It was awesome!
After riding the vast majority of the lifts in the Tropicana Hotel in Atlantic City, NJ, I will have to safely conclude with the fact that the Tropicana is one of the MOST AMAZING hotels I have visited BY FAR! It was by far one of the most epic ones I have ever been to! The hotel is so huge that it literally feels like the city of Charlotte condensed into a mega-tower complex, with everything balanced to date it back to the 80s/90s. Not only that, but I loved the Caribbean style architecture of the entire hotel! Everything from the lifts, to the security, to the architectural appeal of the hotel lured me to explore! The hotel is so big it will take you hours upon hours to have a full urbex advent of it & it will take gigabytes of space on your phone by the time you are finished. That's probably just half of the hotel though.
In short, the Tropicana is the queen of Atlantic City when it comes to how amazing the lifts are & it puts the Borgata to a complete shame!
In short, the Tropicana is the queen of Atlantic City when it comes to how amazing the lifts are & it puts the Borgata to a complete shame!
BEST LIFT IN THE ENTIRE HOTEL
The best lift in the hotel was a set of 1980s Westinghouse DC powered Selectomatic Mark V lifts which have had their motor room equipment slightly modernized by OTIS & Schindler. Westinghouse's are a treat for me to film because of how infrequently I get to film them! So, I was presented with a set of slightly run-down Westinghouse lifts. I knew something completely epic was waiting for me, so I just had to film it!
I boarded the lift to the left toward the exit, greeted by a beautiful ornate wooden car interior, a bit grotty, I must say. I pushed the button for the lobby floor, but it wouldn't light up. Then I pushed the button for floor 50, but that one wouldn't light up either. I thought we were all locked out, but I found hope when another guest on the other side of the lift pushed the button for floor 30 on the other panel & the button lit up! It was pure amazement. The doors finally closed, with a nice slam (which gives the lift more character). Half a second later, the lift jolted straight to full acceleration where it accelerated extremely quickly. It took not even 4 seconds to accelerate to its full speed of 4 meters per second!
Not only that, but once I reached floor 50, I heard the epic old-fashioned Westinghouse clunking brakes from the lift car, even though the motors were up in a motor room with insulated concrete finish. I even heard the DC generators from the top floor & I could tell they were relay controlled, which gave them even more character! I couldn't NOT film the trip back down to the concourse level, so I got my camera out right away, called one of the lifts & rode it back down from floor 50.
When the doors closed (with their signature slam), the lift immediately dropped like a stone to 4 meters per second on the sound of the clunking brake & we definitely did hit a few objects on our descent through the West Tower. I will have to say, after riding all 4 sets of high rise lifts in the hotel, this set was the best out of the four!
The distance the lifts traveled was exaggerated & the floor labeling is wrong. Floor 30 is actually floor 10 while floor 50 is actually floor 30. It's like they did it on purpose to make you think that you're actually 50 stories above the ground when you're really not.
I boarded the lift to the left toward the exit, greeted by a beautiful ornate wooden car interior, a bit grotty, I must say. I pushed the button for the lobby floor, but it wouldn't light up. Then I pushed the button for floor 50, but that one wouldn't light up either. I thought we were all locked out, but I found hope when another guest on the other side of the lift pushed the button for floor 30 on the other panel & the button lit up! It was pure amazement. The doors finally closed, with a nice slam (which gives the lift more character). Half a second later, the lift jolted straight to full acceleration where it accelerated extremely quickly. It took not even 4 seconds to accelerate to its full speed of 4 meters per second!
Not only that, but once I reached floor 50, I heard the epic old-fashioned Westinghouse clunking brakes from the lift car, even though the motors were up in a motor room with insulated concrete finish. I even heard the DC generators from the top floor & I could tell they were relay controlled, which gave them even more character! I couldn't NOT film the trip back down to the concourse level, so I got my camera out right away, called one of the lifts & rode it back down from floor 50.
When the doors closed (with their signature slam), the lift immediately dropped like a stone to 4 meters per second on the sound of the clunking brake & we definitely did hit a few objects on our descent through the West Tower. I will have to say, after riding all 4 sets of high rise lifts in the hotel, this set was the best out of the four!
The distance the lifts traveled was exaggerated & the floor labeling is wrong. Floor 30 is actually floor 10 while floor 50 is actually floor 30. It's like they did it on purpose to make you think that you're actually 50 stories above the ground when you're really not.
A close second
While the 80s Westinghouse lifts at the west tower were epic, there were still some other pretty awesome lifts throughout the hotel, including a stray 2-story COMPLETELY UNMODERNIZED 80s Westinghouse lift right in the middle of the casino! It was hydraulic, but the motor was fairly quiet. What did impress me was the typical Westinghouse door slam, the fact that it was relay controlled (the camera couldn't pick up the sound of the relays) & it had predoors along with pre-start! The lift also jolted when it started moving, which added to the character! This was the second best lift in the entire hotel, even though it only served 2 floors.
What was weird about this lift was that it opened up right into the middle of the casino, then it went up one floor to a weird mezzanine where a massage chair was placed right in front of the shaft doors. I wonder what could be their reason for doing this, but I don't know.
The WORST LIFT
The worst lift in the hotel was a Schindler 330 hydraulic which was a stray lift in the middle of the shopping center on the lower floors of the hotel. This lift went from the lower atrium floor (floor 2, or as I would label it, "LA"), upper atrium floor (floor 3, or as I would label it, "UA"), mezzanine floor & first floor which opened up to a double-story height gym. The lift traveled a very long way for a 4-story hydraulic, mainly due to the amount of space between floors 2 & 3.
Despite being the hotel's worst lift I was able to film while I was visiting the Tropicana for a couple of hours, this lift is actually the equivalent of Charlotte's worst lift, if not a tad bit worse & it is still pretty nice for a worst lift.
As with basically any well-maintained 330, this one had smooth-start & plop-leveling which I liked a lot. Besides that, it had nothing really that special, making it the worst lift that I've come across not only when I was in the hotel, but when I was in Atlantic City for that weekend.
This hotel AND THE BORGATA put Atlantic City & pretty much all of NOO JERZEE in the Charlotte Kingdom!
The Hamilton minimovie will be up on my YouTube Channel by this evening OR tomorrow evening!
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