Jean $¢ott, Frugal Gambler
http://queenofcomps.com/
You can read my blog at
http://jscott.lvablog.com/
Lately it seems every time we go to an event at Caesars or their other properties in Las Vegas for a dinner or a drawing the events are odd. Last time it was a meal at Planet Hollywood and drawings where the invite said 6:30 for dinner, but no food (not even bread) was served for 45 minutes. After an hour and a half all we had was salad and bread, and I left. A lot of us older folks like to eat at 5 or maybe 6, but 8 pm is too late. And a lot of people invited are older folks.
This time it was a Vegas Baby party and tribute to Las Vegas Regional President Gary Selesner. Again my host told me doors opened at 6:30. But on arrival, I was told it was 7. After walking about half a mile from my room at Augustus tower to the Octavius Ballroom (in the convention center with no direct connection to the Octavius group of rooms), I and my friends found a nicely decorated ballroom with a nice looking appetizer of shrimp already on the table. Yippie I thought, they've learned to put out some food. There was also bread. The nice band "Envy" was playing, LOUDLY, too loud to converse with my friends. This always seems to be a problem at Caesars events. We may be old, but we aren't hard of hearing (until the sound systems at Caesars events deafen us).
My friends wanted to dance, but woops, no dance floor. A few hearty folks wiggled into an aisle by the stage to sway (they really couldn't move).
The band played on and on. Now the announcer started sounding the praises of President Selesner. It seemed kind of odd that they didn't phrase it like "Gary Selesner would like to thank you, our loyal players for coming. He wanted to thank you all by giving some of his favorite gifts to you loyal players, and now we will give you some bottles of his favorite liquor...." And so on. Instead they phrased more like "Gary Selesner loves Sinatra Select Jack Daniels. Gary Selesner is a world traveler. Gary Selesner is great!" "Oh and here are some winners names winning Jack Daniels". It was a total tribute to Selesner in tone, and we the guests were there to worship him, I guess.
Then they announced Gary's favorite singer would sing. They didn't announce who it was until he was done. By this time the appetizer was eaten and we were waiting for the main course. Someone came out and sang...and sang....and sang... And now it was 7:30 and 7:45 and we were getting hungry. Finally we realized that the singer was Caesar "star" Matt Goss. He was good, but we were hungry.
Now it was time to announce Gary Selesner's favorite food -- it was pizza, from Brooklyn. Up came the house lights, and out came PIZZA. Oh my gosh, here we were with a fancy dinner setting, wine flowing, an open bar, Goss singing, and our main course is pizza. One small slice. WTF! They served it out of pizza boxes. It is 8 pm now. Pizza. So we eat and I ask the waiter if he can really spare one slice for our main course. He says nothing but gives us another slice. It was good, though luke Luke warm.
A host came by, profusely apologizing to some of the players about how long it was taking and how embarrassing the pizza was.
The band is playing again, they are announcing more Jack Daniels winners (100 in all). It is 8:15, 8:30 p.m. We are waiting for the big prizes (30 laptops, a car, a trip). Slowly they are announcing these winners. And then the waiters are coming out with another course! Prime rib. Delicious but we just filled up on pizza!
Finally they call out the big car winner (Gary's favorite car, a $100000 special Mercedes).
It is 9 pm and we haven't had desert. We (and 90% of the people) leave. (We didn't win anything of course.)
So here they were theoretically having an event to make us players love Caesars more, but instead we'd just spent two hours waiting and waiting and waiting for food and listening to a tribute to Selesner and his favorite things. The only thing I can say was that this was at least better than the last tribute event I'd gone to, where the VP being tributed didn't show up (!!!!) (family troubles....), and they gave out a bag with about 5 or more kinds of mints. (Her favorite thing was mints and mints and mints and yuk mints...I still have some....)
My friends are disappointed that there was no dance floor. They've filled up on pizza so take the prime rib home in a plastic bag they happened to have. They tell me this is the strangest event they've ever been to, and can't figure out why they'd spent two hours listening to President Selesner being praised with hardly a word of thanks to the high level players who came to the event.
By the way, they also gave us a gift bag for the event. Again honoring Selesnar's favorite things. Forget about giving out something that might be a favorite thing for a player! (Except they did give out some free play with it..thank goodness.). They gave us a stone pizza set. Something I'm sure all the 7 star and Diamond players who have an average age of about 50 really desired! It was also thoughtful to give a gift with a sharp pizza cutting tool inside so you would have to put it into checked luggage if you flew in. When I complained that a pizza set was something everyone probably had if they wanted one, I got the usual answer (the same answer I get when I complain about a gift of another set of wine glasses or a glass vase). "You can always give it away as a gift." Yes casinos, give me, the player you want to impress something I can give away to someone else as a gift! Yippie. I am so so impressed by your generosity in giving me something I will in all probability want to give away! Yeah!
They also gave us a beautiful genuine leather laptop bag, because Gary Selesner loves his laptop. Don't worry about the fact that everyone else is now using tablets or smart phones. Give us an expensive, if useless laptop bag. They did give us a power supply gadget for a iPhone or tablet. Finally something some people could use (I don't think it would work on most laptops though, but apparently it does work on Selesner's favorite Apple Air...too bad I don't own one....) And a little bag with "lucky" coins and $8 in ones (AHHA, very useful...I'm always using ones to tip Caesars employees....)
My husband vows never to go to one of these affairs again (he eats at 5 pm, not 8:30). I vow never to take friends to one of these again...and to think twice before going myself (they'd have to give me a lot more free play). And as for a President Selesner, I'm sure he had a great night. Too bad about the rest of us, we weren't on his favorite things list I guess.
Posted by: "Queen of Comps" <queenofcomps@cox.net>
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