Beau Rivage Poker Room

It was my girlfriend and my third anniversary so we spent last weekend at the Beau Rivage in Biloxi, MS. We flew into New Orleans and drove a rental car (~1.5 hour drive) to Biloxi. Checking in was a bit of a mess. At the front desk the clerk said they don't have any ocean view rooms (even though we booked one) and verified we want a non-smoking room. We make the trek up to the room and walk into what is clearly a smoking room. We go back down to the front desk and the manager gets us into a non-smoking room, and guess what now there is an ocean view available. So they set us up again and we go up to a really nice non-smoking ocean view room on the 15th floor. As I am going through the check-in documents I notice they have someone else's name on it. Back to the front desk for them to straighten it out, which only takes a few minutes.
The hotel and casino design seems to have borrowed from many of the Vegas casinos, and a lot of the design was similar to the Bellagio, albeit a slightly cheaper and more brightly colored version. One interesting tidbit of note, as we were walking by the front desk a security guy with earpiece in ear grabs me by the shoulder and says "you can't wear your hat backwards while on the property." Uh, OK. Never seen or heard of that in a Vegas casino, but whatever.
They only had one donkament going for the weekend, a $200 + 25 + $10 add on Saturday. The field of 125 was quite weak. I had 3 people totally hand me their stack, one when I had a set of 10's vs top pair no kicker and once with aces against AJ and another with AK v. A6 sooted AIPF. With the tables break down to 50 players the following hand takes place (cross posted from 2+2):
Hero has about 21k at 200/400 a50 and is probably around top 10/50 in chips and 2nd in chips at the table. Tables just consolidated and both villians in hand are new and unknown. Villian 1 is utg+1 and is CL at the table and covers by a few k. He opens to 1200 and hijack, a middle aged woman with a "WSOP Academy" visor on, shoves her 4k stack. Folds to Hero in the big blind who peels back AKo. Nothing else to do here but isolate, right?
Anyhow I don't see what else I can do but isolate the short stack so I shove and am suprised and a bit scared when the original raiser calls. Original raiser has QQ short stack has JJ and we are off to the races. The board completely blanks and I am out once again with AK vs. QQ. The almost same exact scenario happened 2 weeks ago at the Caesar's Megastack in Vegas - AK has not been good to me lately. Back to the online grind for a few months.

Impressions: I really enjoyed playing in the Beau's poker room, it is definitely a class act. The room is very hi-tech as poker rooms go, and the staff is incredible. I guess it is due to the fact that the Beau is a brand new facility after hurricane Katrina, but the air quality in the Beau Rivage is incredible. There is barely a hint of smoke smell in room and it lacks the smokey haze of traditional casino floors.
The only thing I would change about the Beau's room is the $6 timed rake that they take every 30 minutes. For a tight player like me, it really forces me to pay more rake than I would normally. The room would definitely be a solid 5 if it weren't for the timed rake. They should look into the poker rooms at Tunica to see the kind of action that a $4 pot rake will bring in.
Atmosphere: The physical perks of this room are top notch. Starting w/ the chairs, they are very comfortable, both swivel and reclining. The chairs lack wheels but that won't deter me from giving them an overall 5 in this category. The tables were well padded with slide-under, metal cup holders.
One of the most impressive aspects of the Beau was the on table check in for your rewards card. Through this, the dealers are able to enter your seat number and with a screen on the table they have the benefit of knowing your name, even if they have never dealt for you before.
The upper tier has 4 flat-screens and the lower has 6. I had a great view from my table in the upper tier of the Saints getting beat by the Colts. This was quite disappointing as the Saints were supposed to be a decent football team this year.
The shuffle masters are a bit inconveniently located in the middle of the table to the dealers left. I guess if you have a rewards card check in system like they have, something has to be moved. This is a minor inconvenience.
Dealers: The dealers were always professional, and some were very entertaining. There is a bit of a delay in changing out the dealers; this is mostly due to the collecting of the timed rake. This is offset by the time saved because they aren't taking a pot rake, but having it all bunched up together like that is a little annoying. I can't recall any poor actions by the dealers, so I'll give them a 5!
Food: I personally didn't order any food at the Beau, but I witnessed a neighbor ordering and eating table-side food service. The wait staff was very attractive and efficient. The ladies always had a smile on their faces and, as a whole, were some of the best that I have ever seen.
Service: The Beau uses a Bravo software for their waiting list. This software was very efficient and kept the wait to a minimum during a very busy WPT event. During prime hours on a Friday night, the wait was only up to 30 minutes. This, in my opinion, is incredible. Both times that I played there, I was seated immediately. I showed up prior to the peak hours and was part of a new table each time.
Comps: The Beau offers it's player's $1.70/ hr toward food comps and as stated above you are able to check in right at the table when you sit down.
Poker room rates for the hotel are $90 for Friday and Saturday nights, and $70 for Sunday through Thursday nights. They require you to play 5 hours of poker per day, and I'm sure with the on table checkin, they can verify that you played the minimum amount of time.
Their BBJP stands at $114k for quad 5s or better getting beat at holdem, and $17k at Omaha for quad 10s or better getting beat.