Suncoast 4/10-14

April 10-14. We flew Southwest from Milwaukee and because the airport is about a hour drive and because the flight was at 7:15 AM, we got a hotel near the airport the night before. We arrived in Vegas a few minutes early, but just late enough to miss the 9 AM Wax bus. So we just enjoyed the sun waiting for the 10:16 WAX. Just a note…the on-line schedule and the ones on the kiosk are different. In our case, the bus was scheduled 5 minutes later than on-line schedule. No big deal, but I don’t know what other route times changed. The bus arrived, we showed our WI driver’s license and paid $1 for the over 60 rate. Several times during the trip, they did play an announcement about needing a RTC approved ID. The Suncoast free shuttle wasn’t scheduled for another 40 minutes, so WAX it was, there was money waiting to be won!

It took us 55 minutes to get to Suncoast, not bad for a buck! Skipping ahead to departure day we were waiting for the free Suncoast shuttle to the airport and a cab arrived and dropped people off with luggage. I walked over and asked the cabbie what that fare was. $55.10 and he said he took Paradise to I-15, which would be the most direct route. But jeez, $55!

Checked in at Suncoast, they had a room available with a beautiful golf course & pool view.
These are from Feb, when we just checked in to see a standard room. The room we had this trip was a king bed and had a couch, but other than that very similar.



There is a pocket sliding door that separates the tub and toilet area from the vanity.
















We were unpacked and in the casino by noon. That’s when the hemorrhaging of cash began for the both of us. We couldn’t win a thing. I was playing $ 9/6 DDB and my wife quarter, 8/5 Bonus. Now this really pissed me off. At the bar by the crap tables, the machines have different paytables for Bonus. Some are 8/5 and some are 7/5. To me that is very deceitful. The bar next to the Sportsbook was all 8/5 Bonus.
We played until around 9 PM that night and never won a thing. We gave up and went to the room. I averaged out to losses of about $100 per hour. My wife lost several hundred playing quarters.

The room on a comp have free 1 MB WIFI and all the rooms have a frig and coffee maker. Resort fee is $10 per day if not on a comp and the WIFI is then 10 MG.

Friday, we walked over to Angel Park Golf Course (~.5 mile) and played their 12 hole, par 3 course. We rented clubs & pull carts and it was about $90, but they did include 2 sleeves each of logo balls. I know it’s just a par 3, but it did have some challenges. After this winter, it was just nice being outside in sunshine.

Friday lunch was at TGIFridays inside Suncoast. We were meeting a couple of Vegas friends. One is a bartender at Palms and the other a cocktail waitress at various places. We brought the WI cheese curds, they brought the stories. Man, we lead a boring life back here in the Midwest after listening to their tales. Conversation great, food awful. I can’t believe how bad our meals were. When we lived in Vegas, we probably ate at this location once a week. We’d go to the senior discount day at the movies, and then stop in there for either appetizers or a meal. Never again.

Anyway, after a very enjoyable meeting, we hit the bartop VP again. After Thursday’s beating, I was playing quarter DDB. My luck was much better! The rain of quads began. I had aces, I had a straight flush I had numerous 4oak. I worked my initial $100 up to $1,000 and cashed out the ticket. I then started back with another $100 and was still doing well on quarters, so I stuck with it. I had the $100 up to $340 and then bang-A ROYAL, holding 3. $1,000 and no W2G!

Now Suncoast is different than MSS in several ways. $1,000 is not a hand pay and with the Royal, my total was $1,340 in the machine and I was able to just do a ticket. At MSS if you build up the total on several quads or whatever, once you go over $1,199, it spits out the difference. If you keep playing and go over $1,199 again, it spits out another ticket. Very nice walking up to the cage with a $1,000 tito and another for $1,345. My wife continued her losing ways.

Thur & Fri we racked up 30,000 coin in, playing on my card and the next two days, Sat & Sun we played kind of conservative. 17,000 coin-in.

Suncoast had drawings on Friday & Saturday. Your play earned entries into the drawing. I got skunked on all three drawings on Friday, but on Saturday they pulled my name. $200 and to my surprise, they paid in cash. You could only win once each drawing, but you could be called in all 3 drawings and win. One woman’s name was called for all three on Friday. If you were there, you collected $200, if not, you had until the next day to collect a $100 prize.

Saturday night we ate at SC Steakhouse. We both had the Tomahawk Ribeye ($54) and 3, $7 sides that we split. My wife thought hers had way too much fat and grizzle on it. Mine was OK and I understand we are in a resort town, but back here if somebody charged me $54, plus sides they would be out of business. Total cost of meal $160 with a couple drinks.

Sunday we took the WAX downtown. Paid the $1 each way and showed our WI DL, never a question. The plan was to check in to Downtown Grand in order to collect my $75 free play and $25 in food credit. We were planning on trying Pizza Rock, but it turns out they are excluded from the food credit offer. So, we checked in, split the free play and headed over to Chicago Brewing inside 4Q and had pizza there while we watched the Brewers win their 9th straight. We had a nice surprise at 4Q. I had $80 in free play loaded on my card and my wife had $20. Didn’t have to check in, it was already loaded on the cards. Glad we stopped. I’m sure I got a mailer, but I get so many every month, I just missed this one.

Before we left to catch the WAX, we stopped at the deli area at Grand and used our food credit to pick up a couple of sandwiches to take back to Suncoast for the room. We ate at the Suncoast Mexican restaurant Sunday night and that was very good.

Amazing that Slotzilla is still not open.

The Grand is nuts with their paytables.
Quarters:
DDB = 7/5
Bonus = 6/5
JOB = 8/6

Dollars:
DDB 9/5
JOB 9/5
And I couldn’t find $1 Bonus.

Total food charges to the room for a 4 night stay= $373. I tipped everybody in cash. Now I’m waiting to see if my host comps it all. I can’t imagine at less than $100 per day, he wouldn’t. UPDATE: He would only comp us $200 on $47,000 coin-in on 4 days. Bye, bye, Suncoast. You’ll never see another dime from me. MSS, we're coming back home.

End result, I ended up about $1,300 playing a mix of dollars and quarters and my wife playing only quarters lost about $750. I’m not sure if we will stay at Suncoast again. The rooms were very nice, but some of the bartenders seemed a little surly. I know we are spoiled because we walk into MSS and everybody knows us and greets us with a smile.

The walk to the golf course is very doable and the 5 mile walking trail next door to the hotel is great. It is not a loop, so you have to turn around and walk back.

Going back to the airport, we used the free Suncoast shuttle. Non-stop and it took about 25 minutes.

A tip…if you are flying out of terminal C and have a low gate number, there is an unmarked bathroom at the end of C1.

The topper was we got back yesterday night and it was snowing $*! Wake up temp today was 17 F. This fu*king winter just won't end.

 

Thanks for the report, Joe. I am sorry to read that some of the Suncoast bartenders were surly.

Glad to read that you got a royal though!

I don't know that I'll give much, if any, play there since they took out 9/6 Bdlx from the bars. Was quarter DDB at the bars 9/6 or 9/5?

 

Quarter & dollar were both 9/6.

One of the people we had lunch with said there was such an uproar over them changing the VP paytables, that they were forced to change them back. Not being that familiar with SC, I'm not sure what they were before the change, or if they really moved them back, but she insisted they did.

I know it can happen. Years ago MSS downgraded their bartop paytables and the place became deserted. Iirc, they went to 8/5 JOB and had to put it back to 9/6 because they lost so much business.

 

Thanks for posting. Weren't you complaining for quite some time about a royal drought, and finally it happened? (Sorry it had to be on quarters...)

Were you charged a resort fee on your comped room?

Do you remember which bars at 8/5 BP at the quarter level? I used to go to Suncoast via the WAX when they had 9/6 Bdlx, but those days are over... But I might return for 8/5 BP bartop action. I like how they have Sierra Nevada beers at the bar, and point multipliers for VP on some days...

I don't play enough (anywhere) to be assigned a host, however. Sorry to hear about the shortcomings there.

 

Hey Joe have you ever tried to get one of their suites on check in. I play a similar amount of coin in (with some added slot play) and have never been able to get an upgrade to a suite. They seem pretty liberal with the free rooms but getting food and that suite upgrade has always been a challenge for me at Suncoast.

 

Thanks for posting your report Joe. I'm still fine tuning mine and will post it tonight but it sounds like we had similar experiences with our VP luck. Our last day killed us though so we brought no extras home.

I wasn't aware of the differences in BP payouts so thanks for mentioning that. I guess I just assumed... I did play a lot at the sportsbook bar and did manage some small wins on 25 cent BP.

Did you get any food offers for swiping your card? I would have thought you'd get the $100 steakhouse voucher for your kind of play?

 

I'm always whinning about lack of Royals, but I had one in Feb on dollars, that broke a 3 year drought and now this one. Brings my total to 18.
I don't know the bar names, but the one next to the Sportsbook had all 8/5 Bonus. The one by the crap tables had a mix of 7/5 & 8/5. Funny, it seemed to me the 7/5s were busier every day than the 8/5s.

We never checked out the one near the showroom.

 

Ha! I sometimes fly outta C1 and that bathroom is a hidden gem!!! It's small, but rarely used by anyone outside of that gate. I'm glad you got some good hits in there and sure can't blame you for wandering away from the Sunset. You and your wife must have a ton of patience... I'm guessing your flight out at about 3 1/2 hours and then to wait for an hour for the bus and take another hour to get there? Holy moly that's some patience!

 

Just a follow-up to my complaint about him not comping all of our food charges. I wasn't happy with his response, so I asked for his boss's email.

Here is the reply I got after explaining at MSS, also Boyd, we get a suite, limo, unlimited food and free play. And the host assuring us several times with our level of play, food wouldn't be a problem. "Just have fun and relax, I'll take care of it".

Hello Joe,

I spoke with Fred and looked at your play for your last trip. I do see your coin in being around the 47k number but we don’t comp on coin in. Our comps are strictly based off of theoretical or loss whichever is greater for the customer. Suncoast does not have the same comp expense as the downtown properties (room cost, food cost, transportation etc….) therefore what you may get at Main Street will be more than what you would qualify here at the Suncoast. I’m sorry for the confusion but I can’t offer any more than the amount that was quoted by Fred. If you have any further questions please e-mail or call me.

Thank you Eric

Eric Conrad
Player Development Manager

Main Street, we're coming back home!

 

That sucks. Also they made a comment about they would have based your comps off of actual loss if your loss was greater than theo. I dunno if they set theo higher than optimal or not there, but if they don't, then $47k coin-in is only about $470 of theo. Sounds like if you dropped a few grand instead, they might have covered it. It's probably why I get offers from my local over the past year...I couldn't win there to save my life. Until this month. They probably won't give me crap now either.

But their other comment about not having as big of a comp budget vs MSS should def make you run the other way.


Also, you hit a Royal in Feb. and didn't write a TR? If I hit a Royal again, this forum is definitely hearing about it at this point. I bricked KQJT suited again just yesterday! Meh. Glad you were able to hit a dollar Royal first though!

Did you check "Boner Deluxe"? 9/6 BDlx (99.64%) was the best choice they used to have at the bar by a long shot. But neither 9/6 DDB or 8/5 Bonus is currently listed at the bars on VPFree, so no one has updated any reinstatement yet.

 

This is exactly why I liked going to Suncoast too. I may just have to take the WAX out there this weekend to see if the uproar Joe mentioned caused 9/6 Bdlx to come back to the bar tops. Unless someone else is out there now that can confirm?

 

How do places calculate theo on something like video poker. If they base it off the paytables your theo is only 470 for the trip. 40% comp and thats not factoring the room value. But thats assuming perfect play. I wonder if they factor in customer error at all into their theo calculations.

 

With computer tracking I'd say it's certainly possible. As a software architect I'd love to be able to dive into this as a job. But from a practical standpoint I don't know if it makes much sense. It's just much easier to rate JoB 9/6, BP 8/5 at their standard HA's. But at the same time over in the pit they can classify a BJ player at different levels. If any casinos want to hire me to do the comp system let me know!!! haha

 

Sorry you got the bum's rush, but MSS is a better shake, anyway, IMO.

 

Glad the royal drought is finally over for you Joe. I'm surprised you didn't get another one. Usually they come in droves after a long dry spell.

 

Screw that Player Development guy. I never deal with those wanna be anymore I tell them flat out u don't like my play I'll play somewhere else and get what I want

To bad Joe look in the goodside mss is waiting for ya

 

Joe - Good trip report and nice RSF hit and net profitable trip!!!

The comps received (room + $200 food) seems reasonable, though it makes sense to return to MSS if you get more for the same play.

I average btw $8k-$12k coin in per day (20k-25k per 3 day trip) and get 4 nights at Cal, or some tournaments. I averaged more on individual past trips at Fremont and Orleans, and they have bumped up offers.

I always play via players club offers or written comps from the pit, never a host.

LVA & on the Boyd GC website, point multipliers effective April 2014 at all non downtown Boyd casinos are restricted to play by locals, out of town guests are NOT eligible (downtown casinos offer no point bonus days). There go my bonus point outings to Gold Coast.

 

Congrats on your Royal. Too bad the Suncoast let you down. Welcome back to DT.!

 

Joe,

Thanks for the report. I think Suncoast is confused. Are we a resort with gambling or a casino with amenities? Should we cater to locals or tourists? I don't know it just seems they didn't treat you well for the amount you gamble.

We left town the day you arrived. I hope someday we will be there at the same time and meet up.

TomTWI

 

We received the Thursday 7x points on April 10th at Suncoast, so I'm confused about the LVA post.