YariGuy

So I went again and just returned last night.

Situation is basically the same, except with the current COVID outbreak in Guangdong, occupancy was even lower. I talked to a taxi driver and he said before, it was like 20-30% of usual, but recently it's down to 10% of usual. We were on the top (41st) floor and maybe saw 2 other guests during our 3-night stay.

There's been visible progress on the Londoner conversion (Big Ben is still not done yet though).

I used 3 SNAs this time because was traveling with family. They cleared 5 days before check-in, and was upgraded to a bigger suite than last time. This one was like 128 sqm with a media room. Kid stayed in the media room (sofa converts to bed). Hooked up the Nintendo Switch to the big TV. He loved it.

Singapore_Air

Thanks - any Club lounge experience insights to share ?

YariGuy

The lounge is only in use during slow (weekday) breakfast times. The selection is good, though not as good as the breakfast at the restaurant. Another plus is that breakfast lasts until 11:30, so you can effectively make it brunch.

I don't know why they continue to have happy hour delivered to your room. I guess not everybody orders it so they can save money? I'd much rather have it in the lounge. That way you can make your own drinks too rather than specifying through room service.

ftrichard

I'm still insanely jealous that you can go there now after I left Shenzhen in March and am now in HK.

The paralysis at all these One China borders bodes terribly badly for mobility the foreseeable future.

Being British I'd like nothing more than to immerse myself in the faux-British new development at the Sheraton.

YariGuy

Yes, I do feel fortunate to be able to get a stamp in the passport, even though it's just to Macau

It is quite impressive actually. I don't know if Steve Wynn is orchestrating the big makeover in Cotai, building 3 European city themed areas (Parisian, Venetian, Londoner). It's not just the Sheraton, but will encompass a whole stretch of towers and the area that links them -- St. Regis, Londoner Hotel, Conrad, Sheraton.

The façade will be quite impressive - in the style of Westminster complete with Big Ben. It's a complete Vegas-ization of Macau, but hey, I like kitsch sometimes. I also look forward to the Gordon Ramsay pub when it opens.

The biggest drawback is that Macau is completely following Chinese protocols in terms of COVID prevention. One manifestation is the continued border closure, the other is uber-strict mask requirements which has been ingrained in the population. This includes outdoor masking in 36 degree muggy weather.

ElevatorEnthusiast

It's not the St Regis, but the world's largest Sheraton isn't too bad itself and poses a solid value proposition for Macau. Here are my pros, cons, and photos:

Pros:

• Upgraded the morning of arrival to an Executive Suite Non-Smoking - had to wait until about 4 PM for it to be ready, which was fine
• The suite is a full suite with 1.5 bathroom and full separation
• The design, while odd in places, is comfortable and does not feel overly dated
• The bed was rather comfortable with great plush pillows, a plush / just-right mattress, and decently thick covers for the environment
• Shower pressure (unlike the STR) was fantastically strong and easy to angle the single wand head
• Was able to get 4 PM checkout without hassle - good for my 7 PM flight
• Mars and the rest of the lounge staff for check-in, checkout, and logistics were quite friendly
• Each of the 40-story towers have 20 elevators each - divided into 3-4 tower slices / banks - wait times were minimal, though plenty of guests get confused at the call buttons and signage
• Chocolate cake with coffee flavor at evening service in the 4th floor lounge was really good
• I chose restaurant breakfast as my welcome gift - though, lounge breakfast was also quite large
  • The 2nd omelet was good after they first accidently put onions in the first one
  • Actually quire good pancakes (warm and fluffy)
  • Good strawberry ice cream
  • Very busy at 10 AM, but it goes until Noon and I didn't have to wait for a table
• I do believe they attempted turndowns but my bedroom door was locked (living room was open - they left some extra waters)
• Nice view of both the Eiffel Tower and Mainland China
• The Londoner has a Shake Shack - lovely chicken sandwiches

Cons:

• No Internet streaming services on the TV
• No in-room Ambassador welcome gift

Note: The shuttle to the airport took longer than I thought - lots of traffic and U-turns required.

Overall, I wouldn't hesitate to return to the Sheraton for a longer stay for more value per night.

Photos:

ftrichard

Ah, the memories. This was my go-to hotel in Macau for many weekend breaks. In earlier times they routinely upgraded me to an insanely-large suite with games room (can't remember the suite name) but this started to decline in the years before the Great Plague and the last New Year's Eve I stayed there (fireworks over the Eiffel Tower which fooled some people to believe I was in Paris) we got a basic room. Quite a come down.

The best period was when they were refurbishing the huge executive lounge and as an alternative you could choose to go to the main buffet restaurant where they had roped off a section for elites and provide us with free flow booze. With all the foods from the main buffet downstairs that normal people were paying good money for. Ah, the seafood flowed freely. I remember regularly paying a room rate around MOP800 or so for all this. It was incredible value for money for elites during this time.

I always wanted to try the JW as a points redemption but then the Great Plague hit and I was reduced to watching the twinkling lights of Macau from my dismal vantage point at the Sheraton Zhuhai.

If I can get direct flights from Bangkok I'll go back to the Sheraton - if only because I want to experience the new London theme though I expect it will chill me to the bone.

Norexan

ElevatorEnthusiast Between the Sheraton and the JW, which would you pick for a night if the JW was $50 more? This will be in winter though, so I'll assume that the JW's waterpark will be closed.

ElevatorEnthusiast

If you're looking to just stay on property (i.e. stay within Galaxy), then the JW is probably worth it (better lounge, fancier design) - even though the bed is nicer at the Sheraton. However, if you want to explore more casinos, such as Venetian, Parisian, Londoner (obviously), City of Dreams, MGM Cotai, and City of Dreams, then the Sheraton is in a much better location. The challenge is that it's a big property, so you have to be prepared for that.

Norexan

Awesome, thanks! I'll be arriving in Macau around 6pm and will head out to the airport around 2pm the next day, so will have one evening and a good chunk of the next day. I was planning on exploring the Cotai area during my time there, so it looks like the Sheraton is the preferred property. I want to check out the Morpheus Hotel and MGM in particular while I'm there. The architecture looks amazing. I was in Macao in 2015 and a lot of these hotels didn't even exist then.

ElevatorEnthusiast

With that itinerary, stay at the Sheraton as your room should be ready for that arrival time.

jpdx

I, too, had several dozen stays here pre-Covid, and saw many of the ups and downs of the lounge, from an abundance of terrible, low-quality food, to an effort to improve things with small plates of high quality delicacies, not to mention the lounge closure and replacement with the main buffet (and even premium spirits at the hotpot place for a while). Similarly, I've had many good and some incredible upgrades, including giant high roller suites on the top floor. After 3 1/2 years of abstinence caused by Covid, I just had a chance to return. What a letdown it was!

As had been my MO in the past, I booked a midweek-stay. First signs that something might be amiss were noticeable when I rolled up at Shun Tak Center around 11:30am and Cotaijet tickets were unavailable until 14:00. Walked around, tried the scalpers, to no avail, so I finally bought a ticket for a 12:30 departure on Turbojet Premier Grand class. Now, mind you, this is the scam of the century, because the seat will be almost identical to economy on Cotaijet, but you'll be served some godawful spaghetti and wine in a paper cup. Ferry frequencies were cut significantly from pre-Covid days, with no sailings from Kowloon and only hourly sailings from Shun Tak at midday. So pre-buying tickets rather than walking up is advisable, even mid-week. Outer Harbor wasn't busy at all -- in fact, many of the piers have been removed, and when we arrived, we were the only ship berthed there. The shuttle bus setup is unchanged from pre-Covid. Note that now you'll be going to "The Londoner" rather than "Cotai Central."

The "Londoner" theme is evident as you arrive at the hotel -- Big Ben greets you, double decker buses, the queen makes an appearance. Gaudy and terrible as one might expect, but to be fair, the Cotai Cantral development suffered from a lamentable lack of a theme. Driving up always gave me the sense of arriving at a weird, failing tribal casino in WA State. The ground floor and mall has been thoroughly re-done, Londonized if you will. There's a check-in area for Bonvoy elites off the main lobby (listing all levels from Gold to Amb), immediately to the left when exiting the bus. As in the past, I ignored it and went straight up to the lounge of the 4th floor. Here, Londonization hadn't taken hold, the area having maintained its oversized Peppermill charm.

At the lounge, I was told that the hotel was completely sold out and that no upgrade would be forthcoming. Shocking for mid-week, but apparently, the place is quite bustling. Now, I recall two times I had less than a very nice high-floor Sky Tower suite here -- once, it was a smallish suite in the Earth Tower, and the other time it was a club room. When I checked in for the latter (this must have been in 2019), staff were almost embarrassingly apologetic, told me that they had made sure that I had a room with a great Eiffel tower view, and that indeed the hotel could move me to a suite on the second day of my stay. This time, there were no such theatrics. I found my way to the elevators for low floors and went up. It turned out that not only was I in a base room, I was in the worst base room on the floor, directly next to the elevator:



Now, if you're familiar with the hotel, you will know that the further you are from the protrusion in the building, the better your view will be (because you can look in both directions). In this case, the view toward Cotai Strip is of a wall rather than the Eiffel Tower or Big Ben. Not to mention that proximity to the elevators is not a good thing in a hotel where you have noisy gamblers returning to their rooms at literally all hours of the night.

The room was in terrible state of repair. When the Cotai Central development went up, it certainly was built in haste; Macau experienced explosive growth and rooms and gaming floors were needed asap. For a few years, the furnishings (which were middling) fared fine, at least in the suites. I'll refrain from posting pictures of dinged up furniture and grime in the shower, and instead will let this picture of the carpet do the talking:


I mean, look up "threadbare" in the dictionary, and that's the image you'll see used to illustrate it. Now, in a sold out hotel, I don't expect any spectacular upgrades. In Macau, anyone who gambles even at a low stake will be worth far more to the hotel than a Bonvoy Tit who plans on being out and about all day to explore the city. Still, it's hard to stomach being given such a room at a hotel where one had many great stays in the past.

I wish I could say this was the extent of my gripes, but not so. I was given a handout listing club hours. Breakfast was shown as lasting from 7am to 2pm. In fact, I was required to choose a time slot. Apparently, the hotel is so busy, this is the only way to handle the onslaught. I was lucky to check in mid-afternoon; I can only imagine how great it must be for the late arrivals who are told their breakfast slot is at 7am. Note that although this a Sheraton, where hypothetically one should have the option of choosing restaurant breakfast in lieu of the 1000 welcome points, such a choice is not offered.



Food quality was middling, but not a huge drop from the period immediately prior to Covid. They are serving huge amounts of food, and it's evidently pre-made and just gets brought out when needed. Nothing fancy, and several items were dried out or lukewarm (dumplings and rice). Pastries have gone way downhill from pre-Covid, and some of the high quality European stuff (from Bene) has disappeared. Interestingly, Covid hasn't caused a change in the hygiene behaviors of some of the, umm, main customer base -- still see plenty of people coughing directly onto the buffet without covering their mouths while piling their plates high with food.

Evening happy hour has also seen a bit of a drop, certainly from the era where they had hired the (Portuguese?) club manager who was intent on improving quality. Still, you have a lot of decent options and it's easy to make a meal here. There's no longer a bartender, but you now pour your own drinks. For some reason, evening happy hour was unrestricted and indeed pretty slow, with lots of open tables. I guess people gamble at that time rather than going to the happy hour.

Overall, I'm obviously not rushing back. I'm now based in Europe anyway, and getting to actual Portugal is far easier than getting to Macau. I had made my reservation pretty far out, and at just under MOP 1000 a night, it's still a decent deal. Far more than those MOP 600 BRGs of yesteryear, of course, but still reasonable compared to rates we now commonly see (and in fact, as my trip dates approached, rates just about doubled, and for some upcoming dates, I see rates well in excess of MOP 2000). In hindsight, I wish I'd stayed at the Grand Hyatt (at about MOP 1350), but who knows, that might have been a letdown, as well.

ftrichard

That's a very disappointing update as I, too, have fond memories of bargain fun times here and was considering a short break from Bangkok for old times sake. The room - and its condition - is shocking for an elite (or indeed any guest). The only time I had a disappointing room was when I was there for New Year's Eve 2018-2019 when Macau was absolutely packed and I got a regular room on a high floor that at least had a decent view. Was it a mainland holiday or something when you were there? If not then your mid-week experience is pretty inexplicable. Anyway, thanks for the update. I do want to check out the Londoner theme at some point but I may have to strategise my timing a bit more than I'd have previously thought.

SHLTP

Very disappointing. Thanks for the warning. I'm headed to Macau in November and was thinking of staying at Andaz, Grand Hyatt and returning to the Sheraton for old time sale - some great memories upgraded to ginormous suites.

Maybe I'll still to Hyatt and maybe try JW as points cheap while rates for Hyatts sky high on my dates

jpdx

Nope, not a holiday. I asked my HK-based friends to check what might be going on, and nobody came up with an explanation other than "Macau hotels are packed these days." What made it mysterious was that rates were at their usual pre-Covid midweek levels (around MOP 1000) for months, and then rose sharply a few days prior to the stay. So my assumption was that some remaining travel restrictions for Mainlanders had been suddenly and unexpectedly lifted, and everybody decided to flock to Macau. (There was something in the European press about group travel to Germany and Japan just having opened up, so I thought it possible that something similar had occurred here and brought a sudden influx of visitors to Macau. This doesn't seem to be the case). So I assume that this is "revenge travel," people going because they can, with lots of saved up cash and desire to get out. The shopping areas of the casinos were incredibly busy (used to be dead mid-week), and gambling was at a level I never saw on prior midweek stays.

I think there are two questions to ask before deciding where to stay:

First, what's the likelihood of my awful experience repeating itself? These hotels have lots of suites, and I assume no effort is made to withhold available upgrades, so I'd think that as a LT Tit with a long stay history here, one shouldn't go in expecting an awful room on a midweek stay. If this was truly a one-off (say, 1 in 100 stays), I'd stay at the Sheraton again. If the likelihood is higher, say 1 in 10 stays, I wouldn't return. In that case, a newer hotel would be a better choice, simply because they don't have any terrible rooms with threadbare carpets (which would favor the JW or Andaz), and afaik at the GH, even base rooms are fairly large. That said, rates certainly factor into the equation, and at MOP 1000, the Sheraton can be a worthy contender if better hotels cost 2-3 times as much.

Second, what's the purpose of one's trip to Macau? I don't gamble, detest the crowds, and had only minimal interest in checking out the Londoner (and didn't go anywhere near any of the other Cotai hotels). Therefore, I think either the HI on Rua de Pequim or Grand Coloane (formerly Westin) would have been decent choices for me. I spent dozens of nights at these places a decade+ ago, and both location- and walk-down-memory-lane- wise, it would have been a more satisfying stay than at Sheraton.