Me, Myself and Irene: An Atlantic City Trip Cut Short

Actually that title should read “Me, my Family and Irene”. I just wanted to have a Hollywood movie as the title of this trip report.

First of all I just want to say:









OK, you get the hint. The summer family trip that I had planned months ago coincided with Hurricane Irene and only the third time in history that the Atlantic City casinos would be closed.

Tuesday August 23

We woke up early and started the 12 hour drive to Atlantic City at 7:00am. Before actually getting to Atlantic City, I made a quick 15 minute stop at Harrah’s Chester to earn some points for the “Great Race to Rewards”.

This is one scary area. The slum like conditions in the surrounding area, along with the huge prison right across the street made me want to get the points and get out of there as fast as possible.

+ = $62 loss earning the points I needed.

Our first 2 nights were spent about 15 minutes from Atlantic City in Galloway. The Clarion Inn and Suites on White Horse Pike is a great place to stay. This whole area was lined with several inexpensive hotels ($29- $59) and seems like a good place to stay budget-wise.

After checking in, we drove to the Tropicana.



One of our favourite casino restaurants in Atlantic City is Carmine’s at The Quarter. The portions are huge and are made to be shared by an entire family. We ordered the rack of lamb and the spaghetti and meatballs. It was great, and we had leftover for another meal the next day.



We used to stay at the Tropicana quite a bit, but haven’t been here in 2 years, so all the offers have dried up. I did manage to win $75 on the slots while our dinner was being prepared.

Wednesday August 24 and Thursday August 25

The next 2 days were going to be spent at Morey’s Piers in Wildwood New Jersey.





For $215, a family of 4 can get wristbands for the water-parks and the rides, for 2 different days. It’s a good deal.

Since this is a Las Vegas / Gambling forum, I won’t go into all the details about how the “family” portion of our trip went. I will list a few observations about the boardwalk in Wildwood and Morey’s Piers.

- Morey’s Piers and the Wildwood boardwalk is kept surprisingly clean.
- Does anyone else think the redemption arcades are designed to turn our youth into gambling addicts? Some of them are even called casinos!
- It’s pretty damn hard to win a prize with that “claw” machine. I did manage to snag a couple of “Angry Birds’ and a “Minion” for my daughters.
- It was > $250 per day to stay in a motel in Wildwood versus $65 to stay in Galloway and drive the 45 minutes each day.

At the end of the day on Thursday, we started driving back to Atlantic City to check into the Showboat for 3 nights. On the way out of town, we were stuck in a traffic jam along the road that leads back to the Garden State Parkway. We were delayed for over an hour and we all wondered if there was some kind of accident ahead. To our surprise, there was no accident. There was a huge traffic jam because people were trying to buy gas and the line-ups spilled out onto the street in both directions. We’ve never experienced this before. Not realizing why this was happening, I just assumed that their prices ($3.31 a gallon) were good and there were a lot of cheap people willing to wait in line for an hour to fill up.

Traffic wasn’t that bad heading back into Atlantic City. We listened to the radio on our way, and there was no mention of an evacuation or anything. I had been watching the Weather Channel for the last 3 days and knew we were in for some rain on Saturday and Sunday, but Friday was supposed to be a nice day.

We had dinner at the Imperial Inn on Atlantic Ave before checking in at the Showboat. This is our favourite non- casino Chinese restaurant in Atlantic City. Dinner was great, and the restaurant was pretty full. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

We drove to the Showboat and checked in. The woman at check in wasn’t very pleasant, but confirmed we were here until Sunday August 28 on a comped stay.



I grabbed a copy of Atlantic City Weekly and found a 2 for 1 coupon for the Comedy Stop at the Tropicana. We put the girls to sleep (my eldest daughter has her babysitting course) and off we went.

The show that night was okay, and the comedians made the odd joke about the earthquake earlier in the week and the impending hurricane. The showroom was pretty packed, and the nightclubs at The Quarter seemed to be hopping. It was close to midnight at this point.

Back at the Showboat, my wife and I played a few slots in order to add the Showboat onto our list of destinations for the Great Race to Rewards. The casino wasn’t very busy, and my wife went up to sleep at about 1:00am Friday August 26.

Friday August 26

I go back down to the casino to play for a bit. I’m getting killed on a cold blackjack table. Two guys sit down and suddenly start talking about the casino closing in 5 hours at 6:00am and how pissed off they are since they just drove 4 hours to get here and the casino was kicking everyone out of the hotel at 8:00am. This was a mandatory evacuation!

Okay, now I’m getting worried, and pretty pissed off. Not one casino employee in either the Tropicana or the Showboat made any effort that I could see to warn anybody of anything. Only after asking the dealer directly did he confirm that the casino would indeed be closing at 6:00am and that all the people currently asleep be required to leave.

The sad part was, this was a young dealer saying this, not the pit boss or a higher up. I walked over to an empty craps pit, and asked the guys there what was going on. The pit boss there said that nothing was confirmed yet and that it was all rumours at this point. I thought it was strange though when I overheard a casino employee tell another employee to “Enjoy your extra weekend off!”

What was going on?

I went back to the front desk and asked the mean check in lady to get some answers. She confirmed that the casino was closing, would re-open on Monday and that I would be required to leave at 6;00am. When I asked her how they were going to do that, she said that starting at 5:30am, they were probably going to start knocking on everyone’s door.

Is Atlantic City and the casinos here really that bad off? They don’t warn patrons, or at least get their story straight in case someone asks in order to get people to stay longer and gamble right to the last second? I find it disturbing that a company as big as Caesars would take that risk with the guests staying at their properties. Isn’t there any kind of paging system inside the casino to at least tell everyone what was going on?

Judging from the amount of people and cars I saw at the Showboat and the Tropicana, and presumably at every other casino, I figured it would be a nightmare trying to get out of Atlantic City in 4 hours, so I woke my wife and daughters up, packed up the van and started the 12 hour drive home. We made it back at 7:30pm after taking several rest stops.

Yes, Hurricane Irene is not the fault of the casinos, but don’t they have a responsibility to warn all their guests in a timely manner? If there are car accidents or crazy congestion along the Atlantic City Expressway, I blame the casinos for trying to keep everyone there as long as possible by being negligent and not informing anyone. I don’t know what will happen with the hurricane, but I do know the people that run these casinos don’t give a damn about anyone.

The Governor shut down the casinos. He was on TV announcing it Friday afternoon. I called ACH (Hilton) on Thursday and all they told me was the show I had tickets for on Saturday night was canceled. The person on the phone had to double check first to confirm this.

If you take a better route into Chester, you won't see any bad stuff; just the new prison across the street.

That Clarion is nice, I've stayed there. Never heard of Imperial Inn but will try it out soon.

Sorry your trip got screwed up.

Sorry your vacation was cut short. Closing the AC casinos has been all over the news and was listed yesterday on CET's website.

So no advance notice? What if people have been drinking heavily until 5am and then they kick them out at 5:30?


Tammi from N. GA.

Nope. I found out at 1:00am on Friday. If the 2 guys at my BJ table didn't talk about it, I would have been completely oblivious until they came knocking at 5:30am. There's probably a lot of angry people out there.

It sucks and I think handled very poorly. I had tickets to the Great American Circus at Resorts for Saturday. I doubt I'll get my money back.

If you mail me the tickets I'll turn them in for refund and mail you back the money.

Thank -you! That's a very nice offer! The thing is, I bought these vouchers from "My Shore Deals" that have to be redeemed. Sort of like Groupon. It's only $42, but I don't think they are refundable.

I get down to AC every few weeks. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help you get back your money. It's not your fault that they shut down the casinos. You deserve a refund.

Snidely is really a nice guy even though is avatar isn't. I had a problem with Daily Deals. It's similar to Groupon. Iv'e called twice for a refund. They say it has been issued, but the delay could be my bank/debit card issuer. I am out of work and had purchased two $50 for $25 vouchers prior to becoming unemployed. Since i'm not working I tried to redeem them with the least expense. I ordered on the phone. When I arrived there was a sign on the door that they weren't honoring any vouchers and to contact the issuers. I realize typically these vouchers aren't great for business, but once you agree to the program you should honor them. I hope you have Good luck! Btw, Harrahs Chester isn't that bad as long as you come in directly off of 95 by Boeing. Granted the slots are very tight and the video poker paytables are poor.