Beau Rivage in Biloxi, MS is a gem of the Gulf Coast. Enjoy a luxurious vacation complete with the exceptional hospitality you would expect from an MGM Resorts. Aug 02, 2018 The Beau Rivage is Biloxi's most top-tier casino property. IIRC, about 25 percent of all air traffic into the Biloxi-Gulfport airport is for casino trips to the Beau. I would have thought the Beau would have had performance requirements in their contract with the air carrier, so the Beau could sit on the same side of the table as its gaming.
darkozDay one:
Arrived 6 pm per written instructions for 8 pm flight via JFK (20 minutes from my house so no biggie)
Flight was delayed till 8:30. It happens
At 7:45 the flight was delayed further till 9:15. Not so much fun now
At 9pm flight was further delayed till 10:45
No announcements or explanation. Just changes on the board. A number of people wanted to just go home now.
Calls to beau rivage result in 2 choices given. Wait for delayed plane further or incur $250 per person no show fee. We are all there and showing our faces. Being charged for the plane not showing is too indignant.
We all stay!
10pm flight is delayed till midnight
More calls. More same answers
Some people dont care anymore about the charge. Request their baggage but are told those are not returnable at this time. They have been prepped for the impending departure.
Beau Rivage Casino
Fear of luggage winding up in Mississippi. No one leaves
11 pm flight begins boarding. People informed delay was due to mechanical difficulties but plane ok now. Big confidence booster :)))
Takeoff still scheduled for midnight. Full flight. At least 30 of maybe 100 passengers are senior citizens wheelchair bound
Those are taken up different side of plane. Everyone else boarding up metal stairs. Suddenly line is halted. 30 minutes standing while wheel chair people are taken and plopped into their seats from other side of plane
Finally all aboard. Its now 12:30 am
Waiting!
Waiting!
Waiting!
One am plane begins moving. Note NOT takeoff. Just moving
No air conditioning on this hot humid August night. But we are moving so everyone keeping quiet (except the 3 rowdy people seated directly behind me whose voices carry across the entire plane)
Go to queue for planes but strangely dont enter. Instead plane 'parks' off to the side
Waiting!
Planes passing us
Waiting!
No air conditioning
Waiting!
I take off my shirt. I dont care anymore. Its HOTTTT!
2am. First announcement. Due to some passengers complaining we are returning to gate. WTF?
At gate new announcement (and seemingly real reason) is crew has passed their federally mandated rest barrier if we take off now.
Everyone ordered off the plane (in some ways a sweet mercy). It was HOTTT!
Informed a new crew would be arriving at 6 am. Everyone welcome to wait in terminal till then
Seriously I wish that last was a joke. I unbelievingly laughed. Most people starting screaming they wanted their luggage. That announcement was actually made
2:30 am. Everyone outside plane back in terminal awaiting final decision about luggage etc
Flight crew debarks to low growls and snide comments 'Enjoy your rest cap-taine'
Final announcement. Flight officially cancelled (cheers as we wont be charged $250 and can get bags and head home)
A suggestion we call in the am about any rescheduled flight is risibly derided
Everyone should save their cab receipt or parking receipts and ask the casino for reimbursement. More hollering. Gonna travel to Mississippi for cabfare reimbursement. For a NYC taxi?
Good luck with that one. It was just the coup de gras to ridiculous announcements made all night
3 am - as i hopped into a cab home I counted my blessings. One family had spent $600 to send their 16 year old daughter on a different flight because this was a gamblers only no one under 21 flight
She had arrived on time. She was waiting in Mississippi Gulfport airport for them for hours now. And the family wasnt coming.
When i left they were frantically trying to convince the beau rivage to send a car for her and let her stay in their room for the night until they can book a new flight for the morrow. I dont know the outcome. I hopped in my cab
Day 2: Home sweet home
End trip report
Wow, that stinks. What airline was doing the charter?
Sun country airlines
Last night began my comped flight comped hotel and freeplay 5 day 4 night vacation from NY to Beau Rivage in Biloxi Mississippi
Yech! The Beau Rivage is Biloxi's most top-tier casino property. IIRC, about 25 percent of all air traffic into the Biloxi-Gulfport airport is for casino trips to the Beau.
I would have thought the Beau would have had performance requirements in their contract with the air carrier, so the Beau could sit on the same side of the table as its gaming patrons. Performance bond or whatever. If Beau didn't have that, then they certainly deserve whatever dope-slaps they get.
I'm not the Beau CEO. But if I was, my marketing team would be emailing my personal apology to all who were affected, together with a 5,000 slot free-play 'please forgive me' on our next NYC-to-Biloxi shuttle. That wouldn't help folks who scheduled their vacation time for this trip and now cannot get off work for the next trip. However, it might go a long way toward soothing ruffled feathers of some prospective (or long-standing) Beau patrons.
I guess you'll tell us if Beau tries to kiss and make up after this fiasco. (FWIW, I think stuff like this happens more in NYC than in Biloxi.)
Yech! The Beau Rivage is Biloxi's most top-tier casino property. IIRC, about 25 percent of all air traffic into the Biloxi-Gulfport airport is for casino trips to the Beau.
I would have thought the Beau would have had performance requirements in their contract with the air carrier, so the Beau could sit on the same side of the table as its gaming patrons. Performance bond or whatever. If Beau didn't have that, then they certainly deserve whatever dope-slaps they get.
I'm not the Beau CEO. But if I was, my marketing team would be emailing my personal apology to all who were affected, together with a 5,000 slot free-play 'please forgive me' on our next NYC-to-Biloxi shuttle. That wouldn't help folks who scheduled their vacation time for this trip and now cannot get off work for the next trip. However, it might go a long way toward soothing ruffled feathers of some prospective (or long-standing) Beau patrons.
I guess you'll tell us if Beau tries to kiss and make up after this fiasco. (FWIW, I think stuff like this happens more in NYC than in Biloxi.)
Well heres my theory
When the plane was fixed there was enough time to make the federally mandated rest period with a quick boarding
But they didnt count on how long it took to board 30 or so wheelchair bound people
While we waited management ordered the flight forward not wanting to incur the wrath of s no show to beau rivage
When we 'parked' near the queue the pilots were onto their union reps probably. At one in the morning that probably wasnt too easy but the ruling was cancel the flight
This is all supposition on my part. So dont hold me to specifics of thats what happened. All i know factually are the delays, excuses given and final outcome as described in the OP
Administrator
Well heres my theory
When the plane was fixed there was enough time to make the federally mandated rest period with a quick boarding
But they didnt count on how long it took to board 30 or so wheelchair bound people
While we waited management ordered the flight forward not wanting to incur the wrath of s no show to beau rivage
When we 'parked' near the queue the pilots were onto their union reps probably. At one in the morning that probably wasnt too easy but the ruling was cancel the flight
This is all supposition on my part. So dont hold me to specifics of thats what happened. All i know factually are the delays, excuses given and final outcome as described in the OP
Sorry that happened to you. Not fun at all.
That's not a union issue, however. It's a DOT issue. They audit logbooks.and flight manifests. There are federally mandated hours of service. Required crew rest. None of that is up to the crew: it's on operations.
If the company violates rules about these things, in the absence of an emergency (which this was not), they can be fined heavily for each instance. Repressed violations can result in suspension of their commercial license.
This kind of delay happens all the time, for equipment, weather, credit illness. Most airlines schedule backup crews on standby to cover this type of thing, but not at outlying terminals, and Sun Country is low-cut enough, they may not have standby procedures.
| Beau Rivage | |
|---|---|
| Location | Biloxi, Mississippi |
| Address | 875 Beach Blvd |
| Opening date | March 15, 1999 |
| No. of rooms | 1,740 |
| Total gaming space | 72,000 sq ft (6,700 m2) |
| Signature attractions | Eight75 Sports Book & Bar |
| Notable restaurants | BR Prime Jia Stalla |
| Casino type | Dockside |
| Owner | MGM Resorts International |
| Renovated in | 2006 |
| Website | beaurivage.com |
Beau Rivage is a waterfront casino resort in Biloxi, Mississippi, USA. It is owned and operated by MGM Resorts International. The Beau Rivage hotel is the tallest building in Mississippi. The term 'Beau Rivage' is French for 'beautiful shore'; the original, well-known hotels of that name are the Beau-Rivage Geneva and Beau-Rivage Palace, both in Francophone Switzerland.
Beau Rivage has won every major local, regional, and state award available for outstanding community service including the Governor's Cup Award for Outstanding Large Business in 2003. Beau Rivage was rebuilt and re-opened in 2006, a year after Hurricane Katrina.
Beau Rivage restaurants include: BR Prime Steakhouse, Jia Pan-Asian Cuisine, Coast (seafood and wood-fired pizzas), Stalla Italian Cuisine, The Beau Rivage Buffet, Terrace Cafe (24-hour casual dining), Roasted Bean Coffee Bistro, Snacks (fast food), and 'Haagen-Dazs. Both BR Prime and Jia have earned the 4 star rating from AAA and Wine Spectator's Award of Excellence. The AAA Four Diamond Beau Rivage is the number one casino resort visited in Mississippi.
History[edit]
The name of Beau Rivage was originally meant for the Bellagio casino resort on the Las Vegas Strip, however, developer Steve Wynn of Mirage Resorts changed Beau Rivage into Bellagio, and reserved this name for his new waterfront casino in Biloxi.
The Beau Rivage, with 1,740 rooms, opened in March 1999. At that time of its opening, it was the largest hotel/casino in the United States outside of Nevada. The casino was located on a series of floating barges as required by local law confining all casinos to mobile marinevessels at the time of the resort's construction. The hotel, restaurants, parking garage, and associated facilities were constructed on land. The height of the 29-floor hotel-casino is 346 ft (105 m).
Beau Rivage was seriously damaged by the 30 ft (9.1 m) storm surge caused by Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005, and was rebuilt by W.G. Yates & Sons Construction (the contractor that originally built it) and more than 50 subcontractors. Beau Rivage Resort & Casino re-opened its entire resort August 29, 2006 — the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Although the hotel tower survived relatively unscathed, the casino barge was significantly damaged. Beau Rivage was one of the few still recognizable buildings remaining on Biloxi's coast.
In the weeks following Hurricane Katrina and in the wake of the catastrophic damage to the coast's casinos in the hurricane, the Mississippi state legislature changed its laws regarding the placement of casinos. Instead of having to be on barges on the water, casinos may now be built on land as long as they are within 800 feet (240 m) of the shore.[1]
In November 2006, the resort opened a new Tom Fazio-designed championship golf course named Fallen Oak.
In 2009 there were news reports that Beau Rivage's parent company MGM Mirage had hired investment firm Morgan Stanley to assist the company in finding possible buyers for the Biloxi property and its cousin the MGM Grand Detroit. The Beau Rivage and MGM Grand Detroit were considered to be MGM Mirage's top performing properties and if sold could fetch a total of $1–$2 billion which then would be used to lower MGM Mirage's debt load.[2][3] In the event, no sale happened.[citation needed]
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^Mississippi Gaming Regulations (2013) Part 2, Chapter 1, Rule 1.4—Gaming Site Approval Retrieved 2013-08-01
- ^MGM Mirage Said to Hire Morgan Stanley to Evaluate Casino Bids (bloomberg.com)
- ^With Casino Stocks, Traders Know When to Fold 'Em (Wall Street Journal)
External links[edit]
- Video of Hurricane Katrina taken from the Beau Rivage parking garage on Google Video
- Guest reviews of Beau Rivage on About.com
Coordinates: 30°23′33″N88°53′31″W / 30.392413°N 88.891915°W