DC FORUM SPECIAL
BY DC CUEVA
BY DC CUEVA
There are certain things that gets this person in a state of being anticipatory: a Bay Area sports team is playing for a championship, the every two-year fortnight known as the Olympic Games, a new season of any MTV Reality series, or anything that's related to the passions I have. It's likely that you have had those occasions where you are ready for something you've waited some time for and just can't seem to sleep at night. Well, that's something I have whenever my parents make reservations for something that, for them, happens a few times each year when they travel out of town and force me to be the man of the house for a week at a time.
But once every year for most of the dozen years, either they or my sister & brother-in-law have tagged this one along to go on a few days' vacation outside of the Bay Area. Over my lifetime, I've had the chance to travel to some great places, though in reality I have only stepped foot in just one country outside the U.S. and four other states other than California... it's unlike those who, thanks to social media, have grown a strong rapport with in the people who make up the family who star in the shows I have considered my favorite for two decades.
A few times, the Cueva family has made that long plane flight over the Pacific to the homeland of my parents & relatives, the Philippines - the "Motherland" as we call it. Five times, we've taken that 7-hour drive down the Los Angeles area--three to Disneyland & Universal Studios as a kid, a fourth to my sister's graduation from UC Riverside in 2002, and a fifth two years ago when we celebrated my niece's birthday with Mickey & friends. A couple times, I've joined my dad to visit my relatives in New York City, and I've been to Hawaii also a few times. And before the advent of the nearby Indian casinos in California, I traveled to Reno a few times, even spending a spring break week in Lake Tahoe. And the most recent vacation saw me win $2,000 on the slots much to my stunned self.
To prove how big a Vegas enthusiast I am, as an online shopper I've collected many things related to the entertainment capital of the world: travel guides, movies including the entire Hangover trilogy, two Real World seasons that have been filmed there, and other souvenirs. I have several private playlists on my YouTube channel devoted to Vegas and things related to it: travel videos, live slot play, things related to the city and other matters so I can watch and put myself in that mood. And there's many SD cards with photos and video I've taken from my adventures there which have been posted across my social channels.
For a trip that takes anywhere from three to five days to enjoy the sunshine and the pleasure, it takes as many as three months for me to meticulously plan out all the details to have the best possible trip experience during the 50+ hours that I am actually on the ground in Vegas itself. I have a dedicated folder full of Vegas material ready for me for every trip, so I do not have to go back to square one again to plan each trip, and will only need to get updated guides and print-outs to reflect any changes to the town since the last time I was there. This process is the same for everyone who plan trips months in advance to make sure things run smoothly come vacation time.
And there's nothing like the week and the last 24 hours leading into any #DCVegas trip, or any big vacation I go on, for that matter. There's having to buy new gear and clothes, wash any garments I may consider to put into my luggage, dusting off my Under Armour shoes that I only take out of my closet just for these occasions, and buying enough music to fill the many devices I have & keep my checkbook happy. And there's also a tradition I have of getting a fresh haircut the day before, or the day of, any big trip. These are all signs that I'm ready to head out of town for the time of my life... and it doesn't officially begin until I play in my plugs ZZ Top's version of Elvis Presley's "Viva Las Vegas" the moment I arrive in the city - a modern day tradition of all of my Vegas journeys.
It's safe to say that since the first trip that I took as an 10-year-old kid, Las Vegas has seen a rapid growth over the course of the twenty-five years since. There were only 330,000 people living in the city itself, and less than a million in all of Clark County back in 1994. It has since tripled to nearly 650,000 in Vegas and over 2.2 million around the Las Vegas Valley region in 2019. And it's the fastest growing city and metropolitan region in our country, and has vaulted into a top-50 market as seen by the arbiters of the data of television & radio viewership, Nielsen.
The marketing strategy of the city & its hotels have also changed, from an experiment in the '90s to try & make it more family friendly to young kids like myself with the theme resorts, to now taking on the true measure of the city as a Disneyland for the adults with plenty of luxury resorts sprawling all over the valley, and of course, there's the "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" mantra along with the person known as "Lady Luck." No wonder why 43 million people travel to Southern Nevada every year -- the third largest tourism-focused city in the country behind Anaheim and Orlando, and joining New York, Chicago and L.A. overall.
Of course, this astronomical growth can be attributed to the city recognizing in the late '80s that Atlantic City was stealing its thunder, and Steve Wynn deciding to build The Mirage turned this city around. In 1994, the MGM Grand and Treasure Island had just opened, but there were still the oldies but goodies like the Desert Inn, Frontier, Stardust and the Sands which don't exist anymore. Those four were imploded to make room for the mega resorts, hotel-casinos and tourist attractions which now accompany most of the available real estate along the Las Vegas Strip. And the addition of the Golden Knights and the Raiders will only fuel this growth into the 2020's, as the town has now forgotten about the great recession that slowed this city's growth.
Olympic enthusiasts like me who love binge-watching the Games every two years know that all of the sports that take place during the fortnight are spread out over the entire host region, and half the competition during a Summer Games typically taking place in a concentrated area of venues. Going up & down the three miles of the Strip gives me the feeling that I'm in that Olympic Park: I can walk from the Bellagio to Caesars Palace, then across the street to The LINQ, and then take the monorail behind the High Roller wheel down to the MGM Grand. There are 150,000 hotel rooms on the Strip, and several times that number in terms of square feet of gambling space, and plenty of competition among 30 hotel-casinos to win over the public, despite the majority of them fall into two companies.
And when I'm in town, there is a strategy that I always follow when I'm there: the city has the right amount and balance of gambling, dining, entertainment, tourism and lifestyle options that caters to everyone. Because the Strip has it all, I'm able to balance out all of those because, unlike my parents who go to the nearby Indian casinos almost every weekend, I don't gamble much and when I do it is only to a budget-friendly degree (see my Reno moment post for more on that). Having The Forum Shops, Fashion Show Mall and shops give me a chance to window-shop a bit, while I can also head by myself to other casinos freely thanks to having an increased public transportation mobility around town compared to what I actually have in my hometown.
My first Vegas experience came all the way back in June 1994, while we started getting fascinated with the OJ Simpson trial. As a 10-year-old going there in the family-friendly era, really... what can you do when you can't play in the casinos? Like most families with kids done back then & still do today, we stayed at Circus Circus in the northern part of the Strip & spent much of our time playing in the midway while the parents gambled downstairs. It was also the only time in a major vacation that I got completely lost when I lost contact with my family, and I had to be escorted up to my hotel room by hotel security to meet back up with them. Of course, this may never happen again because a phone is on me at all times, and whenever I'm off doing my own thing as is always the case here, I always give my inner circle timely updates of where I am at all times.
It would be another 13 years before Vegas trip #2 in August 2007, just merely a month after my sister & brother in law got married. No, this was not their honeymoon (they went to Hawaii just after the big day on 7/7/07), but I was invited to come along. I felt a trip was overdue, considering the limitations I had back then and now being of legal age - and how much the city has changed since I was last there. This was the first time I went on a major trip without my mom and/or dad, so it was the ideal vacation to at least mark my independence and coming of age. We came there for a DJ gig my brother had... and organizers made us change our plans from an original 70-minute plane ride to a 10-hour drive starting before dawn in Silicon Valley and making our way through the Central Valley, the Mojave Desert and arriving in Sin City in the afternoon triple-digit heat. He, sis and my cousin got to handle the wheels of steel, while I was alone gambling for the first time in my life.
In 2009, we went once again, this time for my 26th birthday in November. Once again, we drove all the way from the Bay to Vegas, and once again my bro-in-law had a DJ gig - this time at Planet Hollywood. Once again, we left just before sunrise, arrived ten hours later in Nevada, and there was a time where I sat in the back of our truck where I took off my pants and wore just my boxers... that's an indication of how hot it was back there in cranking up the heater to counter the cooler weather that comes with being in the desert and where things cool off this time of year. But it wasn't only for my 26th bday, it was also for boxing, too: Manny Pacquiao taking on Miguel Cotto for a world title, and I was in the foyer of MGM Grand soaking in the unique atmosphere of being at fight night... if you're a fight fan you know what that is all about. The funny thing about this experience: my dad flew to town to join us for the activities and once he came back to our hotel suite just after he watched the fight, he threw up in the bathroom after having so much to drink.
A year later, we went once again for trip #4, but of all the trips I've taken to Vegas or anywhere for that matter, this September 2010 trip ranks as the best one ever. While this was my second parent-free trip, this one was significant in the circle: one of our cousins celebrated his birthday and most of my cousins joined us and him for the flight. Fittingly for this occasion, this marked the first time that I've had a chance to go for a ride in a limousine, which took us to their timeshare down the road from the Strip. After I stayed back for the night as they took for their first night on the town, the Friday of that trip is what I most remember: we walked past a sports memorabilia store at The Forum Shops at Caesars and in there was Pete Rose, ironic that it was gambling that cost him a certain Hall of Fame plaque. Hours later, we were at Bally's where they went to The Price is Right Live -- but because this person doesn't like to pay a big amount of money to watch a live show, I did not join my cousins as they got to "come on down" and spent my time playing the slots. Afterwards, they got to take a photo with the show's host, 'NSync's Joey Fatone. That was quite a highlight.
A few more trips followed: July 2011 again with just me and the brother-in-law going as, again, we took that long route once again from the Bay Area at sunrise to the Valley before the afternoon rush; my sis didn't come in until later on because she had work that day and flew to McCarran that night. Though this trip was fairly uneventful compared to what happened the previous fall, that year's highlight was getting to see a landmark that is known to those who watch cable TV: we passed by the Gold & Silver Pawn Shop, the home of the Pawn Stars TV show and where Rick Harrison and his family get to look over rare collectors' items and odds & ends that can go for a few dollars or worth or fortune. My mom loves watching that show, as well as Antiques Roadshow, and we shared her that moment of us passing by the Pawn Shop on our phone.
DC Vegas 2013 marked the first time that I had the chance to get to share my Sin City experiences with those in the social media world, thanks to me getting my first iPhone not long earlier. Those who are fascinated with the city know about the famous line that what takes place in this city should be kept in this part of the country and not shared much with everyone else other than with those who you go with. That's not the case with me, though: social media enables me to utilize all available channels to best communicate my experiences. The DCNOW live twitter hub gives me the chance to live tweet what I'm doing there as well as turning it into my own radio station in tweeting all my song choices in my 'plugs. I've taken advantage of doing daily stories for Instagram and SnapChat (which I launched my presence on during a Vegas trip), and live hits during the day on all live-enabled outlets. And we went there during when the NBA Summer League was taking place there.
Like what we're having here on this long weekend, so many people go to Vegas during the summer travel season perhaps not knowing about the oppressive heat that engulfs this desert town in the year's hottest season -- 100 degrees there as we speak now. But ask anyone what their favorite time of year is to go there, and it's likely they'll pick the fall as the best time, because the crowds are not as huge because of the back to school/work schedule. That's when we went for the '15 and '16 Vegas trips, as the weather in the month of October is more ideal and more to manage than walking in the heat, as highs being in just the 80's and walking at night is more calm in the 60's. The 2015 trip took place over the long Columbus Day holiday (and since my dad works for NASA, he has a day off), and I remember being in a sports book when Mexico beat the U.S. in a soccer friendly.
The 2016 took place around the time that the Cubs won the NL pennant en route to that historic World Series title, and it was also when the Rolling Stones were playing there too. Besides choosing this trip to kick off my SnapChat channel, I took my first trip south of the intersection of the Strip and Tropicana Boulevard (where the MGM Grand, Excalibur, New York New York and Tropicana are) to check out the Luxor and Mandalay Bay hotels... which put me over the 20 mark in the total number of Strip casinos I've walked to. But this was almost a year before the unspeakable tragedy that took place in this part of the Strip, all purported by a gunman from inside the ladder overlooking the Route 91 country music festival. And I also remember this trip for capturing something odd on camera at a McDonald's: a homeless lady walked into the restaurant, was cursing out local security and was escorted out in a place with a sign that this, after all, is "a family-friendly restaurant."
My most recent #DCVegas trip was just a year ago, back in August of last year, and it was during that hot time over there in the 100-degree heat, but just after the news of the Raiders moving there. For the highlight of last year's festivities, this 2018 trip came on the thirtieth anniversary of one of the biggest sporting moments of the 1980's: Mike Tyson grew to become a force in the heavyweight division in knocking out just about every boxer he faced, and as an '80s baby he was the boxer we all grew up watching back then, as it was for those in my Filipino heritage when Manny Pacquiao took on that title. June 1988 saw Tyson -- who held all the governing body's belts -- face Michael Spinks -- who held the "man who beat the man" lineal title, and after so much hype going into that fight it took for only 91 seconds for Mike to become THE champ... and it was the zenith of his career, as that loss to Buster Douglas began his downfall to where he's known for that cameo in The Hangover.
Before MGM Grand and T-Mobile Arena succeeded it as that position for the sport and then in the UFC, Caesars Palace rose to fame as the home of the biggest fights in boxing. And in the places where its pool and additional hotel, casino and convention is now, it was once occupied by a sports complex and a large parking lot that saw a stadium of bleachers erected there to host the most meaningful fights, including "fan man" crashing the second fight of the Evander Holyfield/Riddick Bowe trilogy and the Hagler/Hearns slugfest... not to mention Challenge champ Ashley Mitchell appearing on MasterChef. Caesars hosted Tyson's first fight after the Douglas knockout as part of a June 1990 doubleheader with a fight featuring George Foreman, whose 25 years ago achieved that impossible dream of being heavyweight champ again knocking out Michael Moorer. And Tyson was at the same Caesars Palace sports memorabilia shop that Pete Rose was, for a signing event there too.
It's always a tradition for some big announcements to be made during the most opportune times, and for me it takes for a big weekend, event or occasion to reveal something big coming on the horizon. On Saturday night while I was at my sister's place in the Central Valley, I got to reveal the destination for what has now become a near-annual tradition for the past decade: a big vacation out of town, even though this one is taking place after all of us are going back to our normal routines after spending these last few months getting time off to travel the country and the world, though my parents will be out of town the next week going to Europe.
To take words out of the caption that officially announced this big news across all my social channels: yes, the summer as most of you see it ends today on this Labor Day Monday... but now, the real countdown is just starting up. And that is to something that's been a quarter-century in the making: nine previous trips there, and the moment that still is fresh to me of what happened in Reno not long ago, all comes down to what will go down on the weekend of October 25th. And if you saw the caption of the Instagram photo of my red travel folder, I ended it with a small little wink to what is about to go down: "But to give you the smallest little of hints: I'm X-tra excited."
As they always say, "X marks the spot," and here, this is DC VEGAS X. In taking a cue from the NFL's practice for branding Super Bowls in using roman numerals, this October venture there will mark my tenth time going to Las Vegas, something that has been in my planning ever since I left last year: I knew that, sooner than later, Number 10 will be coming... it's only a matter of when it in the calendar this was gonna took place. And though we had originally planned on going to Vegas during the early part of this summer, some events with my uncle who was supposed to join me & my dad having to postpone due to family stuff, saw this trip get postponed to next month.
Regardless of the time, the circumstances and everything else, what's most important when it comes to going to Las Vegas is having the best time possible. As of right now, I'm in the planning stages for an event that takes place in 53 days, and that is plenty of time to get myself in tip-top form and to get myself up to speed on what I want to do when we get to the last weekend of October. I've spent plenty of downtime at home and even at work browsing through info on new attractions, shows and other things that are taking place when we're in town for, what will be, four days before Halloween.
Now, when you look over the calendar of what's going on in Vegas on a certain weekend, it seems that there is never a dull moment or an uneventful Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday there. And during the time we'll be in the town, think about what will be taking place: there will be pre-Halloween events both in the clubs and in haunted houses & spooky attractions going on around town, plus the last weekend of Octoberfest. Journey is playing at Caesars Palace, while Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani, Boyz II Men, Willie Nelson, Paula Abdul and Staind's Aaron Lewis are headlining shows here too. Lizzo and Radiohead's Thom Yorke have tour stops here took while The Chainsmokers are at Wynn the weekend I'm going, among other big names in EDM who headline sets in the clubs here every week... and the late October weekend is also when the dayclubs close for the winter too.
And in the sports world, this DC Vegas X trip will fall during what will be a big sports weekend across the whole landscape. The Vegas Golden Knights have two games taking place during the weekend, including a Friday matinee at 3 o'clock on a Friday afternoon, while UNLV hosts San Diego State the next night in football. And in this new era in sports gambling, sports books will be filled to capacity to watch the middle games of the World Series, an NFL Sunday highlighted by an Eagles vs. Cowboys tilt, a college Saturday featuring Notre Dame and Michigan, Spanish football's El Clasico between FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, and the NBA's opening weekend.
And as far as what I have now in my plans, it's still early. But at midweek, it'll be 50 days... that's a sign that as fall is coming, so is my trip. The gameplan won't change much, and because I already got to drive up to Reno in June I won't have to buy as many new clothes as I would usually buy ahead of a vacation. But being that I'm a regular viewer now of YouTube videos that see users do live streams from Disney parks and casino floors, I have plans on buying a gimbal that can allow me to take video that is more fluid and stable than I have in the past. As I am practicing video work right now at where I work, this will continue my evolution in that field... and as always, I plan on being active on all of my social platforms bringing to everyone my experiences during the course of that weekend, obviously heeding the longstanding order to those who visit.
Las Vegas is the town where where there are so many fascinating parts to it that any one facet can't be mentioned without making mention of so many others... that includes the nine previous occasions I have made the trek there by air and land to a town in a desert that has so much to offer. And soon, it'll be Time for Number Ten in this twenty-five love affair with this incredible city.
- I AM DC
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