Decaffeinated Vegas – a rant
On my last trip to Las Vegas I was lucky enough to stay at the beautiful Platinum Hotel, who supply each room with a coffee maker and daily supply of coffee. I found the coffee they offered to be mediocre but hey, it was available and I was happy to drink it. I was irritated with Platinum’s Kil@wat restaurant for charging me 1/2 the price of my breakfast for a coffee (breakfast: $6, cup of coffee: $3). Little did I know just how good I had it…
This trip, coming down to Vegas to play in the Venetian Deepstack Extravaganza poker tournament as well as daily tournaments in various hotels, we stayed at Bally’s – for its central location on the strip and reasonable price.
The first night I arrive at a hotel I may not unpack, but you can be damn sure I’m going to get the in-room coffee ready to brew first thing the next morning. I’m a good traveller, but come on, no one’s at their best after the first night on a hotel bed (especially this bed… but that’s another rant). I looked around my Bally’s room and realized that I’ve been very spoiled in recent trips- there was no coffee pot to be found.
I didn’t have too much of a fit, knowing there was a casino-side cafe just an elevator ride below me. I flipped open the room service menu and saw the ‘kind help’ Bally’s offers for those who don’t want to go downstairs for their fix – for $10, you can have a carafe of coffee delivered to your room. Sadly, my husband likes his caffeine cold and carbonated (cola-style), so in the mornings I drink alone and there was no point in buying a whole carafe just for me (sigh). It’s tough putting a price on your caffeine addiction, but Vegas showed my limits with that $10 carafe.
The next morning I woke from a terrible sleep in desperate need of coffee, yanked on my clothes and stumbled down the elevator to the cafe in the casino below. GAH! I’m not a morning person at the best of times, but being assaulted with flashing lights, clanging slot machines and chain-smoking old ladies at 8 am was hard for this night owl to bear. Seasoned Vegas goers will laugh at my innocence of the morning casino routine, but hey, I’m new here… now where the hell is that casino cafe? Weaving through the dinging slots, I got in line at the cafe and squinted at the menu half asleep, looking for the latte prices. “$6.99″ …wait, what? $7 for steamed milk and a shot of espresso? It was $7 for two beers and a taco in the Mexican restaurant 50 feet away. Oh Vegas, you are cruel to those desperate for that morning hit. I immediately abandoned my fancy ‘latte’ airs and settled for a large cup of plain coffee for just under $4. Reminded my of the truck stop coffee at the top of Roger’s Pass in the Rockies, and that’s not a good thing.
I finally learned the age-old Vegas wisdom of how to get a cheap cup of coffee as our trip went on. I’d suck up my screaming desire for caffeine until I started a poker tournament, and then drink for free (aside from tipping, which was easy to do in my overwhelming appreciation of anyone who would bring me coffee). I learned that when you order a Latte in Caesar’s Palace poker room, you get a coffee with extra cream and that The Aria has the best latte on the strip, brought poker table-side with a fancy crystallized sugar swizzle stick.
And those little old ladies banging away at the slot machines at 8 am, now I understand… they’re in it for the free-flowing coffee! One Armed Bandits, I salute you.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 14th, 2010 at 10:14 pm and is filed under Food, Las Vegas, Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.