24 hours in Atlantic City

I had been hearing for months about a bus leaving from the Beatrice Inn that was going to take friends and family of the Bea to their new boite in Atlantic City.

Matthew and I finally nailed down a weekend for me to come out, Horacio at the NYT asked me to cover it for them and I dragged Justin along for company. Well Justin and I arrived at the Beatrice on Saturday at six to find noting but West Village neighbors giving us strange looks wondering why we were sitting on the stoop of the infamous club at 6pm.

After a text and a call I find out wires had been crossed and the bus left on FRIDAY. So with eyes rolling, Justin and I head to Port Authority and take a God-awful Greyhound to the shiny city on the coast arriving at 8:30.

The hotel is quite swank although there are still plenty of Joisey people milling about. But hey, when in Rome! Justin in I checked in, showered, dressed and headed to the soon to be famous fifth floor where the club, pool and steak house are located for a quick drink before dinner.

Since the steak house was booked we headed to the just opened diner, which was fine and dandy, although the sweet staff was a bit confused. But if I was a coastal boy serving Chloe Sevigny and her entire posse on my first night I may have the jitters too.

Paul was kind enough to give us a tour of the soon to be opened spa and new rooms before we finished dinner and headed back to the rooms for costume changes!

Justin bought us matching tee shirts that said 'We pack all faces' resplendent with faces of all the Presidents on US dollars and much gold glitter. With our new outfits on we headed down to bar and found a whole load of friends from the city: Jamie Rosenthal, Katie Lanphear, Hanuk, Victor Glemaud and Matthew and his new wife.

I interviewed the developer Curtis Bashaw, who was quite fun and he also renovated one of my favorite hotels in Cape May, Congress Hall. I then interviewed Chloe who is always so charming and friendly. THEN I took my Blackberry to my room and got my party on!

Can't tell you much about the rest of the night except for that I made another costume change, danced till dawn and had a blast.

Justin woke me up at 1pm the next day and we hung out by the pool and chatted with all the other kids. By 3pm we were ready to go so we packed up and headed back on the Greyhound for a grueling 3.5-hour trip home. So we never got to try out the Beatrice party bus! And next time (hoping to go back for the grand opening in October!) I want to take that damn seaplane Chloe and Paul took. 40 min from Manhattan to AC? That’s the deal for me.