A trip on the Wendover Fun Bus
1. LeBus makes daily runs to Wendover, Nev., from the Wasatch Front area. photo by Valerie Phillips
Montego Bay's Oceano Buffet offers crab legs and other seafood specialties on Friday nights in Wendover, Nev. photo by Valerie Phillips
Many different desserts are offered at Montego Bay's Oceano Buffet in Wendover, Nev. photo by Valerie Phillips
A wide variety of salads are displayed at Montego Bay's Oceano Buffet in Wendover, Nev. photo by Valerie Phillips
Last weekend I took the Fun Bus to Wendover.
It’s a double-decker bus that hauls people from the Wasatch Front to the casinos over the Nevada state line. LeBus and Utah Trailways make runs to Wendover every day of the week. The assumption is that once you get there, you’ll feed the slot machines dollar bills, or drop some money at the blackjack tables or on the roulette wheel.
That assumption is one reason why I hadn’t visited Wendover in at least 30 years. My hard-earned cash it too dear to risk losing, even for a chance to win big.
For me, the major lure of the trip could summed up in two words: crab legs.
I discovered that on Friday nights, the Montego Bay’s Oceano Buffet has a Seafood Night, with crab legs, teriyaki-glazed salmon, baked cod, crispy fried shrimp and scallops, and more. LeBus’s $22 per-person fare includes a voucher for the Seafood Buffet, normally priced at $28 per person. That’s a $6 savings right there.
My husband, Kim, and I had tickets to see one of our favorite bands of our youth, Three Dog Night, at Wendover’s Peppermill Concert Hall. I wasn’t keen about the long drive through Utah’s west desert. Kim recently had shoulder surgery and needed to sleep in a recliner chair, so he wouldn’t be comfortable staying overnight in a hotel room. And with the current poor air quality along the Wasatch Front, I’d rather contribute as few exhaust fumes as possible.
When I called the LeBus company and made our reservations for the Friday afternoon bus, I had to wonder which Three Dog Night song would best describe our experience — “Celebrate,” or “Mama Told Me Not To Come?”
We caught the bus at 3:30 p.m. in a Woods Cross parking lot near Lorena’s Mexican restaurant. The bus had already picked up people in Ogden, Riverdale, and Clearfield, and two more stops in downtown Salt Lake and in Rose Park. The bus hostess, a friendly middle-aged woman named Branwen, took our $44 fare (it had to be in cash) and then passed out bottled water to the 56 or so passengers. As she announced over the intercom, smoking and alcohol aren’t allowed on the bus.
The passengers seemed to be a wide variety in ethnic groups, economic status and age, although everyone had to be over age 21 in order to ride. Judging by conversations around us, I gathered that most had ridden this bus before.
The trip was pretty tame, with only a few chatterboxes talking with each other and on their cell phones. (We were glad we brought earplugs.)
There wasn’t a lot of scenery to see due to the murky fog, but we did catch a beautiful sunset on the Salt Flats. We brought some magazines to pass the time. During the final hour of the trip, the hostess passed on Bingo cards. We played three games, and the winner of the Blackout game got $25 to spend at the casino.
The hostess passed around a tip bag for the bus driver and herself. The suggested tip was $2 per person.
When we got to the Montego Bay at about 6 p.m., we were given vouchers that included the Seafood Buffet, a $7 voucher for slot machine play, $4 in “lucky bucks” for betting purposes, and a $4 free cocktail.
I’ve been to high- and low-end of buffet restaurants, including a lot of the Vegas “bargains” that consisted of multi-hued gelatin salads and a lot of mystery meats camouflaged by gloppy sauces. Not knowing quite what to expect, we were pleasantly surprised by the Oceano buffet, which has an exotic, sea-blue and silver ambience.
The food stations looked clean and well-kept. The snow crab legs had been slit down the middle to make it easier to pull out the succulent meat without wrestling with shell-cracking
At a separate station, you could choose a steak or piece of salmon and a chef would cook it to your specifications.
The salad bar was stocked with crisp iceberg lettuce (no baby field greens or fresh spinach) and the usual toppings such as sliced mushrooms and chopped broccoli. There was a separate station with mixed salads, such as potato, seafood, broccoli-carrot, pasta, and so on.
If that wasn’t enough, there was a pizza and pasta bar, an Asian wok area with dishes like Szechuan chicken and Kung Pao shrimp, and a carving station with prime rib and turkey. There were simply too many choices to taste them all. The dessert array was dizzying — brownies, pies, cheesecake, tarts, cookies, cakes. I saved room for a piece of flaky blueberry pie, and half of a crispy molasses cookie recommended by a friend.
Overall, it was on par with some of the better Las Vegas buffets we have visited over the years.
After eating, we had another hour before the concert. We decided to see how long it would take to use up our $7 slot machine credit. It took about five minutes. When I was down to $1, I won back $6. I decided to cash in my big winnings. I’m simply not cut out to be a high-roller. A $5 bill in the pocket is worth two (or 10) in the machine, as far as I’m concerned.
The concert was a great romp down our ’70s memory lane. But it finished around 10:15, and the bus didn’t leave until midnight. We found the TV screens near the sports book area and watched highlights of the night’s NBA games.
The ride home was pretty subdued, except for two gentlemen who talked nonstop all the way home. (Again, earplugs to the rescue.) We arrived back at the Woods Cross stop at 2:30 a.m.
For us, the Fun Bus advantages were avoiding fuel costs and pollution of driving ourselves to the concert, napping on the way home, and again, the crab legs.
The disadvantages: The bus takes a lot longer than driving. If you don’t gamble, you will likely be bored much of the time. After all, it’s Wendover. Also, the heavy cigarette smoke permeating the Montego Bay’s casino floor was a major turn off. Although it was a wintry night, it was a relief to go outside and inhale the crisp, clean air.
So, there you have it. A night in Wendover on the Fun Bus. To sum it up as a Three Dog Night song, it was more like, “The Show Must Go On.”
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