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1:17 p.m. - 2008-07-02
Casinos and money.....and me

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Currently Listening
God Bless America
By Mormon Tabernacle Choir


IS IT WEDNESDAY ALREADY? JULY, 2008? WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE?

We've been back home since Sunday night but getting our sleep caught up and feeling a bit lazy....

Hi there! We have returned from Wendover, Nv. Land of casinos, hotels, restaurants and the sound of money disappearing into the place of little-to-no return.

Actually, we had a wonderful time. We took a chartered plane from our town in Indiana to Wendover, Nv. To get people into the gambling mood, the airplane personnel offered to take $1 from the customers who wrote their seat number on the money. The money went into a huge plastic bag and the personnel pulled out a bill and the winner gets all the money. They did this several times...as long as the customers wanted to keep playing. The first winner got about $150. The next time, they did $5 bills and that person won about $250. They even did $20 and that person won $420 and it was her birthday. We didn't play.....LOL.

We landed in a very small airport. We walked through the waiting room out to a bus and were driven a few miles away to the Peppermill Casino...where the fun began.

We couldn't check in until after 3 P.M. and our luggage was being delivered from the airport. So we went directly....do not stop to collect $200...into the land of money. My favorite thing to do is look for penny slot machines that I have never played. I was very pleased to find that most of the 100's of slot machines were for penny players. I found a few that were new to me. I had $25 and soon lost over $15. But, by the time we stopped for dinner....and may I say....the buffet was wonderful.....I had $10 left for playing. I played all the rest of that evening and still had $10 left to start out the next day. I hit bonus rounds I have never been able to get on some of the slots that I have played on at other casinos. What fun!

My husband had brought more money and gave me some. We decided to take the free shuttle bus to the other casinos. We stopped at the Montego Bay Casino. We soon discovered all three of the casinos in the area are owned by the Peppermill. In spite of the different names, the decor was much the same and many of the machines are too. Nevertheless, we enjoyed playing at the Montego Bay.

After a few hours, we took another shuttle (and by the way, the shuttles ran about every 10-15 minutes) to Rainbow Casino.

We found the Rainbow had many more table games and with the exception of a couple of different penny slots....we didn't care for it as much as Peppermill.

Anyhow, we went back to the Peppermill and continued to play. I still had $10 from my original $25 and played for hours until I finally lost it. We ate at one of the restaurants at Peppermill and had a great meal. There was a great variety in the choices of food. There was Mexican, Chinese, Fish, Chicken, Steak and of course hamburgers. You could also have breakfast 24 hours a day and all of this was in the same restaurant. In additional, there was also a Grand Buffet restaurant which had all the same foods and you only had to pay one price to eat for hours.

On Saturday, it was more of the same. We took the shuttle bus back to Montego Bay and walked across the skywalk to the Nugget. This place had so many of the old slot machines. These played 9 lines only and it was fun to try them out. We did feel that the Nugget was not as nice as the other casinos so we soon walked back to Montego Bay.

There was another casino in the same area but we didn't go there at all. So, there are actually five casinos in the town and we visited four of them. And by the way, for you Starbuck fans, the Rainbow has a Starbucks and a Quizos inside. I also saw a Subway and a Burger King near another casino and a small grocery store too. So you can eat cheaper if you want to walk a block or so. The Peppermill also provides a smaller shuttle if you want to go to church, a doctor or the Dollar Store. They really try to meet all your needs.

We liked the atmosphere of Peppermill Casino the best. It wasn't quite as large as the others and the slots seemed to give us bonus rounds much more often. I don't think either of us won any huge amounts but we consistently won $10 to $15 so we just kept on playing. By Saturday night, I was getting tired of the whole slot playing so after another good dinner, I went back to our room and read a book.

On Sunday, we had to check out of the rooms by 11:30 A.M. We had time for breakfast and more slot playing. Our bus came about 2:00 P.M. and took us back to the airport. Oh, did I mention...how tiny the airport is? When we took off, the pilot told us that due to the elevation and the short runway; they don't put in enough fuel to fly all the way back to Indiana..... They need a lighter weight in the plane to make the takeoff. So, they fly to Salt Lake City and fuel up completely and then fly to the destination. We left Nevada about 4 P.M. which was 6 P.M. in our area. We got back about 10:30 P.M. Indiana time and were home just after 11:00.

I would certainly recommend Wendoverfun.com's casino package to anyone. I think we got more than our money's worth, the rooms were very nice, the casinos were great, the food was good. All in all, with the exception of a badly run restaurant at the Montego Bay and a rude gift shop employee on Sunday....we had a great time. We would take another trip in the future back to this same location.

Ok, guess I should explain the "badly run restaurant" remark. On Friday, we were at Montego Bay and we wanted to have some lunch. It was about 1:30 P.M. We went to their 24 hr restaurant location. As we walked inside, a young woman was standing at the "please wait to be seated" sign. Finally, a hostess came out. The young woman told her they had not received their drinks with their meal. The hostess asked where they were seated and what they had ordered. The young woman went back to her table; the hostess was gone for several minutes. We could hear some employees talking in the inner area of the kitchen. We kept on waiting...another 2 customers came up behind us and we waited and waited and waited. The hostess didn't come out, no restaurant personnel came out, no drinks were being delivered to that table...nothing. I could still hear the employees laughing and talking so I walked around to the entrance to the kitchen and just stared at all 5 of them. Finally, one of the young men came out. I told him we would like a table. He escorted us to a booth and left. Then, we waited and waited and waited some more. Soon, I saw 3 waitresses walking around the dining area back to the water table area but they never came over, never made eye contact and never did anything except stand there talking. I told my husband we would give them 5 minutes more. After about 3 minutes, I watched them all walk around the restaurant, still not doing anything so we walked out. And you can be sure, I put that information on the comment card at the end of the trip.

As for the rude gift shop employee......we had received cards when we arrived. As we played the slots, we used the cards and were accruing credits. We had enough by Saturday night to pay for a meal...about $25 worth. We also had $5 for the gift shop. Sunday morning, I wanted to buy some bottles of Diet Coke. The credit couldn't be used for that. So, I found something in the gift shop for $9, took the small item and a bottle of Diet pop to the register and gave him the card. He told me that I had $5.49 in credit, and what the remaining cost was. It took him f.o.r.e.v.e.r. to ring it up. He put it in a plastic bag and handed it to me. As I started to leave, he told me I had not paid for the bottle of pop.....so I had to put everything down, get the money back out of my purse and pay $1.50 plus tax for the pop. He never smiled, acted interested in giving me any service and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out why he didn't ring up the small item and the pop and take off my credit of $5.49 all at the same time. But...whatever....

Now we are getting caught up on our sleep and doing our chores around the house. We are preparing to drive to Kankakee, Il. on Friday to meet my cousin and her husband. It will be a quick overnight visit to catch up on all the family news.

Happy Fourth of July.....

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