In two weeks I'll be heading to Atlantic City to see what's up there. I'm taking one of the Fly Borgata charters which promise NEOhioans they'll be checking in at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa within a little more than two hours after leaving home. They're using 30 passenger charter jets to do that, flying from a private charter terminal at Cleveland Hopkins to bypass the TSA waits and need to check in early.

Click on the underlined text above to go to the story I wrote a week or so ago that prompted plans from this visit.

I'm going with a couple of girlfriends who, unlike me, didn't need someone to explain what a casino loyalty card was. I'm told that some seats remain if you want to join us.

I am not a gambler and don't have a loyalty card, but my friends take weekend trips to NYstate, Michigan, Niagara and other closeby casinos including Cleveland and know their way around the gaming floors. All I really know about casinos is they don't permit photographs inside them... something I learned the hard way on a visit to Las Vegas.

I hope I can stay up late enough to catch one of the shows, because I understand they are a far cry from the Englebert Humperdink type productions I saw when I was last there, maybe 15 years ago. The debut 10 years ago of Borgata apparently began a trend to LasVegasize this part of the Jersey shore, which still hosts the Miss America pageant every year.

I'm hoping my friends and regular readers can perhaps help me do a good job on the story I am planning as a result of this trip. Tell me what you want to know, what you need to know and what I should look for while I am there. I'll do fine on the non gaming end, checking out the spa, the restaurants and the gift shops  as my friends gambling.  But I need a little help from my friends for the rest of it.