Day 1 at Macau

The group of seven left for Macau on board flight TR802 - a Tiger Airways (www.tigerairways.com) flight from the Budget Terminal. This time round, my aunt (mum's sis) and her husband, joined us. I booked the flight from Tiger Airways web-site, likewise for the 3N stay at Casa Real hotel. The cost including flight, accomm, b/f and taxes+ fuel, worked out to a price of $515 per adult. For Xin Yi, only airfare and related cost since she shared a room with us. This worked out to be cheaper than booking with the travel agency.

The drawback of this trip is that we have to fly by Tiger which flight departs at 9am, and we reached there at abt 7am. Had to wake up at 5.15am and woke Xin Yi half an hour later. Fortunately she was not as lethargic as we have thot considering that she slept at 11 plus the previous night.

Our first time with Budget Terminal and I was not impressed. But when you paid peanuts, what could you expect? The queue (two only) were exceptionally long and the misery was compounded by a big group of 20 over who spent overly long period at the counter, to the frustration of the lady there who was later seen grumbling to her colleague.

Well on a budget airline flight there are no meals provided and you have to select food from a limited menu and paid at a premium. Anyway, the missus packed good variety of snacks for the daughter. The other drawback was there is no seat allocated (practice by Tiger, not Jetstar) , and we were advised by the customer agent that it goes by first-come-first-serve basis. However, this was not the way it was run at Macau airport as we were allowed to sort of jump-queue (despite we still queued early) for our return flight back. Double std.

Xin Yi was quite excited with this trip - part of the reason was that she had her own trolley bag, a gift from her uncle Vincent. So upon arrival, we picked up our bags and went for two cabs. The amazing thing was that the drivers could not understand "Casa Real"and it was only upon showing the chap a directory with both English and Chinese names that they understood. My mum thot they were pretending and gog around circles.

The hotel (www.casarealhotel.com.mo) was rather impressive, and relatively big compared to what you have seen in Hong Kong. The meals there were good, and in fact we had dinners at their chinese restaurant 3N in a row. I selected this hotel after reading the comments from travellers in various web-sites.


We did nothing for the night except for a short walk to the much hype Fishermans Wharf (www.fishermanswharf.com.mo ) which was very disappointing. Shops were few and those which were opened hardly had customers. It drew a lot of similarity with the defunct Asia Village in Sentosa and Haw Par Villa. The food court was empty, i mean there were no diners at all. So you could expect the standard, which is why we decided to head back to the hotel to cure our stomach. Over there, I met this mascot, kind of squid like creature which coiled itself around me, and I believed the daughter had a fright.

For the next day, I had planned to visit the Ruins of St Paul and Senado Sq. It turned out to be an interesting trip. Check out tomorrow.