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You decided that given the ever more grim news about the pandemic, there was no way you were going to leave the house on this New Year’s Eve. Better to wait and live it up to greet 2022 instead.
But … the walls seem to be starting to close in, and you’ve read good things about the safety protocols at Atlantic City casinos.
So what the heck, maybe it’s not so risky — and surely there are bargains to be had.
Well, it depends on your definition of bargain.
Njonlinegambling.com checked the New Year’s Eve night prices for hotel rooms (assuming no loyalty cards or promotional rates) for each of the nine casino hotels in the city both at close of business Wednesday (“It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere”) and at opening of business on Thursday, or New Year’s Eve morning.
The first thing to know is that websites for both Borgata and Hard Rock now list New Year’s Eve as being sold out, after rooms had been listed available for $429 and $349, respectively, as of Wednesday.
Those had been two of the three highest rates for the evening, so both hotels clearly were in a position to command — and now achieve — top dollar.
Ocean Casino Resort, which this year has raised the stakes in the two-year-old property’s bid to take on market king Borgata, maintained a share of the highest minimum rate at $399.
That’s a “share” because Tropicana — which was offering a room on New Year’s Eve for $271 as of late Wednesday — jumped that minimum price by $128 the next morning.
Harrah’s, which in 2021 will be a sister hotel to Tropicana under the “New Caesars” brand, went in the other direction.
Those who paid a list price at Harrah’s of $303 to celebrate the end of a mostly-awful year would be dismayed, no doubt, to learn that the price of a room just 15 hours before the ball drops in an empty Times Square had nosedived to just $199.
That is a market low, just below the $219 for a room that Bally’s has maintained on both checkpoints.
Resorts and Golden Nugget stuck to $299 minimums, while Caesars dropped from $289 to $239.
How about the night of Jan. 1? It’s a Friday, and the food presumably is just as good (until the 10 p.m. statewide curfew that would have put a damper on New Year’s Eve socially distanced fun anyway).
At Borgata, the price for First Night has jumped from $329 to $429, but Hard Rock, the other “no room at the inn on New Year’s Eve” destination, stuck with its $299 minimum.
You can get a room for the same price at Ocean Resort — up $10 from a day earlier — or at Caesars, which climbed by $26. Resorts is next in line at $259.
The “sub-$200” sites for First Night are Golden Nugget ($159), Tropicana ($135, down $34 from a day earlier), and Bally’s ($129).
Let’s not forget about Harrah’s — or should we? That $237 price available on Wednesday for the opening sunset of 2021 ballooned to $399 as of the last sunset of 2020.
Given the lack of the usual high-end entertainment offerings and with social-distancing requirements creating a major “cramp in style,” it turns out that spending the night at an Atlantic City hotel on Wednesday, Dec. 30 — also an off-day for many workers — arguably was the best play of all.
Rooms were available that afternoon for as low as $49 at Golden Nugget and at volatilely priced Harrah’s, and for $59 at Resorts, Bally’s, and Hard Rock.
“Priciest” of all, if it can even be said to be that, was Borgata at a mere $89.