Another thing that didn’t work out very well was the amount of time we had at the casino. All the stop-n-go motion made it hard to read comfortably. We went on a weekday, and on the return trip there was a lot of traffic. The cons: It worked out fine to read on the trip to the casino, but it didn’t really work out well on the way home. We also had a nice lunch in one of the restaurants. Overall, the casino was like a medium quality casino in Vegas.

Unlike some other California Indian casinos that can be pretty crude, Thunder Valley was gorgeous. The pros: The bus ride to the casino seemed to go fast, and the gambling credit made the bus free. There were pros and cons, and the cons slightly outweighed the pros. The day seemed like it had good potential, but I don’t think we will do it again. We caught the bus near Milpitas at 8:00, and we were back at 6:30. We figured we could just sit and relax and read our books, and perhaps the drive would actually be pleasant. We also like the idea of having someone else do the driving. Assuming you would gamble at least $25 anyway, the bus ends up costing you nothing. The bus is semi-free because you pay $17 and get $25 of gambling credit. We decided to take the semi-free bus from San Jose for a day trip to this casino. My wife and I like to gamble, and we had never been to Thunder Valley.

Thunder valley casino parking