Road Trip Series: Mohegan Sun - Casino of the Wind - Uncasville, CT

Date: August 29, 2008

Time: 7am

This bleary-eyed Long Island blogger leaves his house to pick up a sibling in the city before heading up to the grand opening of the "Casino of the Wind" and the new poker room at Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, CT. Arriving shortly after 10:30am in CT (with help from the lack of traffic from the long holiday weekend,) we weaved our way from the Casino of the Earth on the opposite end of the premises to the newly christened Casino of the Wind. Reporters and gamblers alike were on hand for the unveiling and the room was buzzing with excitement. Not bad for an early Friday morning. Some might say that Mohegan has to keep up pace with Foxwoods and the dizzying amount of casino space that they have on premises, but they're probably as likely to be in competition with the Borgata in Atlantic City to try and bring in all of the visitors from New York.

The new casino was beautiful, with a wonderful water-wall, architectural brilliance and the cleanliness that you'd expect from a high-end room. We sat down at the poker tables in the new poker room (Mohegan used to have a poker room but it was closed down due to some employee dishonesty a while back....allegedly) and were excited to be the first people to ever sit at that table, in that chair and handle those chips. The dealers, most of them coming from other areas of the casino such as craps and blackjack were more nervous than the players on hand and frequently made errors and were always turning over cards. This was the first time in my life that I have seen players giving direction to dealers on how to play games and how to break down pots. This game wasn't for the faint of heart. Most of the accents at our table belonged to Red Sox fans, and I was pleased to ask them if they were rooting for the Yankees this year. Eight hours later, and about $100 lighter, we escaped the seats that we had claimed as our own and made our way back to the parking garage and back to Long Island. Flying back was a breeze as we made the trip to NYC in two hours flat.

To view a gallery from the new casino, click here.

The verdict: Not bad for a day trip, even better for an overnight trip. Mohegan Sun also offers enough entertainment for a full-on weekend trip. Enjoy and good luck!