On Sunday morning, I took a day trip up to MGM National Harbor, the new casino that opened a few days ago. This place has been crazy busy and popular since it opened late Thursday night. I planned to get there at an early hour (8:30 AM) so as to beat the traffic and most of the crowds.
Driving to the casino is relatively easy coming from Virginia. The exit to National Harbor already has an exit for traffic heading toward MGM and Tanger Outlets. Harborview Avenue has now been renamed MGM National Avenue. As you drive up the hill, you'll see the entrances to the big parking garage. Once the opening period ends, eventually the parking issue will be much easier. The garage has arrow and numerical indicators that tell you how many parking spaces are available and where they are. Once you park, hopefully you remember what section you parked, because each floor is huge, and getting to the elevator to take you to the casino can be a hike.
The casino is the centerpiece of the facility, with a lot of the shopping/dining/entertainment sections along the circumference of the huge, oval-like casino. On one end is the hotel, and the other end is a huge patio with a huge fountain that will be open on warmer days as well as a gigantic view of the area. You can see the rest of National Harbor, out to Virginia, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, and the tall buildings way out in the distance near Alexandria and Arlington. On a clear day you might be able to see all the way to downtown DC's landmarks.
The slot machine inventory is very nice and huge. They have many of the newest slots, like Lock-It Link and Walking Dead 2, as well as a lot of player favorites like Buffalo, Wheel of Fortune, Fu Dao Le, and Stinkin' Rich. Many of the machines have selectable denominations as well: 1-cent, 2-cent, and 5-cent are most choices. I know Lightning Link and Lock-It Link have the usual 1/2/5/10-cent choices. There's many different choices for high- and low-rollers alike. The high-limit room has 8-line Fu Dao Le and Zhen-Chan, as well as $1 Cleo II, Pharaoh's Fortune, Golden Goddess, among many others.
The table games are a different story. If you play blackjack, be ready for at least $25 minimums. Also, make sure you read the table for the blackjack payouts!! Almost all the tables in the main area only pay 6-5 for blackjacks and they hit soft 17. I only saw 2 tables with $25/$50 minimums where they pay the correct and full 3-2 for blackjacks, but they deal from a continuous shuffler. If you're looking tables where they stand on all 17's and pay 3-2 (like all the blackjack games at Maryland Live!), you'll find two of them near the hotel side with $50 and $100 minimums, as well as in the high-limit room. I wouldn't play at a 6-5 table even if you paid me. If I have $500 or so, I might dive into a $25 table but it better pay 3-2 for blackjacks. The casino also has other games to play, like craps (3-4-5 odds), Let It Ride, Roulette, and Baccarat, but again, be ready for $25 minimums.
I did rather decently on Lock-It Link and Walking Dead 2. I had a couple nice $295 and $205 bonus rounds on Lock-It Link (betting $5/spin), and a few nice line hits on Walking Dead 2 (betting $2.25/spin). I didn't try any blackjack though since I don't want to play on a 6-5 table.
This place is in the MLife family, so if you have an MLife card, you can earn your tier credits here. I'm not sure how much coin-in is required to get 1 tier credit. All I know is that the qualification year starts October 1 and ends the following September 30, so I would hope by next September I'll have moved up to at least Pearl level. Up to now, I hardly played at any MGM casinos outside of Las Vegas; I'm more a Total Rewards guy myself. But I wonder if the perks for at least Pearl are better than what Total Rewards offers for Platinum.
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