Atlantic City in Style! 2018

Its been two years since I have graced the ocean smells of Atlantic City. So much has happened since then. The city went Bankrupt, and one of the casualties was them canceling subsidized flights to/from the handful of cities that could actually get to AC by air.

I tried everything to get back to the Shore. The best I could do was fly into Philly, then drive over, which would cost an arm and a leg to do. Fly to Trenton NJ and drive to Philly to drive over. Slightly cheaper, but an even worse trip. I could fly to Atlanta and then fly to AC. But then do it all over again in reverse to get home.

Aint no one got time for multiple connections and 7 hours of travel time each way for AC. It was cheaper and easier to get to Vegas, so we have been sticking to that.

Then I got a fancy portfolio style mailer one day with that giant unmistakable Golden Tower on the front. The Borgata wants to fly me and a guest to AC for an "Ultimate Vacation"? Looks like I found my way back! But no one under the age of 21 is allowed on the flight. So I dump my kids for 2 nights and take the wife on a weekend getaway.

It would be the first time she has been away from them for longer than 20 hours or so. Let's see how that goes.

Fly out on a Friday and fly home at 6PM on Sunday. Just long enough to getaway without being too long with the kids not being in tow.

Flights from Chicago takeoff from the DuPage airport. You pretty much park your car on the runway, tell them your name at the Flight Center and they hand you a card to board with. That's it!

Cookies, snacks, drinks you name it. All free for the taking in the Flight Center! No security, no TSA standoffs nothing to do but relax and wait the 10 minutes it takes to board your plane.

Air Travel the way it used to be! They tell you to be there at 9AM. No need to get there any earlier, check-in takes 1 minute. Add another minute if you want you bag checked.

Plush leather seats, more free booze, snacks and cookies. Just a 100 minute flight in luxury and...

On the ground in AC. No need to wait for you luggage. When you get off it gets off. Exit on the runway and walk right outside to your waiting party bus.

A bus complete with more drinks! Pretty fancy and easy setup they have going on with this junket.

It is Borgata, on a Friday at noon. The check-in line is wrapped around the lobby. But there is a sign posted that says "Chicago Fly Borgata Guests". No line no waiting!

Guaranteed check-in and it turns out you keep the room on your fly out day as well. So no need to leave your bags at the bellhop for hours while you kill time. They thought of everything and it really does seem like they roll out the red carpet for you on one of these charters.

The room is nice, pretty much a standard. But the standard here is better than every other place in AC right now.

A bed for sleeping, a desk for writing and a TV that we would never bother to put on. Outside of a couple of quick sexscapades and sleeping, we were never in the room.

The shitter is big and nice. The toilet flushed well, which was handy after a bunch of cheap buffets.

Unlike most any other hotels in other places. They have signs posted all of this room saying "If you take this, you will be billed." "If you take that you will be charged."

Ahh, good old Atlantic City! Where you have to remind your guests not to steal from you.

View of the Boardwalk...

Well, here we are. From my house to my room in Atlantic City took just over 3 hours. You cant beat that!

Let's get the gambling party started!

$9.00 bet on Marilyn Monroe bonus for $150

I'm usually not a fan of newer penny slots, but I did well on Seinfeld at my locals, and it was decent enough.

Filled with excitement for being away from it all, on vacation with my sexy wife and our kids safe at home with family... I end up over doing it a bit and lose the money I just won.

But so what. AC Ya'll!

We head over to grab the wife some Starbucks. I guess Ringo Starr is here tomorrow, so they pimped out the place with Beatles stuff. Pretty Neat.

The below game was fun to see in a casino. The wife and I actually Beta tested this game for Incredible Technologies at their corporate headquarters last year.

It actually played much better in the casino then the demo version we played. We both sat on this bank for almost 20 minutes and we both cashed out up.

Played this giant fucker and thought for sure I just struck it rich. $5.00 bet and a full screen of a main character for $75? Lame.

The below is not the type of game I normally play. But since the casino is Non-Smoking, except in certain areas, if you want some cancer and entertainment, you take what you can get. I started with a hundo. Got that up to $250 on BIG, added to it with the Gang Bang Theory and then...

I got more than I gave after a $355 bonus.Now I have a $537 TITO! Right back up for the trip!

Right across from that was a bank of Girl Ghostbusters. I did well on these at Treasure Island in Vegas. And I kept that streak up here as well. $210 bonus and I'm over $600 now. Which is up about $300 on the day.

We wandered around playing whatever tickled our assholes. Won a little, lost a little, won some back and so on.

I played what might be one of the last "Whammy" slots in captivity. 28 bonus spins later I had a solid, for this game, $202.50 victory to show for it.

I was down and out some before Whammy, but I chased out a $426 ticket, which is down from my peak of $607, and Quick Hitted the shit out of the below!

And with that $312 win, I cashed out and stuck my money back in my pocket and we wandered some more.

You forget just how huge their casino is when you are removed for a couple of years.

Played the below and pulled a lucky 5X 5X multiplier out of my ass for a $275 win. By now I'm up about $800 for the trip.

But I lost some of that chasing the below. I finally got a progressive for $121 but I took some doing to get it.

But all was not lost! I got right back on top on the very next game I played. I know everyone says the slots in AC are tight. And I'll generally agree with that. But I play all of the old dank shit that no one else does.

A lot of these slots are dead most everywhere else. But AC still has them in spades. I usually do fairly well on them. And I can guarantee the payback is better than the 88% on a fancy new penny. I'm sure most clock in around 92-95%

Cash that $400 ticket out and I slip a fresh Benny in the below. I was $65 in before this $200 line hit.

With the casino just shitting out money left and right, the wife decides to end our heater (she was up as well) and do the buffet.

No lines for Mlife Gold and above, and just $12.50 each worth of express comps and the buffet is decent enough for what you pay.

The space is nice, but they do not offer much in the way of variety.

One more quick game in the smoking section before we head up to the room to do some alone adult stuff. And By that I mean take a shit and ask to get laid.

And I got to do both! So right back into the action!

So, so close on this one. Line hit for 20 credits ($100) and almost landed the 100 Pay for 100 more credits ($500)

I had high hopes for this fat Frog game. Lots of wilds to start the bonus, but even after that I hardly broke 20X my bet.

And another disappointing Monroe bonus. This time I had a 2X multiplier going into it. So it was like an $18 bet! And just $123? The bonuses come fast on this one, so I sort of get it.

These stupid Palio Pix games became a running joke between us. The Borgata has at least 2 dozen of these, all in different flavors.

I won $200 on a dollar version earlier, and won over $250 on the quarter version below.

It was like a drinking game. Find a Palio Pix and I had to play it. And these fuckers are burred in the most random of places.

Another shot of the cavernous casino. I took this picture since it was literally the only spot in the house that was not crowded with players.

Cant beat a first spin bonus, and the below payed off for $120. By this point, my apex was several hours ago. We are playing nonstop. And I'm betting fairly large each spin. But I'm slowly chewing through my money.

This would prove to be the last solid hit of the night. The wife is going to bed up a little, and I'm now down just a couple hundred bucks.

No one is happy about losing. But to play for as long as we did, and for me to lose just $200, is sadly sort of good.

Saturday

I wake up and leave the wife sleeping in bed. She said sleeping in was one of the biggest things she had to look forward to.

I head down to have a smoke and try my luck. And I Lobster picked the hell out of this one.

I half expected a better bonus for 4 Lobster picks and a $6.25 bet. But a $127 bonus starts the day off right.

Back over to chase on my Diamond Jackpots game, and nail the same progressive but for $134 this time.

By my count, that now puts me down just $77 bucks for the trip!

Back to the Monroe slots I have been banging on this whole time. And it was looking like yet another lack luster bonus.

I was at $146 when I retriggered the bonus for 10 more spins at 4X! That is like playing 10 games at $36 a spin!

This had to be my long overdue Handpay!

Nope. Those 10 spins netted me just $16 more dollars. Wow.

But I was able to milk that TITO for awhile. I won $100 twice on this Black Pearl slot.

I ran a bit cold after that, but I did have an OK MJ bonus on the below.

I spun my chair around from Michael Jackson and sat down on a cutesy Candyland slot. I ended up getting to the end of the game, so i got to play all 3 bonuses.

With a final tally of $244. Pretty solid for this chunk of shit.

By now the wife comes down and we grab a breakfast buffet. Which is solid, it is hard to fuck up breakfast food.

I play one more slot before we head out, and just like that I'm once again back up for the trip!

The plan today is to walk over to Harrah's, play a little there. Hop on the free Boardwalk Shuttle and fart around near the ocean.

So Close!

And yet a complete pain in the ass to get to. The walk along the marsh is not that bad. The path is pretty straight forward. What we did NOT account for was all the fucking bugs due to the rain earlier in the day.

The place looks just as I left it. You can tell the crowds are starting to pile in being 11AM on a Saturday.

We played, and we lost. I lost a lot more than I planned to. I really couldn't get anything going here. I was down $400 in a blink

I did have a great bonus on this one for $247. That helped to slow the bleeding.

But after the smoke settled, I ended up giving that back as well. We both stroll out of here as losers. I dropped $500 with not much to show for it. The wife dropped about a hundo as well.

Should have taken a cab to the Boardwalk for $15. Instead, we got bug bites and a $600 gut punch.

But hey! We are on vacation! The shuttle was waiting, so at least something was going right.

First Stop, Ballys Wild Wild West!

Hands down my most favorite place to play in the entire world. I just wish that they didn't fuck so much of it up. Most of the Wild West theme has been removed and other parts turned into some Millennial puke pit of arcade games and beer pong.

But, with that said, there is still enough here to keep me happy. I dropped a couple hundred more playing around...

And got $100 of that back with the below 2 hits

I do leave here down a hundred bucks, but I got some play and had fun.

Next stop, Tanger Outlets. It was on the wife's must do list. I guess being able to actually shop for yourself, and try on clothes, is a treat for a busy Mom of two.

We end up filling several bags of tax free discount clothes.

The plan from the mall is to cash in my Diamond Celebration meal voucher and piss that $100 away at Gordon Ramsay's.

Not too busy for a Saturday afternoon. We were seated right away.

Here is a picture of the wife taking a picture of her food.

We ended up getting the Ramsey Prime Burger for me and the Fish & Chips for her. Both house specialties. We did share a bowl of English Onion Soup. Tasted just like the French's does.

Add in a fancy cocktail for the Mrs, and a tall Strongbow English Cider for me, and we were at $100 on the money.

It was all good, just not something my pallet is used to. The space was very nice though and we both left full.

Dropped a $20 tip and we headed downstairs of Caesars so she could take a piss.

While she was pissing, I decided to try my hand at an old Monte Carlo slot. I didn't get to spin, but I did manage a $200 line hit. I leave here up $140, which means I'm only down $60 on the Boardwalk after the Wild West loss.

I was sent a "We miss you" offer from the Tropicana. $150 in Free Play. After a year of not staying with them, they killed all my offers. I was drawing good offers as well.

Not even a free weekday room. So I was shocked to see $150 show up in the mail two weeks before we fly out.

As soon as we stepped foot inside the Trop, the place was packed. And I mean jam packed with people. The line for a club card was crazy!

I got into the Platinum line, since I was Platinum the last time I was here. The Club Lady told me that expired and said I had to go into the giant line with everyone else.

I get it. She had my info on the screen and all she had to do was push the card button and make me go away. But I asked for her to call my host John, and see if he will match my Diamond or Gold Mlife card like he did the last time.

Clearly that was too much work for her, so she handed me my card and told me to go call him.

Fuck her, I'm just here to steal their $150 anyway. Caesars and Borgata both have charters to town. The Trop has nothing. I would have zero means to stay with them, so I'm burning this bridge.

I turn $150 into $126 on a Mystic Lamp machine, one of the few machines actually open.

We head off into the Quarter to hit a couple of shops she likes. But one is now gone, some kids store. And the other looks like it is going out of business. Farmers Market.

They used to have a bunch of fun collectables in there, cookie jars, Disney figures, salt and pepper shakers. Now it is all discount junk and birthday cards for some reason. Lame.

We cab it back to Borgata from here. I didn't get to spend nearly as much time as I wanted to on the Boardwalk, but I also didn't want to stiff the Borg out of any play.

We fly out just a couple weeks shy of seeing both the Oceans Resort and Hard Rock Resort open. Story of my life.

Back to Monroe and back to a slightly disappointing bonus once more. 30 spins for $133.

But I go gangbusters on Platinum 7's. Just one away from like $800. Not bad though!

Play around some and end up on this Double Triple Diamond game. Landed a bonus for $96

And my luck was still true on Cash Wizard. I turn my starting hundo into $330. After winning at Caesars, stealing from the Trop and going on a heater. I just made up all of my Harrah's loses.

I lost a couple hundred bucks this morning playing some new Cleopatra Fort Knox machine. I was chasing a bonus that never came. Saw people on YouTube slaying the machine on smaller bets, and I was playing it at $6.00 a spin.

I went back to the same machine with the wife, got the bonus for 8 spins of nothing! Not a single hit on Max Bet. I actually felt sick to my stomach.

We headed to the smoking section right across from it, and I did well on a Betty the Yeti slot. Still stewing over that Cleo insult, I took my $321 ticket back over there and tried again.

Success! A $623 bonus! And just like that I'm back up for the trip! My $100 seed money is now $881.

The wife goes to pee so I play Monte Python and get a decent line hit. Now that TITO is at $932!

I cash that out and play with a new hundo, and take down the below pretty much in succession.

This one was a shock to me. $6.00 bet and a $370 bonus. I'm White. I'm sort of trashy. Finding a White Trash game was pretty funny. But I could see how some real Hicks would be upset by the title.

I guess for the same reason they don't have lazy Mexican games or Ghetto themed slots, they probably shouldn't have a White Trash one either.

But I'll take the money and wont complain!

Play that ticket down for awhile and get a solid $214 bonus on the below.

But the Grind starts to get to me, and I'm slowly losing money again. The below $150 hit would be my last good one for the night.

I faced near ruin at Harrah's, but turn that shit around pretty well. I lost another $200 overall today, and I'm at -$400 for the trip. But I'm having a blast!

Still full 6 hours later from Ramsay's, we opt to share a Banana Split for dinner and head up to bed.

Sunday

I wake up way too early. Its my last day in AC and I still have money to burn. I shit away $200 as soon as I get down. I couldn't get their Top Dollar machine to do anything for me.

I go back to my Playboy machine and this time I actually land the 100 credit ($500) extra reel!

$525 is pretty solid, and I'm almost back to even!

I fart around in their High Limit room some, before going back to play an old favorite once more. It was the right move. $375 hit, and a ticket for $742 puts me, once again, back up on the trip.

Just like that, everything is coming up Grid!

Cash out and play on and I keep the streak alive and well until the wife comes down for breakfast.

We eat, and we play together for a little while. Normal up and down. But I'm keeping my head above water.

By now, I'm up about $300 in total. The Limo to the airport is still 6 hours away. The wife has never been to the Golden Nugget before, so we cab it over there.

This would be the scene of the crime...

I lost my ass in 20 minutes in their High Limit room. I wasn't playing anything over $5 a spin, I just turned every thing I touched into a pile of shit.

Zero play and I'm down $500 here. We walked through their shops so the wife could hear me piss and moan about my bad luck, and the fact that I was up just over an hour ago.

I did find a Godfather slot on the way out that I couldn't refuse. After a couple of good bonuses I leave here just down $400

We hightail it out of there and had back to the B. I slow my roll with some video poker, and I'm doing well.

I end up on this Sphinx Slot and I get invested in it right away. I was close to filling up all the little blocks to win something Awesome I assume. But the day was getting away from us and we needed to pack up.

Grabbed some lunch and eventually played some more. I went on a cold streak, mainly due to the casino being so fucking crowded by now, I couldn't get on any of "my" games.

We pass check-in and witness an absolute seas of humanity. At what point do you leave your bags at the bell and try to check in later?

Limos are here!

One last look at the Boardwalk on our way to the airport. First class set up at this one as well. No TSA, no fucking around. Just get on your flight and go home.

Mlife in AC is not like Mlife in Vegas. The best I can tell, $1,000 of coin-in = $10.00 in Express Comps + $4.00 in Slot Dollars to be used on your next trip.

We ate through most of the Express dollars while we were there. Its 2 to 1 in the Gift Shop (dick move) and I cant touch my Slot Dollars unless I come back.

Using my rough math skills, we should have played through $28,000 on the slots in 2.5 days. Putting our "Trip" coin-in at roughly $9,500 per day.

In the end, the wife lost $300, half of which was lost at Harrah's. And I lost $1,000. Nearly all of which was lost at Harrah's & Golden Nugget.

Borgata slots treated us well. I wish I came home a winner, but I certainly do not feel like a loser.

And for those of you that understand Mlife in Vegas, but are confused about Mlife in AC. I asked the club desk how their mish mashed version of the old Black Label set up worked into the new Mlife one.

The easy answer, there is none. The best I could make out was for slots. $1,000 of coin = 750 tier credits which gets you $10 express comps and $4.00 in bonus slot play to use on your next visit.

Video poker was 5 X that, $5,000 coin for the same TC + EC + BS.

I asked about tables, and she said it varies by bet and game, but could not give me a good answer.

If you use the express comps in the gift shop, its 2 for 1. Same with some dining.

I'll use my rough "trip" average of the 2 nights (3 days) for Mlife AC verses Mlife Vegas on slots.

$9,000 coin in per day at Borgata gets me a total of $270 express comps + $108 in slot play for next time. Also comes out to 20,250 tier credits

$9,000 coin in per day in Las Vegas gets me a total of $90 in express comps + $90 in Point Play to use right away. $3.00 coin (non-specialty) = 1 penny of each. Which both suck. BUT I'd have 90,000 tier credits, which beats the Borg by a lot.

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