Member since:
August 8, 2006

SunCruz Casino - Never again

April 15, 2009 12:57 PM EDT

views: 298 | rating: 10/10 (24 votes) | comments: 42

Yesterday Marianne R. and I went to have some fun on a riverboat gambling cruise out of Little River, South Carolina. You can read her article here. We had been looking forward to this day trip for quite a while. Marianne loves to gamble and I just like to try new things and video poker is a favorite of mine. We both decided to save up some spending money and were all set to have some fun. The weather didn't look too promising but since Tuesday was a free slot tournament on board and we were really looking forward to the trip, we decided to just go ahead with our plans.

BTW - Free isn't always a good thing!

SunCruz Riverboat Casino

I didn't have any visions of winning, but I figured I'd have fun playing some video poker and then hang out on the deck looking for some interesting things to take photos of. That's not exactly the way things went.

Before getting on the ship we had to roll two big dice and try to roll a seven for a chance in a drawing for a roll off to win some nice cash prizes at the end of the cruise. Lucky Marianne rolled a seven! Things were looking good.

I didn't even come close in winning the free slot tournament. I wound up with 345, the score to beat was over 2,000. It was fun though and something new. Then we decided to get something to eat from the "free" buffet. Let me tell you, this buffet was a joke. It was worse than a school cafeteria. I think there were about five choices of "food" and none of it looked edible. I grabbed a salad which came in a very small bowl, a biscuit and a cup of coffee. We started going out to the ocean via the river while we were eating. We figured we'd walk around a bit and scope out the slot machines and find out where everything is. The slots weren't on yet, so we took a rest by some slots Marianne thought would be fun to play. When the slots came on a dollar bill popped out of the machine she was sitting in front of. Second good sign that maybe one of us would have a lucky day. We never did find the elevators, so we navigated the stairs to check things out and find the bathroom. That's a dilemma for me since I can only do one step at a time, like a toddler, but it wasn't too bad since we were still on the river which was calm in comparison to what we were headed into on the ocean. It looked like the 25 cent poker machines were on a different floor than the roulette wheel that Marianne wanted to play, which would have been fine. The boat wasn't so big that either of us wouldn't be able to find each other. Just as we hit the ocean, we had the urge to find the ladies room and get that out of the way. I was starting to get the sweats and wasn't feeling too chipper and hoping that queasy feeling would just pass. We navigated our way to the ladies room while the boat was doing a rock and roll and I was praying to make it there. The bathrooms were all the way at the bottom of the boat, the worse place to be when you are on rough seas. Marianne got out of there as quickly as possible, I wasn't so lucky, I needed to barf. OMG, am I going to make it for another four hours on this trip?

I met up with Marianne near the roulette wheel. I was feeling very bad by now, so I just anchored myself on a stool in front of the closest slot machine to the roulette wheel and there was a trash can nearby. I was still sweating and feeling queasy, plus a little guilty because I didn't want to ruin the day for Marianne. I really thought once we got out far enough we would anchor and I would feel a little better. For now though, I wasn't moving. Marianne got sick next, making a beeline for the trashcan. I felt a little less guilty about being sick, misery loves company;) Finally she went back to playing and I still stayed put. We took turns using that trash can the whole trip. I have no idea how she could function. I was afraid to move a muscle, for fear I'd get even worse. For three and a half hours I didn't move except to use the trash can. Yuck!

Going back in to dock, once we hit the river, it calmed down quite a bit, I didn't even feel the motion and the queasy stomach returned to normal. Marianne won back some of her losses and we were well enough to take a little walk, find a slot machine and blow a twenty. Still not fun, especially when you lose, so I decided that was enough for me and Marianne was finished for the day also. They started calling the ticket numbers for the people who had won the dice roll. Marianne temporarily lost her ticket, I saw it laying on the floor nearby, but her number wasn't called;( We watched the people win their prizes. I was never so glad to end a trip in all my life. We found the bathrooms at the office when we got off ship and then took a few photos of the area where you park. On the way home we found some geo caches, Marianne hid a cache, we stopped at Quizzno's to get something for dinner and Mrs. Field's for some dessert and then made it home feeling much better than we had about an hour before.

I won't be trying this again, for many reasons, the food was horrible, the boat smelled terrible from all the cigarette smoke, the slot machines were not loose as they advertised, I'm really not into throwing money away too often. It's fine maybe once a year just to do something different, but I'm used to Vegas or Atlantic City were you at least win once in a while and if you decide to put it all back into the machine that's up to you. The biggest factor in not going again is the fear of getting so sick.

So here is a few photos I managed to get, the best part of the trip to Little River.

Cute little sign on the outside of a bar near the boat dock.