We had a great time in Macau, except for a maniac taxi driver who drove us from the airport to the Sintra Hotel. The hotel was very comfortable and the buffet breakfast was fine. They have delicious scrambled eggs which are very rich and seem to be made with butter or cream.
When we departed Chiang Mai, I bought a I litre bottle of Hardy’s VR Cabernet Sauvignon and Don bought a litre of VR Chardonnay wine duty free. Yes 1 litre, a bargain at 420 Baht (A$13.77). When we arrived at the Sintra we had a couple of glasses to settle our nerves after the taxi ride!
By this time it was about 9 pm We decided to go next door to the Emperor Palace Casino to check it out. It was fairly elegant but the table limits were HK$200 or HK$300. Too high for low rollers like us. It also had a negative atmosphere. The dealers looked unfriendly and even the clientele looked unhappy. We later found out that this is fairly typical for Macau. So we retired for the night.
Next morning we did a tour of the Casinos and tourist attractions around our area. We were located in the Old City. The newer larger and glitzy casinos are located on The Strip. All tables we checked had too high table limits, so we continued looking for casinos with HK$100 minimum. Eventually we found some at Ponte 16 at the Sofitel Hotel.Unfortunately I had my biggest loss here.
Next day we found more HK$100 tables around our area.We particularly enjoyed the Star World Hotel & Casino. The restaurant here had delicious sweet & sour garouper.
Casinos like Wynn (with its performance lake) and and Lisboa are huge. The main gambling activityat all casinos is baccarat. Roulette tables and Black Jack tables are hard to find, Sic Bo is popular. There are many innovative slot machines some with dragon themes. Smoking is a problem in some but not all casinos.
Don came home with more money than he took. Me, well I’d rather not talk about it!