Jaunted

Tags: Gambling / Surviving Atlantic City / Bars / Nightlife / Restaurants / → All Tags

Surviving AC: The Tropicana Wants to Get You Drunk

Who goes to Atlantic City? We sent Neal Ungerleider to find out.

The three-year old Quarter at the Tropicana is one of Atlantic City's two Las Vegas-style shopping complexes. (The Pier Shops at Caesars is the other.) The stores include some A-list franchises--Brooks Brothers, Swarovski and a nearly-open Brookstone--along with some awesomely left field shopping spaces like the Old Farmer's Almanac General Store and a branch of New York City's Spy Shop.

But that's beside the point. From what we've seen, it's definitely the best place to eat and get drunk in Atlantic City. A ritzy food court has franchises of New York's Palm steakhouse and Carmine's, Philadelphia's Cuba Libre restaurant and several others, including a Jeffrey Chodorow Russian-themed restobar with suspiciously little Russian food on the menu.

more ›

Tags: Gambling / Surviving Atlantic City / → All Tags

Surviving AC: Know Your Demo

While Caesars makes a play for the television foodie market, other casinos have cornered niches of their own. While in Atlantic City this weekend, the following celebs headlined:

• Blues Traveler (Tropicana)
• Charo (Hilton AC)
• Chicago (Borgata)
• Joan Rivers (Harrah's)
• Ringo Starr (Trump Taj Mahal)
• Steely Dan (Borgata)

Interesting enough. Who are the other upcoming headliners? Mickey Rooney, the Beach Boys, Three Dog Night, the Village People, Jefferson Starship, War, Grand Funk Railroad and America. Between Rooney and the rest, it's safe to say the twin demographics in AC are the 65-and-over crowd and Baby Boomers.

more ›

Tags: Gambling / Surviving Atlantic City / Giada De Laurentiis / Anthony Bourdain / → All Tags

Surviving AC: The Celebrity Chef Invasion

Who goes to Atlantic City? We sent Neal Ungerleider to find out.

With Atlantic City casinos in a competitive frenzy for guests' dollars, everyone needs a gimmick. It seems like Caesars has found a successful niche of its own: Hosting television food show-related events.

We arrived in Atlantic City during the Toast to the Coast festival, which trotted out celebrity chefs/cooking personalities Roland Meisner, Ingrid Hoffman and Guy Fieri for cooking demos and offered a live show with Giada De Laurentiis. There was also the chance to meet Hoffmann and Fieri at a pool party over at Harrah's (whose previous guests include both Kim Kardashian and Tila Tequila), along with a food expo and several other events spread throughout Harrah's Atlantic City properties.

more ›

Tags: Gambling / Surviving Atlantic City / → All Tags

Surviving AC: This City Loves Asian Card Games

Who goes to Atlantic City? We sent Neal Ungerleider to find out.

Judging by the casino floors of Atlantic City, the town's current gambling trend is Chinese-style card games. Not only that, but nearly half of Atlantic City's casinos have opted to locate Chinese card games in special Asian theme areas. "Disney China" architecture and design with passable noodle shops? Find it here.

more ›

Tags: Gambling / Surviving Atlantic City / → All Tags

Surviving AC: The Weird, Wild World of Branded Slot Machines

Who goes to Atlantic City? We sent Neal Ungerleider to find out.

Let's cut to the chase when it comes to slot machines: The babies are essentially random number generators. Ever since the great switchover to computerized slot machines, the games have been based on internal software that uses an RNG to determine what will show up on the reels.

Nonetheless, slots are popular. They dominate the floor space of nearly all Atlantic City casinos. In the quest to attact gamblers to machines, manufacturers have increasingly turned to offering licensed slots based on popular television, film, music and cultural properties.

more ›

Tags: Gambling / Surviving Atlantic City / → All Tags

Surviving AC: Automated Poker Tables Ditch the Dealer

Who goes to Atlantic City? We sent Neal Ungerleider to find out.

Poker is, by far, America's favorite card game. But there are only so many bells and whistles you can add to win new fans. So enter the newest gimmick of all: Automated poker tables.

Over at the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City, 14 new PokerPro tables made their debut in the building's East Tower for a field trial earlier this month. The electronic tables have room for 10 players, who sit at individual video touch screens. The game automatically shuffles and deals the cards for all players--and automatically identifies winners after each hand. In other words, the dealer has been completely shut out of the equation.

But how do the games play? From our experience, it's a mixed bag. On the one hand, the pace of the game is a bit faster than traditional poker thanks to computerization. The machines also--let's face it--attract inexperienced poker players who view the tables as stepping stones between the video slots and real poker. But the interpersonal aspect of the game is completely gone. A good dealer can add personality and spirit to a game, just as much as a bad dealer can ruin it. With no dealer in play, it just feels like... video poker for ten people.

Related Stories:
· No Dealers, but Plenty of Action [Press of AC]
· Atlantic City Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: Pokertek]

Tags: Eliot Spitzer / Ashley Alexandra Dupre / → All Tags

Eliot's Ex Ashley Dupre Saves Money... and the Earth

Ashley Dupre, the high-priced call girl at the center of the Eliot Spitzer sex scandal, clearly hasn't earned enough for a chauffeured car to take her from her home in New Jersey to NYC. Then again, maybe she just believes in saving the earth by using mass transit.

A spy spotted her taking a seat on the Academy Bus from Holmdel, New Jersey into the Port Authority bus station this morning at 11 am. The price of a one-way ticket? $12.

While she was wearing more clothes than what we normally seen her in, our spy says she still looked pretty "slutty."

She was wearing a long white skirt with a black pattern on it, but her top was low-cut and backless and it showed off all her tattoos. She had on sunglasses too. Once we got to Port Authority, she just disappeared into the crowds.

more ›

Tags: Airport Spas / Massage Bar / EWR / Jaunted Tested / → All Tags

Jaunted Tested: Massage Bars at the Airport

Whenever we gots time to kill in an airport, we like to troll up and down the gates checking out the retail offerings. Part of this stems from a necessity like "We need to buy a pack of gum" or "We want a bottle of water before take-off" or "We really need a big bag of trashy tabloid magazines to keep us occupied on the flight."

More often than we like, this airport-trolling stems from sheer boredom. And because we're airport geeks and travel a lot, we're always keeping mental tabs on which airports have what and where.

One of the things that always perks us up is a mini-spa, a place that offers quickie massages or mani/pedis or even facials and haircuts. Yet hitting up the mini-spa is not always practical because who has the time?

But yesterday, we had three whole hours to kill in the American terminal at Newark Liberty International and guess what we did? We tested the Massage Bar near Gates 30-39.

more ›

Tags: Surfing / Beaches / New York Times / Travel Trends / → All Tags

Keep Your Trunks on Travel: NJ's Prudish Beach

Last we heard, naked vacations were the newest hotness. Now The New York Times says at least one beach town isn't getting in on the latest vacation "trend." So if the idea of cavorting nekkid with other tourists isn't your idea of fun, perhaps you'll be more comfortable in Long Beach, New Jersey.

The beach town has just passed an ordinance outlawing:

The change of clothes in any public area or public street unless within a permanent enclosed structure.

Doesn't sound too draconian, really, until you realize that just about everyone in town--locals and visitors alike--hit the beach as often as possible. And since wet suits and swim trunks don't mix, that means, yep, some people change on the beach.

Locals are split on the new rule, as it satisfies some tourists (the prudes) while causing headaches for others (the surfers). But while other people have mixed feelings on the ordinance, Surfrider Foundation manager John Weber has his mind made up on how important it is:

I'd like to fight the polluters and doers of evil, but we've got to fight about people changing their wet suits.

Related Stories:
· A Beach Where Discretion Is More Than Just Advised [NYT]
· No Shoes, No Shirt, No Worries [NYT]
· Beaches coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: john w]

Tags: Project-Runway-Map / Television Travel / TV Travel / → All Tags

Project Runway Map: Prom Dresses Are, Like, Important

It's never too early to start thinking about the prom. In fact, we saw a magazine in a bookstore the other day solely devoted to the latest teen prom trends. Even if prom is about five months away.

So Wednesday's episode of Project Runway about designing prom dresses for Catholic school girls from New Jersey is not really that out of sync. But maybe the Jersey part is. Why couldn't they pick some Upper East Side Gossip Girls to dress?

Whatever the reason, the designers bring in their "clients" to the showroom to talk about what kind of designs they want. Immediately, Christian cannot stand his client, who has her own ideas about what to wear to prom. This is pretty much the big drama of the episode--and who really should have won.

more ›

Tags: Airport WiFi / EWR / → All Tags

Airport WiFi: Fuggheddaboudit at Newark Airport

Contribute your airport wireless report by leaving it in comments, uploading your airport photo to Jaunted Flickr Photo Pool, or via email, and we will add it to our U.S. Airport Wireless map.

Usually in our stories on Airport WiFi we like to dish out which airports are letting travelers surf the web for free and without hassle. But this isn't one of those happy stories.

Yesterday, we were waiting in the Continental terminal at Newark Liberty International Airport when we realized we had to go online immediately and file a story. We selected "concourse" from our WiFi network options and were taken straight to a page from Boingo Wireless. We were given two options: One was to sign up for a yearly account and the second option was 24 hours for $7.95.

Since we were on a tight schedule--the plane was boarding, our deadline inching closer--we opted for the $7.95 and spent about 10 minutes total online. Grrr.

Boingo is overcharging people to use the Internet in other places, too:

With over 100,000 hot spots worldwide, Boingo is available everywhere your travels take you, including 400 airports, top hotels like Marriott and Hilton or even around town at places like Barnes & Noble or The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf.

What's more annoying is that we actually have access to the Continental President's Club where the wireless is free. It's just that it was at the far end of the terminal, and we wouldn't have had time to haul bags over there, file the story and board on time. Double grrr.

Related Stories:
· Our Guide to Free Airport WiFi [Jaunted]
· Airport WiFi coverage [Jaunted]

Tags: Celeb Travel / Hilary Duff / → All Tags

New Jersey: Hilary Shivers For Her Art

Brrrr! It's a cold day at the beach for Hilary Duff, who's in New Jersey for the next few weeks filming on the now-frigid public beaches of the famed Jersey Shore. Despite warmer-than-average temperatures this fall along the Eastern Seaboard, running into the water can't be pleasant. (See the arm of the wet-suited guard from the right side; what wouldn't Hilary give for a flesh-colored wetsuit!)

Duff's film, "Greta," depicts a summer romance among teenagers working at a restaurant "down the Shore." Check her out in Ocean Grove, Neptune and Asbury Park, along with costars Martin Sheen, Ellen Burstyn and Ellen Barkin.

Related Stories:
· Celeb Travel coverage [Jaunted]
· New Jersey Travel coverage [Jaunted]

[Photo: The Superficial]