Even I am willing to admit that 56 below zero is just plain cold. Temperatures that low make a girl a bit nervous, especially when the pickup won’t start due to an untimely short circuit in a plug, and especially when there’s reserved seats on an Alaska Airlines jet waiting to whisk that same girl and her husband off on a much anticipated winter vacation.
We (ok, not we.. Steve.. bless his heart!) managed to get the truck going, I dug out our warmest winter gear, we loaded up our suitcases and headed to town to spend the night before the flight a bit closer to the airport. When the temperature was a full ten degrees warmer the next morning, we were giddy with excitement and hopped on the airport shuttle wearing light jackets and sneakers. Everything looked good until a flight attendant announced that we might want to put on warm coats, since the jet way hydraulics were acting up in the severe cold, and they had to change gates to find one that would extend “most of the way” out to the plane. The whole waiting room just laughed – nobody was going to run out and grab a parka just to get through a few feet of arctic cold, and we all bravely, and very quickly, marched down to the plane and tried to not feel too guilty at leaving everyone behind to deal with bottomed out thermometers.
We were on our way, only our second winter vacation ever, and we are getting used to the idea we can sneak away during the coldest part of January and find some sunshine and visit family at the same time. Having a retired teacher in the house and a grown son out of the house has taken some getting used to, but after this trip, I think we’re getting the hang of it just fine. I did feel a bit guilty leaving the library girls to hold down the fort in the cold and dark, but by the time we landed in Anchorage, I am embarrassed to say I wasn’t giving the pile of paperwork on my desk much thought at all. We truly had a great vacation, and I didn’t cook even once for two whole weeks, which has got to be some kind of record. We did have lots of food adventures, though, beginning with the chow that passes for airline food nowadays.
In a phrase, bring your own. Although we’d called ahead to have special meals for our lunch, they never appeared, and the flight attendant was apologetic, but vague as to the reason. A follow up letter is on it’s way to Alaska Airlines, which has always given us outstanding service in the past, so it’s somewhat of a mystery why things didn’t work this time. We did manage all right with the sandwich and granola bar offered between Anchorage and Seattle, but between Seattle and Vegas, just under a three hour trip and right during dinner time, the only thing offered was a bag of potato chips. This happened last year also, and so we were prepared with fruit and cheese and crackers in the carry on bag. We weren’t the only folks rummaging around in bags for survival nibbles, either. Several folks brought fast food burgers or pizza on board they purchased
at SeaTac, and one very serene looking lady just up the aisle from us seemed perfectly at ease with the biggest submarine sandwich I’d seen in quite awhile. And of course, the first class passengers, bless their hearts, were noshing on something that required real knives and forks. I know it’s nice up front, and I’ll fly there given half a chance and an upgrade certificate, but the price difference isn’t enough to pay out of pocket, and I’m happy back in steerage most of the time.
So, we were headed south to sunny Las Vegas for a couple nights, and then off to Laughlin and Bullhead City for a week to visit my favorite in-laws, Patti and Chuck McCombs. If you’ve never flown into Vegas at night, I can highly recommend it. It was just as dazzling this year as last, and I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of it. This time we actually knew what we were looking at from the air, since we traipsed around a good long while last time and got an eyeful of the Strip in all it’s tawdry glory. It really is an amazing experience to fly in over the desert - for such a long time there is simply nothing but miles of complete darkness and then, wham, all that neon wattage hits at once and it’s spectacular. The Vegas airport is immense, but well marked and easy to navigate and in no time we’d grabbed our bags, caught a cab and were on our way to the Riviera Hotel and Casino.
The venerable Riv is up at one end of the strip, across from Circus Circus where we stayed last year. It’s a Vegas landmark, built back 1955 and it’s survived several remodels. It’s been the location for several movies, including 3,000 Miles to Graceland, Casino, and Vegas Vacation, among others. With 2,000 rooms, it’s considered a mid-sized casino, especially by Vegas standards, but the service and the staff are friendly, helpful and professional – and they never make you feel like you’re just a clueless tourist, even though you probably are, like us!
Every hotel in Vegas has at least one incredible buffet, a nicer (meaning expensive) dinning room, and our favorite, the ubiquitous 24-hour coffee shop. After getting settled in our room, we bounced right down to the casino for a bit where I immediately lost a roll of nickels without crying too much. We caught a comedy review show that was great, and then headed to the coffee shop for a late night supper. As with our last trip, we found the wait staff and cashiers at casino restaurants were just about the best you can find. Orders were taken quickly and accurately, our food arrived in an amazingly short time, and it was nearly always delicious and very inexpensive. As a bonus, every waitress calls the guys hon or sweetheart, and every waiter calls the ladies “doll”… which kind of bothered me at first, since I have always felt I have first “hon” rights to Steve, but it’s meant in the sweetest way and we actually grew to like it. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, from desk clerk to bell captain to bus boy, to other guests in the elevators, asks where you’re from. We heard so many states mentioned we lost track, but none of them got as big a response as when we said we were from Alaska. They all wanted to know how cold it was at home, and when we said 56 below, they nearly fainted. Did I mention that when we landed it was 55 above zero? And that it was a sweet moment to go outside to hail a cab and feel too warm in even a light jacket? By the time we left the Riviera, our favorite doorman (who kept thinking we needed a coat to walk outdoors) and a couple waiters were calling us “Alaska” instead of hon and doll, which was fine by us, too.
One of the best parts of staying at the Riviera was that I had the wonderful opportunity to interview the Vice President of Food and Beverage, Mr. Lloyd Wentzell. He kindly gave me thirty minutes right in the middle of his extremely busy day and it was fascinating to learn some behind the scenes stories of running Las Vegas hotel and casino. Lloyd, who hails from Brooklyn and has worked in the hotel industry since he began busing tables at 11 years old, has a college background in accounting, electrical engineering, and business, but kept returning to the hotel service industry where he finally decided to stay just because he loves the work. In New York he worked as a captain at world famous Sardi’s, tended bar at the Copacabana, and also worked for a time at the incredibly elegant Waldorf Astoria. He even worked with Leona Helmsley to open the Helmsley Palace Hotel back when she was referred to as “Queen” in the hotel industry – you may remember the glossy magazine ads featuring her picture and the caption “The Queen is in residence” when the hotel first opened.
Lloyd moved to Las Vegas seventeen years ago to supervise room service at Caesar’s palace, and has now been at the Riviera for the past 12 years. I asked him for some big numbers and here’s a couple whoppers that he
told me. Last year the Riviera, considered a midsize hotel in Vegas, served almost 2 million guests. They served over 3 million cocktails, and have over 500 people on staff. Most of the larger hotels on the strip have upwards of 1500 people in the food and beverage division alone, and their number of guests can be twice as high or more per year. It was stunning to think of 2 million people consuming 3 million cocktails and needing 500 people to look after things. That’s a lot of towels to launder and a lot of glassware to polish!
I was eager to hear unusual room service stories and right away he said his favorite one was the four thousand dollar breakfast. A casino manager had come to Lloyd so he could ok the bill, and on the ticket he saw a normal breakfast for two guests consisting of scrambled eggs, bacon, toast, coffee and juice. Then beneath that he saw the pound of beluga caviar, the two bottles of Lafite Rothschild Champagne, and the Hennessy Brandy… all charged to breakfast! He immediately ok’d the bill, since the guest was a high roller and as is often the case, was taking his “comps” in room service, and tucking away the extra goodies in the suitcases that were being loaded into the limo after breakfast. In Vegas terms, the high rollers are called “whales” - presumably because they make such a splash in the casino when they land with all their money. You have to drop a lot of dough to get this kind of deluxe comp, upwards of 250.000 to half a million dollars per visit and there are people that come every day to Vegas and do just that. They never have to pay for a meal, or for a suite, for limo service or for anything else their little heart may desire during their stay. They simply leave a nice tidy pile of money behind them when they go. I can’t add that high, nor am I that fond of caviar, but I will admit a secret desire to haul around in a limo someday, though I doubt I’ll get that kind of comp playing with my nickels.
For people like you and me way, way down on the other end of the scale, there’s the low rollers, of which I may someday be world president if my present win/loss earnings don’t change soon. For a nickel to even leave my hand and wander through a slot machine is a painful personal experience, but I actually got comped this trip, and all because we knew to sign up at the players club and get a little plastic card. As Mr. Wentzell reminded me, the hotels love to give things away and you may as well get in line to get some of the freebies. All it takes is a couple of minutes to get a card, which you then show at a table, or slide into the machine when you play. The casino computers keep track of how long you play, and reward you with free rooms, meals, and various and assorted trinkets during your stay. It’s easy and fun, and last year, even though we only stayed at one casino, we got tons of offers for free and reduced items in the mail all year long. My big comp this time was a free breakfast at a buffet in Laughlin, which wasn’t all that big a deal, but it was fun to find out I’d earned it, and I swear it tasted better than ever since we didn’t have to pay for it.
Anyway, I got brave and asked Lloyd a little bit about the wine list since I’d heard that some casinos have deep dark corners of their wine cellars where they keep amazingly old and rare vintages. He told me that he’d taught wine classes in New York and loved to find treasures to stock the Riviera cellar now and then, but that the really rare or special bottles would never appear on the regular wine list. During his tenure at Caesars, there were actually five different wine lists, depending on the type of guest and their personal requirements and the same is true for most casinos. If a guest is with a convention, for example, and can charge expenses to the company on his corporate credit card, a different level of spending might be in order than for someone just on a quick weekend spree from Los Angeles. All of the wait staff, casino managers, servers and wine stewards have to be aware of who is in the hotel and who might need this extra attentive service and that can prove challenging at times with so many guests, and so many staff members to keep up to date. Enter the trusty computer, which does a great job of keeping accurate records of who is doing what spending and where they like to hang out in a casino.
I knew the hotel had 2,000 rooms, but I wondered how many guests could be served at a convention dinner, and to my surprise the number was 4,000. Lloyd did laugh though, and said not to say that number out loud to his executive chef who gets pretty excited when there are that many people to feed at once! I told him I have trouble serving 40 people and making sure everyone has a hot meal, and he said they have taken a lesson from Detroit and actually have an assembly line for plating up dinners. It’s a plate conveyor belt with twenty chefs on each side and as the plates move down the line, they get dressed with fresh ingredients hot from the grill, and are then slid into a giant warmer until service. It’s the only way to keep things running smoothly with that many people dining, and with an army of wait staff ready to deliver, everyone is assured a hot meal all at once. Next time we visit, I aim to get a peek at this operation for sure!
According to all reports I’ve seen, Las Vegas is the fastest growing community in the United States. And even though there was a slight dip in visits after September 11, things seem to be on the upswing again, according to Mr. Wentzell. I asked what it was like to live in “sin city”… how was it to raise a family and what was it really like off the Strip? He seemed completely charmed with Nevada in general and with the Las Vegas area in particular. He emphasized it was so much better than living in New York, and especially in Manhattan, where you couldn’t even drive a car or have any peace and quiet. In the greater Las Vegas area, new schools are being built that are state of the art, the community is rich with diversity and the cultural opportunities extend far beyond the night club entertainment of the strip. As Las Vegas grows, the support industries that go along with it are also growing and making for a stable economy, and more people are attending college and getting business backgrounds than ever before. He did admit that Vegas is pretty much a single industry town and that tourism will always pay the bills, but even with that, there are so many things to do besides gaming these days that it would take weeks to see it all.
I learned more about Las Vegas in that thirty minutes than I had in the past year’s worth of reading books and checking internet sites and I am so grateful to Lloyd Wentzell for sharing his time with me. and with our Delta Wind readers. And yes, I did leave him a box of real Alaska smoked salmon as a special thank you before we left the hotel – and I hope he enjoys it!
Part two of the great winter vacation tale next time when we finish up our Vegas days and head down to Laughlin for some amazingly tasty eats, a really fun nightclub show, and some personal contact with palm trees, golf courses, the original London Bridge and oranges. did you know they grow on trees? Also, actual recipes will appear in the next column, I promise!
