Where to Stay in Macau - Riviera Hotel

I booked my hotel in Macau online and so far, a useful site that I have used at least twice now is asiatravel.com. It is a online hotel reservation site based in Singapore and what I like about it is that it can give you immediate confirmation of hotel rooms and allows you to pay for your hotel when you check out (subject to country and hotels). The reason I prefer to pay at the hotel is so I don’t have to do an online transaction and so I can take advantage of the fluctuating exchange rate (sometimes). So far, its worked for Singapore and Macau and Hong Kong for me. I think they perform better for Asian countries.

Anyway, I booked the Riviera Hotel in Macau because It was cheap. Hotels in Macau are very expensive on weekends (Fri-Sat) and can cost upwards of RM600. I took a gamble on Riviera Hotel because it is slightly further away, not knowing where it was or what to expect. 1 night on a Saturday cost me MOP740 which translated into RM313. Not bad for what is supposed to be a 5 star hotel and for the eve of the Olympics Closing ceremony.

The Riviera Hotel Macau is formerly known as the Ritz Hotel. The problem with the taxi drivers in Macau is that none of them seem to know the English names of the hotel! Very weird and I got a horrible taxi driver. If you plan to stay there, I recommend you print out this picture of the hotel name which also shows the name in Chinese and show it to the taxi driver. They can’t understand Anglicized road names either. Double weird.

I booked a standard room and when I checked in I asked for a non-smoking floor. This was on the 4th floor. The hotel is situated up on Penha Hill which gives it quite a breath-taking view of the Macau harbour. But in a standard room, you get none of the view. Doesn’t bother me because I’m not there to stay in a hotel room!

The room was sizeable. Not tiny and it was importantly, clean. The beds were very comfy and firm - none of those saggy beds you expect from tourist hotels, and the pillows were of the contour variety. Made for a good night’s sleep indeed.

The bathroom was clean with a shower in a tub. The hotel is listed as 5 star but I’d say its an old school 5 star. It has an impressive looking lobby and the rooms are large but you just get the hint of aging around the edges. But as I said, it doesn’t bother me since I’m on holiday. All I really need on a holiday is a good clean room and a comfortable bed.

I do have one question though. In the hotel, you can pay to watch the Adult channels on tv. There is a brochure showing you what’s available, in English and Chinese. The one in English has pictures of relatively tame looking pretty girls while the Chinese version leaves nothing to the imagination about what these Adult channels have to offer! Why? Is there a particular target audience here?

Location wise, the Riviera Hotel is located up on Penha Hill. This is away from the Cotai Strip where the casinos are, and a taxi ride from the airport will cost you about MOP76 and take about 20 minutes. There is no shuttle from the airport though it would be nice if they ran a shuttle like other hotels do. The view from the top of the hotel is quite breathtaking.

This was taken at about 6pm with rain clouds gathering.

The tourist area of Senado Square is a 15 minute walk down the hill. I did not mind it but going down the hill there is a steep portion so you might want to be careful. Alternatively, Hotel Riviera runs half an hour shuttle buses down to Metropole Hotel at the foot of the hill, which is about 5 minutes walk from the Square.

There is nothing much around the hotel so it is very quiet in the evenings. Food is easily found at Senado Square and you can then catch the hotel shuttle back up to the hotel after dinner. If you want to go to the casinos, take the Hotel Shuttle to the Ferry Terminal and then catch any shuttle bus to any casino from there. Its all free. From the Cotai Strip, a taxi back to the hotel will cost about MOP20. For ease of calculation MOP = HKD but in actual fact, the MOP is slightly lower in value.

The Riviera Hotel also runs a hotel shuttle bus down to the Ferry Terminal. This is useful for those who want to take the ferry over to Hong Kong. The journey takes about 20 minutes with the first shuttle at 0900 so it would be wise to plan your journey well.

Overall, I liked the Hotel Riviera Macau. It is a decent place to stay at a good price and I liked the location too. If you are in Macau for the casinos, you might not want to stay here as its too far from the action. But if you are in Macau for a holiday and want to take things easy, then this is a hotel to consider.

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