The 11th floor Palm Tower guest rooms have a chic style décor, while others, like those on the floor I was on (7 th) are spacious and clean, but a bit more low-brow with nylon/cotton quilted bedspreads, two pillows per bed, no closet door and no iron/ironing board. There are 274 guest rooms 112 in the original hotel, built in 1998, and recently renovated and 162 in the new Palm Tower, completed in 2007, which also boasts a handsome Presidential Suite. There is a poker room, near the bingo hall, both of which are very basic, but the rest of the casino has a nice, leisurely feel about it. Island Resort and Casino has 140 slots, plus table games that include poker, blackjack, roulette, craps and a bingo hall. Think mid-winter and not inches, but feet, of snow in this northern climate, and the casino’s palm tree paradise décor is all the more a tropical island getaway. Island Resort and Casino is just what its name implies, an island of big city gaming, entertainment and fun, surrounded by Michigan’s U.P. It may sound like a ‘Yooper’ fairy tale, but drive-in bingo was the genesis of what is today Island Resort and Casino in Harris, Michigan, 13 miles west of Escanaba in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
Once upon a time people in and around Harris, Michigan, would get into their cars and drive to Harris to play bingo…in their cars…without leaving their cars.
