Written by Kim
We do the drive from North Myrtle Beach to NJ quite often and it’s often a 12 hour drive when we go to North Jersey so decided this time to change it up a bit. The DC traffic is the worst so we’re hoping a stop at the casino to break it up helps. We’re not huge gamblers but play some and have been able to parlay some of our travel perks. We are Diamond Plus with Royal Caribbean which gets us a MGM gold card with their status matching program. We love the benefits at Borgata like free rooms and lounge access. Alex was able to get us a free room at MGM National so why not. It broke our drive to 2/3 and 1/3 driving about 8 hours to get DC which was a welcome stop since I’m having some back pain lately.
The hotel was nice. Modern rooms with a weird bathroom setup off the bedroom area rather than an entry hallway. The bathroom had a glass enclosed shower (with curtains) and no door so if you want privacy in the bathroom not a great setup. The bed was comfy and it worked for us.
We had dinner at the Asian restaurant, Ginger. Food was ok not great and pricey as we expected for a casino but comp paid for it.
The hotel lobby was similar to the Observatory in The Bellagio in Vegas. It was very pretty.
Well…we paid for our rooms with our losses from the casino so decided to get up and go to avoid traffic heading north. We know in the end it’s gambling but like to win! We left at 7:30 but probably should have left around 7 to avoid a bit of traffic. We stopped in Annapolis for breakfast then got on route 50 to go up the Delmarva peninsula for the rest of the drive.
A few hours in the car gave us some time to talk about our upcoming Australia trip. We even got some things booked like our annual travel insurance policy and some tours. We are heading to Sydney on November 3rd. We will be in Sydney a few days to adjust to timing and see some things we haven’t seen like the Blue Mountains. We board Anthem for a 10 days cruise around New Zealand with several stops then will rent a car and drive the coast south to Melbourne. Should be a great month in Australia in their late spring / early summer. We loved our last trip to Australia and are very looking forward to getting back down under!
Until then…..
