We just got back from a quickie trip to Biloxi. This was an air package through the Beau Rivage; there used to be several casinos with air packages, but not in recent years. This was a quick one; air out of St. Pete/Clearwater airport, transfers and two nights at the Beau for $199 pp; the total for both of us after taxes and fees was about $498. Only problem this time (as opposed to other years) is that the flight home is early (leave the hotel by 8:45am), so you really have only Thursday late afternoon and evening (we were in our room at around 3pm) and all day Friday.
The hotel is really nice, as are the rooms; very much like a Strip property (I understand that Steve Wynn used the same architect who did the Bellagio; looks that way). Good service. Not a great place to gamble, though; decent BJ starts around $25 and the best VP in the joint is 8/5 JoB. We didn’t play there a lot.
Unfortunately, a lot of the VP in town has been downgraded since last year. All the good pay tables are gone from the Isle of Capri and the IP. There’s supposedly still some decent VP at the Island View over in Gulfport (maybe 12 or 15 miles west), but we didn’t get out there.
Gambling was fun in any case. Neither of us played heavy; I’m down about $100 and Linda (wife) is down about $450. She had no luck at all playing blackjack, including a good DD game at Boomtown. I did better at blackjack, wound up ahead some. I mostly played a lot of VP and had a few quads. Again, there wasn’t any full-pay stuff to be found; Isle of Capri had only some 8/6 JoB for quarters, and I played some 7/5 Aces and Faces at Boomtown. It’s funny, vpFree2 lists Boomtown as “nothing good,” but lists much worse games at the Beau and elsewhere. But yeah, there’s nothing real good there. Boomtown is a lot of fun, though; they have lots of promos, and a shuttle that picks you up at the Beau Rivage, the welcome center across the street from the Beau (that must really cheese them off) and the IP. Surprisingly, some of the best VP was at the Grand; I guess Harrah’s (or Caesar’s, I guess) treats their players better outside of Nevada. I played some quarter 3-play 9/6 JoB Quick Quads. Didn’t like the Quick Quads feature at all (never connected on one), but the higher payout on quads in general is nice, and I hit two. I also played some Illinois deuces out there. While at Boomtown, I walked over to IP; I was hoping to be able to play there, even though I knew that the 9/6 JoB was gone, since we play at MSS in Vegas and Boyd just bought them (although the players club isn’t switched over yet). Well, they don’t have any 8/5 BP anymore, either, everything is downgraded except for a few machines with Illinois deuces. Bastards. Between the Boomtown shuttles and the Casino Hopper (public transportation, $1.25 to any casino except Treasure Bay and Island View), getting around was easy.
Not a lot of time to eat while we were there. We’ve always wanted to try Mary Mahoney’s, and we finally got there Thursday night. They’ve been there since the 1940s, I think, and are in a few old 18th century buildings; kind of reminds one of the French Quarter in New Orleans, but less urban. It was a wonderful meal, real Gulf Coast cuisine (kind of an Old South-Creole hybrid), nothing innovative but everything right on the money. I had some excellent seafood gumbo (certainly within the range of what one would find in Louisiana) and snapper stuffed with shrimp and crabmeat in a beurre blanc. Very simply done and really outstanding. Linda had fried oysters, which were huge and very fresh. Wish I had saved room for the bread pudding and rum sauce; I bet that’s a winner. On Friday, we wound up eating at the buffet at the Beau twice (jeanhaka was kind enough to send a couple of BOGOs; thanks again, Jean!); we got a late start and Linda wanted to watch the Pens-Flyers game in the evening, so a late breakfast and an early dinner was the way to go. Both buffets were really good, strongly locally influenced. The seafood buffet was a real pleasure, they had a couple of small-bathtub-sized pans, one with very good snow crab legs (cooked with shellfish boil, lots more interesting than water) and one with crawfish. Everything else was very good. Wish we had gotten around to a few other places, maybe the Boomtown buffet (I hear that it’s tasty), or Tien or 32 or the churrascaria at IP, or maybe Desporte and Sons (crappy little seafood market with a lunch counter, been there for over 100 years).
Anyway, it was a fun trip, nice little break to tide us over between Vegas trips. I’m not sure what the future of gambling (of VP, anyway) will be on the Gulf Coast, lots of downgrades, but there are a couple of new casinos under construction and I’m hoping that Boyd will eventually be as generous with their pay tables as they are in Vegas. We shall see. Thanks for reading!
The hotel is really nice, as are the rooms; very much like a Strip property (I understand that Steve Wynn used the same architect who did the Bellagio; looks that way). Good service. Not a great place to gamble, though; decent BJ starts around $25 and the best VP in the joint is 8/5 JoB. We didn’t play there a lot.
Unfortunately, a lot of the VP in town has been downgraded since last year. All the good pay tables are gone from the Isle of Capri and the IP. There’s supposedly still some decent VP at the Island View over in Gulfport (maybe 12 or 15 miles west), but we didn’t get out there.
Gambling was fun in any case. Neither of us played heavy; I’m down about $100 and Linda (wife) is down about $450. She had no luck at all playing blackjack, including a good DD game at Boomtown. I did better at blackjack, wound up ahead some. I mostly played a lot of VP and had a few quads. Again, there wasn’t any full-pay stuff to be found; Isle of Capri had only some 8/6 JoB for quarters, and I played some 7/5 Aces and Faces at Boomtown. It’s funny, vpFree2 lists Boomtown as “nothing good,” but lists much worse games at the Beau and elsewhere. But yeah, there’s nothing real good there. Boomtown is a lot of fun, though; they have lots of promos, and a shuttle that picks you up at the Beau Rivage, the welcome center across the street from the Beau (that must really cheese them off) and the IP. Surprisingly, some of the best VP was at the Grand; I guess Harrah’s (or Caesar’s, I guess) treats their players better outside of Nevada. I played some quarter 3-play 9/6 JoB Quick Quads. Didn’t like the Quick Quads feature at all (never connected on one), but the higher payout on quads in general is nice, and I hit two. I also played some Illinois deuces out there. While at Boomtown, I walked over to IP; I was hoping to be able to play there, even though I knew that the 9/6 JoB was gone, since we play at MSS in Vegas and Boyd just bought them (although the players club isn’t switched over yet). Well, they don’t have any 8/5 BP anymore, either, everything is downgraded except for a few machines with Illinois deuces. Bastards. Between the Boomtown shuttles and the Casino Hopper (public transportation, $1.25 to any casino except Treasure Bay and Island View), getting around was easy.
Not a lot of time to eat while we were there. We’ve always wanted to try Mary Mahoney’s, and we finally got there Thursday night. They’ve been there since the 1940s, I think, and are in a few old 18th century buildings; kind of reminds one of the French Quarter in New Orleans, but less urban. It was a wonderful meal, real Gulf Coast cuisine (kind of an Old South-Creole hybrid), nothing innovative but everything right on the money. I had some excellent seafood gumbo (certainly within the range of what one would find in Louisiana) and snapper stuffed with shrimp and crabmeat in a beurre blanc. Very simply done and really outstanding. Linda had fried oysters, which were huge and very fresh. Wish I had saved room for the bread pudding and rum sauce; I bet that’s a winner. On Friday, we wound up eating at the buffet at the Beau twice (jeanhaka was kind enough to send a couple of BOGOs; thanks again, Jean!); we got a late start and Linda wanted to watch the Pens-Flyers game in the evening, so a late breakfast and an early dinner was the way to go. Both buffets were really good, strongly locally influenced. The seafood buffet was a real pleasure, they had a couple of small-bathtub-sized pans, one with very good snow crab legs (cooked with shellfish boil, lots more interesting than water) and one with crawfish. Everything else was very good. Wish we had gotten around to a few other places, maybe the Boomtown buffet (I hear that it’s tasty), or Tien or 32 or the churrascaria at IP, or maybe Desporte and Sons (crappy little seafood market with a lunch counter, been there for over 100 years).
Anyway, it was a fun trip, nice little break to tide us over between Vegas trips. I’m not sure what the future of gambling (of VP, anyway) will be on the Gulf Coast, lots of downgrades, but there are a couple of new casinos under construction and I’m hoping that Boyd will eventually be as generous with their pay tables as they are in Vegas. We shall see. Thanks for reading!
