BigWhale & brother (feat. MuckPls) does Vegas - 2025 edition (21st-31st March)
Hello people,
I can't believe it's been 6 months since I have been in Vegas, and we cannot let that go on for much longer! I will fly to London on March 20th after work, relax at a hotel there overnight, and then fly direct from there to Las Vegas on Friday the 21st (just in time for March Madness).
My brother will finally join in as well; he actually has a business trip to the US coming up in a few days, so when he is done with work he is already in the country. He will also head out to Vegas on the 21st of March.
A late addition to the trip is also 'MuckPls' who said YOLO and booked his own trip as well. I'll let him post the details on his end.
With this being the middle of March, and MGM having slashed my previous reasonable offers, it was not super easy to find cheap hotels. As of such, I have to stay at 3 different hotels to take advantage of the comp nights I had available (although I have to pay full resort fee). I will be staying at:
- Excalibur (2 nights)
- Flamingo (4 nights)
- MGM Grand (4 nights)
That said, it won't be too much stress to switch between the hotels. For MGM properties I can obviously check in and get digital room keys through the app. And for Flamingo I will just show up early and pay the (ridiculously high) early check-in fee to avoid gigantic lines.
It's March Madness time in Vegas when we are there, so I have high expectation of there being a lot of games to play and hopefully some good action as well. But regardless, it should be a fun and hopefully profitable trip. I will come back with some more thoughts + picture of shoe and bankroll in a few days.
As always, you guys can expect a lot of hand histories as well as random pictures from my end. Hopefully I can get brother to post a bit as well. And MuckPls will obviously also contribute with his own degen stories 
This is only the first of many trips to Vegas for me in 2025, but we can get back to that later. I am regardless stoked for the trip, and it will be nice having someone to share the excitement with as well!
F**k.
I am sorry. This sucks.
Gatwick -> Amsterdam -> KLM to LV?
I hope they find you a route to go, and if I remember correctly, Virgin goes from both Heathrow and Gatwick to LV? Or was that BA?
Anyhow, I really hope you get there ASAP.
Problem is that the Virgin flight I arrived on last night got cancelled on the way back to London so *most likely* they won’t support that route for another 48 hours, unless there is a replacement.
Problem is that the Virgin flight I arrived on last night got cancelled on the way back to London so *most likely* they won’t support that route for another 48 hours, unless there is a replacement.
I expect they'll just keep that plane and crew at LAS and if Heathrow reopens later tonight UK time, that'll be the plane for the flight out of LAS on Friday night.
Ok guys, this was rough. Basically I have not heard anything from Virgin Atlantic yet, and I didn't expect to. But I thought it was way too big of a risk to just sit around and hope for them to find a decent route.
So, I will be flying to Dublin, Ireland this evening, and spend the night there. Then tomorrow I will fly from Dublin, via San Fransisco, endure 6 hours wait there, and then finally be in Vegas just over midnight on Saturday.
So I am losing a full day, but I was gonna do that no matter what I did. Sitting here searching for flights you could just see the options disappear one after one, as other people were more decisive than me and booked various alternative options.
Certainly not ideal and I'm gonna be pretty tired by airports and flights by the time I arrive. But it's obviously better than not going, and sh*t like this (unforseen issues) are obviously going to happen from time to time.
Well done for taking control - definitely the right thing for your mental state to do that
Will you be out of pocket for this or will the airline compensate you?
My “view” at NYNY 31st floor. I know, I should have tipped more but then again I’m not here for the views or sitting in my room [emoji23]
Well done for taking control - definitely the right thing for your mental state to do that
Will you be out of pocket for this or will the airline compensate you?
I paid out of my pocket, plus asked for a refund for the Virgin flight(s). I will end up losing some money on this compared to the original route, but certainly not a terrible amount overall.
But cancelling the trip was not an option for me; especially since I had such a long-ish trip (10 days). I will lose one full day due to this, but it's still a reasonable amount of time left to enjoy Vegas.
Read on a Facebook group that some travellers from the UK had gotten a new alternative route from Virgin, which was to fly out on Monday. So I do think it was a good idea to not rely on them to come up with something, and instead just take matter into my own hands.
Wow, sorry for your travel woes, Whale. I think you did the right thing to keep moving, even though it's painful.
Travel safely, hope these legs go well.
Really sorry to hear that you got caught up in this cluster****.
Was just looking up flights on Virgin from MAN to LAS but the route only runs from April to October.
At least in Dublin you can pre-clear US customs/immigration in the airport.
Wow that sucks. Hopefully you will be rewarded with some Vegas run good to compensate when you do finally arrive.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Flights resuming this evening with BA having clearance for 8 long-haul flights, but will be Saturday before Heathrow hopes to be back to full service.
If nothing else, the brother of BigWhale, me, is actually on my way to Vegas. Yep, no last minute bailout this time. Seems like I will arrive way before he does though...
Waiting for United to take me direct LAS from IAD right now:
Meanwhile at Aria:
I haven’t slept more than 3 hours since arrived so it’s beer o’clock!
Moved over to Venetian, shipped a big bomb pot and still stuck for the day [emoji23]
Tequila ordered and time for some actual sleep once I finish this time for real.
Yeah, about that...
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We're sorry to advise that VS155 to Las Vegas has been cancelled due to the temporary closure of London Heathrow airport for all departures and arrivals.
Our teams are in the process of rebooking customers onto a new flight to ensure they can complete their journey to their final destination. Due to the high level of disruption caused by the incident at Heathrow, processing your flight change or cancellation will take longer than usual or we may face challenges wi
What about other airports? I guess you would have to pay the higher charges because it wasn't The airlines' fault.
My “view” at NYNY 31st floor. I know, I should have tipped more but then again I’m not here for the views or sitting in my room [emoji23]
Oh and random pic of the sun coming up on my way back to the room:
Those are always the coolest/weirdest times of the day in Vegas, whether it be at a casino, strip club, or wherever.
All right, we are in Vegas and here is a picture of my room at Exc...
Psych
Here is a picture from Maldron Airport Hotel in Dublin, Ireland, where I have spent the night, instead:
Vegas in.. 24 hours or something.
Actually on the way to the US now, with Aer Lingus (biggest airline in Ireland) en route for San Francisco.
It's a packed flight but we have an aisle seat and can move around a bit. So it could be worse. Still ages to go until I actually reach Vegas, but it feels good to be properly on the way.
Meanwhile in Vegas:
Yesterday was absolutely brutal, even for a degen like me. Woke up and started playing at 3 am, played until 9 pm more or less nonstop.
Now just taking it easy, I’m completely dead.
GL men, and safe travels Whale.
Sucks to hear about all the travel woes!
Getting all your runbad outta the way early.
We’re SO due, baby!!
Sorry for the duplicate post.
Slow start for me in Vegas, just been playing a little bit of Buffalo Gold and Video Poker. Looking for some actual poker now.
Here are a couple of photos to show off a Premier King at NYNY:
