Mr Gloves' Jolly Holidays #3382938

[kidgloves]

Another Summer holiday, another stretch of 6 weeks of endless 10am+ get ups, morning cookery programmes and the early episode of neighbours. What is a man to do ? Get himself + wife down to the coast that's what.
Location of choice this time : Clacton. I vaguely remember being there when I was a kid but it's been a long time. We arrived and set about looking for a B+B. The first place advertised £39 per room a night, not bad we thought for start of August, but were told that was the single room rate, and the double would cost us £60 a night, well I'm fooked if I'm paying that for a couple of rashers of bacon and some watered down orange juice and as I glanced to my right, the dining room was full of o.a.p's playing dominoes, time to swiftly move on.
The next b+b didn't have a room for 2 nights, but he tried his best to get us in for one night, not accepting our perfectly legit argument that we weren't arseing about moving for a 2 night stay.
B+B no.3 took the trophy and we had to settle for paying £50 a night but Terry, the owner was a friendly bloke and even moved 3 cars on his forecourt to make room for my trusty Skoda.
After dumping the bags we went for a look around. I was a little nervous of the fact that the place looked quite small and therefore would have limited playing opportunities but it came good in the end.
We started with a walk down to the pier and ordered the mandatory burger and chips that you have to eat when you first glance the sea and get a whiff of the air. Sadly we were served by some Kosovan refugee that took less than a passing interest in her job and the wifes burger was still pink in the middle. We got our money back for that and decided to wait until we saw a proper chippy before eating.
The pier had an old feeling about it, the arcade and indoor fun fair were not busy at all. I wandered over to the 'casino lounge' and found far too many S16's but chanced my arm on an old Simpsons £15 JP. The barcode swiftly dropped from a hold setup and the red 7's were there off nudges. I noticed a 777 heaven in the corner, these seem to have had a mini revival in the last couple of years, but the new chip has destroyed the innocence of the original, a bit like nudge nudge wink wink machines that have had the same treatment.
Lots of small steals were had off Panthers/Cabin's...the wife had most of them as this is her one and only source of 'sneaky' info that she has learned and she performs the SH rip with enthusiasm much to the annoyance of the local 8 year old chavs.
We moved over to the main street where all the arcades were situated. The wife, sensing my plan to frequent all establishments promptly moved off to the shops for a bit of retail therapy.
The arcades seemed to be owned all by one company. The first one I tried had a nice large Casino area and the S16's were doing brisk business. I tried a chuzzy bar x and to my surprise the feature activated at the first setup, sadly for a flat £25. A Bar x 7 was full next to it, no other machines seemed full so I ruled out top up day, but it's a love/hate situation when you are in an unknown place and you hit a full machine....refill.....incorrect top up......sneaky management.....dodgy hopper......anyway I ploughed on. Happily it woke up after about £40 in and did a run of X's for about £120. I let the bank accumulate to the max and it auto payed the excess every few wins or so until the fooker ran out on me. Dodgy situation no.2: will the management be ****s or will they be nice ? I let a change flunky know and he told me someone would be over in about 10 mins...they turned up and manually refilled it for a ton. So, collecting my £70 would leave £30 in the hopper and the same situation would arise if it was still in a paying mood. Why can't they just do the job properly ? Then everybody is happy. The machine changed mood as it happened so I left it anyway.
The other arcades had various playable items, lot's of Magic 10's and the like were bumped up to bigger wins: X's £10 Bars £20 7's £35 but still nice to see them all set by this company at 30p play. They play slightly differently to their cheaper brothers and sisters, can have runs but can also do stupid things like drop you £80 out of the blue then die. I had this after a fiver in on one....Bars for £20 dropped 3 times in a row then a hold on the £10 then dead. Of course for every winner there were lots of losers, my strategy is to try £3 in a machine and it for it to either pay a win (obviously) or show signs that I like to see which by and large show that a win is imminent.
The one big downer I had was a full Monopoly GG which didn't hold after nudge for £70 then proceeded to give me 45 minutes of £5 tops with no JP's in between and then a flat £25 up top. Boring boring boring, made a mental note to try it later.
Mazooma have made a similar machine called King Cash with top reels and 3 crowns in view anywhere to activate the top reels, I've had dealings with it before but nothing in great detail, so when I was presented with a full one, I ploughed on with caution. Another barren wilderness of unentertaining gameplay presented itself for an hour and a half, this consisted of machine saying "you give me £35+ and I will give you feature for £25 + no credit break or more annoyingly £17-£24 lots of times"
As I was just about losing the will to live at last a top feature with a credit break which did £65. A bit gutted it didn't go for more, but more relieved than anything else, but then it offered the feature straight away and suprisingly did another £75 which emptied it. Nice get away there, all the time I was playing it a woman was continually feeding notes into a S16 Mega Slot which didn't offer the feature once, I know these can go on spells but an hour and a half with no top feature ? That's just taking the piss.
In the evening we tried out the pubs, but there were precious few of them, we seem to keep hitting seaside places where an abundance of pubs just doesn't seem to exist. Of course there was the trusty J.D.W's and that was where I made the most money, it took two visits over the course of the day, but overall took two Red's for a £70 and a £105 and a Warped for a £70. We went in one place that was dead, but the music was at full volume and disco lights on dazzle mode. There was an old itbox in the corner which was happy enough to offer £4 on spot the difference at level 6. We did leave a lot of itbox's spot the difference high score tables with our name at the top.
Next day we drove down to Southend, a lot busier here and had more of a feel of seaside about it. Nice decent sized fair and plenty to go at on the arcade front. More of the same really, no massive profits or losses, but I'm happy to come back from the coast evens or slightly down as it is a risky business even when you know what you're doing.
It was nice to play a few golden oldies, roller coaster allowed me to get to Test your strength but most the lights were out so that was annoying. I nailed stop 'n' step on Big Bucks which was satisfying saying the last time I did that must have been about 10 years ago. No obvious sharkament, but funnily another couple seemed to be following us around, he seemed to play stuff after me whilst she kept on the look out, I didn't leave them much mind so I tried a bit of reverse sharkament on them and played a Magic 10 after him and got a nice £45 run of bars for my £3 investment, he didn't look impressed.

[levartemit]

A good write up as always Mr. Gloves, can almost hear the seagulls now....( and envision machines with cracked buttons and half the bulbs blown lol).

[Gambogaz1]

Sounds like a nice cheap break there you've had. I've never had a clue on the lo-tech stuff,strictly hi-tech awp's for me. I had a record breaking profit day on saturday. I'll do a right up later as i'm about to finish work.

[Gambogaz1]

Right I'll try and keep it brief. Got a nice little run on a saturday at the moment.
Starting time was 11.40 am
Pub 1
2 Machines Vortex and On a Roll both by Red.
Chose Vortex 1st and seemed to take an age to break through the SS to MS but finally got it off £60 for a £70 top. next feature showed it had died. So left it a few quid up.
On a Roll I suspect now that somebody who works on the door on a friday plays it as it seems to play well mid-week and sh*tty on a saturday. Cost £75 for a flat £35 top then died.
Pub 2
2 Machines Crazy Cash Point (Red) Suits u Sir (Games media i think)
Time to lick my wounds and go again. CCP has been dead on my last 2 visits but finally this time it was full and my 1st bonus gave number runner which I stuffed up
Not to worry though it cost about £30 to get 2 £35 tops. and a few hi/lo cash features. Took £90 out in total.
Always just have a few quid on this as I finish my pint and usually get a half decent Cashpot. This time though £4 for a feature which was IM. Did a Flat £35 but followed it up with a £14 Cashpot then a £21 cashpot and a £7 Superstreak.
Went get something eat and a quick count up gave me £66 up after being over £30 down.
Pub 3
2 Machines On a Roll (Red) Jewel in the crown (Maygay)
OAR cost £40 to get the top which did £35 then next feature went up again for a £70 top.
Jewel in the crown gave 4 quick features taking £5 cashpot,£8 Cashpot £4cashpot with repeat and £6 off cash strikes.
Time for a break before I end up p*ssed as a c*nt.
2pm and over £100 up is always a nice start.
5pm head to a different town.
Pub 4
3 Machines
Jailbirds (Extreme) Fun Nudging Criminal,Show me the mummy (Red)
Start with jailbirds and what a start, £2 for a feature which gives the 5 swags for a £70 top.
Fun Nudging criminal seems to be my bogey machine. Never won on it and not touched it for over a month since I put Over £250 in to get a Top.
Anyway still no change. Showing all the signs of being happy but still cost £75 to get a flat top £25 followed by another flat £25 then it died again.
Show me the mummy had a £4 win on the reels so just played for a few features. Built up £20 odd quid off just over a tennet so left it happily enough.
Pub 5
1 Machine
Luck Devil (Red)
Won on this everytime I've played on it but for once it had some back off me. Cost about £70 for a flat £35 top then died.
Time for a taxi home as its now 7pm but decide to call in the local spoons near home.
Pub 6
Just time for 1 machine
Lucky Devil (Red) Again
This 1 was much better, cost about £40 to get the top which went for £70 plus £10 in safe cash's built up on the way.
Got home and a count up showed a profit in the region of £250 - £260
Hang on missed a pub.
Pub 5a
3 machines CCP (Red) Rovers Return (Mazooma) DOND Walk of wealth (Bell Fruit)
Thought they'd got rid of me CCP but the sneaky twats had moved it to the other side of the pub. Red X'in straight away and went up to the top after £30 in for £70
Rovers only cost me a tenner to prize in the lines for a £35 JP
DOND I really hate this version but could afford a few quid. After about a tennet in I got the phones and got an offer of £18 with the £35 and £1 left i think. gambled and got the £35 in me box. then a few nice features after meant I took £50 odd out for about £20 odd.
Absolute Cracker of a day but the 1 machine that still bugs me is FNC. It just doesn't play like the other reds! I even took red mega cash expecting it to be the top feature and it gave £5!!!
Yeah Real Mega that is. The only thing for it is