Father's Day in Atlantic City

The day dawned beautiful!...That doesn't sound quite right, but never mind...it did, and it was!

I made Waz his favorite meal of Pancakes, for breakfast, with our usual coffee...which I wont mention till they start paying me to promote it!! ha! in my dreams:)

We took our time getting up and dressed and moving. We decided to join Jackie and Howard on the Boardwalk, for the day. They picked us up around 11am, and we all went in their dinghy to the Golden Nugget Marina, to tie up. The give you free dockage if they think you are going to gamble!!

There were many gorgeous and HUGE motor yachts docked there...one of them was Captained and crewed by Aussies, some of whom we chatted to, the previous day.


This boat is apparently owned by the person who owns and runs the restaurants at the Casino. She was in perfect conditioned and the crew were constantly cleaning her. Her name says it all..Boardwalk!

This 'little one' was for sale! She is only a 65fter.

This is the same brand as the first, just smaller...pretty tho!:)

Now that we are over the 'boat envy' (not really!! you need staff to run these things!), I will tell you about the rest of the day.

Howard and Jackie have been boating seriously for the last five years, living aboard full time. We have been most grateful for their guidance and knowledge on our Atlantic open ocean trip.  They are excellent company, and we all enjoy similar things, which made our day easy in all ways.
We made for the Asian restaurant at the Golden Nugget where Waz and I had a sampler Sushi platter, which I thought was going to be $20, and was in fact $32, for a shared plate that left us feeling hungry. Our large bowl of Miso soup was $7 each! wow!  A very expensive lunch!! We usually aim at spending around $20 for the two of us. Jackie got a huge bowl of Pad Thai, and Howard ordered Waz's favorite General Tsao's Chicken. They both enjoyed and ate the lot!:)

We caught the Jitney outside the Casino, after lunch, and sped (literally) off to the Boardwalk, along the Atlantic Ocean. The Revel was our destination.  Waz and I had photographed the outside of it the day before and marveled at it's design, and intended to go inside today. J and H were amazed at her architecture, also, and the four of us went inside.

WOW! is all we can say. In the foyer, which is nothing like any other Casino, or building we have ever seen, was not opulent, but 'interesting' in the very nicest way possible. Colors, shapes, escalators that went long and high...VERY high..in fact, we believe they are the highest escalators in the northern USA! Of course we had to go to the top of the three floor high lobby:) The tower is the Hotel.

 Sorry for the poor quality of the photos...cell phone is not my favorite medium! This is the motor court and the ground floor entry to the Casino.

 I just love the curves everywhere:)

 The enormity of the building is hard to convey...truly...it is beyond belief until you see it next to it's neighbors, then it totally dominates the skyline, when look back at it from the ocean.

 I am standing on the grass on the motor court level, taking this photo of a tour boat moving along the water just off the beach.

 Even the landscaping was curved:)

The boardwalk looking North...Note the new plantings of Dune Grass

 ..and looking south., The pavilion on the left with the red roofs is the Garden Pier, which is still being reconstructed after Hurricane Sandy.

 The REST of the building...one cannot get the whole thing into a photo.

 The boardwalk and the beach have been carefully put back to rights, after Sandy, and the dune grasses are carefully tended. What we loved was the cleanliness of the whole area, with attendants constantly sweeping and cleaning, all around us.

Inside REVEL...sorry photos not good quality!
We all marveled at how someone would conceive of this building and then engineer it. These escalators were something else, apparently just hanging out there in space!:) The whole effect was low key and there was plenty of space for the crowds without anyone feeling overwhelmed.

 These balls looked like they were covered in wool, on first glance, but I later thought they might be tulle. I like the low furniture in the vast space.

 The front windows on the ground floor.

 At the top of the first escalator. Look how far we are off the ground!

Then we went up the next escalator...of course:) and then the third one. We were getting a little wobbly, by the time we got off the top one and looked down! seriously, it was HIGH!

 

 

 that is the top of the third escalator.

 ..and here we are at the Hotel Lobby  floor..third one!

 2nd floor Casino

 You can see how steep they are!

 We went outside to the viewing deck and looked south down the boardwalk. The Steel Pier is the far pier, where Waz and I took photos the previous day.

 Waz with Howard and Jackie, on the viewing deck.

There are breakwater at intervals down the beach which makes swimming much safer, obviously. Lots of people in the water, as it was a stunning and warm day.

 Sorry...my finger got in the way of this one, lol. That far left breakwater is the channel at the entry to the Absecon Inlet Harbor, where we had to go to get to our mooring on Thursday, in such shocking conditions.

 Sorry, more pics of this building!

The next floor up was the Pool area which we couldn't enter!

 So much fun with the camera:)

 This Lounge garden area is three stories up...in what might be a normal 6 stories! All in shade because the hotel tower shadowed it!

 Innovative design was everywhere

Jackie and I loved the solid Granite tables with polished tops. We weren't allowed to steal them for the boat...might sink the ship!

Lots of little lounges and seating areas, with interesting furnishings and colors. It appears almost Retro!

 Obviously I love these:) Glass!

 The living wall out in the cocktail lounge/smoking area was half dead.

This is a fire place in the outdoor cocktail lounge/smokers place. The white vinyl was a bit dirty in places.

 The Hotel Lobby Vast open space.

Hotel Check in. The mosaic on the back wall was interesting also. They were very busy!

 I love this fireplace and little seating area...lots of nooks and cozy places for people to meet and be together.

I couldn't get my cell phone to cooperate with taking a closer photo, but this is a plan of the main floors of the building

Even the downstairs had interesting 'things'. These were glossy plastic. I would have loved a huge bouquet in the larger one.

So, then we set off down the Boardwalk to the Taj Mahal for a Starbucks Frappucino! It is hard work taking photos and tiki-touring in these places.
See how big this place is??

 I took these photos as we were leaving at 6.30am, the next day, just to show you the size of the place.

 Is this not amazing?

After our Starbucks, we walked back down the side streets to find a Jitney...which happened along at just the right time. The drivers are crazy! It is totally nerve wracking in these vehicles...and we have subjected ourselves to this four times now! sheesh!:( No alternative, unless you like to pay for taxis!

We arrived back at the Marina and went back to Jackie and Howard's dinghy. It fits four people better than ours, which tends to get you wet! Especially crossing the multiple channels and tides/swells etc getting back into Rum Point where we were anchored.

WE arranged with our other boat mates, Linda and Bryan, who were docked in the same marina, to get under way at around 6am, the following morning. An early start being necessary because of the full day of motoring up the coast to NY harbor.

They agreed, though it was a little early for Linda, who thought 7am might have been better...she might have been right, as it turned out for the rest of us. They had no problems, but we did...more on that next post!

We were dropped off at the boat, and Jackie and Howard returned to theirs, knowing that we were getting together to share a meal around 7pm. We both had things to do to prepare for the trip the next day.

I cooked some steak to have cold for lunch, made a HUGE cole slaw (filling), boiled some eggs for breakfast on the go, cooked chicken thighs for dinner and then the Italian Sausage for dinner also. This was the last of the German Butcher meat that we had frozen in Port Charlotte! We have so enjoyed it, and Howard and Jackie did too. They are New Yorkers, so they know their sausages:)

Jackie made a lovely salad and we enjoyed the food and the company. We all needed to get ourselves together for the next day, so we said our farewells just on sunset.