Casino Reviews

This is our first post about Atlantic city and some of the casinos we visited recently. We have not been to the Atlantic city area for some time, but always have fond memories of biking along the boardwalk and visiting various restaurants in the casinos and on the boardwalk. We titled this post as our Atlantic city casino guide, since it is our first post and we thought it would be nice to include a few general pictures and some information about the casinos. Here we go. This is our Atlantic city guide.

Atlantic City Casino Guide – The Boardwalk

The boardwalk is really the center of the action as far as we are concerned. It stretches for approximately seven miles we are told and the casinos are along the north end of the boardwalk. You have a beautifully wide sandy beach with the Atlantic ocean on one side and the casinos, shops, restaurants and homes on the other side. The picture above is an excellent early morning picture when there are not many people around.  You can rent bicycles on the boardwalk and ride them from 6:30 until 10:30 in the morning. After that there are just too many people strolling along the boardwalk to make it safe.

We noticed that there were lots of Atlantic city staff cleaning, emptying garbage, watering plants and maintaining security along the boardwalk. We felt very safe while strolling along. There are also three wheeled buggy style push carts that can be rented if you do not want to walk. They start at $5 per 5 city blocks and go up from there. You can find these in front of every casino entrance along the boardwalk. Watch a video of the boardwalk on YouTube, click here

The Casinos

Here is a list of the casinos in Atlantic City that we are aware of:

• Revel (brand new and just opened – April 2012)
• Showboat
• Taj Mahal
• Resort International
• Caesars
• Ballys
• Atlantic Club
• Harrahs (at the marina)
• Borgata (at the marina)

There are shuttle buses to take from the hotels at the marina to the boardwalk, although sometimes you have to wait quite a long time for them. If you plan to walk from hotel to hotel along the boardwalk, take good walking shoes. The distance is pretty long and the casinos are actually quite large themselves.

The Beach

The beach is really great. Great sand that is kept clean and it is large. They have lifeguards as well and most days the swimming is also great. As with all ocean beaches, waves and under tow can become a problem as do jelly fish. check with the life guard before you go swimming if you are concerned.

We walked for a mile along the water one day. The tide was out, people could easily wade a 100 feet out onto sand bars and several ladies were searching for metallic items using metal detectors.  A beautiful day when it is sunny and warm.

Getting to Atlantic City

Getting to Atlantic city is pretty easy. There are all of the usual modes of transportation, however we will focus a bit on traveling by car to this ocean side city. If you want to get their quickly, the Atlantic City Expressway, the New jersey Turnpike and the Garden state Parkway are the major routes leading into the city from new york and Philly.

Be prepared to pay tolls along all of these roads to the tune of up to $10 or $15 depending on where you are coming from. In addition, you get to pay $5 for parking and if you stay at any of the hotels there is also a $13 state tax even if your room is comp’d! New jersey is bound to get some of your money either through the casino taxes or via tolls and taxes that are levied on tourists. Sorry to be so negative on taxes like this, but it really does make you think twice about going back to Atlantic city with all of these taxes.

The Outlets

Atlantic City has become a lot more modern in the past few years, cleaning up the downtown and making it much more attractive to families and tourists. There are now 250 outlet stores within walking distance of the casinos. In fact if you are staying at Bally’s, just walk 3 blocks up Michigan avenue and you are in the middle of all of these outlets. All of the popular stores and chains are there as well. Starbucks and McDonalds offer free WiFi, which is about the only place I could find that offers  this service. The Casino hotels charge ten or eleven dollars for this service per device.

Watch for more posts with lots of pictures in the coming weeks about Atlantic City.

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