Hard Rock Hotel in the City of Dreams. Sounds like a fabulous place to spend a weekend, doesn’t it?
It was a very last-minute decision. Our very original plan was to stay in Changping for three nights, then Zhuhai for three nights, plus walk over to Macau to spend a day sightseeing.
Due to my falling sick in Changping and other things, our plans kept changing. In the end, I impulsively decided: “Let’s spend our last night in Macau!”
I figured I could afford to splurge for just one night in expensive Macau.
We booked a room in Hard Rock Hotel in the City of Dreams, which is an entertainment hub consisting of hotels, casinos and various attractions. One night there is about equivalent in cost to five nights in our Changping hotel suite. LOL.
But I think it was worth the money spent. I felt so pampered. Everything was so glitzy and luxurious.
The Hard Rock Hotel Macau lobby was a welcoming sight with the funny, friendly quote.
After checking in, as I clumsily tried to push my 30kg luggage towards the elevators (it was so heavy it wouldn’t go straight and kept veering to one side), at the same time also carrying my laptop and heavy handbag, a young, handsome porter came and asked if I needed help bringing that upstairs. Hehe.
He brought us to our room on the 25th floor.
No, that’s not the porter. That’s the Goonfather.
And the room, ohmygosh. We had received an upgrade to a suite! Ooh! The suite is so cool I wanted to stay in there the whole day and not go out.
When you enter the room, the entrance walkway splits into two paths, one leading left to the sitting room, the other leading right to the bedroom and bathroom.
I felt like a suaku as I turned my head left and right like a hyperactive rabbit, unable to decide which side to visit first.
Well, I’m very easily thrilled like that. One of my good points.
The living room:
There’s an iPod dock where you can plug in your iPod or iPhone to play your music with the room’s sound system.
The mini bar has a full set of equipment for making cocktails, although we didn’t get a chance to use it. I wouldn’t have known what to make, anyway.
When we went back to our room in the night, we found a bucket of ice on the counter waiting for us. Love the thoughtful service!
Oh, that’s Elyxia in the picture! She came from Hong Kong to spend the weekend with us in Changping, but she didn’t get to stay in Macau with us. She had to take a ferry back that evening because it was Sunday and she had to work the next day. Sad. :(
Anyway, let’s look at the view from the window wall. The view is amazing!
Next, the bed and bath:
I love how the bathroom, toilet and basin/counter are all separated instead of lumped together into one room. Easier for sharing this way!
A lot of thought seems to have gone into designing the rooms. I love the little touches, like this guitar embroidered onto one of the pillows:
There’s also free wireless in the room, which is very useful!
While I was busy gawking and taking photographs of the room, the Goonfather and Elyxia were busy playing with the helicopters they had just bought in Zhuhai before we crossed the border into Macau.
Silly people!
By the time we were done settling down, it was already 5 pm. Not much time left to do anything. (Our flight back to Singapore was 10 am the next day.)
We went downstairs for a late lunch/early dinner (we didn’t eat lunch because it was a mad rush finishing up in Changping and then taking the three-hour car ride to Zhuhai).
Downstairs, everything is interconnected to everything else. You get easy access to the casinos, the shops and the restaurants.
I couldn’t take much photos downstairs because the casinos are everywhere. The restaurants are like smack in the middle of gambling areas, like, open view, so you can see people gambling while you’re eating.
But I got a picture of the Hard Rock Shop!
I bought a whole bunch of accessories there. =D
Okay, sorry, it’s not a very good picture. We were all hungry and I didn’t want to spend too much time taking pictures.
After dinner, we played a bit of jackpot and then Elyxia had to leave. The Goonfather and I stayed with the jackpots until 8:30 pm, then I had to go back up to the room to work.
Star Blog deadline, heh.
It was good, though. I mean, I so enjoyed our suite that it was a pleasure to work in there!! I didn’t use the business desk. I lounged on the couch with my Macbook on my lap!
I want to have a house like this when I grow up!
Um, that is, I mean, in the future, when I am richer. LOL.
By the time I was done with my work, it was almost midnight. The Goonfather and I went back downstairs for supper. MacDonald’s was the nearest we found.
Sadly, the Big Mac in Macau isn’t as nice as the Big Mac in Singapore. It’s a bit saltier and the “special sauce” doesn’t taste the same, like more sour and less sweet or something like that. I’ve tried Big Mac in a few different countries and I still prefer the one in Singapore.
I’m not much of a gambler but I love playing jackpots because the newer types have mini games and interesting bonus features that I enjoy so much.
We found two machines that are very fun!
One is Monopoly, where, if you get a certain combo, it goes into the Monopoly game board and there are tiny men running about. One by one, they will randomly dive into properties, which will increase your game credits. Some of these properties, which you get to pick randomly, have hotels, which increases your earnings.
It’s fun when the little men dive into squares like Community Chest and Free Parking because you get to pick cards and receive special bonuses!
Another fun one is like Bejeweled. Every time you get a match or combo matches, all the matched icons will fizzle away and the remaining icons will drop into the blank spots (like Bejeweled).
If the newly-fallen icons make more matches, you get more credits for free (without having to spin again). If that happens four times in a row, you get seven free spins (five times and it’s 10 free spins, and it keeps increasing). And these free spins can be compounded if you get more free spins within your free spins.
What a crazy game!! So fun.
Um, unfortunately, we lost money in the end. T_T But I think the fun was worth the money lost. I treat it like spending money at the arcade centre, lol.
Okay, some last photos of an electronic mermaid!
There’s a lobby area at our hotel with a giant tank on one wall. Most of the time, it’s empty. You just see blue water and you can’t tell whether it’s real water or not.
The Goonfather actually went to touch it. It’s real. He got a shock. Haha. It’s like a thin waterfall covering the screen. Or maybe the whole screen is made of water. I don’t know. The Goonfather didn’t dare to put his whole hand in.
If you’re lucky (or if you stand there and wait long enough), you’ll see a mermaid swim out!!
We got lucky. We saw it as we were going back to the room for me to work.
She looked very real!
She swam around for about five minutes and then she made a sort of a dive inside the water and, poof, she disappeared, as if diving into a vortex of water that swallowed her up.
Nicely done!
That was it for our stay in Macau. We had arrived too late and had to leave too early for us to see anything else. (Plus I had to work.)
I still enjoyed it very much, though. Would like to visit again and stay longer to see more things!
