Las Vegas - 3rd September

I woke up around 9am and went to the buffet breakfast at the casino. The buffet cost $9.50 and you could get as much food as you liked. A lot of it looked inedible to me so I stuck to Sausage, Bacon, eggs and some pancakes.

Heading off I caught the ‘Deuce’ bus which I mentioned yesterday. It cost me $5 and I can use it for 24 hours as often as I like. It comes along every 20 minutes all day long but as seen yesterday it does have its peak times where you cannot get on and you either have to wait for the next one or start walking. I went down the strip and got off at The Mirage and walked through the casino and picked up some poker chips. I enquired about the Cirque show ‘Love’ which is a show using all Beatles music as background to their performance. Unfortunately it is not on again until Friday so I will miss it.

To get my $5 poker chips, I have been playing blackjack, sometimes single deck or other times six deck. Most casinos have ten dollar minimum bet tables, some only have fifteen dollar minimum at nights but a few have some five dollar tables during the day.

My strategy has been is to sit at a table and get $100 worth of chips. I pocket what I need from the pile, if they only have a chip with their name on it I have been keeping 4 of each. I have been playing either till I run out of chips or if I have one enough to cover the chips I have put in my pocket and then cashing in and moving on to the next casino. Some casinos have promotions for some of their shows on the chips so if that is the case I have been getting four of each. Also some casinos upgrade the design on the chips so if possible I have been getting four of each design.

The reason for four of each is I know other people who collect the chips and will offer them some when I get home.

I walked from there next door to Caesars Palace Casino. The front of Caesars Palace is a shopping centre full of all the exclusive brands from round the world. It is a three storey at the front with a big open area
with a circular escalator
domed ceilings


Then there is a mall going back into the block. All the store designs and the architecture of the building are fantastic. The ceiling is like a blue sky and you would think you are outdoors.
The Gucci Store
A store selling children's toys has a wooden horse at the front
I then went through the casino area picking up poker chips, not being able to continue my streak from last night. I also joined the players club getting some free poker chips to use and a shoulder bag.

I then walked out front of Caesar's Palace and took some photos of the casino and other casino's across the road showing their advertised shows.

I walked further and crossed the pedestrian bridge to the Bellagio. I first went in and got tickets to some more shows. I have decided to see more of the Cirque shows and tonight will see ‘Mystere’ at Treasure Island and tomorrow night I will see ‘O’ at the Bellagio.

I then got the poker chips (winning again!!!) and walked out onto the street in front of the Bellagio.

They have a huge lake at the front of the casino and I was lucky enough to be there as they run through the feature show in the lake. They have hundreds of fountain jets pointing upwards and they play music as water is pushed up into the air at various speeds and heights as well as swirling around which makes for a very visual water display. They replay this show many times during the day and night.

I walked from there to the Monte Carlo Casino which has a Roman style theme at the front.

They advertise that they have their own micro brewery in the casino but when I went to check I found that they had to remove the brewing vats so that some new buildings could be built next door that will form part of a building complex development called City Centre which is being built next door and due to open next year.

They still have the pub there so I bought a t-shirt from the pub gift shop and got talking to the lady, Terry, who works there. She told me about the history of the brew pub and I told her of my interest in brewery collectibles. She told me to come back tomorrow and she would bring in some items she has at home from when they closed the brewery down. I agreed to come back in the afternoon tomorrow. I then went to the pub and was able to get some coasters.

I was then down next to New York, New York, where I had already been yesterday so I had completed that side of the strip at the southern end.

From outside I walked across a overhead walkway and took some photos of other Casinos.

The Mandalay Bay building in the background and the Sphinx head of the Luxor in front of it.

The Excalibur Casino

MGM Grand

For something different I walked down one of the streets off the strip to Hooters Casino. The casino is of course based on the Theme Restaurants’ of the same name and the card dealers are in similar attire. They had 5 different types of chips in use and I managed to get four of all of them plus still walk out with double the cash I started with so my luck was on the improve again. I purchased so items from the gift shop and then walked back to New York, New York to look in the shops they have and then caught the ‘Deuce’ back to Circus Circus to shower before going to tonight’s show.

I caught the ‘Deuce’ back to Treasure Island and got the poker chips (with a small profit) before going to see ’Mystere’. It was a great show. The artists were very good, the music was excellent and really fitted the show well and I felt this show was better than ‘Ka’ which I had seen last night.

After the show I walked across the overhead walkway to the Venetian Casino. There is two entries to the Casino at the northern end you enter into a large open area with a beautiful ceiling.The casino is set up outside as a replica of Venice in Italy. There is a waterway which they have gondoliers you can ride in and inside there is a street scape similar to Venice complete with canals and bridges.
As you walk through the street there are different shops and cafe’s you can use and as you walk further you come across the gondoliers again.

I was lucky here as the Venetian and the Palazzo are run by the same people and I was able to get the poker chips for both from the one table, no luck with the fall of the cards though. As you leave via the main entry there are some very impressive paintings on the domed ceilings.

As I left the Venetian I continued south on the east side of the strip going from casino to casino. Firstly Harrah’s then the Flamingo and Bally’s, none of which are not themed casinos like some of the others on the strip.

Next I moved onto Paris Las Vegas, which has a replica of the Eiffel Tower and a gigantic Hot Air Balloon set up out the front of the casino.

You can have dinner in a restaurant at the top of the Eiffel Tower and the casino has one of the base sections of the Eiffel Tower set up in the gambling area. As you leave the casino at one side is a replica of the Arc De Triumph.

Finally the last casino before I got to where I had already been the night before at MGM Grand was Planet Hollywood Casino. This is a set with very modern decor and is has plenty of space around all the tables unlike some of the other casino’s which cram in as many as they can fit. By this time of the night (early morning) there were not many people in this casino and it was very easy to get onto a table to gamble. I was able to come out in front again here.

In between all these casinos there were a series of smaller Gambling Houses which are not as big as the casino’s but still have gaming tables and poker machines. I managed to stop at each one and get some more poker chips for my collection.

When I walked out of Planet Hollywood I was able to get the ‘Deuce’ back up to opposite Circus Circus where it stops out the front of the Riveria Casino. I went in and was able to get the poker chips and then walked across the road to my room and finally after a long day and night was able to get to bed at 4.30am.

Slots of Fun - A separate building at the front of Circus Circus run by the casino.

Orlando To Las Vegas - 2nd Sept, 2008

I have written the events of my trip since the last post in Orlando and will put them up online over the next week. Keep tuned for them as I hope to put one online at 6am each morning and one at 6pm each night until I the last one.

My time in Orlando has come to an end. I woke up at 6.00am and got the bell hop to come and pick up my luggage. I have packed my suitcase so well that the handle will not extend on the case making it very difficult to wheel anywhere.

The shuttle bus was on time and I got to the airport in Orlando with plenty of time to spare. You can check your bags on the footpath at the front of the airport and one of the South West Airlines staff weighed my luggage. It was 25kgs, and he said that it would cost $25 for excess luggage. I told him I would just pay it as there was no way I was going to open my case the way it was packed. He tried check my luggage but it came up with a note saying I had to go into the airport to get my luggage checked. He said wait a minute and asked the supervisor on the footpath to check and then he was able to check it for me but he said he did me a favour by not charging me for the excess.

I asked him the reason I originally needed to go into the airport and he said I was on a watch list. (I imagine it must be because I had to get the visa for entry. I then tipped him $5 for all his effort especially due to getting me off the $25 excess luggage fee.

I went through the airport security check o.k. and then sat in the departure lounge writing up the blog I wrote yesterday. The flight got away on time and we actually flew over the top of the weather that was still around from Hurricane Gustav. The flight is similar as flying from Sydney to Perth so we had plenty of time to fill especially as there was no Movies or Audio programs on the plane.

We flew over the western rim of the Grand Canyon; unfortunately it was on the other side of the plane and then flew past the Hoover Dam which was on my side of the plane as we were descending into Las Vegas.

I got the airport shuttle to my hotel for the next three nights, Circus Circus.
The shuttle only cost $6.50 per person and after a few other stops I was at the hotel about 70 minutes after I landed. I got set up in the room and got my gear organised and then went out for a walk. I needed to get some bottles of water for the room. My brother Neil has been to Las Vegas and stayed at Circus Circus and he had told me before I left where to go to find a supermarket not far from the casino. After all the heat and humidity in Orlando I was hoping it might be a bit cooler in Las Vegas but it was 103F. The only saving grace is that there was no humidity at all; it was a very dry heat.

I went back to the room and only then found that I did not have a fridge in the room. I had to go to the end of the corridor and get ice for the ice bucket to put the drinks in. I then started to look through the Las Vegas magazine that was in the room to see what shows were on as I was keen to go to see some shows. I saw that the Cirque De Soleil show “Ka” was on at 7.00pm at MGM Grand and that another of their shows “Zumanity” was on at 10.30 at New York New York.

I decided that I would go and see if I can get tickets for the two shows. I went out the front of the casino and went to get the Vegas Strip bus the “Deuce” to go down to the MGM Grand to see their box office about getting tickets. When I got to the bus stop there were a lot of people already waiting for the bus and when it arrived I was not able to get on. They only come every 20 minutes and as it was about 5pm I decided to get a taxi to get to the MGM Grand.

Another collection of mine is collecting $5 poker chips from Casino’s, but only if I have visited them.

Once there I was able to get tickets for both shows and then went out onto the footpath and went to the Tropicana Casino to have a look in there. I picked up some poker chips and then headed back to MGM for the show.

The show was fantastic. I had a seat in the centre of the theatre about 15 rows back from the front. Most of the show is done on moving platforms that go in all directions including vertical which allows the performers to swing on poles placed on the platform which makes them look as though they are swinging from pole to pole. They also dive off the platform into space and drop below our eyesight, obviously onto some catch webbing or similar. I will not try to describe any of the shows I see as it would not do them justice.

When the show finished I had enough time to go and get some dinner and get the poker chips at New York, New York before going to see the second show. Zumanity is billed as Cirque’s adult show and a lot of the women performers perform topless in their routines. There are a lot of sleazy jokes and suggestions in the show and although the routines were good the jokes and comments made the show feel second rate and something you would expect on late night T.V. Overall I was disappointed with this show.

After the show I went to three casinos, Excalibur, Mandalay Bay and the Luxor. The Excalibur is across the road from New York, New York and from there you can go by tram to both the other two casinos. As these casinos tend to cover a few city blocks each it was necessary at that time of night to get the tram. I picked up poker chips from all three of them and even won money on the tables at two of them and on a game machine (similar to a poker machine) at the other one.

After finishing at the Luxor I caught a taxi home to Circus Circus about 2.00am.

Orlando Photos

Well I am back in Eastwood. Got in Thursday morning and am now just getting back to normal.


I have written the events of my trip since the last post in Orlando and will put them up online over the next week. Keep tuned for them as I hope to put them all online until the last one is up.


For this post I am going to put up a series of pictures from Orlando to match the posts I have already put online.

At the convention there was a section for members to put together displays and they were judged on theme's.

Display of Bock Style Beer Memorabilia
Display of Harley Davidson Beer Commemorative Cans & Posters
Display of Rheingold Brewery - McSorley Ale Memoribilia
Display of Iron City Brewery - Mountaineers Brand
Display from the one of the Host Chapters of Florida Beers & Advertising
Display by a member who served in on US War Ships - Beers from ports he had visited whilst travelling the world.
Display of Florida Beer Glasses
Display of Brewery Historical Books
Display of Diecut Display Stands

The Canvention Floor

Items for Trade by members on the Trade Floor

Cone Top Cans

Tennants Girls Cans & Aluminium Bottles Crown Seals (Bottle Tops)
Canvention Floor - Different Angle
Beautiful 1950's Advertising Sign
Aluminium Bottles Items From One Brewery
Beer Brand Glasses
Beer Advertising Signs
Crown Seals - Froth Scrapers - Bottle Openers

The Canvention Centre

Friday PM Brewery Tour - Orlando Brewing Company
Their Merchandise
Adam Checking the Brew
Norbert from Arizona borrowing a Glass from the Brewery
Saturday at the Canvention - More Trading Items

Drewerys Brewery Advertising

Brewery Advertising
Ms Canvention & Me - I'm the one wearing the silly hat.
Me with another groupie with a big thirst
Sunday at Tampa Bay Rays V's Baltimore Baseball Match

Tropicana Stadium - Completely Enclosed Baseball Stadium

Scoreboard
Pitcher About To Throw
The Stadium

Scoreboard Showing The Player Who Is Next To Bat
Soda Bottle Race Between Innings - Shown on the big screen
Ceiling
Ray, Leanne & Barry after the game

View From Hotel Room - Checking out the Electrical Substation In The Distance

I'm Not Lost

Just a quick note to let you all know that I am still alive!!

Had too big a time in Las Vegas to go any writing and have not been able to get internet access since leaving there.

I am at Los Angeles airport about to board my plane for Sydney. I arrive back on Thursday and will over the next few days get up my diary on what has been happening since the 2nd of September.

I have had a wonderful time but due to all the driving have not been able to see everything I wanted to.

Saw Doug and Keith T, who were with us in Orlando at the convention at the viewing area next to the Golden Gate Bridge yesterday. They were doing a bus trip around San Francisco before their plane flew home Monday night US time.

Got to go catch a plane. Will post further when I get home.

Orlando Day 5 to 8

Warning - Very Long Post

I thought this might happen. Too much to do and not enough time to do it! The only time I have in my room since Thursday was to sleep. So now that I am at Orlando Airport waiting to fly to Las Vegas I finally have time to do some typing but will not be able to put it onto the net till I get to the other end. Finally getting to post this on Wednesday in Las Vegas, I have put together an overview of the last 4 days and I will have to add some photos at another time (possibly not till next week when I am on the road in California and have some spare time at nights) as I do not have enough time to do it with so much happening.

Orlando Day 5 – Friday

Trading started late today as first there was a general meeting of the BCCA. It was held at the front of the Convention Centre and was well attended by members. There was a board report from yesterday’s board meeting plus a financial report. Then a ballot was taken for new board members and then general business plus questions from the floor after this there was a photo taken of all the international members who were at the general meeting.

Later trading resumed and I continued picking up items all day long with perhaps the best item being a Guinness Light. The person who sold it to me had owned it for 10 years but had never taken it out of its box. My only concern is as I have to post it home that the sign gets home o.k. It is an aluminium box with a Perspex sign in the front of it.

I also picked up some more coasters and bottle tops and also some Milwaukee Best cans. They have some poker playing tips on them and have been released in multiple sizes and types of beer for a few years. I will try to get as many variations as I can but do not think I will have a chance of getting them all.

At 4pm the trading closed for the day and Adam, Barry and I went on a bus trip to the Orlando Brewing Company Brewery for a brewery tour and the boys had a few samples of their different brews. They have a bar area where you can sample 12 different beers that they brew if you want to, or just try pints of any brew you prefer. We will not get a chance to attend but on the Last Saturday night of the month the brewery has Organic Oil Wrestling night. The Orlando Brewery brews organic beers and they get in a female dancing troupe to wrestle in oil, I have been told it is a very well attended event!!!

After the brewery tour we returned to the resort and had some dinner before getting ready to attend the annual Jersey Shores Chapter Party Night. They have a theme night on the Friday of the Canvention and this year’s theme is a tropical Luau night. We had purchased some Hawaiian shirts and Adam had some flashing badges for us to wear. The night was great fun and it went very late into the night.

Orlando Day 6 - Saturday

After the last two days trading and two nights partying it was a slow start to Saturday morning for most people but I had to get to the trade floor early as I needed to start transporting the items I was obtaining back to my room as later in the day I did not want to have to take everything back at the end of the day.

I was able to borrow a trolley from one of the other members and took most of my gains back to the room. Following this I went looking for more Milwaukee Best poker cans and managed to pick up a few more. I also picked up some more bottle tops and coasters plus a couple of Guinness T-shirts that were on offer. I bought a couple of Chapter shirts from both Jersey Shore and The Aluminium Bottle Can chapter. It was interesting to see the prices drop on the items that were for sale by different people. On the last day people who do not want to take home too much of what they bought with them drop the prices they have put on their brewery items. The reason normally is because they had packed their luggage to absolute maximum and with the items that were swapped or purchased they do not have enough room to return everything home.

I did not want to bring home any of the Aussie cans and items I bought with me so I gave what was left to a couple of the chapters to use in any raffles they have in the future.

The official Canvention photographer arranged for our group of 9 Aussie’s to have their photo taken to be included into the BCCA magazine’s next issue. I had been wearing some of my different Guinness hats over the three days and a lot of people attending had either taken my picture or wanted a photo of them and me together. I also got a photo taken with Miss Canvention.

The trading finished at 3pm and it was not too big an effort to get the rest of my items back to the room. Some of our group were able to package some of the boxes to be posted on the Friday Night so they went to the post office to post them home. I knew that there was a main post office near the airport open on Sunday so I started packing my parcels and will post them tomorrow morning.

We then prepared for the Canvention Banquet; it is the final official event of the Canvention. Adam had arranged for me and him to site with some Canadian people including two of the members I had got to know quite well Ed and Larry. These two are a real blast I have had some great laughs with them both for the whole Canvention.

The banquet night also includes an award ceremony for member displays, Presidential awards, Hall of Fame inductees and also a plague is awarded to all the international members who attend the Canvention. Also on each table is a table centrepiece that is themed for the event and it is awarded to one person on the table. On the centrepiece there was an alligator and who ever its right pay was pointing to was the person who got to take home the centrepiece. On our table Adam was the lucky winner.

At the end of the night I went around saying goodbye to all the people attending and thanked them all for the great hospitality they provided to our group and especially for all the help they had provided over the event.

To summarise my experience at Canvention would be to focus on the friendliness of all the people I met during the time in Orlando. I was able to meet some people I had corresponded with previously and was lucky to meet a great bunch of people not only from the US but from a lot of international countries.

The room to room trading early in the event was a great experience and a great way to meet all the other attendees away from the trade floor. I was able to get some good Guinness items and a lot of other memorabilia for my collection and I think as a group us 9 Aussies were able to really put Australia on the map as a good beer can collecting country and I hope were able to put across that we welcome all of the attendees to come to Australia in the future so we can repay the hospitality we have all received here in Orlando.

Then it was back to the room and time to start packing my parcels for tomorrows run to the post office. I got most of it packed but ran out of tape at 1.30am, so I will need to get up early and go and purchase some. I had been watching the weather channel as there is a hurricane heading towards the landfall near where cyclone Katrina hit three years ago. During the afternoon there had been evacuation warnings in that area and people were all moving out of the area, they had turned all the roads into one way, so on the television it showed two 5 lanes of traffic leaving for safer areas.

Orlando Day 7 – Sunday

This morning I got up and when to the shops to get some more tape to finish packing the parcels that I am posting home. I finished up with 5 parcels to post.

Barry, Leanne, Ray and I are going to Tampa after we post the parcels. Today the Tampa Bay Ray’s are playing the Baltimore Oriels in a major league baseball match.

Then I went down to the Hertz rental desk at reception and picked up the keys for my rental car. The company was supposed to provide a sat/nav system for directions but this car did not come with one so I had to go back up to the room to Google the address and write out the directions I needed to take. Luckily it was not a complicated route.

At this time Adam was leaving for home so I said goodbye and wished him a safe trip. He had a great time and it was good for him to catch up with all the BCCA people who he had met on previous visits to the other eight Canvention’s he has attended.

I took the car to reception and also had 3 parcels for Barry and 5 parcels for Ray to go to the post office. We had so much room taken up we had to leave Leanne at the resort and come back and pick her up later to go out.

The three of us took off and found the post office and did our posting. I also managed to pick up a real nice post office stamped envelope for the closing of Yankee Stadium. When we got back to the resort to pick up Leanne and I went and checked for the right directions to get us to Tampa for the baseball game.

Of course it is interesting to drive in America as you drive on the other side of the road and from the left hand side of the car. With Barry and then Leanne giving some good advice the driving was easy, although I was tending to drift to the right in the lane at times and I was always turning on the windscreen wipers instead of the indicators.

We took off for Tampa and along the way near the Disney Parks were some high voltage electrical wires going to a substation but the top of the tower before the substation is shaped like the outline of Mickey Mouse’s head. I could not stop to get a photo unfortunately as the traffic was travelling too quickly for me to pull over. We continued to drive and got to Tampa but I did not have my directions with me so we pulled off the freeway and into a service station and a taxi cab driver was filling up with petrol. I stopped and asked him for directions and he told me the correct way.

Due to all the time lost this morning we were way late for the game and I dropped the others at the front of the stadium and went to find somewhere to park the car. I ended up only about 600 yards from the stadium and when I had walked back Barry, Leanne and Ray were still waiting in line to buy tickets. The queue was still quite long and we waited about a half hour to get the tickets. Tampa have had trouble getting fans to come to the games but with all the games they have been winning lately it seems that they got caught short on ticketing for walk up's to todays game.

By the time we got into the stadium the game was into the fourth innings. The stadium is an indoor stadium, total enclosed to the outside elements, this obviously helped today as it was quite windy outside with the effects of Cyclone Gustav starting to effect the region. We found our seats which were along the first base line about 20 yards past first base. We were only 11 rows from the front right behind the Tampa pitching warm-up area.

Tampa are having their best season since they started in the competition and are surprise leaders in their division and look destined to a playoff position. The game was quite good for the Tampa fans and they won 11 – 1. The stadium has plenty of team merchandise and concession stands underneath the stadium, which you can walk all the way around during the game.

The drive back to Orlando was pretty uneventful and on return we arranged for 8 of us to go out to dinner on International Drive which is the main tourist stretch along the hotel strip just south of the city. We asked for a mini bus to seat 8 but a smaller minivan turned up and would only fit 7 in it. So Barry, Leanne and I waited for another taxi cab to arrive which took 30 minutes to arrive. When we arrived the restaurant we were going to go to was closed (we later found out that they had gone into receivership). The other 5 were nowhere to be found and we looked for them for 20 minutes in some other restaurants before deciding to go to an English Pub that was next door to the original place we were going to go.

After dinner we looked in some tourist shops and then went back to the resort for some much needed sleep.

Orlando Day 8 - Monday

I slept right through to 10.30 this morning and then got up and did some laundry. Today is a public holiday for Labor Day in the USA. I then rang the shuttle service I will be using tomorrow morning to get to the airport. After this I went to Walmart again and found some more Pringles cans for my collection and also went to a factory outlet store down the road from there and purchased some souvenirs. By this time it was about 5.30pm and we had arranged to go out to dinner at 6.30 so I caught a taxi cab back and met the others at the bar.

Bob and Cia have to get a taxi cab tomorrow morning at 4.15am to start off home to Adelaide so we just went to a local Irish pub called Frankie Farrell’s. On the walls of the pub was some memorabilia and Bob purchased a Bob Dylan item with his autograph on it that will be posted home for him from the pub. We had some food and then a couple of drinks before heading back to the resort.

I spent a couple of hours trying to get everything into my bags to travel to Las Vegas tomorrow and it was midnight before I finally got it all packed. The suitcase is absolutely jammed packed but does have a foam box in it which I will be able to post once I get the hire car on Thursday and am able to find a post office.

It was then time to get some sleep and get ready for Vegas.