Graton Resort & Casino

Reviews 3

J.

J.S. Smith

While Graton usually would rate a 1 or 2 by me since it opened, last month they finally bumped up the free play slots amount to entry level reward card holders to an amount that is worthy of considering stopping in to use it if you happen to be in their neighborhood. Before the amount was a joke, like $5 a week. Not worth the time to park, walk in, and lose the dollar it takes to activate it. I save twice that just staying out of the place. Since the slots there dont seem to pay out enough to make it feel like you are actually winning.. (ie: lots of bet a dollar to win back 70 cents payouts, which the machines try to present as winning 70 cents with lights bells & whistles. when really, its a loss of 30 cents which makes it worthy of no more than what you get when a spin is over with no payout. Silence & a request to insert more money to play.) anyway, bumping it up to the $15 three times a week they are offering me now is more sensible if they expect it to draw in an adult who knows that most days any money you bring in to play there better be disposable income because you probably wont ever see it again. And contrary to many opinions who think you might not win using a players card for whatever reason. I stopped in there last week because I was at nearby home depot and after, decided to go use the free play id been blowing off for a couple months. After putting in one dollar and activating the free play I played on it for half an hour or so and when it was all used up I walked out with over a hundred bucks. So that didnt suck. You can win off of free play. (No I didnt win in the first couple spins which would have eaten up my dollar if it was all I had to play.) They also sent me a one night room free offer in the mail to check out the hotel that is good for a year which was nice, except for the requirement of having a credit card to check in and use it which for me makes it basically useless junk mail. But its the thought that counts right? One of the hard to usually find waitresses actually offered me something to drink this last time which usually doesnt happen. (Hint - A self serve beverage bar would be nice like other casinos have.) So at any rate while 4 machines I wanted to play had issues with their cash / ticket reader slots and wouldnt accept anything, I guess with the many machines they have that number wasnt to outrageous but it was still a bit annoying. Similar to their email requests to take a survey about your last visit that they send to my email. No incentive to take the survey is annoying. Even fast food places offer you a little something for your time and feedback if you take their surveys. But since I won last time I was there I went ahead and took it and at the end it offered a link to leave a review if I wanted to so here I am, bumping them up one star for the extra effort they put into making it a place that is something other than just donating your money to help the Graton indians but without the tax deduction. One star may not seem like much but on a 5 star scale & up from my former (generous) 2 opinion rating since they opened, its something. Hey what can I say, Im a tough crowd to please. Update: since i wote this review the month after, despite returning and playing away a few hundred dollars graton saw fit to downgrade my freeplay back to $5 a week. I guess the hundred plus a couple hundred of my own wasnt enough to lose to remain at $45 a week in hopes id get caught up in the moment and lose more. Needless to say im not thrilled with that decision. It seems cheezy and leaves me feeling like they are... For lack of a better expression... Indian Givers.

TO

Todd Colletti

Its difficult to find a world-class casino and resort outside of Las Vegas, Monaco or Casino Royale. Its unheard of to find one on your way to Sonoma in Northern Californias wine country. Of course, that was before Graton added the Resort to its Vegas-styled casino. They spared nothing to bring more than a little Sin-city to this otherwise sleepy town, just outside Santa Rosa. About an hour and a halfs drive north from San Francisco, you might be surprised to find yourself right in the middle of a mid-week slot tournament, enjoying a complimentary lunch, and remembering that you just came to check things out, not to gamble. While the odds on most games are about as aggressive as youd expect from the most popular Vegas strip casinos, the service is at least as good, and worth the two-hour detour if you find yourself passing by for a weekend in the country. If you should be lucky enough to catch the attention of the marketing staffs demographic A.I. you might even get a chance to spend a night or two in their newly-minted, 4.5 star resort, which is probably the best property in the region in terms of its value and freshness, and above all, the no-hassle staff. Far from exhibiting even a hint of snootiness, which youd think they might be entitled to just a little, from the security chief to the desk manager they are gracious, down to earth, and remarkably accommodating. Before you think that this review is a bit biased, let me add that the difference between Graton and a Vegas resort is, well, Vegas. Graton is a one-stop-shop, and while it has all the style of a big-name branded casino, it lacks the variety of entertainment options youd expect going to a more diversified resort environment. And the slots arent exactly the loosest, but are comparable to other tribal casinos in the region. Still, it is a remarkable oasis of clean-aired, Vegas-themed excitement among its competition: a desert of smoke-filled card-houses and antique one-armed bandits. I think this particular venue sets a standard that others will necessarily rise up to challenge, otherwise discovering themselves shoulder to shoulder with the local buffalo.

FR

FreedomUSA1

I honestly thought the plethora of negative reviews by others were just sour grapes. How wrong I was. A group of four of us went today (2 hr drive). What ensued was a horrific nightmare. The parking lot was strangely empty (around 10:30am) and we wondered why. After gambling for less than an hour we found out that all the redemption machines had gone down (all of them!). A huge crowd all lined up at the cashier to get their tickets turned into money. We thought the problem would be resolved shortly so we returned to gambling. Every time we went to get our ticket out of the machine (to move to another one), the machines would say "hand pay only" (for any amount whether 5 cents or $250) because the system was down and we waited on some machines for OVER AN HOUR -- please understand that you HAD to wait for hand pay because they wouldnt even print out a ticket. This went on all day and our total waiting time was probably 3-4 hours. You could not even continue gambling during these periods because the machines would totally lock up (about 85% of the machines were affected). We actually came out even at the end of the day because the majority of the time we sat at machines that malfunctioned when you tried to cash out (so you cant attribute this negative review to being a poor loser). The casino seemed to be shockingly understaffed - and those staff that were walking around seemed to wander aimlessly in random directions and astronomically increasing the waiting time for some customers. I have been to casinos all throughout the country and never seen anything as incompetent as this. Not once did anyone apologize or offer some type of discount or anything. The experience was like being trapped on a plane on the runway for 4 hours and not being able to leave your seat. At the end of the day, we were enraged, exhausted, nauseated, and disgusted!!

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