A New Year's Eve at Mystic Lake Casino Hotel

Prior Lake American

Most images of New Year’s Eve tend to be the same.

Women wear glitzy, glittering dresses and are caught mid-twirl, champagne glass in hand and neon lights behind. Men wear wide smiles and thin ties as confetti explodes from the ceiling and drifts to the ground.

Many New Year’s Eve celebrations do not and cannot live up to these expectations, and many people are presumably fine with that — clinking plastic champagne glasses and kissing a loved one at midnight in living rooms.

Some people, however, want to get as close to the ideal as possible: the bright lights and loud music and a throng of strangers to join them. I am one of those people.

For those in the southwest metro, there are few options outside of driving into the cities, finding parking (and a sober ride home, if drinking is involved), researching locations and, often, paying to get in.

Which is where Mystic Lake Casino Hotel comes in. New Year’s Eve is one of the biggest nights at the casino, which aims to recreate the atmosphere of the downtown clubs without the price tag or the distance, Mystic Lake Casino Hotel Brand Marketing Director Johnny Mackin said.

“We’ve always made a big deal of it,” Mackin said. “It’s cliche to say, but there’s really something for everyone. It’s a fun, festive atmosphere with a lot of fellow partygoers. It’s a great night to come out and game also.”

And so it was. I headed to the casino around 9 p.m. with the fiancé to ring in 2019. On the surface, the casino seemed as it normally does, with the hum (or roar, depending on your sensitivity to noise) of the slot machines.

But throughout the gaming floor and at various stations were markers of the impending new year — selfie stations and tables of free party favors.

“People lose their mind over getting something that blinks,” Mackin said.

There’s nothing to hate about party favors. The cost is nothing, it adds festivity to an outfit, and there is something about wearing a kitschy hat or tiara emblazoned with “2019.”

I grabbed a pink tiara and a blue noisemaker, and my fiancé snagged a purple hat. We snapped a picture in front of giant, white letters proclaiming “Mystic 2019” before heading to GLO, a pop-up lounge set up in one of the ballrooms.

Lit tables dotted the back of the room, while the front hosted a dance floor and Sweet Siren, a top-hits cover band. The lounge didn’t yet have enough brave souls to fill the dance floor around 9 p.m., so we swayed to the songs a bit before heading back to see if we could get a seat at $2 blackjack.

I had played $1 blackjack at Mystic Lake Casino Hotel in the past but had stopped after the minimum changed to $2, as I’m no Rockefeller. But it was a special occasion, and we withdrew double the amount we normally do (a whole $40 each) to play.

We watched for a good amount of time, as $2 blackjack is always popular and the casino was busier than usual. One of the players even trusted me with $20 to get her a drink at the bar so she wouldn’t have to leave and wait in the long line. (There are waiters and waitresses, but she didn’t want to wait.)

A seat opened up around 10:30 p.m., and I sat down and played for a while as the time edged nearer to midnight. I left the table with the same amount of money I had put in, impressive compared to normal.

We stopped to cash out and headed back to GLO shortly before midnight for the countdown. A good amount of people had the same idea; the dance floor was full.

So there it was, the idealized New Year’s Eve. Lights from the stage dipped around the room. The mass of people counted down in unison. Confetti burst from the ceiling. At midnight, people kissed if they had someone to kiss and cheered loudly if they didn’t.

2018 wasn’t the best year for me. I struggled. I felt fear and rejection. I spent most of the year anticipating both tangible and abstract better times on the horizon. But there’s something so hopeful about a solid conclusion and a room full of strangers all toasting to those better times. Here’s to 2019.