Grand Biloxi Casino--Trip Report

ontheopenroad · Grand Biloxi Casino--Trip Report

This is my first trip report, so please bear with me if I ramble on, or don’t tell you what you need/want to know. Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

For New Year’s weekend, I used room comps to plan a four-day trip to the Mississippi Gulf and to New Orleans. I made reservations several weeks ago to spend Thursday night at the Grand Biloxi Casino, and for Friday and Saturday night at Harrah’s New Orleans. I was really surprised that I was able to get the comp for New Orleans with the Sugar Bowl being there and New Year’s Holiday.

I was accompanied on my trip by my friend Frank. It’s always more fun to have someone to celebrate a big win with, but I have to fund his play, so it does tend to go twice as fast.

We arrived at the Grand Biloxi around 4:00 on Thursday, Jan 1. The check-in line was long (even the diamond line), as one might expect on a holiday weekend. But we managed to check in without incident and went up to the room. The room was nice. I didn’t have a great view—you could see the Gulf if you stood at the far end of the window and looked out at an angle. Otherwise, the view consisted of the rebuilding efforts (damn, Katrina!).

After getting settled, I told Frank we would go down to the casino for a first walk through. I had an allotment that I wanted to spend at the Grand, since we were only spending one night there. We went down with $200, and it went FAST. We didn’t plant at any one machine for any specific periods of time. The Grand was, in my opinion, fairly small, and didn’t have the selection of games that I had hoped for. Plus, the machines that I like to play (1c Hot Shot and Money Bars) were all full. So, in short order, $200 gone and we decided to eat.

The buffet was decent but nothing spectacular. The waiter was at least prompt with drinks and refills. I used rewards points to pay for the buffet, so I usually figure unless it’s absolutely atrocious, it’ll do. After dinner, it’s back to the room for some rest—and to slow down on the spending. It’s still early!!!

The budget for the rest of the night is $400, so we head back down later and Frank and I manage to blow through $100 apiece pretty quickly, with few playbacks. With my last $200 I decide to hit the craps table. I usually am able to extend my playing time on the $5 tables, even if I can’t win anything. Lemme tell you, the 7’s were flying all over the place. I’m making smaller/fewer bets to try to stop the bleeding but we’ve been around the table twice unable to find a good shooter (and it wasn’t an empty table by any means). I was down to under $50 when it was my turn to shoot again. I managed a pretty good roll, hitting numbers and 3 or 4 points and even two yo’s in a row for the guy next to me, who managed to parlay that into a decent profit. After my roll is over, I color out, and find that I was back up to $209. I knew that I had managed to build it back up, but hadn’t realized that I had gotten my $200 back.

I took my $200 and we went back to the slots. I found an opening on the 1c Money Bars and played those for a while. I managed to hit the Hot Shot quite often, but they weren’t paying. I think I won the $20-range progressive once, but not much else. We roamed around and played for a while, but it was gone before you know it—few playbacks. Out of funds, we decided to head out to the hotel bar for a nightcap before retiring for the night. This is where the story unfolds.

We went to the hotel bar, which is across from the front desk of the hotel—not in the casino. As such, I knew we would have to pay or use reward points for drinks—not a problem. We sat down at the bar, and the bartender was bagging up some to-go food orders, and the table server was flitting around the “dining room” (if that’s what you want to call the 10 round tables around the bar). There were probably around 10 people total in the bar, so it wasn’t packed. We sat for over 20 minutes. The bartender looked at us like we were from outer space. He swept the floor. He washed glasses. He piddled around, but never asked us if we wanted something, or if were there to look pretty. If he had at least looked our way for more than 5 seconds, I would have tried to get his attention; but he stayed away like we had the plague. The table server walked by us about 5 times, but never long enough for us to get his attention either. I don’t make it a habit of screaming at someone to get service, or chasing down a server or a bartender to get service (if they don’t want my business and my tip—so be it), so after over 20 minutes, I literally threw my arms up in the air, muttered an expletive at Frank, and said let’s go back to the bar in the casino.

We sat down at the casino bar. I don’t play video poker, which is what they had at the bar, and didn’t feel like going through the façade of putting a dollar in the machine just to get a free drink. If they wanted to charge me, I was willing to use my comp points. But the bartender never asked for money, or didn’t notice I didn’t put anything in the machine, or didn’t care. We had two rounds, and decided to head out.

On the way out, I noticed I had $5 in my pocket, so we found a 1c Triple Lucky machine, and I played 9 lines and 1 or 2 credits per line, and at one point had my $5 built up to over $20. Had I been smart, I would have taken my new-found gains and gone back up to the room, but I continued to play the pennies, and lost it all. However, I played for about an hour on that $5. It probably was the most fun part of the whole day!

Wow, I have rambled quite a bit for only one evening of play. I will close out this adventure and do a separate post for the New Orleans portion of the trip.

WILynn

Thanks for the report, open. I thought it was very good. Too bad the gambling wasn't any better. I'm hoping things go better for you in the 2nd part. I just hate it when you can't even get any play for your money. That just stinks. I can't believe how many people in the service industry don't provide any service.

Oh, BTW, you're from Gallatin, TN? My mom and aunt live there. I was born there and both sides of my family lived there. Many of them are gone now of course. I can remember going to visit the grandparents during the summer and the most exciting thing to do there was to watch the clothes dry at the laundromat. It's certainly gotten a lot bigger since then.

ontheopenroad

Well, it doesn't, but that's another story!

Jean

Open,
WTG! You took a losing trip and made it hilarious. Loved reading it, can't wait to read the second part.

Dang, things are tight all over I guess. It's sure hard to make a cash register ring if you don't wait on the customers though. Must be one of the disgruntled employees we hear about. Sounds like you made out better at the casino bar anyway...free is good.
Glad you made a come back on the craps table. Beats me how a full table can be so cold, guess that's why it's called gambling.

Welcome to the board and drop into chat sometime. We get in the door usually by 9:30 or so.