Note: as mentioned here, I’m only posting this over 3 years later. Unlike some of the other posts from this trip, I didn’t finish the draft.
We left the Hong Kong Disney Resort around 6:30am in order to have a full day to explore Macau. Being familiar with the journey, I didn’t even bother to book ferry tickets in advance — just taxi to the pier, buy the tickets, hop on the boat. You’re there an hour later. In Macau, the MGM sent a limo to pick us up (unsure of why, really).
I’m always fascinated by Macau, though this time it was far more familiar and thus less of an unexpected delight. Nonetheless, the mash-up of Portuguese and Chinese cultures (and architecture) with the Las Vegas casino gaming overlay (only with far more gaming revenue) makes it quite unique. To me,
This is where the original draft ended. I’m now completing the recollections en route to Qatar in June 2023…
From what I recall for this part of the trip, we wandered around the historical Portuguese center, visited the primary casino area (Koti Strip?) for mostly “retail therapy” where Libby “discovered” a new (to her) handbag brand (Moyant), and ate some enjoyable dim sum at the MGM Grand (which also gave us a complimentary room upgrade, also for no clear reason).
Overall, our sense at the time was that the visit to Macau was fine/good but not as thrilling as our first time there — whereas Hong Kong was much better. In that way, the trip reminds me of our 1st and 2nd visits to Vienna and Salzburg, which were one was “great” and the other “meh” and then vice versa on second trip.