My last blog post was about doing a mileage run to earn a pair of domestic upgrade coupons. Well, turned out that I miscalculated how many miles I needed...by 127 miles. Ugh. I mistakenly counted my EQM's (elite qualification miles) rather than actual BIS (butt-in-seat) miles. I was supposed to fly 10,000 BIS miles. Fortunately, it was not the end of the year yet, and I had this trip to Vegas. I was originally going to fly one-way on an award ticket (got a cheap Southwest ticket back), but canceled it and bought a paid ticket using the $200 discount I got for the delayed Chicago flight. With a stop in LAX, totaling 609 miles, I was finally going to get those darn coupons.
My LAX to LAS flight ended up delayed over one hour. When I had made reservations at my favorite restaurant Raku, I was bummed that they gave me an 8pm arrival, as I was originally supposed to arrive in LAS at 6:15pm. But it turned out to be perfect.
My flight was on a jet that had a first class cabin, and I was already upgraded 2 days prior to departure so I didn't have to vulture around the gate to hear my name. :) Babe had already arrived in LAS at 4:30pm; he had to wait 3 hours for me to arrive, what a trooper!
We rented a car from National; it helps a lot to have Emerald Club membership. You can bypass the lines, choose your car from the parking lot and drive off, just like Hertz #1 Club Gold. You can sign up for free here (courtesy of MouseSavers.com). You have to fill out the entire profile and give credit card information in order to bypass the lines. If you reserve an intermediate car, there's a special "Emerald Aisle" in the parking lot where you can choose any car and just pay the intermediate price. Usually they do have intermediates, but sometimes there are choice options...I've gotten an SUV and a Prius before. (Note, driving a Prius is like operating a video game!) I also found good discount codes from carrentalsavers.com.
We arrived at Raku right at 8:15pm, whew! (Raku gives a 15-minute grace period) Dinner was delicious as usual. The only thing that sounded appealing from the no-price-listed chalkboard menu was a blue crab miso soup. We had our usual items such as raw Kobe beef liver, grilled duck, Kobe skirt steak, Kobe beef tendon, and of course, the foie gras.
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| love love love this raw liver |
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| must have foie gras |
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| tendon is to die for |
New items we tried included sashimi salad, grilled lamb chop, and the blue crab miso soup. The sashimi salad was huge and could serve four people. The spinach in it was so fresh, we couldn't stop eating it. The lamb chop was done perfectly. The miso soup tasted good, but it was so much work to eat the blue crab. We passed on dessert since we were so full. So glad we were able to eat here this night, as they were to be closed January 1-3, and we already had dinner plans for NYE.
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| duck and lamb chop |
After dinner, we checked into our home for the next three nights, the Signature at MGM Grand. I had searched everywhere for a deal for New Year's Eve, and every decent hotel on the Strip was charging $499 and up for December 31st. Even Priceline wasn't much help. For the price, it made sense to get a condo as I like having a kitchen. I ended up renting a penthouse junior suite (aka studio) with Strip-view balcony from a private owner off of vrbo.com. You can save 25% or more off MGM's online rates if you go through an owner. We were in Tower 3, and we got a bit lost getting there as we drove into the MGM Tropicana Avenue entrance thinking it would be close by and had to drive through the back alleyways of the hotel. It's best to go east on Tropicana from the Strip, make a left on Koval, then left on Harmon and the entrance is on the left. I can envision taxi cabs wanting to make a few more bucks by taking you through the MGM grounds.
Valet parking was complimentary and they offered to take our bags up to the room, but we didn't have much to carry. We checked in with no problems and went up to our 29th floor penthouse junior suite. The 29th floor is the lowest floor of "penthouse" level. The top-most floor is 38, which is considered the "upper penthouse" level. The junior suite is a good size, and it was nice to have a balcony to enjoy the views. The sitting area contained a sofa bed, lounge chair, table and two chairs. The kitchen had a two-burner halogen cooktop, microwave oven, fridge, sink, coffee maker, toaster, blender, and all plates/glasses/pans/utensils, very fully equipped. Bathroom had a jacuzzi tub and separate shower.
Since we were renting through a private owner, there wasn't any maid service. There were plenty of towels to use and I brought my own toiletries (the ones in the room weren't super great anyway), so it wasn't a problem for three nights. Looking forward to tomorrow: New Year's Eve steak dinner and mingling with thousands of people on the Strip for the countdown...
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