As a VIP with Caesars Casino/Hotel Group, I am always receiving offers, tickets to events, etc. Recently I received an offer to attend the AC Food and Wine Festival as a VIP guest and when I read the names of the celebrity chefs to Sara she was totally psyched for a mother/daughter food & wine induced week end of partying! I booked my room for three nights and was provided tickets to the Grand Market and Italian Village on Friday night and a private dinner and cooking demonstration on Saturday night. Sara heard about a Food Network kick-off party on Thursday night starting at 10pm so I called my casino host (sending love out as always to Cathy Cudoni) and she got me tickets for that as well.
We spend the evening (morning really because it is, after all, after midnight) gambling at Caesars and then decide to grab a bite to eat at the only place open at 4am which is the Cafe Roma. Our waiter, John, is possibly one of the worst waiters I have encountered anywhere: surly, forgetful, brusk, inattentive. Sara's coffee is a cup of light brown liquid, the color of tea maybe but she doesn't get a chance to say anything because John's only other visit was to deliver our food which was also incorrect (especially strange due to the fact that he made such a big deal of saying that there would be an extra charge for chili on the fries -- okay, when isn't there? -- and then delivered her a plate of plain fries). Anyway, as soon as she mentioned the lack of chili he took off to bring a bowl of chili on the side that she could dip them in. Never even apologizing for the gaffe, he was gone like a flash and the coffee issue was still on the table (pun intended). We could have brought it up at the point in the meal when the waiter usually stops by to see how everything is going and if anyone needs drink refills -- but apparently John is unfamiliar with the workings of a restaurant meal. To be fair, John did have ONE other table he was tending to at this time so maybe it was too much for him? Hmmph! At least the food was good and he was the first inept/unsociable Caesars employee I had ever encountered so I put it down to a one-off. When I finally was able to track him down at the end of our meal to request a check, he brought it over and then was put out when I told him I was charging it to our room. Is this some new thing? You have to tell the waiter in advance how you're paying? It's not like I was using some kind of buy one-get one free coupon! It's a HOTEL FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!
Our next scheduled event was Friday night from 6pm - 10pm at the Grand Market at Bally's. We spent the day gambling and at the beach (Caesars does provide beach chairs, towels and an umbrella for Diamond VIPS which is a really nice touch even though the beach itself is a poor, pitiful comparison to my lovely MB and Surfside) before getting ready to attend the Grand Market/Italian Village and finally get to meet some of those TV chefs! Signage at Bally's was sparse, but I was able to ask some employees for information and we found ourselves aboard a very crowded elevator heading to the 6th floor to pick up our tickets by 6:30. Thank God we were late and the lines were shorter....I can only imagine what they were like an hour before that! We were given all access wrist bands and a very nice tote bag containing a souvenir wine glass for the tastings and a roll of Reynolds non-stick aluminum foil. There might be other stuff in the bag -- I haven't looked -- but I was happy to see the Reynolds because just recently I've seen a lot of commercials showing some guy taking salmon or some other fish off the cooking sheet and it doesn't stick at all. Of course I don't cook and even if I did, you can be sure I'd never be cooking fish! But the commercial guy looks so pleased that every time I see the commercial I think to myself "I would buy that" Back to the Grand Market....the woman who gave us our tote bags said we should start at the Italian Village but using the Disneyland Tips (always go to the left when you enter, most people go right) I said we should head to the Market and save the Village for last. The crowd of people waiting to get in gave us pause (hell, no!) but having the wristband gave us VIP access so we strolled right in and were surprised...alarmed...dismayed at the sight before us. Wall to wall people! At a convention! I'm not sure what Sara thought it was going to be, but I had kind of expected like a "Marketplace" with all little food and wine stalls. This thing was the East Coast trade show without bowling balls. There were tons and tons of booths serving wine (lots and lots of wine booths) that you couldn't buy and then some booths offering kitchen knives, plates, aprons, cookbooks, etc. all of which you could buy. Where was the food??? There were a few booths that had small sample tastings but they were offering things like slivers of chocolate, slivers of cheese, a blob of crab meat, a Ritz mini cracker you could dip in some salsa..... certainly not enough to soak up the alcohol that was about to be consumed! And the people....masses of them....like sheep all walking in a row....are you kidding me? It would take until later than 10pm to get everyone in at that pace! Has nobody else ever been to a trade show/convention? Anyway, I spent the next hour and a half trying to find a place that wasn't overrun with people. Unsuccessful at that. But we did get to try some amazing wines (too bad we can't buy them without driving 3 hours) and then found our favorite booth of all -- SKYY Vodka who had an assortment of cocktails they were serving. Yummy! Unable to take the crowds any longer, we stepped out and into the smoking lounge (nice touch!) where we proceeded to gripe with all the other smokers who were as disenfranchised as we were. But, then we remembered we still hadn't been to the Italian Village so maybe some pasta and meatballs were going to be available to go along with some nice Italian wines? Alas, it was not to be! There was a food distributor with a rather large booth with some food samples but the lines for that were wrapped around the room so in the words of Cee Lo Green F[orget] You! 10 minutes later we realized that this was the same shtick as the Grand Market and instead headed to the Diamond Lounge where we could get some real food and drinks (not that we needed any more alcohol at that point). As an aside, surprisingly, Bally's Diamond Lounge is much more elaborate and sophisticated than is Caesar's. Our waitress, however, was only fair and I was starting to wonder if maybe something was going on on a corporate level because the cocktail waitresses on the floor the last two days also hadn't been too friendly. It just seemed like everyone we encountered wasn't too happy in their jobs.
Okay, so we had struck out at 2 of the 3 Food & Wine Festival events but Saturday's exclusive VIP Invitation Only Dinner & Demo had to be good, right? After all, it wasn't advertised, you couldn't buy tickets, so it must be something special!
Headed back to Cafe Roma for Breakfast Saturday morning, assuming that John wouldn't be working that shift and was happy that my Diamond status would allow me to avoid the long line of people waiting to be seated. Unfortunately, after 10 minutes, the hostess still had not come back to the podium from wherever he/she was so we decided to forgo any further wait and went to sit at the counter. There was only one other gentleman there and he was done with his meal so we were pretty confident that the service would be exemplary. We were wrong. And I was planning to speak with the restaurant manager before I left that day to talk about both visits. But here's where it gets interesting: as we were sitting at the counter a gentleman came to the counter and asked our server "how much is a cup of coffee" I don't think Mostafo understood him. The gentleman was clearly exasperated and was explaining that he was sitting at a table over there (which he pointed to) and was apparently having a hard time getting service so all he wanted to do was buy a cup of coffee while they waited on a waiter. During this exchange, a woman in a suit came out from the kitchen and observed what was going on. Sara and I both assumed she would either pour the poor guy a cup of coffee or direct Mostafo to do so. Neither of which happened! The customer threw up his arms in disgust and went back to his table, unhappy. The suit-lady asked Mostafo what that was all about and when he told her, she just went back into the kitchen. I asked Mostafo if she was the manager and he said she is the shift manager. Now I'm not claiming to know the first thing about Restaurant management; but I do know a little something about customer service and really all she had to do was hand the guy a cup of coffee or at least ask him what the problem was or if there was something he needed!
Spent the afternoon gambling at Caesars (I finally hit a Royal Flush but it was on the nickel Super Times Pay so only $200 and not the $1400-$1600 I had planned on!) before checking out to head to Harrah's for our VIP Dinner. Sara was reservedly anticipating the event, even hoping that all the celebs would be there but would be happy if it was Guy Fieri or Robert Irvine. The only ones she didn't care about were Pat & Gina Neely because she doesn't watch their show.
As I expected, getting there at 6:30 rather than the 6pm starting time was the smart move because everyone else was already inside and seated. (If we had seen another crowd I'm sure we would have skipped the dinner entirely). We got our requisite wristbands and seating assignments and then entered.....a wedding hall. That's basically what it was. 5 or 6 thousand people seated at tables of 10. There was a stage set up at the front center of one of the walls but from our viewpoint anyone standing on it would have looked like an ant. They did have large flat screen tvs set up all around the room so you could see what was going on -- but for that, you could just be in your own living room watching tv! Salads were already on every table, as were rolls and butter. We were told a waitress came by to take drink orders but she never came back so I just went to the bar myself. When I returned, dinners were being served. Everyone got the same thing: filet mignon with mushrooms, some kind of fish (halibut?), asparagus wrapped in a carrot and a little puff of something that someone thought was potato but I am pretty sure it was risotto. I ditched the fish but the filet was rather good and I was especially impressed that they were able to make 6000 dinners come out tasting like they had just cooked one so Kudos to the chefs at Harrah's because the celeb chefs weren't there yet. 25 minutes had passed. That's right -- it wasn't even 7pm and we were already done with the meal except for dessert which was on its way. Someone put a bullet in my head, please! I commandeered the waitress as she was removing our plates and asked if she happened to know which celebrity was coming to the dinner. After thinking for a minute, she said "yes the name is Neely". OF COURSE it is! Sara you are like a big black cloud! There was no reason to suffer through this any longer unless a magnificent dessert was coming.....but when the waitress said it was some kind of blueberry tart we said in unison to our table mates "we're outta here" to which 4 of the other 6 responded "we're right behind ya!"
Downstairs at Harrah's a circuitous journey brought us to the smoking area where we played slots for an hour or so before heading back up the Parkway to home.
All in all it was a great weekend because Sara and I got to spend it together but the Food and Wine Festival is a super dud and I feel sorry for anyone who spent a penny to attend any of the events we did. Maybe some of the other events were better....who knows? I did see the line for Guy Fieri's Cheese Steak battle and if all the events had admission lines like that I give credit to the people who have the time to stand around waiting. Maybe when I was in my 20's.......
Also, I'm still pretty sure that something is going on at Caesar's with the management because of all the disorganized and disgruntled employees but I didn't have any interactions with any employees at Bally's or Harrah's so I don't know if it's a "property" issue or a "chain-wide" issue. Maybe I'm more critical because I just spent a week in Vegas at a non-Caesar's property and a few days upstate at Turning Stone....both places at which the employees at least pretended to love their jobs and their customers even if they didn't really. But I think I can tell when a company's employees like coming to work and this attitude, albeit new since my last visit, is pervasive throughout the casino and hotel.
