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July 2015

Despite the fact that Orlando is probably my all time favorite city to visit, my family lives a nine-hour drive away. What is a princess to do when she can’t make it halfway down the state of Florida? We recently took a short two-hour drive over to Biloxi, Mississippi, to see what we could find, looking for bargain vacation prices of course!

When you think of the word casino, obviously you think of gambling, and there is gambling in the Biloxi and Gulfport casinos.

what to do in Biloxi Gulfport Mississippi

But the casinos are housed in many beautiful resorts. Ok, by Disney World standards, “beautiful” is a relative term. They are not decorated for children with Disney characters, but they are certainly well landscaped resorts with lots of amenities.

Even if you don;t plan to gamble, there are cafes and coffee shops in the casinos. A five dollar iced coffee from Starbucks is an inexpensive way to soak in the atmosphere without sitting in from of a slot machine.

cheap things to do in Biloxi Mississippi

We stayed at the Golden Nugget Casino.

Golden Nugget Resort and Casino discounts

fun activities in Biloxi Gulfport Mississippi

Our room had a balcony with a view of the beach. We watched construction os a hotel complex next door and one of their two pools below our room.

The Golden Nugget built a second pool, which was really nicely lit at night. This pool is also heated in the winter for year ’round swimming. We saw a lot of families eating and swimming together.

When people ask me what there is to do for kids at casinos, since children are not legally allowed on casino floors until they are 21, I tell them pig out at the buffet, swim in the pools, and maybe build a sandcastle on the beach.

Now, the buffets offered at many of the casinos we visited were really wonderful, and several of our meals were completely free without any gambling at all. We simply signed up for players cards, which require a valid driver’s license and home address. We chose to pay for our breakfast buffets, which generally were around $10 each.

We used our free coupons for the dinner buffet when they had crab and shrimp.

Biloxi Gulfport dinner buffet free all you can eat

Definitely with the $22 per person, but even better for free.

Island View Casino gave us free coupons for signing up for a players card, and we picked up these chocolate cashew turtles, worth about $5 each, all for free, no strings attached.

We stopped by the Ohr O’Keefe Museum of Art located at 386 Beach Boulevard. The phone number is 228-373-5547. Our tickets were $8 each with a AAA discount. Famed architect Frank Gehry created a museum to celebrate local artist and potter George Ohr.

I would not recommend this museum for children or anyone not seriously interested in pottery, architecture or Hurricane Katrina. While the Katrina material was interesting, since we drove through Biloxi weeks after the hurricane devastated the coastal region of Mississippi, there is not a lot of material to see and many exhibits were un-airconditioned. The volunteers there were very friendly, but our experience was mostly a self guided walk around the property. We saw and read everything there was in less than an hour. The small gift shop was well stocked and prices were definitely reasonable.

We walked throughout many of Biloxi and Gulfport’s casinos and resort hotels which is not unlike resort hopping at Disney World, just with Disney lacking the casinos.

Many of the restaurants there were as beautiful as any Disney table service meal, and often even more so, with low lighting in a rich wood setting.

The Golden Nugget has a Morton’s Steakhouse and a Bubba Gump Shrimp, which Universal Orlando fans will recognize from City Walk. We saw a lot of families eating here, which is located inside the resort and right next to the casino.

Right next to a steak house at the Island View Casino was a lovely outdoor area where we sat and watched the gulf across the street. Biloxi Beach highway is a busy place, and although hot in the summer, there is a lovely breeze off the water toward sunset.

So if you are on the coast of Mississippi, take a casino tour, have a few meals, and plan your next vacation, cheapskate style!

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Disney’s Cheapskate Princess

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Amanda Major is the creator of cheapskateprincess.com. She remembers her first visit to Magic Kingdom like it was yesterday, because she had a ham sandwich tucked in her shorts pocket. The whole family snuck in their lunch; you can’t make that kinda stuff up. 40 years worth of trips to Orlando later, she is still trying to save money on vacations.

Amanda is a Disney Vacation Club Member and Annual Pass holder. Her amazing husband, band director Carl Major, plus three teen children and two dogs keep her busy. Amanda teaches Leadership to high school seniors in the almost-coastal town of Foley, Alabama. Read about her cheapskating local vacations with this link. When she’s not writing, she’s reading, walking somewhere, or paddling a kayak. Life is indeed a blast.

We hope we can help save you some money too. Use this link for a free no obligation vacation quote from our Travel Consultant with Pixie Vacations, Mike Ellis. You can also e-mail him at mike@pixievacations.com.