Thanx so much to everyone for all the advice. I think we might go
ahead and
···
casinos in Macau one of these days!!!!!
===========================================
Hi Jean,
My husband & I were in Macau in 1986, long before it was even a
gleam in Steve Wynn's eye.
We had been vacationing in Hong Kong, and found ourselves at loose
ends on Christmas Eve. The Peninsula Hotel, where we were staying,
was completely sold out for Christmas Eve dinner reservations. Every
other hotel and restaurant in which the concierge tried,
unsucessfully, to book our dinner, was also completely reserved.
In desperation, the concierge suggested trying a hotel in Macau, a
45 minute ride on the "fast" Hydrofoil. Not wanting to eat Dim Sum
for Christmas Eve dinner, we decided to let him reserve dinner in
Macau.
After boarding the Hydrofoil with 6 very rough looking local
citizens (all of whom seemed to smoking cow dung) we wondered if
perhaps we were being a little TOO adventuresome! However, despite
a lot of rough water pitching and yawing of the Hydrofoil, we made
shore w/o incident.
Once in Macau, it took no more than 10 minutes to clear Customs, and
grab a Taxi to the hotel. Unfortunately, I can't remember the name
of the hotel (and don't know if even still exists) because I would
certainly recommend it for dinner.
The hotel was a glorious white Colonial Palace, bedecked with every
kind of imaginable Christmas decoration, and with Christmas Carols
playing in every public room.
We throughly enjoyed a great traditional Christmas dinner, before
deciding to inspect the casino on the premises. We had been told
that the 2 or 3 major hotels in Macau, all had casinos.
The casino in this hotel consisted of a small ante-room with a few
non-descript slot machines, adjoining a very fancy gold-bedecked
larger room containing a few BJ & Bacarat tables. The gamblers were
all dressed in semi-formal attire, and were playimg VERY high
stakes. After deciding that this not what we were looking for in an
evenings entertainment, we asked one of the tuxedoed staff where we
might find a BJ game with lower stakes. W/O looking down his nose
(TOO much) he informed us that all the hotel casinos had similiar BJ
stakes, but that we could try a casino where the Macau locals
played.
We taxied over to an area with 2 or 3 much larger casinos, all
adjacent to each other. I played a few slot machines, losing the
equivilant of $20.00 or $30.00 in an hour or so.
Meanwhile, my husband went to play BJ. As he later described the
playing skills of those at his table, "they should have just mailed
their money, and avoided the hassle of playing". In addition to
their cluelessness regarding basic strategy, they endeavored to give
my husband instructions on proper play as they grouped behind him,
and bet on his hand. They accomplished this by putting their chips
next to his, in his betting circle. (This practice is allowed and
encouraged in many overseas casinos). Since their instructions were
in Chinese, he didn't understand much, but he could tell they
getting very aggravated with him. One or two of them switched to
Portugese, hoping he might understand that language, and when that
also failed, they picked up their chips and left, to his relief.
As luck would have it, my husband was having a good run of cards,
including several BJs, and was loathe to leave the table.
Appartently, his play became a little "too strong" for them, because
a VERY large Tuxedo appeared, and suggested to him, in quite loud
and understandable English,that he had played long enough. We got
the message and left hurridly, hoping we wouldn't get mugged while
waiting for a Taxi.
Fortunately, we returned to Hong Kong quite safely, savoring the
excitement of the adventure, but very glad to be back w/o incident.
The concierge at the Peninsula later told us how foolish we had been
to go to a non-hotel casino, where robbings, stabbings and murders
were commonplace.
With the advent of Steve Wynn & partners, the old style Macau
casinos will be no more. I guess that really is a good thing!
Babe
