of the 10th inning. It was a dramatic finish, but the Cubs won it, and several Cubs fans celebrated. I, wearing a Chicago White Sox hat, went over to a couple of dudes who fell on the floor hugging each other in celebration. White Sox fans are supposed to hate the Cubs, and vice versa, but I wanted to congratulate them, as I knew what it was like to wait a lifetime for my team to win a World Series. The White Sox won their first World Series of my lifetime in 2005, and their first World Series in 88 years.

Before gambling that night I met with Gary, a manager at the Plaza. He had helped me book my rooms, thanks to his networking on the Vegas Message Board forums, and suggested I stop in and see him while I was staying at the Plaza. I'm not a high roller, but he was able to reduce our room rates a bit and wanted to know how our experience was at the Plaza. Overall my group was happy with our stay. The Plaza is an older property at the end of the Fremont canopy, but they're doing a lot of good things there. It was my first time staying at their hotel, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it.

After meeting with Gary I met Jon, Trista and Mike. Joe was enjoying live music on Fremont Street, but the rest of us cruised the strip after dark. It was about 11 p.m., so traffic wasn't bad. We drove all the way down to the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign, where we stopped for pictures, and then headed back toward downtown. My iPhone pictures at the sign sucked. Here's proof:

Sometimes you need a real camera to capture a moment adequately. 

Our return trip included a stop at Frankie's Tiki Room. Great, unique drinks in a quirky 24-hour bar. It's worth experiencing at least once if you visit Vegas with any regularity.

Upon our arrival at the Plaza I headed to the tables. I had planned to spend a few hours gambling that night, and it started after midnight.

I had lousy luck at the tables on my final night, unfortunately. I lost some of my previous night's profits playing Ultimate Texas Hold 'Em, and I played craps for a while, with no luck. I finished even at craps after about an hour, however, so I guess that was a win. In the wee hours of the morning Joe, Jon, Trista and Mike made their way through the casino floor and found me at the craps table. It turns out that they all went down to Main Street Station. Jon hadn't had a chance to try their microbrews, and while they were there a guy from another group insisted upon buying shots for my friends. It sounds like the two groups had a good time, and given I didn't win money, I wish I had wound up with them instead of refunding my profit at the tables.

Click here for day 5 and 6. 

The losers will be the ticket buyers

I've long been a fan of game shows. I grew up watching them as faithfully as I watched cartoons. I was watching Wheel of Fortune before I could read. I was watching The Price is Right before I knew how to count money. I was watching Match Game even though I had no idea why the double entendres were funny.

The good folks at Vegas Chatter noted earlier today that a new game show is coming to downtown Las Vegas. "Lovers or Losers: The Game Show" is coming to the Plaza.

From what little I know about it thus far, it sounds like nothing more than a bastardized version of "The Newlywed Game." Hosted by Willis of "Diff'rent Strokes" fame, the show will allegedly be taped for broadcast. There's a chance it will end up on some cable channel, there's no shortage of airtime to fill, but this strikes me as a lame way to make a buck or two rather than produce a game show.

I won't tell people what they should or shouldn't spend their money on. If you think $40 or more is a fair price to pay for watching some sort of competition between couples, more power to you. I'm sure it will be a humor-based show. And it's not a crime to pay for comedy. But I have a hard time believing I want to spend any money while in Vegas to watch a knock off of a television game show.

A real game show doesn't sell tickets to attend a taping of it. Even shows like "The Price is Right" and "Let's Make a Deal," where anyone in the audience could be picked to play a game and win a car, don't charge for tickets. And I bet enough people would pay for a ticket to see The Price is Right that they'd still be turning people away every day. But that's another story.

If you have to charge for tickets to see an unknown game show, it tells me there's not a cable network backing your show. If a cable network is producing a show, you'd think they'd be attaching their name to it, and promoting the hell out of it to drum up interest long before the first episode hits the airwaves rather than charging for tickets to an unproven commodity.

I suspect a lot of complimentary tickets are going to be given away to fill the showroom.

The Plaza's info page notes that couples participating in the game are vying for prizes, but there's no indication the prizes are anything spectacular. I'm sure there are some nice, modest prizes to be won, but I doubt that this show will be giving away new cars or big cash prizes with any degree of regularity. There might be a major prize offered to make the show seem legitimate, but I'd bet the odds of actually winning a major prize are long.

I'll be anxious to read a review of Lovers or Losers. I might be off the mark, but experience tells me I'll be more right than wrong.