Macau

It's hard to find time to do daily blog entries when we travel, especially on some of our winged whirlwind weekends. So I've taken to making notes on my phone or iPad, and filling out the details later after I get home. An advantage of this is the trip report reads top to bottom instead of the typical blog bottom up format. A disadvantage is sometimes I put off the actual blog posting for a bit. Hence, this is showing up about a month later.

Day 1 Oct 16

We tried to use miles to upgrade our flight to Hong Kong. We got put on the waitlist but the upgrade never cleared. At the United check in desk the computer split our reservation since the upgrade was still pending but we didn't want to take a chance of getting only one upgrade so we went to the United Club and asked the agent to remove us from the upgrade list. At the gate we lined up in group 1 but there were 2 boarding ramps, so group 2 started boarding the same time as group 1. Something was holding up the group 1 line and by the time it was sorted out group 2 was almost done boarding. Fortunately we didn't have any issues with overhead storage.

It was a long flight. We had good bulkhead seats but neither of us slept much. We landed in Hong Kong around 6 but had to wait til 8:30 to board the 9 pm ferry to Macau. The ferry ride was comfortable and smooth. It was a little after 10 by the time we arrived in Macau. There was supposed to be a free shuttle to the Wynn hotel, but it wasn't clear where the pickup area was. We waited about 45 minutes before we discovered we were in the wrong place and made our way to the correct shuttle pickup. It was close to 11:30 pm when we arrived at the Wynn Palace. On the positive side, the Wynn Palace gave us a complimentary double upgrade to a suite, and our room was elegant and enormous with a fantastic view of the Performance Lake. It was quite late when we finally got to sleep.

Roomy bulkhead set

Wynn Suite

Wynn Suite

Wynn Suite

Performance Lake

Day 2 Oct 18

Woke up around 8 am. Our original itinerary called for 2 nights at the Wynn Palace, and 2 at the Galaxy JW Marriott. We liked our upgraded room so much we decided to stay an extra night and only stay one night at the Marriott. Breakfast was at the Fontana buffet. It was an elaborate buffet with choices from multiple cuisines. After breakfast we went for a walk outside and snapped a few pictures of the outside of the Wynn. Later we boarded the Wynn's free sightseeing shuttle bus that took us to the center of the old Macau district. We walked through Senado square and visited the St. Dominic's church. Macau was a Portuguese colony for centuries so much of old Macau is European architecture. The most famous landmark in Macau is the Ruins of St Paul's. We followed the narrow crowded street to get there. The ruins mainly consist of the facade of the old church, but there is a little more behind the facade that represents the original church. There's a long stair climb to reach it.

The Monte Fort is right next to the St Paul ruins, and sits on an even higher hill. It appeared to us that the best way to visit the fort was to follow a steep set of stairs that follow along the walls of the fort. It was hot and we were quite exhausted when we got to the top. There are nice views of new and old Macau from the fort. Part of the fort consists of a museum that has an entrance from the top level. We went into the museum to enjoy the air conditioning, and discovered that there were a series of escalators inside that we could have used to reach the top of the fort. We took advantage of them for the trip back down at least.

On the way back to the shuttle we did a little souvenir shopping and stopped at McDonald's for the usual Facebook pose and some bottled water. Back at the hotel we bought some delicious French macarons. We considered dinner at the Pool Cafe, but discovered it was already closed so we returned to the buffet for dinner. After dinner we went for a ride on the Wynn Palace Skycab, an overhead cable car ride that circles the Performance Lake.

Breakfast in the Buffet

Wynn Palace

Dragon supporting the Sky Cab

Senado Square

Mosaic Sidewalk Decorations

Narrow Macau Street

St. Paul's Steps

St Paul's Facade

Monte Fort

Fort Cannons

Macarons

Dinner at the Buttet

Wynn Palace from the Sky Cab ride

Day 3 Oct 19

We woke up early today and decided to enjoy an in room breakfast. I went to the casino for a while. I didn't win, but didn't lose much either. The casino is almost entirely baccarat tables. There were no craps or roulette tables at all, and only a couple of blackjack tables. There were a limited number of slot machines, but they were all the boring 5 line video slots with A K J Q and a few other symbols. None of the themed slot machines like in Vegas. For dinner we made a reservation at the SW Steakhouse. Dinner was pricey but the steaks and wine were delicious. The dinner includes entertainment consisting of music and cute animations that played every 30 minutes through dinner. We had a front row table. Aided by the wine, my jet lag caught up to me after dinner and I fell asleep early.

Dinner at SW

Fancy Chopped Salad

Fancy Beet Salad

Entertaining Animations

Singing Playing Cards

Day 4 Oct 20

After another early rise and room service breakfast we started packing because we had to change hotels. I used the TV in room checkout system. On the way out we stopped to buy some more of the excellent macarons then got a cab to the Marriott.

The Marriott hotel is actually very nice but we were spoiled by the Wynn suite. We thought about going out for more sightseeing but the remaining points of interest on our list were only accessible by taxi and we were advised that taxi drivers can sometimes be troublesome to deal with so we decided to hang out at the hotel. We took a walk around the Galaxy mall and through the casino which again was 80% bacarrat. I heard there was a “Fortune Diamond” spectacle in the diamond lobby so we found the location and waited for the show. It's very glitzy and kind of cheesy but we oohed and ahhed with the rest of the crowd. The Galaxy complex has a beautiful pool deck with multiple pools, water slides, and a huge lazy river tubing ride. We walked around and through it, and considered going back for our swimsuits, but it was a cloudy day and the air was cool so we turned down the pool option.

We went to the Marriott Exec club lounge for drinks and appetizers. There were lots of choices and also lots of desserts so we had enough that we didn’t need dinner. After returning to the room we fell asleep early again but not before getting to see the light show on the Galaxy buildings from our window.

In Room Breakfast

Marriott Lobby

Marriott Room

Galaxy Casino Hotel and Shopping Complex

Fortune Diamond Rises from the Fountain

Fortune Diamond Fountain

Lazy River 

Sandy Beach Pool

Lazy River Overpass

Day 5 Oct 21

Today we checked out again to move to our final night hotel near the airport. We left the JW between 2-2:30, caught a shuttle bus to the ferry terminal and the 3:00 ferry to Hong Kong. The ferry ride got a little bouncy for a while but was mostly OK. After arriving at Hong Kong we had to find our way to the Sheung Wan MTR station, ride one stop, then walk to the airport express train. The whole multi mode transportation process took a lot longer than I expected so we had to forego the plan to return to Hong Kong for an evening visit. At the airport we found the hotel shuttle and eventually made it to our room at the airport Marriott. The whole trip took about 4 hours. We had dinner snacks and dessert in the club lounge, which were adequate, but not as good as the JW. After dinner we rearranged our packing a bit for the flight home.

Macau Ferry Terminal

Macau Ferry to Hong Kong

Day 6 Oct 22

We got up at 6:30. I went for breakfast while Janet got ready to go. We caught an 8:00 shuttle to the airport and checked in for our flight. Security was quick and we went to the United club to wait for our flight. We had the same bulkhead seat for the return so we were about as comfortable as you can be on a 15 hour flight in economy. We had a pleasant trip to Macau. I don't know if we'll return, but if we do, we're gonna want that room at the Wynn again. 😉