ii) The Venetian
Continue from my last post where our 1st destination once arrived in Macau was to The Venetian.
A bit about The Venetian, it is a luxury hotel, casino resort and shopping mall in Macau, owned by the American Las Vegas Sands company. The building is HUGE located on the Cotai Strip in Macau. It is known as the seventh largest building in the world. In addition, the Venetian Macau has the largest casino in the world and the largest single structure hotel building in Asia. Do not miss the Venetian Macau if you are visiting Macau, put this in your bucket list
The Venetian is very near to the ferry terminal, it took us about 10-15 minutes to reach there via free shuttle bus.
We arrived at The Venetian around 11am and started our tour.
The hotel’s interior is a sight to behold. It’s like going in Italy in a snap. Those yellow tame lights give the dramatic look to the structures on the lobby and even on the paintings on the ceiling.
One thing I found amusing once our visit in Hong Kong was, there were lots of costumed performer that fixed with the theme of the place they performed. Like yesterday at The Peak, as it was Halloween so they became a Zombie. Here, we found one wearing a renaissance era costume and very much into his character. He scared some of the visitors by following them and gazing straight at their face.
The Venetian Hotel offers hotel accommodation to gamblers from around the world. These rooms come in a variety of different price ranges so there is something for all visitors.
The Venetian is not only a hotel which offers luxury suites, there are basically two main areas in The Venetian which is the Tourist area and the Casino area.
The casino is located in the first level of the building. Make sure If you’re going to/passing by the casino that you have an ID with you, as they do ID inspection to see if you’re legally allowed to enter. Due to the local laws, youths under 18 years old are prohibited from entering the casino area.
The major tourist attraction in The Venetian Macau (of course apart of the Casino itself) is definitely The Grand Canal Shoppe. Can you imagine canals inside a building?? Not one but three!! More impressive is that these indoor canals have been made to resemble the ones in Venice, with the gondola rides available to take people along the three canals. The Grand Canal Shoppes here is known to be occupying twice the size of Las Vegas Canal Shoppes including a wide variety of restaurants, stores and performances.
These Venetian styled buildings, canals and plaza are obviously inside the Tourist area. The most amazing thing is that all of these are located on the third floor. So as we are not into gambling, from the lobby, we went straight to this level.
The 1st few minutes in The Venetian, I was just taking my time and walked slowly to fully adapt the Venice feel. The sight is just mesmerizing and one of its kind. Felt like I was teleported in Europe with all the intricate European inspired design evident in all corners of the hotel. Not forgetting also the smell of the air-freshener inside there. It was very nice with the scent of lavender and roses.
Standing over one these staircases will give a great view of the man made canals and the gondola boats passing by. The Venetian canal district comes complete with gondolas, gondoliers and canals with ceilings painted to photo-realistic perfection to create an internal sky.
The painted sky that hangs over the Venetian Macao’s canals is truly breathtaking and many visitors are surprised that it’s not actually real.
The man-made blue sky can produce sunrise and sunset effects under the control of a computer. So it somehow kinda hard to figure out if it is day or night if you are inside the Venetian Hotel not unless you step out of the hotel premises.
Though the gondola may have originated in Venice Italy ,but you don’t have to wait for a trip to Europe to ride the traditional, flat-bottomed row boat. The Venetian Macau offers Italian gondolas with serenading gondoliers gliding through the San Loco, Marco Polo, or Grand Canals (3 canals).
Gondola Ticket Price
Adults : 118 Macau Pataca (MOP) Children : 88 MOP
Ticket counters : Boutique di Gondola (shop 2301) & Emporio di Gondola (shop 2660).
Daily Canal Opening Times
Grand Canal: 11:00am – 10.00pm
Marco Polo: 11:00am – 7.00pm
San Luca: 11:00am – 7.00pm
It can be a romantic/intimate experience for couples riding one of these gondolas and be serenaded with gondolier. In my case I didn’t try it because I was on a strict budget for this trip. But maybe next time I will try it and bring my love ones with me ;D
There are over 350 brand name retail stores at the Grand Canal Shoppes taking up 1.6 million square feet of retail space. The famous brands and the duty-free advantage combine to give all the best shopping experience. If you still can’t get enough of the shopping experience in Hong Kong and your credit card has still huge limit then you’d go GAGA checking out each stalls. There is a HUGE array of shops to choose from for Shopaholics but just make sure you bring enough money for purchases as the price tags are really expensive although there were few stalls selling bargain items. Too bad.. cause I didn’t really came here for shopping experience but it was really tempting.
Shops open till about 10pm, making it a good stop before hitting the table.
Like I mentioned before, you may spot costumed performers here and there. Some of them will play tricks or create a funny gestures to give smiles to those who are watching them.
The Venetian offers over 30 restaurants with cuisines from around the world. There are many popular local food delicacies can also be found here like pork burger and Macau egg tart, which saves a lot of time than hunting them around Macau. You are eating in a food court inside a famous hotel so expect that the prices of food can be a little higher and of course it less authentic rather than buying it from the street side stores.
Nowhere else in Asia will you find the finest in luxury suites, world-class shopping, sensational entertainment and irresistible dining- all under one roof so DO NOT leave Macau without visiting The Venetian ok.
After spending about 2hours here, we decided to make a move to our next destination. I will continue in my next post, but before I end this post, I leave you with SOME FACTS ABOUT THE VENETIAN:
– The volume of sand used in the reclamation of land for The Venetian Macao, is enough to build one of Egypt’s largest pyramids
– They poured enough concrete to fill 318 Olympic swimming pools
– As many as 11,000 construction workers and 990 trucks entered the site each day. Twenty-two mobile cranes, 41 crawler cranes and 552 mobile platforms were operating on site at the same time during construction
– The total size of The Venetian Macao is equivalent to 56 football fields. That’s big enough to park close to 100 Boeing 747 jumbo .
Till then, BYE.
Trip to HK, Macau and Shenzhen Fast Link Here
Preparation
Day 0 – Departure to Hong Kong and First Night at Chungking Mansion
Day 1 – Star Ferry Ride from Kowloon to HK Island
Day 1 – HKCEC and Golden Bauhinia Square
Day 1 – Repulse Bay and Stanley Village
Day 1 – Lunch at Islamic Muslim Centre, Ammar Mosque and Tram Ride
Day 1 – The Mid Level Escalator
Day 1 – The Peak Tram and Night at Victoria Peak (Sky Terrace 428)
Day 1 – End of Day 1
MACAU Day Trip
Day 2 – Journey to Macau by TurboJET Ferry
Day 2 – City Of Dreams and Hard Rock Hotel
Day 2 – The Galaxy Macau
Day 2 – Grand Lisboa and Senado Square
Day 2 – The Ruins of St. Paul’s
Day 2 – Macau back to Hong Kong
Shenzhen Day Trip
Day 3 – Starting Journey to Shenzhen, China from Hong Kong
Day 3 – Window of The World
Day 3 – Shopping at Shenzhen and back to Hong Kong
Hong Kong Trip Continues
Day 4 – Ngong Ping 360, Lantau Island
Day 4 – Aberdeen Floating Village and Jumbo Kingdom
Day 5 – Disneyland Part 1
Day 5 – Disneyland Part 2
Day 5 – Disneyland Part 3
Day 5 – Shopping at Ladies Market, Mongkok
Last Day – Avenue of Star
Last Day – HK Museums, 1881 Heritage and Back to Malaysia
Total Expenses
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