Our getaway this weekend was to... wait for it... Issaquah! Ok, maybe not a very exciting town in and of itself. But we chose it for its proximity to both Snoqualmie Casino and the North Bend Outlet Mall. We stayed at a Hilton Garden Inn, the same type of hotel that we had for Aasthaa's wedding, and we've decided this is one of our favorite brands of hotel.
So we headed out there on Saturday afternoon, hit the Outlet Mall first, and then headed over to the casino. I had never been there before, and neither had Lish, so we started out just by taking some laps around the floor to check out what was available. My first observation was that the casino floor was WAAAAY more cramped than any other casino I had ever been to. The aisles between slot machines and table games were so narrow, it was practically impossible to walk through without bumping into people.
Lish was also quite disappointed to learn (while we were chatting at dinner) that there would NOT be free drinks at the casino. Nope, only Vegas and Atlantic City, I told her. And maybe some other places I don't know about, but I've never been to a casino outside of those two which served free alcohol. Nonetheless, we quickly went over to the bar to get a couple of drinks that I bought for us.
Then we hit a $10 blackjack table. I was trying to encourage Lish to play, but she wanted to just watch me. I tried to make some chit-chat with the old guy next to me but he wasn't too cooperative (gave kind of a strange answer to my question of "how has the table been treating you tonight?"), and the dealer was REALLY silent and un-friendly as well, so it was kind of a boring table. But I pulled $55 from it before we got up and tried to find some fun slot machines.
My definition of a "fun" slot machine is:
1) One where I know what I'm rooting for
2) Has a bonus game with possibilities of hitting a big jackpot
I know the bonus games are just gimmicks, but they at least make it entertaining. We had found a really fun game that fit this definition at the Bellagio when we went back in September of 2010... but we couldn't find quite this game here. We found similar ones though. Lish did hit a small jackpot for about 3400 credits... with each credit being 1 cent :) I think I dropped $45 in the slot machines altogether.
Then I took my $10 profit and we went to the club! Lish wanted to dance and I was happy to oblige, and it was $10 cover for guys, and ladies were free, lol. Much better than Vegas! And it was fun, I mean we decided we weren't a huge fan of the music they were playing since we didn't recognize a ton of it. And then of the stuff we did recognize... well, there was Katy Perry, and Britney, lol. But it wasn't all bad, and we did have a good time in there.
Finally we went to the Pai Gow tables, which we had been scoping out earlier too but they were full. Aannnddd... they were still full. Those Asians sure don't like to give up their seats, lol. They also only had two tables of it, which I explained to Lish was because they can't make as much money off of them compared to other games since it goes so slow. The other thing I noticed at that point was that, while previously the two tables were $25 minimum bet and $15 minimum bet, they now were both $25 minimum bet. When I mentioned this to Lish, she said "Oh, so you won't play at a $25 table?" Haha, it's not that I *won't*... it's just that, well, it's just nice to be aware that say a $100 buy-in only gets you 4 bets now, that's all. heh.
Anyways, after a few minutes of watching, all the players still showed no signs of budging, so we decided to just call it a night. It was almost midnight anyways, and we're getting old, haha. So we headed back to our hotel after a great night together. aww.
