Could I please have a little less frustration on this trip? This morning I got to the Tropicana with no problems by taking a bus, but then when I went to the box office with my confirmation email there was a sign saying the Titanic exhibit was closed until further notice. The woman behind the desk claimed that I was automatically refunded when the exhibit closed last Saturday, but she didn’t know when it would be reopening. She was rather rude about it - I guess she’s been dealing with this a lot.

So since I was down at that end of town, I figured I’d go on the Manhattan Express roller coaster at NY-NY. I got all the way through the casino and up to the entrance, only to find that it wouldn’t open until 11:00am. By this point I was pretty annoyed! I figured I would move my afternoon plans up and head down to the Golden Nugget to meet the deaf dealer there. I had to wander through just about every hallway at the MGM Grand to find the monorail entrance! I actually liked the $5 monorail ride, though - they have entertaining recorded commentary. So I took it to the Sahara station, and then got on a bus to the Golden Nugget ($1.25)

I had heard about the deaf dealer from a DeafNation video, which featured a guy. When I got there, I asked an idle dealer about “a deaf dealer,” and she said “oh yes, she starts at 12:00″ - and sure enough, she turned out to be female! Her game was three-card poker, and her shift apparently started with a break, so I used my Sidekick to look up the game while she was out. It looked awfully confusing so I figured I’d ask if I could just watch. She was very nice, and happy to chat with me as she worked; it was amusing to see how she communicated with the players - mostly gesturally. She did have a little “hearing impaired” sign, but one guy didn’t see it wand was confused when she didn’t respond to his question about the minimum bet; one of the other players stepped in to tell him. After a while she had me ask a player where he was from, and I interpreted a couple of questions between her and the players.

It turns out she works at the Wynn too - if only I’d known, I could have saved myself the solo trip downtown! She’ll be there tomorrow from 12-8, so I might go visit her again. She said there were about six deaf dealers in Vegas overall, including her husband (who I gathered was the guy in the DN video). When it was time for her next break, I said I’d be going, and I headed for the Downtown Transit Center to take another $2 bus back to the Strip.