fuzzygruf | Flashback: Christmas Day in Vegas

Woke up and Steve was soundly asleep. I left a Christmas card out for him, then I showered and went downstairs to gamble for a bit before bringing up coffee. I came back to the room at 8:30am, just as Steve was waking up. Good timing.

Checkout time was 11am, and we checked out around 10:45am. I was expecting a longer line at checkout, but not so. It was a day of short lines. We then checked our bags at the Bell desk, then went to gamble some more before lunch. At lunch, we went to buffet at Harrahs, using the $5 off coupons they gave us. There was a bit of a line for lunch, but there was a separate line for those with coupons, and that had only one party ahead of us. Kewl. The buffet was okay. For the price, it was good. I love buffets. I can always diet in 2004.

After lunch, we (surprise) gambled a bit, then decided to go to the airport early. Our flight was at 6:40pm, but since we had to pay for the return trip, we were hoping for an earlier flight. Because of the flight coupon mix-up, the Oakland customer service agent had "done us a favor" and got us a 14-day advanced day price. That saved $50 bucks each (although I had thought it'd be free), but it also locked us into the later 6:40pm flight. They refuse to let restricted fare tickets standby for later flights, so we spent the next 3 hours at the airport waiting.

Being Xmas, there were few people at the airport. Only one person ahead of us at the ticket counter. Only a couple people ahead of us at security. No beeping at security. We found some nickel slot machines that kept us busy for an hour on $20. That helped with the time. We got dinner at some sports bar, then hung out at the gate.

Didn't look like too many people would be on our flight. On the plane, they made the standard Southwest announcement that the entire plane would be full, so take the first available seat, etc. It obviously was NOT going to be a full plane, so now I know they say that on every single flight. The 130-passenger plane had 79 passengers. Lots of empty seats again. It was raining in Vegas, and it made for a pretty turbulent flight.

We got into the non-rainy Oakland on time, and didn't wait long for the shuttle bus. The bus was full, but we were the first ones dropped off. Half of the cars were blocked by double-parked cars, but ours was not. Whew! There was just a short delay at the toll bridge, but traffic was otherwise light. It was a day of very few lines, which is a good enough Christmas present for me!