Cape Cod Trip Report (Day 2): Mystic Seaport, and Foxwoods Casino

This is a continuation of our trip report to the Cape Cod area. In the first post we discussed visiting the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA. In our second report, we talked about visiting the Purple Cow Creamery and our stay in the Hampton Inn (Milford, CT). This post will detail our time in the Mystic Seaport area and the Foxwoods Casino.

We arrived to the quaint little town with the Mystic Seaport around 9:30 am. I had printed out a 10% off coupon from the Mystic Seaport Facebook page, but when we arrived at the ticket counter, they told us our AAA discount was a better option. Total for my wife and I was $42; both of our boys were free.

The Mystic Seaport was amazing and well worth our time! The grounds were setup to resemble a working ship building village, complete with 60 authentic buildings including a blacksmith, clock shop, grocery, school, church, and even a bank. In addition there was several boats, most of which were closed off for tours on the Sunday we visited. A couple great things we learned included how they came up with the measurements of furlong and knots. We also learned how they came up with the terms UPPER CASE and lower case.

The lady in the Print Shop was informing us all about how they used to make books and posters on the original printing presses and taught us that all of the upper case letters were stored in the upper storage case, and all the lower case letters were in the storage case below. I guess we just took the wording for grant it and never put any thought into it. We love learning something new from our travels.

We ate lunch on the grounds in the Galley. Overall we were quite impressed by the menu and food. It was not your typical burgers and fries. Instead my wife and I shared a great lobster roll and homemade chips with chili. My father-in law bought his first of many fried clam dishes and my mother-in-law had the chicken salad sandwich and clam chowder. Everyone continues to comment on how great the food was for a “theme” park.

Following the Mystic Seaport, we drove down to the Stonington Point to take in some our first glimpses of the ocean. Shortly after leaving downtown Stonington, we found ourselves driving through the countryside on our way to the Foxwoods Casino. The drive was gorgeous because all of the streets were lined with stone walls, even along long stretches of undeveloped streets.

We wanted to see the world famous Foxwoods Casino before heading over to the Mohegan Sun Casino and Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville. Since we were going into casino’s both my wife and I wore our sons in our hiking backpacks. Carrying our boys on our back was ideal for the environment because no one needs their toddler running aimlessly through the casino with security guards trying to catch him.

Speaking of security guards, they were terrible and unfriendly at the Foxwoods. I do not expect a casino to be family friendly necessarily as it is definitely not a place for children, but I do expect to be treated with respect when we are doing everything right to experience the property with minimal or no impact by bringing our children inside. We stayed out of all the playing areas as you need to be at least 21 years of age to enter. So we walked through all the shopping and “public” areas to get a good experience of seeing the casinos. We just wanted to be able to say we saw the place since we were so near. At the end I wanted to ask someone where the Poker Room was located and if there was any way to see it without going on the casino floor. In the one section I decided to ask where it was located, I took like 5 steps into the area to ask the guard a question. He comes running over waving and yelling back behind the sign. I politely asked him to calm down and that I just had a quick question, but his over reaction made me pissed. Seriously, what the heck was I going to do with my son strapped to my back? He quickly realized he was in the wrong once we were both off the casino floor, but still. So he pointed me in the right direction.

Then when I got to the area, I waved over the guard because I did not want to dare step on the casino floor, and this guy come wobbling over and was in the worst mood and asked me “What do you want?” Give me a break people. Needless to say, I never even saw what the poker room looked like.

So besides the horrible security guards, we honestly were not impressed with the Foxwoods Casino. Foxwoods has several casinos located on the property, and after seeing the Mohegan Sun, Foxwoods has nothing on it. I will give Foxwoods one thing I was super impressed with though. The complete property appeared to have been built with minimal impact to the surrounding environment, which makes total sense considering it is located on an Indian reservation. When we made our way over to the MGM portion of the property, the rear of the building was constructed right up to the existing forest. It was remarkable how they were able to construct such a large building with minimal impact to the surroundings.

Now that our entire trip is complete and we are safely home, as we look back on the trip, our first days both at Crayola and than at the Mystic Seaport were probably our favorite parts of the trip. They were both really enjoyable and well worth breaking up the drive to stop at each location. Then again though, maybe it was because we had a lot of energy at the front end of the trip, and as we got to the Cape Cod, our two year old was not himself since he was getting his two year molar teeth. Our son’s pain was felt by all near the end of the trip as we were all exhausted from the additional attention required.