BBQ chicken pizza at A Dam Good Bar & Grill. Upstairs in the Quarter at Tropicana. And I second the recommendation for The Comedy Stop at The Trop. Check one of the local tourist papers for a 2-for-1 coupon.

Are any casinos offering sign up promos?

They're always changing. Best to contact the casinos directly, or check their websites.

Ok. What about everything else I mentioned(and all the things I left out cause it's just too long a list to mention)? Still the same?

what are the best beaches around the casinos in atlantic city? What is the easiest way to get there from Borgata?

Depends on what kind of beach you're looking for and how far you're willing to go.

Best beaches near the Borgata is in Brigantine, but you'll need beach tags. AC Beaches are free but you can see why...

The AC beaches are fine, plus you got the Boardwalk, and the Boardwalk casinos and restaurants. And since it's still preseason, they wont be crowded. I think the easiest way to get there from the Borgata would be to take the jitney. Actually, a cab would be easier but would cost more.

If you're looking for something a little bit more secluded, the beach of Brigantine(closest beach to the Borgata) is very nice...

and the beach that goes up and down the boardwalk will be a lot more congested and not as quiet but still fine/clean. There are some nice bars/casual restaurants located right on the beach/pier/Boardwalk, so that might be nice, too.

and if you don't mind driving about ~15 minutes, the beaches of Ventnor and Margate are real nice, too.

Jitneys run throughout AC and halfway up Ventnor but if I didn't have a car I'd def. go by route via taxi.

The beaches are fine, it's what's in front of the casinos' that are cringe-worthy.

Why do you say that? AC beaches are nice. They clean them. Have life guards. And the boardwalk. It's the middle of the city you want to avoid.

Serious question:

Why does everyone love to hate AC?

It really doesn't seem like that bad of a town.

From my few experiences, the beaches in AC have not been clean, the people on them can be undesirable at times, etc. I don't think it's even a comparison between brigantine beaches and AC beaches, personally.

That's a good question. It's not as bad as many people on here think. Like any city, it has it's problems, but it's still a good town. As I've said before on here I have fond memories of family trips here when I was a child, pre-casinos. I've started coming back a few years ago when I stated playing poker and I still love the city and the Boardwalk. I'd rather come here to play than play in rooms closer to me. It's had many ups and downs in it's history and is currently in a down period but I choose to believe it will come back again. The casinos were supposed to help develop the blighted neighborhoods around them and it's sad to see that never happened. Now that the casinos are less of a factor, I think the city will have to come up with other ways to bring people to the city. I think AC still has a lot going for it.

That could be. I like walking on the beach and on the Boardwalk and watching the ocean, but I've never been one to spend hours laying on the beach. I think the AC beaches are nice, but I don't know enough about other beaches to compare them. It takes a lot of money to maintain a public beach so it makes sense that towns that charge a fee would be able to better maintain their beaches. Since AC doesn't charge for their beaches and they're easy to get to from Philly and South Jersey without a car, and since AC is largely minority, largely lower economic class (unlike most other NJ beach towns) you'll see greater diversity than you will on many other beaches. Since they're free, I would suspect they're more crowded than other beaches during peak summer weekends, but I don't know for sure.

Going to Borg for memorial day weekend, expecting traffic coming from NY to be horrible. If I leave NY 8-10 at night Friday, and come back around the same Monday night should I be OK? Lately I've been hitting heavy traffic on the way back from AC even at 7-8 PM.

Going down the GSP on that Friday night, regardless of time will be a crapshoot. You may be OK, it may be a parking lot. Use Waze to see what the roads look like before you start.

Monday night shouldnt be an issue.

I still love AC but I find it hard to justify going for two reasons:

- Difficult to justify the drive
- Hotel rooms often aren't cheap enough in the summer for a weekend trip

Do you guys feel like games here are tough?

By AC beaches, do you mean the beaches on the boardwalk just outside all of the casinos?

Varies but the table selection is so good at the borg that there is always something on the weekends at least. Summer is the best time for games in AC though for obvious reasons.

Yes

Tough compared to where? If I had to compare AC(Borgata) to our closest competitor that's outside of NJ, I'd say that the games are tougher than Parx, but still very good, though. And getting better as the holiday/summer rolls in.

Got that app, it's saying average speed is still under 25 mph lol. Going to go tomorrow afternoon instead, hopefully better.

In my opinion the major problem with A.C. has always been that it is too easy to leave. Everyone in the casino is about 2 hours from home. No one stays too long at "America's Favorite Playground".

Compared to Vegas where people have to fly in, stay for 3-14 days and will drop a serious bankroll on several supporting industries (food, entertainment, transportation, fashion, etc) in addition to gambling.

No one is flying to A.C. If you run bad you go home. It doesn't help that when you step outside the casinos you get the overwhelming sense that you are in the 'armpit of America' .

Secondly, I blame the city govt for running the town into the tank and not leveraging the casino boom to boost the local economy over the last 30 years and for not making it a place people would want to stay. For example, what did the city do with the estimated $50million in free money they collected annually from mandated garage parking fees?

I'm not sure Straub or Icahn can change the trajectory of the town, but as someone who cut his teeth playing 20-40 at the Taj, I certainly am hoping they can, mainly for sentimental reasons.

There's a boat race on Father's Day this year per the DO AC website. Has anyone been to this event in the past and, if so, could you please let me know a little bit about your experience and what I could expect to see if I were to attend?