Macau - Holiday Inn, Shrekfast! Cotai Waterjet back to Hong Kong

One highlight for the kids was the Shrekfast, a Dreamworkz themed breakfast, available at Holiday Inn, Cotai Strip.

We didn't really know what to expect, but since this room rate came with 2 Shrekfast tickets, we bought two more for the kids and tried it out on the morning of our departure.

The buffet spread, laid out at the sides of a ballroom, was decent.  There was a mixture of standard Western (egg station) and Asian cuisine (including porridge, noodles and some Dim Sum selection). Definitely enough to eat for a good breakfast.

Of course, the highlight of Shrekfast was NOT the breakfast.  It was a chance to see the Dreamworkz characters and take photos with them.  The good thing was that we saw a lot more than Shrek and gang.  We also got 'Move It, Move It' (Alex, Penguins), Po the Panda and Dragon. There were more than 10 characters to take photos with. The place was usually very crowded during the weekends. Fortunately we were there during a weekday and it was almost three-quarters empty.

Check out the video below.


After breakfast, it was time to pack up, check out and make our way back to Hong Kong.  Yeah, our trip was really short, and we didn't even make it to the old town, Macau.  Anyway, that's fine.  This was just to get a taste of Macau and we had spent all our time in the Cotai Strip as well as Macau Galaxy.

To get back to Hong Kong, we took the complimentary shuttle from outside the Holiday Inn to the Taipa Ferry Terminal (different ferry terminal from the one we arrived), and took the Cotai Waterjet (Blue in colour) back to Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminal (which is on Hong Kong island). See the video.



So, from Hong Kong Macau Ferry Terminal, we found our way to the Airport and stayed at the Regal Airport Hotel for a night, as we were going to catch a flight early next morning.  Here is a video of our experience at the Regal Airport Hotel Family Room.


We had a very interesting experience flying home on Scoot, because the flight was severely delayed. Check out my blog post of that experience.

Thanks for reading!

Macau - Lord Stow's Portugese Egg Tart, Macau Galaxy Tsui Wah, Street Performance plus Bus Ride

Continued from Part 1.

While walking around the Venetian Shoppes, we came across the famous Lord Stow's Portugese Egg Tarts.  I had read about these egg tarts and was happy to find an outlet so that I could try one.

The outlet wasn't too difficult to find, tucked away at a corner.  It was crowded!  There were lines and people also bought coffee.  Egg Tarts were 10 MOP per piece.  I took a video of the staff preparing egg tarts.  The egg tarts were freshly prepared and served piping hot.  Taste-wise, they were good, but I don't think they were that fantastic.  The quality of Portugese egg tarts in Singapore is pretty good too.



After a while, the kids didn't want to walk around any more.  They wanted to camp in the hotel room to play with their toys (fake Lego figurines).  Neither did they want to go to the old Macau city center. So we had to bring them back to the Holiday Inn first.  It was late afternoon and looking outside, there was a bit of fog. So, we decided to leave the city center for another time.

The adults went to explore some more.  We found our way to the complimentary shuttle that would bring us to Macau Galaxy and later, we would bring our kids there for dinner at Tsui Wah.  This video shows you what we had for dinner.  Prices were definitely higher here than in Hong Kong.



At Macau Galaxy, there were these street performances which I thought were cool.  The dancers must have done this hundreds or thousands of times by now, but still fun for me to watch.   They would appear unannounced and start dancing.



Now head on to the next part for Shrekfast and our trip back to Hong Kong with Cotai Waterjet.

Thanks for watching.

Macau - 1 Night at the Holiday Inn, Cotai Strip, Venetian Shoppes, McDonald's

After 2 nights in Hong Kong (staying at the Eaton Hotel), we headed to Macau.   In the morning, we caught a taxi from the Eaton Hotel to get to Hong Kong China Ferry Terminal, which is on the Kowloon side.  The journey was quite short and taxi fare less than HK$50.

We did not pre-book ferry tickets, so we had to go look for the ticket counters.  There were many ticket touts but we did not dare to buy from them.  We bought our ferry tickets from a legitimate TurboJet Ferry counter, as you can see in the video @0:15 mark.

Clearing immigration was smooth and we were soon on board the ferry.  It was full, but there were assigned seats so there was no need to rush, thankfully.  The ferry ride was 1 hour long.  Rather boring, but that is a ferry ride for you.

Once we reached Macau, again you have to clear immigration, and then exit the ferry terminal. Follow the signs to the complimentary shuttle buses.   We crossed the road using an underpass.  It is well sign-posted.  Plenty of passengers heading to the complimentary buses as those are the most common way to get around in Macau.  We found the bus that would take us to Holiday Inn, Cotai Strip and boarded it.  The ride was about 20 minutes.  Check out the video below for the trip journey, including ferry boarding, on board the ferry and bus ride at Macau.



We chose to stay at the Holiday Inn since the place was well reviewed and the rates were quite attractive.  This video shows you the hotel lobby, the room as well as the pool area.


As we did not have much time in Macau, once we got to our room, we put down our things and started exploring.  On foot, we could walk to the Shoppes at Venetian Macau.  To get there, you first have to get to the Shoppes at Cotai Central and find the overhead bridge to the other side of the road. Follow the signs, it is easy, however, it is not that near.  Good place to walk (in air-conditioned comfort).  There is a Koufu Food Court on the third floor of the Cotai Shoppes.

Over at the Venetian, there is also a fairly large food court area.  Take note that the food isn't that cheap, since these eateries are within the resort. Be prepared to pay resort prices, like 78 MOP for a dish.

Currency in Macau
They use the MOP (Macanese Pataca) in Macau.  However, they accept $HK.  The HK dollar is slightly stronger than the MOP, about 1.03 MOP to 1HK.  We did not change any MOP and paid for our food in $HK or using credit card.

There was still a lot of construction going on next to the Venetian.  More properties were being built. I saw an Eiffel Tower in the making @ 2:07.  Overall, the Venetian property was very nicely done and fun to walk around for a bit. The kids got hungry so we had a bite at McDonald's, see 4:52. Overall, the place wasn't too crowded when we were there, because this was a weekday.



Move on to Part 2 of this review.
(Lord Stow's Portugese Egg Tart, Macau Galaxy Tsui Wah and Performance)