Suck it, Caesar! Hard Rock Tampa 5/27-???

Have a great trip! I was toying with heading to Hard Rock Tampa this weekend...maybe if I get all of my house chores done I’ll drive over Sunday or Monday...

Thanks for the room pictures - they look nice!

 

Dang nobody told these buffalo yet. Good!

 

I’m enjoying your report. I hope you and your dad have a memorable post covid re-union. I pulled HR’s website and it looks like they have lifted a lot of the pandemic precautions for Memorial Day. The original west tower was built back in 2004 while the larger east side tower opened in 2019. The west one was remodeled to look much the same as the newer one. The west side probably is easier to navigate. They used to call your accommodation their spa room. You can beat the breakfast crowd by pre ordering room service the night before. They make a good breakfast. If you intend to eat lunch, you may try the pool bar & grill. We really like their grouper sandwich. Good Luck, have fun and win a bunch!

 

I've gone up east tower elevators 4 or 5 times now and had a wait every time. Have yet to have to wait in the west tower, which has 1 fewer elevator but much shorter hallways and thus, I would assume, many fewer rooms.

 

Thanks yah, I came to that conclusion about the towers. The only covid protocol I've seen at all is that some staff are wearing masks, plexiglass dividers are still up, but capacity restrictions arent a thing, restaurants are full, table game seats are full, masks are just plain optional and a lot of staff us not wearing them even (majority I'd say). A few slots are still disabled here and there but looks like they're probably just the ones that havent done maintenance work yet, because most that were off last time I was here are on now.

What confused me initially, is that when I booked, it listed the east tower as the only one with the updated "luxury" version of this room. They still listed the same floorplan but less fancy in both towers, so they probably remodeled some of these too and just didnt update their site, but I strongly prefer the west tower location having been here for almost 20 hours now. East tower is just that much farther from stuff, and this place is so huge, plus the elevator waiting game.

 

Sweet, just got an email that my play yesterday earned $60 more freeplay available tomorrow. Woohoo! Freeeee!

 

We ate breakfast at rise, around 8:15, and there was a little bit of a line around 8, and both priority line and regular line were the longest I'd seen them when we left after eating. Hey Caesar, they have priority lines here for the equivalent of diamond and 7 star and they arent using any extra staff to do so. Suck it!

The food and service were both very mediocre, but it was just over $25 for the two of us after taxes, so I guess you get what you pay for. I did check room service last night for breakfast, and the only breakfast options they had was partial menu, all from Rise, but 35% more expensive.

 

If anyone ever told me "shonabish" I would NOT think he was saying thank you! The more you know!

 

Enjoying your report. Get some handpays! Bring a fortune to Vegas. WOOOOOOOO!

 

My aunt convinced my father who doesnt gamble to put, of all things, a $50 in a slot. He got 21 free spin on his first few pulls on the American Coins something rather game and had a blast dancing with the little guy throwing the wild coins during the bonus. That was a riot! He doubled his money and cashed out woohoo!

 

Thanks @MCann for all the slot porn. Here in Ontario we are still stuck right in the middle of Covid restrictions, so its been 18 months since I've had my last spin. Keep it coming! Love that room also.

 

thanks for taking us along. Very informative and so happy you are able to see family after a long hiatus. I haven't been there since I stopped working for a company with Tampa headquarters back in 2014. I used to stop there after meetings. They all thought I just wanted to beat the traffic heading home...haha.

What is the crowd like, age-wise? Maybe this weekend isn't a good guage since it's a holiday. Do you still have to pay huge prices for drinks? This is a much shorter drive for me than Biloxi but I always thought their slots were super tight and the service wasn't great. I didn't really drink since I had a 4 hour drive after but even getting a diet coke was a struggle and expensive.

Good luck beating the machines and the crowds.

 

Enjoyed your report as per usual. Great that you were able to catch up with family. Slots seemed pretty good to you this time around and thanks for all the pics. Just to clarify, you were not on acid, Kurt Cobain was in the pic, right?

 

The drinks are expensive. They are a bit cheaper from a waitress on the casino floor but only free in the high limit areas. My experience also has been where they are free very little service. Sorta like Vegas. At least during the day most do walk around with soda that is free and a bit easier to get than years ago. Last year when they reopened after closed for covid they didn’t bring back the temporary bars they would put up on the weekend nights. I miss those and saw they had a job fair last week so maybe they will come back.

 

Very diverse age wise, and changes in ways one might expect based on time of day in all my experience here so far. Our table at breakfast with me in my 40s and dad in his 70s was definitely by many years the youngest average aged table at breakfast around 8am on a Friday morning. Right now, all ages are here, mostly 20s to 40s crowd at pool, mixed in the casino, and just left Hard Rock Cafe, which unsurprisingly had a younger crowd than breakfast lol.

The only alcohol I've ever had here was comped in the VIP HL room, which is basically like a Laurel lounge but with slots and VP in it instead of tables (and it does have a small sitting area as well). Hey, now THERE is an idea for Caesars, other than sucking it! So anyway, not sure about prices.

I thought the water and soft drinks on the main floor were free but I've never asked for one. I've treated family to free meals 3 times now and still have a couple hundred in comp credits left so I'll just buy anything I need with funny munny from here on out.

I still feel like their slots are overall maybe a little tight, but my experience so far has been a complete turnaround from my first visit here where I played for 8 hours and thousands and thousands in coin-in and only did better than 10:1 2 or 3 times, and never more than 70:1. I've well exceeded 100:1 at least 4 times in the last 20 hours.

 

Correct. I do not break the law ever.

 

Ok, so family just departed to head back east, but I'm here another day or two. We just had lunch at Hard Rock Cafe. The burger was phenomenal, the chicken sandwich was if nothing else, impressively large, and decent. The nachos were just ok (but huge as you can plain see in the photo), and the pulled pork sandwich was pretty poor. Guess which one was mine... d'oh!

I feel like I should clarify, we ate at Hard Rock not because it something that excites me, but because on a Friday afternoon, it's one of only 2 or 3 sit down table service restaurants open. Their locals version of fancy places dont open until 5pm today, but they are open all afternoon on weekends.

 

They only have a couple versions of VP here. The pay scales can suck it like Caesar. I ran every game on their game kings through the wizard of odds payback calc, and everything was in the mid 95% to just below 97% range. Single hand DDB Game King was the best I've run the numbers so far in the high 96's

Also, I just learned walking in and out, that Hard Rock cafe has bartop VP. You can order food at the bar tops, but seats are for players only.

 

Epic bonus on Dancing Drums Prosperity to dig me out of a hole a bit

 

Stupidly did a few backup spins...