Return to the Shore AC 2016

With two kids in tow now, Vegas trips are getting harder and harder to do. But to scratch that gambling itch, and take advantage of free rooms and eats, I've found myself in Atlantic City more and more. This will be my 5th trip there and my third with the family. Its just an easy trip to make from Chicago. 80 minute flight that costs $75 round trip. Pretty decent comps and lots of family fun.

Yes, AC politically is a mess right now. They are looking at a state takeover of their finances and they are quickly running out of money to pay for all the stuff a city needs. But this has zero effect on the city's engine which relies on tourist money to drive. Sure there is crime, but not where the tourist hang out. They do a VERY good job of patrolling the boardwalk and I have never felt unsafe exploring (where I am supposed to be exploring) so don't let the media scare you off of a wonderful resort town.

Normally I would suggest going during the warmer time of year. The end of April saw us stuck in the mid 50's most of the time with plenty of rain. But since its been nearly a year since we took a real vacation, and Spirit started up flights to the shore again (they only fly seasonally) we pack up team Grid and hit the airport.

Tuesday

We see our plane and we actually board on time. The first gamble of every trip I make is flying Spirit Air. You never know what you will end up getting when you roll the dice on them. But its so cheap and they are the only line that fly's direct to AC from Chicago.

Before you can say "You really want to charge me $10.00 for a pillow?" we are on the ground in Jersey.

Cab rides are capped from the airport, just $27 to get you to any resort in town. Slap in a tip and for $35 we are at Borgata in 20 mins. We are booked here for 2 nights in their Fiore Suite. Pretty nice!

Plenty of room for the toddler to run around and the bathroom was actually bigger than the room I once stayed at in Bally's.

We had a corner suite with views of both Harrahs & the Golden Nugget out one window.

And the Boardwalk and Marina out the next. So far so good.

We eat at Bread & Butter which is always good. But since the food court has yet to open before 11AM during the week (it's an AC thing) the place is packed. I have $50 in comp money up front to eat with and $100 in free play.

I turn the comp dollars into some slight indigestion and the free play into $124 with the below hit while the clan is napping.

Roll over to the new Flintstones and hit a series of smaller hits and bonuses.

I leave Dino, and my $100 seed money is up to $225. Play some Cash Wheel and get that up to $270.

And over to Cash Wizard and a decent $170 line hit. Now I'm walking around with $250 in profit.

I take that ticket over a fancy newer Wheel of Fortune and only spin for $77 in the free games. Still up, so I wont bitch... Too much.

I start to go on tilt betting $5.00 a spin on the below game before it finally coughed up a $188 bonus game on me. I'm almost back to my high point now.

Over to my friend Mr. Power Ball and I'm now up almost $320 since walking in. Not bad for an hours worth of work!

I ended up sitting on this game below for a good 45 minutes. I was racking up points and the bleed was slow to my bankroll. I did end up with a $90 hit but i ended up cashing out a $250 TITO. So my once magnificent $300+ profit is now cut in half.

I don't even remember what this game was, or why I was playing it, but I guess I got $75 in a bonus bringing me up to $200 and $100 in the black. I want to have a winning session so I squirrel that money away and head up to collect the family.

We decide to head over to stupid Harrahs, since the Borg doesn't have an arcade.

I'll lay out the route below since there is always some confusion as to how to get around in the Marina District.

Unlike the Boardwalk, where all you have to do is walk North or South in a line to get everywhere, the Marina is chopped up with marshes and highways. The first time I was here I found myself running across an open field and in and out of highway traffic trying to get to the Borg from Harrahs.

But I'm no longer a dumbshit, so go ahead and follow this route. Head to the back of the Borgata near their poker room. You'll find a Bridge, below (baby might not actually be there), and a set of doors. Head out those doors and veer left. You'll walk in between a pair of parking garages and you'll end up running straight into a path that runs along the marsh. Turn right on said path.

The path is always well lit and they have lookouts via smaller piers along the route if you want to stop and look around. Plenty of benches for resting and since this is the Marina, no beggars or bums to be found on the route.

Now you are supposed to follow that path ALL the way around to a proper Harrahs entrance. That will add a good 15 minutes to your trip. They will make you circle the new convention center and you'll end up meandering all the way to the front of the property. Take the Grid endorsed short cut!

You'll see the employee parking lot on your right. look for the long covered walkway below. That will dump you out right into the employee entrance. Since you cant get in there, just keep walking straight along the parking garage (where the cab line is) and you'll see a proper entrance on your left. That will cut you right into their little mall.

We walk through Harrahs and get to the Harbor Tower. If you jump in that elevator and go up to the 4th floor they have a nice little Family Fun Center.

Not a ton of games in here but for a kid there is still plenty to see and do.

The quickest route from the Borgata to an actual beach is via Harrahs. Once you walk out through the back of the property (where the Jitney stop is) you'll see a pathway along the water. This is actually the same path that started way back in the marsh. We just took a short cut.

You'll see the expressway over your head, just keep walking... Now this is a very unofficial beach. As soon as you turn the bend (see above) you'll find a chain link fence that ends on what seems to be a gravel lot. Walk through the lot and a private little beach is yours to explore! I literally stumbled onto this gem trying to find a short cut into the Golden Nugget.

We stop by here on every trip now and only once before did we see another family there. Not sure if its entirely legit or not. But there isn't any Trespass signs so I assume you are safe!

This beach has the best seashells if you are looking for a free keepsake. Unlike the Boardwalk Beaches that get plowed every day, and crush their shells, this little beach is mostly untouched. So whatever washes up on shore is yours for the taking! Sea Stars, Crack pipes whatever.

Much like the below Horseshoe crab carcass I found. Initially I wanted to put it on the baby's head. Sort of like a Davey Crokett of the Sea thing. But the wife didn't like that idea, so the toddler and I just poked it with sticks.

Now if you wanted to, you could leave this beach the way you got in and head left right into the Golden Nugget. They actually have little feet painted on the sidewalk to show you how to get in. They do have a small arcade and an OK buffet. But since I'm not gambling here, we just head back to base.

Since I used my CET Diamond card to become Black Label at the Borgata, the buffet there is just $10 a person and kids are free. I already racked up another $100 in comp money, so that became our dinner. Its OK for $10. But I'd feel like an idiot if I paid out $33.95 each for this without the card. For $70 we could have feasted at a much better place! But for $20 the price was right.

Tummy's full, and plenty of adventure had, we head back to the room for the night. We take a couple of quick selfies with the kids before tucking them in.

Between getting up at 4AM, and flying to the shore, they crash pretty quickly. I head back down to the casino after they fall asleep and crash there just as fast.

I went from being up $100 to being down $800 in just a couple of hours. No decent hits to keep me chugging along. Much like all of my stays at Borgata, its either feast or famine on their slots.

Wednesday

Still half asleep, I head back down at 6AM (5AM my time) I cant tell the wife I just pissed away almost half my meager $2K bankroll while they slept.

I couldn't get on Game of Thrones at all the day before. There was a line of people just waiting to play these things. At $5.00 a spin, I quickly loose $200 before I finally hit a God Damn Bonus.

I switch over to some carnival Video Poker to slow my roll. I do OK. I eventually get back my $200 loss and start to grid my way up $20 on the morning.

But don't worry, I pissed that away over the next hour. I'm now all the way down to $130 from a TITO that once boasted $317.

The thing about the Borgata is, they always have the newest games. They often have slots here before they hit the strip in Vegas. But everyone wants to play the newest stuff so I don't mind gambling early and alone. That just means more new stuff for me!

Now its against my gambling credo to play much of the newer games. My philosophy is to play the oldest and shitiest games in the casino. You know the ones that were made back when the minimum payback was like 95%. Those always offer the most bang for your buck. If they are still on the casino floor after 20 or 30 years that means people are still playing them. And I can only surmise that they are still being played since they offer a fair gamble.

But I always get caught up in the newer stuff and like a moth to a flame I head over to the giant Ted slots. It doesn't take long before I get a bonus.

I end up picking the shit out of the mega symbol and get the best one. I ride that glorious bastard all the way to the top for $375! I just dug myself out a of gambling hole for the day!

I take that $480 Tito over to WOF again. I was in for almost a hundo before getting most of that back. This is the second time I got a $77 bonus on this Fucker. What are the odds of that? Apparently pretty good I guess.

I stick that $400 ticket into Lord of the Rings and get nothing but dog shit bonuses. $3.50 bet and I "won" $10, $0.00, $20 in my bonuses before finally getting the below.

I'm starting to go on tilt now. I was down to $50 from $500 before getting $100 off this machine.

Still the damage was done. I guess you cant always gamble out of a hole. Sometimes the hole just gets deeper. Who knew right? I go up and collect the family and we head off to eat at the buffet... again. Did I mention its only $10 each?

For breakfast its everything you would expect. Its hard to fuck up breakfast food anyway.

I stick a $100 bill into this guy before heading back up to the room after we farted around for a little while. I like winning $209 compared to my earlier downfall.

We head to the pool and its just too hard to carry a baby and take pictures. Its a nice pool. Just small. And it was certainly packed with kids. If you don't like your pool with urine in it you can always stay in the other tower.

At the Water Club Tower they have an adults only pool. The only piss you might encounter is from drunk adults. Its also small. But have no fear, they are currently digging a big outdoor pool as I type this.

After gathering the troops, we decide to hang around the resort for the day. Its raining outside but plenty of indoor stuff to pass the time.

We shop a little and burn up some comp money. Sadly its mostly funny money since it will cost you two for one unless you use them at like 4 restaurants. Its bad enough they charge $5 for a small Monster energy drink. But that's $10 in comp money.

Still, the wife wanted some hoodie and we are checking out in the morning anyway so we piss most of it away.

That poker room bridge seems like the place to play. The toddler makes a friend before we head down to the cafeteria to eat.

I have zero luck in the casino that night and I end up at -$1200 here. But I still had some decent hits and I was able to grind plenty of money through the slots to cover another trip. At the end of the day, I earned $202 comp dollar + $101 slot dollars to use on my next trip. Add in the room that we just stayed in, the $100 in free play I had waiting for me and the $50 in bonus comp money it really wasn't that bad of a deal.

Using some gamblers math... The Fiore Suite is $260 a night during the week. That's about $300 with fees and taxes included that I don't pay. So $600 in rooms + $250 in food/gift shop stuff covered and I'll have another $150 waiting for me when I come back. That's $1K value for only $1,200 in gambling losses. While I'd much rather win, it really is a solid value.

Add in the fact that if I did win in the casino all of that would have still been free. This is why I gamble!

Thursday

A little back story on how we ended up at the Tropicana. I have never gotten a card there. I would always break up my stay between the Borgata (to stay a couple nights in the Marina Dist) and CET where I would stay at Bally's or Caesars on the Boardwalk. I was already rated with both of those clubs. But outside of my 1st trip a few years ago, I completely went bust every time I stayed and played at a Total Rewards joint.

Their slots are just that tight. So tight, in fact, that they lead the charge to not have to report their slot holds by denomination any more! They actually got the gaming board to change what was shown to the public, and now all casinos in town no longer have to tell you that their penny machines paid back 87% the month prior. Now they get to group total holds, which gets swayed by better returning video poker.

As a slot player, I'd want to know the hold on a nickle machine (on average) to know if I have a fighting chance or not. But when you group it all together that mixes in the smaller hold with high denom machines and video poker and just lumps it together. Make no mistake, especially after they went bankrupt, CET Total Rewards will fuck you on their slot machines.

If a slot manufacturer produces a game that will payback 82-98% I'm pretty positive that CET will take the 82% every time. Add in the fact that the free play I did earn on my play was insulting, $40 with them VS $300 with the Borgata if I hit a bonus day, and I had to find a new home on the Boardwalk.

So I hit up a host at the Trop. Told him my coin-in per day on average, sent him a scan of my Black Label and Diamond card and he took care of the rest. So here I am at the Trop, in a free room with $250 in free play!

The room wasn't ready by noon so we wandered around the mall for awhile.

Found a new "bridge" to play on.

We scoped out the mall, which is pretty awesome and actually shoppable. The Borg has plenty of stores, but its mostly high end. At the Trop there is plenty for the "regular" family to spend their money on.

We get up to the room, but everyone wants a nap so I didn't get the chance to take any pictures. So I grab my new Platinum card (the host upgraded me before I got there) and went to see what sort of damage I could do.

First up was some airplane game. I turn my hundo into $200.

I play around for a bit and end up on this Peter Pan game. I picked the shit out of this bonus and got back to $200

Played that ticket down before I ended up back at the Airplane game. That's a $113 bonus and right back to $250

In case you haven't seen the pattern here, its pretty even up and down with the swings. I was in for $80 and hit for $100 on WOF. Back over $250 now.

Worried that my meager $800 wouldn't last here, I actually got back up to $1,000 before going to collect the kids. The wife wasn't feeling well, I guess she had a toothache. Or she just didn't want to have to bother with the kids any longer. So I grabbed the one kid, that could wipe her own ass, and we hit the beach.

She loved the see-thru elevators!

Honestly, my kid is pretty happy. But I have never seen her happier than when she is on a beach. The water, the birds to chase, the sand to dig. If only the weather wasn't so shitty!

I told you she was happy!

We finally get Mom out of bed and hit up their arcade. Its one of the better ones in town.

And the 1st Jackpot of the trip goes to my kid!

She should stick to wheels and not skee ball. After investing only $10 of her money she walks out of there with 5 lollipops, 2 tattoos (like Daddy) and 2 tea sets. Score!

Pass through the casino on our way back to the mall so we could eat. No $10 buffet here.

We end up at Ri-Ra, an Irish joint, which was pretty good. Considering the kids are part Irish, we use some of the comp money I steadily built up over the morning. So another free meal as it turned out.

All told it was only $30 for the 3 of us to eat and we had food leftover to take back up. A solid value and pretty decent grub.

Kids back to bed and Daddy is back to "work". Mystic lamp is a hard bonus to get. But if you pick it right, which I did, its a solid bonus to be had.

Finally catch a break on the below old game!

Took that fortune over to this game and did OK.

I ended up at their lower level casino and took my $300 TITO under $100 before hitting a $90 bonus. Old and Shitty slots to the resuce!

Back to that damn Airplane game again and another solid hit. $205 is pretty damn good for just a $2.50 bet.

I got the below off of WOF before I petered out for the night. I ended up gambling for 4 hours this night and while I did lose a total of $500 on the day I really got a lot of gambling in. I think its $1.00 of coin-in = 1 point and I ended up with almost 10,000 points. So that's plenty of play for my money.

I cant really blame them for my losses since I started getting greedy on a few machines I should have jumped off of. Those $5.00 slots at $15 per spin can make you a genius or an idiot. .. I wasn't a genius...

And I finally took a picture of the room the next morning. It didn't even take 24 hours before these barnyard animals destroyed a perfectly nice room.

It was well appointed, had a nice view of the ocean and an OK shitter. I've stayed in worse and it would have been decent had we not slept in the Borg suite the night before. But it will do.

Gather the troops and hit the Boardwalk!

My daughter used to LOVE the animatronic crocodile at Rain Forrest Cafe. We had to visit him and "feed him pennies' every trip we took here. This time that big bastard scared the hell out of her. I guess a lot changes for a kid over the course of a year, and this Fucker is suddenly terrifying!

The Gorilla was OK. Last time she booped his nipple. This time she didn't get too close.

We make a pit stop at Bally's as we wait for the mall to open. CET still calls it the Pier, but the new owner wants you to call it the Playground.

Boardwalk Cupcakes at Bally's

Finally, the mall opens at 11AM on a Friday (Its an AC thing). After having this poor little girl pace out front of their awesome candy shop for 5 minutes they let us in.

I hate to use a cliche but, well, she was like a Kid in a Candy Shop.

Grandma gave her money to shop with, so we loaded up with Chocolate pens and other goodies.

After that walk back, the girls all crash for a nap and Daddy goes back to work. Now I only have $500 to work with and I quickly lose $400 of that.

I crack into my 2nd batch of Free Play and get a nice $100 hit. Now I have $200.

$123.00 on this one and up to $300 left for the trip.

$85 here and up to $375.

I played around for a good hour only losing $50 or so and played this weird Bee game. I have no idea what happened. I got a bunch of wilds and a bonus game and came out with $200. Back to $300!

No clue why Buffalo and slot machines go so well together. I was one row of buffalo away from almost $600 but $128 isn't bad. Now up to $400.

Played a little bit of this Dolly. As you can tell by all of my Dolly shots I like to listen to Jolene on repeat. I picked well in the record bonus and scored $80. Still down a bit from my high point.

Over to this guy and an easy $200. If that flaming 7 were just a normal red 7 it would have been a grand ($250 and I hit the 4X) But now I'm at $500!

I just dug myself out of another hole! Time to check on the nappers.

With $500 back in my pocket, I grab the girls and we go shop for taffy. It seems like we should buy some Saltwater Taffy but none of us like it. So we just look around and complain about how it will just get stuck in our teeth or how it will constipate the kid.

The wife runs off to gamble and I take the kids shopping. Naturally they have a candy store here as well. Just not nearly as large as the Pier.

We buy some old Easter Candy that's 75% off, its not like she knows, and wander the mall for awhile. The baby can only look up from her stroller but I guess the ceiling was pretty fun since she stayed quite.

After Mom got her gamble on, we head downstairs to grab some Philly Cheese Steaks and a grilled cheese for the kid. I like Philly's Best. But they only have a Tony Luke's here and it was very disappointing. More like a hot deli sammich than a Cheese Steak.

As the wife was scoping out the menu, I sneak off and put $40 into an old and shitty money storm. I hit the bonus and re-trigger a few more times and net almost $250!

We take our food to go, and head back to that stye we call a room. Wash up, put the girls to bed, and leave Mommy with her toothache to try and get the rest of my money back.

At one time I was down to $100. Suddenly I'm over $800 and still rolling! I nail $177 on yet another older WMS slot.

I was loosing a bit before hitting $127 on Charleston.

Starting with that $40 seed money before dinner, I was up to almost $400 at one point before going on tilt. My normal $1.00 mechanical slots were killing me most of the trip. I depend on those to keep me chugging along.

I sadly bleed that ticket down to under a hundo before hitting $315 on this older IGT slot. Again I picked like a champ and this shitty old machine gave me back all my money!

I played around for another hour or so before hitting this for nearly a hundo.

And I pulled off the rest of these to get me through the night.

Even with all that winning, and the Trop trying to keep me honest, I still lose. But not much. I was down to $100 on the day and I went to bed with $300 left. After 2 days of gambling, and almost $20,000 of coin through the machines, I was only down $500 here.

Saturday

We fly out today at 4PM. I do gamble a little since I had the room booked for the night. But I don't do much of anything. Mostly smaller bets like quarter games just to put some time and money through the account so the host wont feel sad.

We head out to the Boardwalk to say goodbye to the Ocean.

It got to be a little too cold for the baby. And even Daddy's patented "Diaper Hat" didn't keep her warm so we went back inside while the other girls played in the sand.

All told, I really really liked my stay at the Tropicana. The machines seemed extremely fair. Its not like I played for 20 minutes and got lucky. I played for almost 16 hours and ran through $22,000 worth of action and it only cost me $600 out of pocket. That's a good deal. The entire property makes you feel like you are somewhere special. It is now on our must do list every time we are in AC.

Again, I don't like to lose, but to get the room for free and I ended up with over $200 in comp money that's actually 1 for 1 in their mall its a great deal. We turned some of that free money into fancy souvenirs.

AC, hang tight, I'll be back when you are a little warmer!