Upgraded Choctaw casino in Oklahoma a great weekend getaway
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It was a long two pandemic years since I had been inside the Choctaw Casino & Resort in Durant, Okla., perhaps the swankest of Oklahoma’s high-end Indian destination casinos. I missed it.
So when a friend said she had tickets to a Brooks & Dunn concert there, I jumped at the chance to reacquaint myself with the getaway for gaming and good times just an hour and a half north of Dallas.
Much has changed since my last visit. In 2021, the casino officially opened its 21-story Sky Tower Hotel, an expansion that added 1,000 rooms to the property that, along with the original Spa Tower, now has 1,700 guest rooms. Choctaw has invested $600 million in making the casino a luxury entertainment destination, and it shows in new additions such as the new tower and its Aqua, a vast pool complex with a bar and adults-only pool. New restaurants, bars and expanded gaming acreage only sweetened the pot.
Here’s what I found during my 24-hour visit.
Guest rooms
The hotels were sold out on the weekend of my visit, thanks to the popularity of entertainment headliners Brooks & Dunn. But we had rooms in Sky Tower, and my double was comfortable. The room featured a contemporary blue/gray color scheme with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto the property. The room was well lit and thoughtfully equipped with plenty of convenient plugs to recharge laptops and phones. Nice touch with the Beekman 1802 bathroom amenities.
The pools
Guests line up early to be the first to claim a choice spot at the 18,000-square-foot pool area at Aqua, which features nifty swim-up bars, 50 poolside cabanas and 750 chaise lounge chairs spread throughout the 3-acre complex.
Kid stuff
Casinos are often thought of as adult playgrounds, and they are. But Choctaw has plenty to keep kids occupied (and we had three teenage boys in our party). The District is a family-friendly entertainment center that offers a 70-game arcade, movie theater, bowling and food court.
Entertainment
Brooks & Dunn put on a polished, high-energy show at the Grand Theater, whose stage has welcomed superstars such as Diana Ross, Aerosmith, Reba McEntire and Luke Bryan. Coming up: Earth, Wind & Fire Sept 16; Chris Young Oct. 9; The Judds with Martina McBride Oct. 21; Alabama Nov. 26; Travis Tritt Dec. 2; and Clay Walker Dec. 9. Unlike concert venues in Las Vegas that command outrageous sums for cocktails and beers, beverage prices are fair.
Art
Take time from the gaming tables to appreciate the casino’s investment in art. Thousands of pieces of art are positioned throughout the casino, and 58 of them, by 31 Choctaw artists, are part of the Art Walk, a self-guided digital experience (accessed by QR codes). Even as we were going up to the mezzanine level to check into the concert, we saw terrific pieces of Native American art.
Dining/bars
The expansion brought six new restaurants and 11 new bars and lounges to the casino. On my last visit to the casino, we took in Gilley’s, a honky-tonk-style venue with live music and a menu of steaks, chops, ribs, country-fried steak and burgers. We also dined at Tex-Mex, which has since transitioned to Guy Fieri’s American Kitchen & Bar, where we shared Trash Can Nachos, a stack of chips, cheese, beans and house-smoked pork all stacked in a vessel and released tableside.
Salt & Stone is a comfortable, casual breakfast/lunch/dinner American restaurant where we enjoyed a preconcert dinner: burgers for the teens; Cobb salads and barbecue salmon for the grown-ups. We had wine at the flashy Prizm Lounge at the center of the new gaming floor; at Onyx Bar in the high-limits slots room; and at the new lobby bar, with its dramatic lighting and grand staircase leading up to the second-level home of 1832 Steakhouse, the casino’s fine-dining room in Sky Casino. The menu serves raw bar delights, crab cakes, rack of lamb, Chilean sea bass with king crab, Singapore chili lobster and an all-star lineup of prime steaks. We split the dry-aged tomahawk rib-eye, a gorgeous hunk carved tableside.
Gaming
The casino has 3,300 additional slot machines — for a total of 7,200 — in addition to 40 new table games and a poker room. During my visit, a promotion for the casino’s 35th anniversary was in play, with bells and whistles going off throughout the property. My well-traveled, casino-savvy friend was lucky at the slot machines, especially playing max-bets at the high-limits enclave. Me? My $100 I put into the machines was gone in a flash, and I left for home the next day with a 45-cent ticket.
