Vaughan to Atlantic City: the Boardwalk and casino weekend by chauffeured Sprinter

Atlantic City, and the group that books it

Atlantic City is the seaside town that invented the boardwalk in 1870 and the casino resort on the East Coast in 1978, and it is the weekend Vaughan's groups of friends book when Niagara's casinos have been done: the Boardwalk's four miles of planks between the casino hotels and the beach — the Borgata in the Marina district and the Boardwalk's Hard Rock, Ocean, Caesars, Tropicana, Resorts and Bally's, with the shows, the residencies and the concert arenas the casinos run; Steel Pier's rides over the water with the 227-foot observation wheel; the beach, which unlike the rest of the Jersey Shore is free; Absecon Lighthouse, the state's tallest, climbable; the Tanger Outlets at the Walk between the Expressway and the Boardwalk; the rolling chairs pushed along the planks since 1887; White House Subs' hoagies since 1946; and Lucy the Elephant, the six-storey wooden elephant of 1881 at Margate, five minutes south. It is an hour from Philadelphia and two and a half from New York, which makes it the shore weekend those trips add; the Visit Atlantic City site has the calendar, and the border guide has the bridge.

The road

From Woodbridge the QEW, the Peace Bridge, I-190 and I-90 to Rochester, I-390 south, I-86 to the Pennsylvania line, I-81 to Scranton, the Northeast Extension (I-476) south through the Poconos' edge to the Pennsylvania Turnpike, I-276 and the Delaware River bridge into New Jersey, and the Atlantic City Expressway's forty-four miles across the Pine Barrens to the Boardwalk — eleven hours by the estimate and eleven and a half with the booth and stops, which no group does in a day: the split is the Poconos at seven and a half hours or a Philadelphia night, and the Expressway's last hour is the Saturday morning. The Sprinter carries a group of eight to fourteen with the bay for the weekend's bags; a family of four in an SUV does the Philadelphia version.

The Boardwalk

The Boardwalk runs four miles from the Absecon Inlet past the casinos to Ventnor — the planks laid in 1870 to keep the sand out of the hotels, rebuilt after the storms — with Boardwalk Hall's 1929 arena and its pipe organ, the world's largest, the casinos' entrances, the saltwater-taffy shops (Fralinger's and James's since the 1880s), the rolling chairs for hire with a pusher, the tram, the Steel Pier at Virginia Avenue, the Playground Pier's shops, the beach's free access at every block, and the Ventnor end's quiet residential planks for the morning walk; a group's Saturday is the Boardwalk on foot from the hotel with the Sprinter released until the evening's show.

The casinos, the shows and the arithmetic

The Borgata in the Marina district is the largest and the one the poker crowd names; the Boardwalk's Hard Rock (the old Taj Mahal) and Ocean (the old Revel) are the newest; Caesars, Tropicana, Resorts and Bally's are the older Boardwalk houses with the Quarter's shops at the Tropicana; the shows are the casinos' residencies and the touring acts at Hard Rock's Etess Arena, Ocean's Ovation Hall, the Borgata's Event Center and Boardwalk Hall's concerts, and the Visit Atlantic City site has the month's calendar. The arithmetic Vaughan's groups know: the hotels' weekend rates are the trip's bill and the midweek rates a third of them; a group that can leave Vaughan on a Wednesday pays half for the same rooms. Gambling winnings are declared at the border like any other cash over USD 10,000; the losses are not.

Steel Pier, the beach and the lighthouse

Steel Pier at the Boardwalk's middle is the 1898 pier rebuilt as an amusement pier — the 227-foot observation wheel's climate-controlled gondolas over the ocean, the Slingshot, the helicopter rides from the pier's end, the children's rides and the funnel cake — and a family's afternoon while the parents' friends are at the tables; the beach is free, wide and guarded from Memorial Day to Labor Day, the surf gentle, with the casino hotels' pools as the alternative; Absecon Lighthouse at the inlet end is the state's tallest at 171 feet, climbed by 228 steps for the view over the island and the bay, with the keeper's house museum; and Lucy the Elephant at Margate, the 1881 wooden elephant that has been a tavern and a cottage and is now a museum with tours to the howdah on her back, is the five-minute detour every visitor with a camera makes. The lighthouse's site has the climb's hours.

The food, and the outlets

White House Subs on Arctic Avenue since 1946 — the Italian hoagie on the Formica bread, with the celebrities' photographs on the wall — is the lunch the group is told to have; Dock's Oyster House of 1897 and Knife & Fork Inn of 1912 are the dinners in the old town; the Borgata's and Hard Rock's restaurants are the resort dinners; the Tanger Outlets at the Walk between the Expressway's end and the Boardwalk have a hundred stores in a state that charges no sales tax on clothing, which the Grove City post's arithmetic explains, and the 48-hour CAD 800 exemption per person applies on the way home.

The weekend, in shape

Friday's drive to the Poconos or Philadelphia; Saturday's Expressway at 9 and the Boardwalk hotel's check-in at 10:30 with the rooms held by the travel desk, the Boardwalk's walk to Steel Pier and the wheel, White House Subs' lunch, the beach's afternoon, the show at 8 in the Etess Arena, the tables and the Boardwalk's night with the Sprinter released and the group on foot; Sunday's late breakfast, Absecon Lighthouse and Lucy the Elephant with the Sprinter at 11, the Tanger outlets' hour, the Expressway at 2 and the road north — the Turnpike, I-476, I-81 — with a Corning or Scranton night, or the long push to Woodbridge by the Peace Bridge at 1 a.m. with the group asleep from Scranton. Two nights of daily hire, one number in the booking engine, split eight ways.

What the chauffeur replaces

Eleven hours each way through four states as a driver, split over two days; the Peace Bridge; the Northeast Extension's hills and the Expressway's Pine Barrens in the dark; the casino garages, which are free and not the point; and the Saturday night's central question — who in a group of eight at a casino is fit to drive at two in the morning — which the chauffeured version answers with nobody, because the vehicle waits and the group walks. For a couple the trip is a flight to Philadelphia and a rental; for a group of eight it is the Sprinter's one fare divided, and the site is plain that the hotel's weekend rate is the trip's real cost.

Seasons

Summer for the beach, Steel Pier and the Boardwalk at full tilt, with the July and August weekends' rates at their highest; September for the warm sea, the Miss America pageant's old month and the empty planks — the town's best weekend; the winter for the casino rates at their lowest and the shows' residencies; the American holiday weekends — Memorial Day, the Fourth, Labor Day — are the fullest and the Canadian work days that a group avoids. The Expressway in a summer Saturday's traffic is the chauffeur's timing.

Pairing it

Atlantic City pairs with Philadelphia an hour west as the city-and-shore weekend, with New York two and a half hours north for the group that ends in Manhattan, with the Poconos as the drive's split, and with Baltimore two and a half hours southwest for the group on the East Coast loop.

The Saturday night, in order, for a group of eight

Eight friends from Maple after the Poconos split: the Expressway at 9 with the Sprinter's tables, the Hard Rock's porte-cochère at 10:30 and the rooms the travel desk held, the Boardwalk south to Steel Pier at 11:30 and the wheel, White House Subs at 1, the beach until 4 with the towels from the bay, the pool, the show in the Etess Arena at 8, the tables and the Boardwalk's bars from 10, the Borgata's poker room by taxi for the two who wanted it, and beds at three — the Sprinter parked in the garage since 10:30 and the chauffeur asleep by eleven, because the group walks. Sunday's Sprinter at 11 for the lighthouse, Lucy and the outlets, and the road north at 2 with everyone asleep from the Turnpike.

Lucy the Elephant and Margate

Five minutes south of the Boardwalk's end on Atlantic Avenue, Lucy stands sixty-five feet tall on Margate's beach — built in 1881 to sell real estate, a tavern in the 1900s, a summer cottage in the 1910s, nearly demolished in 1970 and moved two blocks by the town's committee, a National Historic Landmark since 1976 — and the guided tour climbs the spiral stairs in her leg to the rooms inside and the howdah on her back with the ocean view; the Lucy site has the tours' hours, and the Sprinter's Sunday-morning stop is the photograph the group brings home.

Costs, plainly

The Atlantic City weekend is two nights of daily hire in the booking engine split eight ways, with the Poconos or Philadelphia split's night inside it; the hotel — the weekend's real cost, a third of it midweek — the show, the tables and the outlets are the group's own, and the 48-hour exemption covers the Tanger bags. Against the fare are eleven hours each way over two days through four states as a driver and the Saturday-night question of who drives; a couple flies to Philadelphia and rents, and a group of eight books the Sprinter for one fare and nobody at the wheel at two in the morning.

Booking it

Book a daily hire from the group's Vaughan addresses for the weekend with the split's night, or the shore weekend inside a Philadelphia or New York trip; tell us the hotel, the show, the group size, the addresses in order and every passenger's citizenship for the bridge, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

Book the Atlantic City weekend