I cross posted this in the vpFREE_California group as well.
Visited Chukchansi Gold Resort & Casino this past weekend. We had
visited once prior, but this time we actually stayed in the hotel.
I'll cover several aspects, but will start with the gambling since I
suspect that's what most folks are interested in.
Chukchansi is located roughly 40 miles from Fresno on Highway 41. It
is just outside of Coarsegold, CA.
VP inventory: Altogether there are roughly 90 MD Gamemaker machines
at Chukchansi in 11 banks. This differs from other CA indian casinos
in the gold country who have 1 or 2 banks only. Of the 11 banks, two
are nickel / dime / quarter, 8 are quarter / half / dollar, and one
is dollar / 2 dollar / 5 dollar / 10 dollar. this 1/2/5/10 $ bank
was right outside the high limit gaming area, but I did not enter
that area to see if there were any additional machines. I also did
not check the bar top machines.
Games available were DW, DDB and JOB. That's all I saw. At all
levels the DW was painfully short pay, 20 for the dirty royal, 4 for
a quad. The JOB was 8/5 at all levels from quarter up, and 6/5 for
nickel and dime. DDB was 9/5 at all levels from quarter up, and 8/5
for nickel and dime.
Hotel: This is the first time we stayed there. Had a room on the
2nd floor next to the stairs. Quite convenient as the stairs
deposited you right into the smoke free section of the casino. The
rooms were more than adequate, TV, small fridge, in room safe, coffee
maker. Views of the Sierra's. Bathroom had tile floors and granite
countertops. Doors were very heavy solid wood. When you shut a
door, you could tell the walls were solid, i.e. nothing shook.
Couple of other convenient little things like magnets in the bottom
corners of the shower curtain to keep it in place.
Restaurants: Didn't eat at the Buffet as we just weren't that
hungry. But they have one. We did eat at the coffee shop which was
good enough to make the 30 minute wait worthwhile. We also ate at
the Deuces Diner, which looks like a diner right out of NJ, all
chrome, gasoline station signs, 50's music blasting away. This is a
fun place to grab a quick bite to eat.
Entertainment: We didn't see anything, just stayed the one night.
But they have and plan to have big name entertainment. Carrot Top is
playing in March and Sinbad sometime in April. There was a jazz band
playing in one of the bars Sat night and it was pretty crowded.
In general we have a good visit. My wife hit quad Aces twice in the
first hour we were there, and I hit quad aces a bit later, (no
kickers though). Throughout Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning we
both had more than our fair share of quads, but very few straights /
flushes / full houses. This made for quite a bumpy ride for the
bankroll, but in the end my wife's winnings more than made up for my
losses and we ended slightly up.