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An old friend stayed Downtown for two nights this week, and when I say “old friend”, I literally mean that the man is so old that were he to die of a heart attack tomorrow, people would say “it’s about damn time.”

Seriously, this guy is in his 70′s, he drinks every night, smokes non-stop, and claims to still hire prostitutes — although I personally have some doubts as to the veracity of this claim.  At his age, were he to engage in coitus with a hooker, it would probably look a lot like pushing a shoestring through the Lincoln Tunnel.

Anyway, I decided to drop by and see the old prune for about half an hour yesterday, but beforehand, I decided to spend some time in the Golden Nugget.

Why the Golden Nugget you ask? (I know you didn’t ask, it was rhetorical)

Because it’s the official Las Vegas casino for men with enormously large genitalia.  Really.  If you don’t believe me, look it up in Wikipedia.

That’s not the only reason I went, however.

You see, later this summer, I have some important (to me) family members coming for a stay, and I’m trying to decide whether to book them into the Tropicana or the Golden Nugget.

They make only one trip to Las Vegas per year, and for the past few trips I’ve put them in typical “one visit per year places” like the Bellagio, Wynn, and Encore.  This time around, however, I have convinced them to take a walk on the wild side, and they actually seem excited at the prospect of a completely different venue.

I’ve taken this particular step partly in light of the Wynn/Encore’s new fee, but I also thought it was a good time to throw a few room dollars at an “indie” place that has put some money into their property recently.  Since it will be the peak of summer, one of my primary considerations is a good pool, and because of this, I decided to make my very first 2010 visit to the Golden Nugget Pool.

Now, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … the Nug doesn’t just have the best pool Downtown, they have one of the best pools in all of Las Vegas.  Of course, the Mandalay Bay is still the best pool in the state of Nevada, and the MGM Grand and Flamingo have massive pool complexes that demand honors, but the Nugget is a solid competitor against the rest of the field.  A shark tank in the middle of the pool, a three story water slide, a tri-level cabana tower … the entire package makes for a very unique swimming experience.  I also squatted in a vacant cabana for about 15 minutes to do some handheld photo editing without the sun glaring off of my screen.  In particular, I cropped and enhanced a picture of two fake fish, and posted it live.

Why?

For the same reason you touch yourself in the shower.

I did it because I felt like it.

Anyway, the stolen cabana was nice and could make for a good paid rental later this summer.  I also think I’ve found another unofficial mobile office (I have several throughout the city).

The lack of a “good” pool is one reason that some people avoid Downtown, and while there are indeed few pools, The Golden Nugget refutes the notion that there are none.

As nice as the Nug pool is, unfortunately, yesterday was not great pool weather.  While it was sunny and temps were in the mid-90′s, it was extremely windy.  So windy that “The Hideout” had to pack all of their furniture away.  Being on the third floor overlooking the street, the “Hideout” is significantly more exposed than is the main pool.  Given the name, there has to be some irony in here somewhere.

As of right now, Rush Tower one bedroom suites are going for about $130 mid-week.  The property has a solid buffet, good gaming odds, and a decent location.  I’ve been staying in the Tropicana for 12 years, and it’s kind of a sentimental favorite, but the Golden Nugget makes a compelling case for itself.  In addition to assessing the pool, I walked around the Nugget casino, took a few notes on my rexPhone, an snapped a few shots for later side-by-side comparison.

I will be making a similar trip in the near future to the Tropicana.  I’ve got a few weeks left before a final decision must be made, and in that time I am going to check the Trop’s new dining options as well as their pool improvements.

After catching a few rays and playing a few hands of $5 poolside 6:5 (I know) Blackjack … I decided to walk over to the Golden Gate to grab a quick shrimp cocktail.  When I got there, I realized that I was quite hungry, so I decided to get a non-shrimp dish as well.  I opted for the french dip.

In retrospect, I should have stuck with only the shrimp.  The sandwich was 98% bread, and the meat was the thin, institutional stuff you used to get in the high school cafeteria, or perhaps a TV dinner.  The way I look at it, I paid $7 for a wonderbread roll.  I ate the beef, but I’ll be damned if I could taste it.  Du-par’s has good pie, homemade potato chips, and shrimp … but I don’t think I can recommend their sandwiches.

Lesson learned.  Next time, I’m going to hit up the Golden Nugget or Main Street Station Buffet for actual sustenance.

After eating a rather lame lunch, I played a few hands of real Blackjack in the Golden Gate pit, then walked over to see the old man.  He was staying in Fitzgerald’s, and by the time I got there, he was already sitting at a table downstairs and the first words out of his mouth when he saw me were “Sweet Jesus you get more ugly every time I see you!”.

And people wonder why I have low self-esteem.

I watched him play a couple hands of something (I don’t remember the game, only that he was cursing the dealer after every hand), and we then took a ride up the elevator so I could get a couple of shots from the 34th floor.  I have only stayed at Fitzgerald’s once in my lifetime, and that was damn near a decade ago.  Even though I am arguably the biggest view junkie on planet Earth, I never thought to go to the top of the third tallest building in the city limits of Las Vegas (behind only Allure and The Stratosphere).  As you can see, I made it to the top of the 400′ tower, but I’m not going to lie … it was kind of scary.

If you are considering repeating my feat, I urge you not to do so on a windy day.

First of all, the elevator shafts are clearly not 100% sealed, and the car felt like it was banging the sides of the rails as “whooosh” sounds from the outside somehow made it into the car.  I’ve been stuck in elevators several times in my life (it was an occupational hazard of being a bicycle messenger), and after one multi-hour ordeal, I actually became a little claustrophobic.  When something seems amiss with an elevator now, I usually get out and refuse to ride it.

Secondly, once at the top, the windows were visibly flexing along with the wind gusts.  Every time the wind blew from the north, the large picture window bent in toward me, and made an unholy “thump thump thump” sound.  I’m not really afraid of heights, but I am afraid of plate glass windows shattering in my face, severing my carotid arteries, and leaving me to die in a pool of my own blood on the 34th floor of a downtown hotel.  What can I tell you, I’m a wuss like that.

After I got my photos, we walked up and down the Fremont Street Experience, and he regaled me with tales of … well, I really don’t remember.  The great thing about old people is that you don’t have to listen to a goddamn word they say, and they don’t take offense.  They just want to talk about Frank Sinatra or drag racing Model T’s or some shit … they could not care less if you are actually listening.  I just nodded a lot, said “really?” and “wow” about 20 times, and the old bastard seemed happy.

After humoring an old man for a short period of time, I bid my farewell, and assured him that I would be even more ugly the next time around … assuming that it was even possible for me to get more ugly.  There has to be a limit to human unattractiveness, and the way I look at it, I’ve pretty much reached it.

As of right now, I have still not made my ultimate decision about this year’s reunion accommodations.  I still have some loyalty to the Trop.  I stayed, played, swam, ate, and watched Follies on many occasions.  I always spent a lot of time there and was the only person who consistently “blogged” on-site from the joint.  I had a pretty cool relationship with the property as a whole, and I’ve had a great deal of feedback over the years from people who gave the place a shot almost wholly because of my general favorability toward the place in my “blog”.

Now that the property is aggressively courting the South Beach/Latino demographic, I haven’t really formed a “new” opinion on the “new and improved Tropicana”.  I mean, I really want to still like it.  I am extremely loyal.  Much more loyal than the fickle media at large.  Once I’m down with a place, I’ll stick with it through good times and bad.  Hopefully, going forward, I still find it to be the underrated property I have always maintained that it was.  For this reason alone, I am willing to overlook some ongoing construction and growing pains.

With that being said, given what the Golden Nugget has done with their property, including the opening of their new tower, it’s going to be a close call.

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