Casino Hopping Vacations

[FloridaPhil]

This is the "Recreational Play Forum, so how about talking about recreation? Threads about rigged machines, casino financial troubles and kidney stones are getting pretty stale, so I thought we could talk about video poker road trips. Our spring trip to Biloxi is coming up next week.  We do the same thing all the time and have so much fun that we can't wait to go again.  We don't play golf, visit the spa or eat in fancy restaurants. Our whole day revolves around video poker.  In Biloxi, we always stay at the Beau Rivage.  It's a wonderful hotel very much like a mini Belagio without the Vegas hustle.  We always stay on weekdays to get free or highly discounted rooms.  My day starts around 5:00 AM.  I love to get up early and play before the casino gets noisy.   My wife likes to sleep in and watch the shrimp boats from the hotel room.  I play all  morning until she comes down about 8:30.  We play together for about 30 minutes then go to the Roasted Bean for some of their great coffee and pastries.  After that, we spend the entire day cruising from one casino to another.  Some of our favorites are the Palace, IP and of course the Beau Rivage itself. We always drive down to the Island View in Gulfport to play the machines at the bar.  It's the only place in town where you can find single line 9/6 Jacks in quarters. We only stay about an hour at each one. The day ends about 8:00 PM when my eyes are crossed from playing all day.  The second day we casino hop down the beach all the way to Bay St Louis to visit the Silver Slipper.  We have lunch at a great seafood restaurant on the water and play all the way back.   You may be interested to know that we do this on a bankroll of $250 a day each.  Since we've been playing the Cheap Strategy, we hardly ever have to dip into our reserves and many times we come close to breaking even. The odds don't bother us because a win depends strictly upon luck. If one of us hits a max coin royal, we are rolling in dough.   We take these trips all over the country and it's the cheapest most fun vacation we could imagine.  Anyone else doing this? 

[notes1]

great topic. i love casino vacations, and we have done dozens of them. we have a couple, who live in a different city, that we have been best friends with, for more than 30 years. the guys like going to casinos and the girls like shopping and touring. we have done many trips that were at a destination that included both. we are very fortunate,all the trips we have gone on and never an arguement. i think we have all learned what each person likes and everyone needs to give a little.  vegas is the obvious choice, but we have also done AC, florida, niagara falls. we always schedule time together to eat and discuss our day. even though i am only a diamond member, i have often been able to get on a free junket. free airfare, hotels and food help compensate for some of the gaming losses. it used to be better years ago, but still offsets some of the expense. the two guys alone went to biloxi last year. stayed at the beau, beautiful place, visited many casinos and great ocean views. but, the machines were terrible and gave me a bad taste for the place.   the one thing i noticed from all the junkets i went on were that in many cases, the was only one person in a marriage, who liked to gamble. not always, but often only one.      

[FloridaPhil]

We've been doing the casino vacation thing for about 10 years. My wife is a high end Realtor and she gets pretty nuts from time to time with the stress of her work.  Our casino vacations are a great way for her to chill out and get away from the job and the phone. We don't like to play slots, only video poker.  She didn't like gambling in the beginning because I gave her money to play and she felt bad if she lost it.  She now plays with her own money and it works much better.She played Jacks or Better for years and was bored with video poker until I taught her Deuces Wild. She absolutely loves playing Deuces Wild.   Our favorite VP vacation is Colorado.  We spend 3 days in Blackhawk then drive down to Cripple Creek for two days and come back to BlackHawk to end the week.  Both spots have decent odds and the scenery in spectacular.  My wife's a Florida girl, so seeing snow is a big treat for her.   A few years ago we casino hopped from Florida all the way to Windsor Canada and back.   We've even casino hopped to Vegas and a few trips to New Mexico.  Last year we visited the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut and met up  with Olds442.   We're looking forward to  some new trips in the coming years. Any suggestions would be great.

[chattycattty]

The concept of the casino vacation is why we gamble exclusively at CET properties. Every year we spend a total or 60 - 70 days away from home at one of their properties. For the most part they have casino hotels everywhere we would like to go. We take most of our trips 2 to 4 days at a time. Even though we lose a modest amount of money every year the casino vacation for us is much cheaper than owning a second home. And we do not have to cook or clean. And we do not have to pay property taxes or face maintenance issues or worry about trying to keep it occupied when we are not using it. And in almost every case we have had our airfare or transportation cost and the costs of our meals paid for in full by CET.

[notes1]

i don't suppose your wife works the sarasota area? we are looking to move from chapel hill, nc to florida within the next 20 months.

[FloridaPhil]

She sells lakefront homes in Central Florida, mostly in Mount Dora on the big Harris Chain lakes.  I don't know what's going on, but the rush to buy a house in Florida is crazy right now.   In the fall of 2008, you could have shot a cannon down main street and not hit any buyers.  Right now, the street is full of Realtors. 

[olds442jetaway]

Hi Mr. and Mrs. Phil. My wife grew up in Gulfport. Probably spent at least 9 years down there before high school up north. Was a lot different around 1960 than today I guess. She still misses it.

[FloridaPhil]

What a nice area.  I would live there myself except for the fact that I would probably be bankrupt if I could play video poker every day.   Also, I would live on a boat so I could get the heck out of there when a hurricane was coming.  

[olds442jetaway]

As part of vp bankruptcy plan reorganizations, a judge has ordered casinos to offer to the debtor 100 play 1/4 cent machines with 99.9999% paytables for all games. Any profits of course go to the secured creditors. Sounds like a plan to me.

[alpax]

A refreshing change of topic (those topics you've mentioned has no bounds) and thanks for sharing. It seems you are well organized and I can see the reason you have a good time. Personally I only dream of enjoying a billyjoe-like trip, but video poker trips can be cheaper than tourist trips since the gambling activity covers hotel rooms and meals.

I have mixed feelings about casino hopping. The good part is to be able to experience the best that each place has to offer, on the other hand, in order to receive as much comp/bounceback benefit as possible, it is best to play mostly at one place. At least it is necessary to explore the goods and the bad the first time around the area.

As chatty brings up CET and billyjoe mentioned in the past, it is good to stay within casino groups so that your benefits can accumulate effectively and carry over nationwide, Boomtown (Marquee) / Beau Rivage (MGM) / IP (Boyd) / Harrah's Gulf Cost (CET).

The only other thing I could think of is, if you could go back to most of those casinos within the same month as your birthday, you can reap the most benefits with their gifts.