Travel Tips & Adventures

This is it!  The last Wednesday of the year, and, the last of a series of articles on Arizona tribal Hotel-Casinos.

For the culmination of the last four weeks, we decided to get out of town and head for Prescott, Arizona, less than 2 1/2 hours northwest of Phoenix.

Although containing only 1400+ acres, the Yavapai-Prescott tribe has done well within that small amount of land.  Originally, its economy consisted of timber, mining and agriculture along with a sand and gravel company.

Today with less than 200 tribal members they have managed to secure a Business Park, a 250-acre shopping center, a hotel and two casinos at the entrance to the city of Prescott.

Gaming at Bucky’s

The larger of the two gaming facilities, Bucky’s Casino sits atop a hill adjacent, and directly connected to the Prescott Hotel and Conference Center. The view from atop the hill is incredible which is attractive for hotel guests, but not so much for casino patrons who probably aren’t that enthralled by the view.

The casino is unique to others we have seen in the last few weeks in that a closed double door connects the hotel to the gaming floor.   Elsewhere, the hotel to casino entrances have been large and free flowing with no forbidding access.  (There are also two outside entrances directly into the casino).  The answer might lie in the fact that the hotel is a non-smoking property and the narrow hallway that connects from the front desk to the casino is much closer than the other properties we have seen.

Inside you find that there are actually three levels of gaming each with slot machines, but interspersed with table games on two of those levels.

As I walked in from the hotel entrance, I was greeted by a security guard, another startling addition to what I had seen over the last several weeks.  Guards were transparently scattered throughout the facility.  Maybe it was the smaller size of the casino that made them that much more visible, but I don’t recall feeling “watched” by humans as much as I did at Bucky’s.

I had the opportunity to actually see inside of a gaming machine as one was being repaired.  The internal electronics and maze of wiring was amazing.  This was nothing like the old “one-armed bandits” with the pull arms.  It was interesting that the maintenance tech was still working inside the machine when I made my way back around to that area.  He even seemed a little baffled by all of the electronics himself.

I had to chuckle as the gambler next to him was not the least bit interested in the inner workings of the identical machine on which he was playing.  It was his steely focused gaze on the screen of his own machine that was almost scary!

Other Diversions

Although the majority of the evening’s gaming were taking place at slot machines, there are Blackjack and Poker tables along with Keno.

If you need some food, Bucky’s Café is located on the third floor and is open for breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Just outside is a full service bar.

I will have to say that Bucky’s is a much more intimate casino atmosphere than any I had encountered in the last few weeks as it does not have high ceilings, huge gaming floors and non-smoking gaming areas.

Low ceilings and a nearly packed house on the main slot machine floor reminded me of some of the small casinos in downtown Las Vegas.

www.buckyscasino.com

Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the excellent hotel property attached to the casino that is managed by small boutique firm with international holdings.

Take a look at our SHOP for gifts for yourself and others.

Tags: Arizona, Casino, Gaming, Hotels, Native American, Prescott Arizona, Restaurant, Travel, Yavapai

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Arizona, AZ, Gaming, Hotels, Native American, Restaurant, Southwest, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.