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Trip report for Grand Gulfport

The wife and I have just returned from the Grand Gulfport and we just
wanted to give a quick update.

HOTEL
The Grand Gulfport actually has two hotels, one by the casino and the
other across the road (connected by a covered walkway). The one
across the road ("The Oasis") is a newer hotel and the rooms show it.
They are really nice, quite large and with all the amenities. They
compare well with the rooms at Caesars LV. The rooms at the casino
hotel are not quite as nice but still very good, just a little old
around the edges. The casino hotel is directly on the beach. The pool
complex at the Oasis hotel is really top knotch. There are multiple
pools and they are connected by a "river" which loops in and out of
the pool structure. There are "tubes" provided for floating on the
river and there is also a waterfall pool. This is one of the best
pools I have seen, particulary if you have kids. In fact this hotel
was full of families with young and not so young kids. This is either
great if you have kids, or not so great if you don't. The Grand is
also directly on the beach (another kid friendly feature). They have
tennis courts with lights and a sand volley ball court.

KIDS QUEST
Not only does the Grand have the great pool for the kids but they have
two video Arcades and a Kids Quest. This looks after children from 6
weeks to 12 years. We checked it out and it was very well run. I
would highly recommend this hotel for families (our first is on the
way). Cost is $6 per hour which can be comped.

RESTUARANTS
They have a New Orleans Bisto which is open 24 hours and serves very
good food. There is also a 50's burger/sandwhich joint, a buffet of
course, plus a seafood restuarant with sushi bar. Finally there is a
Steak house for an upscale night and a coffee shop. Comps are good at
all places. All resturants but the Steakhouse have full windows which
offer a view of the marina and the ocean. This makes it feel like you
are eating in a real restuarant and not in a casino.

CASINO
This is one of the few casino's that I have seen that has windows.
There are ocean views all around. We found this made the place very
open and comfortable for gambling. There was a low smoke factor and
many groups of machines were setup as non-smoking. They have many
"self comp" terminals and I had no problem using my Vegas Hilton card
at any of them. They also have a "self serve" drink station with
Pepsi products. We find this a real plus (get drinks when you want
and save on tips).

VIDEO POKER
Of course all of the above is not worth much if the games aren't up to
much. As quarter players we focused on the AA machines. There were
(6) 25c machines and (8) 5c machines (surely one of the best 5c plays
around). They also had 9/7/5 DB at 25c and 8/5 JOB Trade Up at 25c
for those interested in that. At 50c they had 9/6 JOB at single,
triple and five lines. They also had 9/6 JOB at $1 in single, triple
and five lines. They have $1 NSUD single line only from what we saw.

CASH BACK & COMPS
Cashback is 0.33% for VP and .67% for slots. We found that comps
accumulated at about double this rate, around 0.6% based on our
calculations, although this did seem to vary (depending on the time?
day?). We went in on a casino rate based on our LV Hilton play (we
are C3 at the Hilton) and we only gave them about $14,000 in action
over 2 full days. Based on that, they picked up the rooms but we had
to use our accurred comps to cover most of the meals.

SUMMARY
Very nice hotel, excellent pool complex, good restuarants, on the
beach with good VP. What else do you want? Oh, we were up $300 and
two stuffed toy crawfish (are you really a complete person without a
stuffed crawfish toy?)