A No Casino Hotel In Macau : Fact or Fiction? (The Regency Hotel Macau Review)

The Regency Hotel Macau. Take a virtual tour here.

Located on the Taipa Island, the Regency Hotel Macau is a charming resort type hotel that is situated 10 minutes away from the city center.



the hotel lobby and the restaurants have free wifi

325 rooms decorated in Mediterranean color schemes await you upon your arrival. The rooms, although dated, are clean, comfortable and complete as far as basic hotel needs go.

Booking through Agoda.com, we were able to get a  really great deal on our hotel room. The promo for that time was a free upgrade to a deluxe room if and when you book a superior room, not to mention what seemed like lower rates compared to their regular price. The room cost us about 2500 php (or about 60+ USD) /night compared to their published 10680 php  (250+ USD) rate, excluding the 10% service charge and 5% tourism tax.

didn't really notice how great a deal we got til I saw this inside
our closet

The upgrade was the big surprise. Expecting a slightly bigger room upon check-in, the front desk peeps kında upgraded our upgrade by putting us in not just a deluxe, but in a deluxe harbor view room. Imagine that! Our 2500-ish php/night online rate bought us a 13000+/php night room

the hotel shuttle leaves every hour from 7am - 9 pm, stopping and
picking up passengers in the ff. areas: Sintra Hotel,
Grand Lisboa and the Macau Ferry shuttle depot (&v.v.)

Getting There:
Macau is relatively a small place with a very efficient road system. That being said, getting to and from the Regency Hotel Macau from the airport and even the ferry is quite a breeze, distant wise.

We had a slight hıccup when our Chinese speaking cab driver couldn't read the hotel's address (even if it was printed in Chinese). Not wanting to make our late night out even later (our plane landed at around 8 pm), I told the driver the first well known hotel that came into mind: The Venetian. This he knew, and upon getting there, we asked the (thankfully) English-speaking bell boy in front of the hotel, to instruct the cabbie on how to get to Regency.

It's about 10 minutes from the airport and 20 from the Macau Ferry. BTW, expect an additional 20 MOP when you ride a cab from the airport.

The hotel does have a shuttle that picks up and drops off passengers in certain areas only, but alas, the airport is not on of them.

Accommodations (virtual tour here):
Before I start talking about our room, I'd like to point out that walking through the hallway of our floor, the smell of cleanliness permeates the air. Even the carpeting in the area smells like freshly laundered sheets.



clean hallways are always a plus

As far as staying in  our harbor view room went, I'd like to classify them into the bad and the good:

THE BAD:
 As mentioned earlier, the hotel does come off a bit dated. I had no issues with that, except for the  bathroom. The tub seemed to have this permanent stain at the bottom, which we initially tried to scrub off with the complimentary tooth brush (;P). The tub really looked like it needed to be replaced.

Since we're nit picking anyway, Phil felt that the window could've been cleaned up a little bit more as MAX spent a lot of time looking out (and touching) the window. We did have an excellent view of the harbor and the bridges connecting the islands. The view was slightly spoiled though by the construction going on in the lot across us, right before the water. Other than, it was all-----

GOOD (!):
Spacious, clean and bright best describes our room. As all the rooms are equipped with down duvets and fluffy hypoallergenic pillows, a good night's rest was assured. In fact, we were so grateful with the duvets as the AC in the room, though it had an individual control was still pretty cold despite putting it on a warmer setting.


The little foyer upon entering the room also housed the hidden fridge and had enough storage area for food and other purchases to avoid vacation clutter.

The ensuite bathroom had full amenities including a hair dryer.

Internet access is available upon request and would cost around 40 MOP/day. There were about 2 or 3 English channels as far as cable TV was concerned, which wasn't really an issue.

Food:
Our food experience was limited to the daily breakfast buffet that came with our room. Lot of choices, more than mediocre and quite tasty, I had ZERO gripes when it came to the food. The dishes covered Continental, Indian and Chinese faves.

more tables inside for the breakfast buffet crowd

The hotel does have 2 restaurants, one offering Chinese food and the other, Macanese and Portugal dishes). Room service is available 24 hours, but was quite pricey for us Mediocre Wanderers :)

BTW, here's an example of the breakfast spread:

cereal station

salad station and steamed buns area

where the protein's at (this changed from veal sausage to
chicken sausage to bacon in the days we were here)

noodles and baked beans as well as scrambled eggs were staples

congee was something MAX enjoyed
The salted eggs and juicy tomatoes were what I enjoyed in this round

TIP: in eating out, there are a lot of those Chinese restaurants where you point at lie sea food and they cook it for you right across the street from the hotel. A 7-11, a grocery and a McDonald's are also a block away.

Amenities: (virtual tour here)
As with most resort type hotels, a fab pool, a spa and one or another sport facility may be available. In Macau regency, they also have their own health club. Set amid 3 acres of lush gardens, breezy archways, winding pathways and open verandas, they also have a fitness centre and a tennis court. A day pass may be acquired to enjoy the facilities if you are not a guest at the hotel.

there was also this hotel staffer who monitored the pool water
he was probably checking to see if MAX was peeing in the pool :p

The pool is quite huge, with a kiddie pool area, a pool bar and has enough space for people to splash about or get serious with their laps. A nearby kiddie playground is also available.

As the title denotes, the Regency Hotel Macau is one of the few hotels that do not have a casino in its premises. There is however one nearby, which is just across the hotel's parking lot. You are ensured of an almost smoke free environment (in Macau, it is illegal to smoke in public places, and a stiff fine is imposed. However, there are those individuals who refuse to follow) and security is definitely in place.


the elevators are well monitored late at night

Speaking of casinos, should you find yourself out late at night, always bring your key card whether or not you have someone to open the door for you as entering any of their elevators late at night or early morning are subject to a security check by the staff.

The low down:
We were quite satisfied with the Regency Macau Hotel. The facilities and services were quite what we needed in our 5 day stay in Macau. I would recommend staying there if family friendly, resort type hotels are much to your liking. The entrance of the hotel though doesn't include a PWD ramp so that may be an issue for those with wheelchairs (or even strollers).



at the Venetian Macau

Should you want to visit other hotels like The Venetian, City of Dreams and the likes, a shuttle from these places are there to pick you up. Just ask the guard or bellboy posted near the entrance. They're quite informed with the shuttle schedules of these places and do speak English.

a view of Regency Macau from the Macau Tower
(its that building at the forefront of this pic)

For reservation and other queries, visit this link.

From TMW, may all your wanderings be better than ours!!

(Ed.note: wasn't able to verify this from the staff, but I read a blog saying that the Regency Hotel Macau used to be the old facility of Hyatt Regency, up until they pulled out to create a bigger and newer Hyatt in Macau).