[Chicago Girl 28]

Anyone going to the Grand Opening weekend at Venetian Macau?

Want to meet for a pre-gamble cocktail? Or got any suggestions of stuff to do that I may not have heard of.....??

Let me know~~

[Chicago Girl 28]

Just thought I would write a little something about the Venetian Macau if anyone's interested...

The hotel itself is absolutely massive and beautiful adorned with huge chandeliers and Michaelangelo like frescos painted all over the ceilings surrounded by gold accents. The rooms are very spacious and the bed was very comfortable.

However, I recommend if you are planning to visit Macau soon that you don't make this your destination hotel. Although it was beautiful, the service right now is not organized and it takes a long time to get anything. Plus most of the shops aren't open yet, so you see a lot of "Will be opening soon" signs surrounded by lots of construction inside and out.

It took us 20 minutes to get a beer at the central bar which is one of two bars and they are both fairly small. The cocktail waitresses don't serve alcohol. The other bar, The Bellini Lounge, had velvet ropes around it and they only let so many people near the bar, then they close it (which wasn't many by the way). They have this huge drink menu, but after ordering a Carlsberg and 20 minutes went past, they came back to us and said we only have Heinken. There are a couple restaurants open like the Blue Frog and McSorley's, but be prepared to pay high prices at the Blue Frog, like $185 for a cheeseburger. The McSorley's inside was the only place to get a decent drink, but you would have to go back and forth if you like to gamble/drink at the same time, and because the place is so massive this can be quite the work out.

I think they have some major Customer Service problems right now, because hardly anyone spoke English and would pass us around literally from one person to the next until you basically got handed a map.

I have hope in this hotel, but it's going to take months not weeks to get this under control. For instance calling the 24 hour room service number and no one answering for an hour even after calling the hotel operator to find out what's going on; I saw a lot of people complaining at the bar that their bill was wrong; and I also saw a lot of the slot machines jamming up, one which was ours which took over 30 minutes and five people to fix before giving us our money back.

Overall, go there to see it and possibly gamble, but right now, it's definitely not ready or even compares to the service of the Wynn or entertainment and drinks of the Sands.

Hopes this helps anyone thinking of going in the recent future.

[Ziya]

We were in Macau on Saturday, and I don't think I will go there again very soon. All this immigration thing, passports id card on the way out and in ? I can not understand when it is all china, why on earth do we have to go through with it. We Went to the Star World buffet restaurant (I read about it in Australia),
and was not disappointed Excellent mostly Portuguese foods . We are not interested in gambling, wanted to take the Heritage Tours, but nobody new anything about it. So we came home. By the way, we bought 3 packets of cigarettes, and had to pay duty, as it turns out you have to stay away for 24hours to bring them in. Well live and learn

[KnowItAll]

Seems like they've let any F&B outlet open up. I'd have hoped that instead of the same old tired outlets from HK they would have been a little bit more exclusive and perhaps even used their clout in Vegas to get a few new destination type restaurants opened up.

[ariellioncub]

I heard the New Lisboa hotel has an Italian restaurant branch called Don Alfonso 1890 which is supposed to be 2 Michelin stars (used to be 3) back in Italy... Any one been there? Is it good?

[pin]

was there on sat.

the place is HUGE.

bit of a mission getting there from the ferry terminal.

its naturally geared towards prc clients rather than western clients.

most of the shops are not yet open.

[Chicago Girl 28]

We did the tour thing on one of our past trips. We stayed at the Wynn and just called up the conceirge and ordered a driver who takes you on a tour of all the places you want.

It wasn't very expensive, I don't remember the cost, but they charge by the hour, so you can pick and choose what you want to see or do the whole thing and spend most of the day touring. We managed to see everything we wanted to within three hours, and the only thing I thought was really cool was the Fortress.

The Venetian should definitely call up Vegas and get some cool spots in there. I think though my idea of "Macau" is supposed to be like "Vegas," which there really is no comparison. I like the entertainment, nightclubs, constant flow of drinks and food and shows in Vegas whereas in Macau it is mainly geared toward gambling. But apparently they're doing pretty well, since they passed up Vegas in revenue last year.

I hope the Venetian will turn out to be a little like Vegas when all things settle and they get more organized, but right now it still seemed quite chaotic on the customer service side.

[Krad]

Macau is Vegas - 30 years. Once the Cotai Strip is fully built and operating, you'll start to see it move more towards entertainment and shopping as well.

But in the meantime, if you just want to sit around a table and play blackjack, there's no better place to be right now.

[photchan]

Check out my review (with lots of photos) of the Venetian Macau here!

You might be better off waiting a while till more shops and restaurants are open and the service gets better.

[beachball]

[quote=Chicago Girl 28;176981]
But apparently they're doing pretty well, since they passed up Vegas in revenue last year.
QUOTE]

No, it did not - Macau only surpassed Vegas in gaming revenue. Since Vegas is approximately 50:50 gaming:non-gaming and Macau is probably 80+% gaming, Vegas is still far ahead in overall revenue.