kuponuts

Rooms are available for booking from Nov 1, 2009 onwards.

The hotel website is really confusing at the moment. On the "Room & Rates" page, there are Grand Deluxe and Club rooms, as well as suites for reservation. But if you actually key in the dates, only suites are available. I rang the booking agent in Macau and she said GH Macau is still in the process of "fine-tuning" the dimension of the rooms. The website will update soon.

Pricing is also very confusing. It fluctuates daily! I managed to book a Grand Suite King on Hyatt Daily rate at 1,288HKD + 15% tax last Sunday. When I check today, however, the same room on Advanced Purchase rate costs 1,388 HKD + 15% tax.

I will be staying at GH Macau during 15-17 November. I will post my review and photos during my stay.

I don't know. Something tells me that GH Macau is not ready for opening yet ...

crystak

I'm going to stay there in December hopefully. The price for the Grand Suit king is good in my opinion, a lot lower than in other Chinese/ HK GH.

ElmhurstNick

I tried looking for award stays here and got an error message. The property is also not listed on any of the category 1-5 lists.

mmhk

FYI: Currently the room description on the GH Macau webpage do not correspond with those you will find on the reservation page after specifing a date.

A friend previously booked a Grand Deluxe Room and now needed another room. After date setting etc., he went for the Grand Suite King as the Gd Dlx Room had disappeared. On receiving the confirmation email it turned out that the room description is exactly the same as the one for the Gd Dlx Room description on the main webpage! The description for the Gd Suite King differs from that.

So, after double checking with the reservation agent of the GH Macau, he was adivsed, that the Gd Dlx had been re-name to Gd Suite King. The main webpage has some technical difficulties and thus does not yet reflect the updated room categories.

So, mind you when booking to check your reservation email to check what the room description says if you intend to go for a specific room type/suite. As it seems - and according to the reservation agent - the current Gd Dlx Rooms will be marketed as Gd Suite King, which in turn will be re-named/re-categorised, too. At the moment you get the Gd Suite which matches the Gd Dlx Room description. Hope my explanation makes sense.

In any case, the agent said that in the next couple of days the webpage glitches should be fixed and all should be displayed the correct and updated way.

Cheers.

kuponuts

Yes, it makes sense to me, but this is probably because I have been through the confusing booking process.

In any case, I think I got a bargain by registering 3 adults in the Grand Suite King for 1288HKD.

I wonder if we can use Diamond suite upgrades to upgrade the suites...

Big Mac

This hotel now has an "Opening Offer." It's 1,088HKD for a Grand Suite King per night and you can cancel 24 hours prior to arrival. Their lowest rate before this was an advanced purchase rate at 1,3XXHKD. I guess bookings haven't been that good...
Anyway, guess who's going to stay there in a month...

kuponuts

I just spent my weekend at GH Macau. I am really surprised that nobody has written a review to this fantastic property yet, so here is mine.

Here is a little background information:

Grand Hyatt Macau opened on 1st November, 2009. The hotel is situated inside City of Dreams, an urban resort/entertainment/dining/shopping/casino complex that also includes two other hotels: Crown Towers (6 stars) and Hard Rock hotel (5 stars). It features 791 rooms & suites with spectacular views over Cotai and the west banks of Pearl River.

GH Macau comprises two towers: Grand Tower (where I stayed) and Grand Club Tower (was not open when I was there, but I believe it just opened yesterday 17th November). There are 424 rooms and suites in the Grand Tower and 367 rooms and suites -- dedicated to premium travellers -- in the Grand Club Tower.

From the information I gathered, originally the Grand Tower and the Grand Club Tower were supposed to be managed under the Hyatt Regency and Grand Hyatt names, respectively. However, the management dropped this idea during development and merged both towers into a single Grand Hyatt hotel. For this reason, both towers share the same reception desk and Grand Club facility at the Lobby of the Grand Tower.

The Grand Club was not open when I was there but I was granted a visit. It was huge!! It's the size of a full restaurant -- probably 3 times the size of a normal lounge. I suppose this is understandable as all guests staying at the Grand Club Tower will be given access to the GC.

GH Macau has extremely large MICE facilities -- probably the second largest in Macau. Unlike most hotels in Macau which target gamblers, GH Macau largely targets the IT and pharmaceutical industries, as well as big corporate houses and private Chinese enterprises. The aim is to have GH Macau acting as a facilitator, complementing Crown Towers and Hard Rock hotel in areas that they are not strong in.

When they first opened, the hotel was doing an opening offer package starting from 1,088 MOP for a Grand Suite King including complimentary breakfast. Now the hotel is doing the City of Dreams package starting from 1,588 MOP for a Grand Suite King including complimentary breakfast (please quote "COD001").

The hotel also likes to advertise that their packages include "complimentary Wi-Fi internet access and priority access for two to the Dragon’s Treasure Show at the Bubble". However, I would like to remind people that these items are actually free in any case.

Here are some pictures I took of GH Macau.

kuponuts

I redeemed two nights at GH Macau using the Next Big Thing awards. I was able to register the room for 3 guests through NBT (yay!).

I arrived in Macau from Hong Kong through Cotai Jet. There are free shuttle services at the pier that takes you to City of Dreams -- stopping at Hard Rock hotel, then at GH Macau, and finally at Crown. The shuttle bus was packed with passengers, but everyone except us got off the bus at Hard Rock.

Check-in procedure

The reception is on your right hand side when you enter the lobby. I felt a bit lost when I first got to the hotel, but no one offered to point me to the right direction. I had to ask~!

Staff at the reception desk was cold -- the usual Grand Hyatt style. There were no Platinum/Diamond check-in lanes; everyone checked in at the same place. Check-in procedure was not fast but not slow -- it took around 10 minutes. The staff at the reception desk realised I was a Diamond so she called to get a manager to assist me to my room. The manager was friendly. He took us to our room and introduced the hotel to us.

Room

My suite was on the 29th floor. GH Macau kindly gave me a suite on the side of the building so I got two different window views. The suite was big -- 64 sqm -- and really nice! You can see a photo of the suite here.

The bed was extremely comfortable. The bathroom was huge, with shower and bath tub bundled together, and a separate toilet. There was a blood stain on the toilet floor.

There were two LG flat-screen TVs in the room: one in the sitting room and one in the bedroom. The tea-making facilities includ a Nespresso machine, 6 Nespresso capsules, two cans of Chinese loose tea leaves (Iron buddha and Pu-erh tea), and a dozen of T2 revolution teabags (Jasmine, Earl Grey, Peppermint and English breakfast). I love their teabags -- especially Jasmine.

Diamond amenity was a fruit bowl.

Guest services

I rang guest services to organise 4 Dragon's treasure show tickets for me. They did this very promptly ^ and organised the tickets for pick-up at the Bubble entrance. I also told them that I have made a request for a rollaway bed. They brought the bed up while I went downstairs to pick up my friend. Unfortunately, they placed the bed in the bedroom and I wanted the bed to be in the sitting room. I had to ring 4 times and it took them 3 hours to get someone to fix the bed .

Dining

The Grand Club was not open when I was there. We were offered complimentary breakfast at Beijing Kitchen. The restaurant was extremely packed in the morning as all guests have breakfast here. I didn't have much expectation for the Beijing Kitchen at first, but I came out really impressed by their cooking . I tasted the best Har Gau and Siu Mai ever here.

The Har Gau was small, bite-size, and used tiny shrimps instead of large, tasteless, unusually crunchy, farmed prawns that you commonly get in Yum Cha these days. Siu Mai was even more impressive! They didn't blend the meat using a blender, which is what most restaurants these days do. Instead, they chopped the meat into tiny pieces so that you can still taste the texture in the Siu Mai. They also included some soft bones/cartilages inside the Siu Mai so that it has this crunchy texture that I don't find in other restaurants. Very impressive! Their baguette was great! Congee was not bad. Everything else was okay too, but I am happy just eating Har Gau and Siu Mai.

I also tried cakes at the Lobby Lounge. They were very disappointing. I ordered green tea, mango, and lemon opera stick cake. They looked really good on the eyes, but tasted bland on the tongue. I couldn't taste any green tea, nor mango, nor lemon in any of the cakes.

I checked the room services menu. I didn't order anything but the price was very reasonable. As a matter of fact, I recommend you eating at the hotel than at City of Dreams' food colosseum, which I thought was a real rip-off. Otherwise, the Golden Pavilion inside the casino can be an altenative cheaper option as they sometimes do special deals. When I was there, they were selling Wonton & Cha Siu noodles for 11 MOP + 10% service fee (1.5 USD) starting at 11pm . More information here.

kuponuts

Conclusion

Despite some glitches, I think Grand Hyatt Macau is a magnificient product with extremely good value. I talked to some key people and they said that City of Dreams, who owns GH Macau, was aiming at generating revenue through gaming, not through accommodation. Actually, this is the reason why there are Queen rooms in the Grand Tower but are not open for booking because these rooms are reserved for gamers who have bet big money.

The hotel still need some time and effort, but I think there is a huge probability that GH Macau will become the best Grand Hyatt in Asia.

SanDiego1K

kuponuts, thank you for those great pictures and wonderful report.

kuponuts

Blankets

Oh, I almost forgot!!! I asked housekeeping for an extra blanket. They asked for 300MOP for the extra blanket!!! Anyone else thinks this is insane?!!

crystak

I've never heard of getting charged for extra blankets/ towels in any Hyatt hotels at least.

Could it be possible that the person misunderstood and thought you wanted to buy one?

kuponuts

Hi Crystak,

Yes, I am sure because I asked two different people at guest services 3 times.

BKKROP

Hi kuponuts, sounds as if this could be very nice, can you give me a time frame, in your estimations of the GH HKG to the GH Macau. How much time is einvolved? Say I grabbed a cab to the ferry, then over to Macau and the shuttle up to the hotel, is it a morning?, and finally were you given any idea when the club will open. Thanks for the report, given us all many ideas, regards vbkkrop

kuponuts

Hi BKKROP,

GH HKG to GH Macau would take around 1.5-2 hours. There are several different ferry services from HK to Macau, but the best one to take in this case is Cotaijet. To board the ferry, you need to take either MTR or taxi to Shun Tak Centre (Sheung Wan MTR station).The Cotaijet ticket booth is well hidden, so you might need to ask people once you get there.

Address: Shop 305n, Shun Tak Centre, 200 Connaught Road, Sheung Wan, HK
Phone: 2857 6625

There are three classes of seats: VIP Cabin, Cotai First and Cotai Class. I recommend Cotai First, which gives you better seats, priority landing, and complimentary drinks and cup noodle. Price is around HKD250 (USD30) depending on your departure time and date.

You will need to go through customs on HK side as well as Macau side, which takes around 5 minutes. Please remember to check your visa requirement for entry to Macau.

Complimentary shuttle bus is right outside the pier -- the one that says "City of Dreams".

Cab/MTR to Sheung Wan = 10 minutes
Ferry to Macau = 1 hour
Shuttle bus to GH Macau = 10 minutes