All Aboard for Macau – Bring your passport
Day 7 of this vacation and it was time for us to leave Hong Kong. We’re heading to Macau today!
When I originally asked my parents to come along on this trip, I had no idea that my Party@5 would be playing “Pick a ph-lend! Pick a ph-lend” for this trip. If I did, I might have reconsidered that invitation….but then today would not have turned out the way it did. And I don’t think I would have seen as much as we did today. So it was probably just as well in the end.
On the night that we went to Aberdeen to eat where the locals eat, the friends of our TA were keen to join us when we went to Macau. The only thing was that due to work commitments, they were only free on Easter Saturday to go. It seemed as good a day as any and picking Saturday to go to Macau made so many of my other travel companions happy. DH and I did wonder how we were going to get-about as a pack and figured that if the day didn’t move in accordance with my plans, we always had the option of breaking off as a splinter group. But we were happy to go along with the arrangement to see how it ended up.
For today, we are travelling as a Party@12:
- DH, DS and I
- My parents
- Our TA friend and Mr TA
- The Angel and his wife
- I1 and I2
- The Saint
And because it was such a large group, our TA friend and my parents went to organised tickets on Thursday, when we were at Ocean Park.
I digress here for a bit – I know we were going on a weekend and it was Easter holidays; but for anyone thinking of going to Macau from Hong Kong for a day trip, you might want to consider booking early. Even with 2 days in advance, we found that the later return times were fully booked up. We’d managed to get on an 8 am trip out but had to settle for a 6 pm trip back, which was the latest time we could get. There are quite a few departure times for the trip back, all the way through to midnight!
We were travelling by high speed catamaran. The company we had booked with was the CotaiJet Ferry Company. The company runs a ferry service between the China Ferry Terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui Kowloon and Taipa Temporary Ferry Terminal in Macau. We paid about HK$350 for the trip there and back in Cotai (or cattle) Class; which is about $45 in our money. I believe that the cost might be cheaper if you travel during a weekday.
For anyone staying at HKDL, I would suggest that you look at catching the service out from the Hong Kong-Macau Ferry Terminal at Sheung Wan over on Hong Kong Island. The CotaiJet also runs services out of that terminal; and I should point out that there are other companies that will run a service to Macau from the Ferry Terminals. You would take the MTR out to Hong Kong station (just stay on the yellow line to the Hong Kong terminus). You could walk across to Central station and then catch the line out to Sheung Wan (blue line), exit D and you'll be right next to the Shun Tak Centre building where the ferry terrminal is located. But I would probably catch a taxi out from the Hong Kong station if you were running out of time.
You will need to check in a minimum of 30 minutes before departure time to clear immigration and customs.
Bring your passport – you will be leaving Hong Kong for this trip. And they do take the immigration departure card from you at this point. This is the card HK immigration would have left in your passport when you first entered the country. I was a little concerned at first, and then figured that I would need to fill in a similar entry card when I re-entered Hong Kong later that day, only this time I would be marking my card as entry by Ferry instead of by air and flight number. And that is exactly how it panned out.
It was an early start for us – we met in the hotel lobby shortly after 7 am and caught a taxi from our hotel to the China Ferry Terminal, which worked out to be about HK$30, or $4 in our money. Immigration processing was rather efficient and it didn’t take long before we were inside the waiting room.
That’s our gate details!
We were going to be entering Macau from Taipa. The CotaiJet is the only company that has access to the Taipa Temporary Terminal. There is another ferry terminal in Macau proper and if I had been organising tickets for our journey that would have been the ferry terminal I would have headed for. I never worked out why we were entering and exiting from the Taipa side of Macau. I would certainly recommend that you enter Macau at the Outer Harbour Ferry Terminal (Terminal Maritimo de Porto Exterior) as there are public transport options to bring you into the city.
Macau is roughly 35 miles away from Hong Kong and travel time on this trip was going to take about 45 – 60 minutes.
We were called in to board our catamaran 10 – 15 minutes before departure time.
Cotai class seats were rather comfortable.
As a result of the early start time, we’d missed out on grabbing anything for breakfast. I’d also started to feel poorly somewhere during the middle of the night and had woken up with a sore throat and a headache. DH had found a Starbucks in the China Ferry Terminal building and got us one of these to eat. This was the first opportunity we had to eat our breakfast.
More importantly for me – breakfast had come packaged in this bag. I’d forgotten to take Dramamine today and given that sea travel is the only form of travel that has the potential to make me sick, I was really glad to have this bag with me.
Although, if I had been sick, I would have had to rush to the bathroom anyway as the paper bag was not going to contain the contents of my stomach for long.
I noted that we had in-seat entertainment in Cotai class, even if the image was static.
I would imagine that our jet looked a lot like this when travelling.
I was rather thankful that my stomach held up during this trip. It had been pretty smooth sailing and we arrived at the Taipa Temporary Ferry Terminal without any drama. We got off the boat and made our way to the arrivals hall. It was a short walk.
I’d forgotten that you’re not meant to be taking any pictures near any immigration checkpoint. I did get yelled at for having my camera out. It was my first and only brush with the Macanese authorities and I was to discover that they are all sticklers for rules!
Inside the hall, we all got yelled at…we needed to queue in single file and stand behind the yellow line for each processing counter. There was no deviation allowed by the guards, who all had rather loud whistles and loud voices!
The boat that we travelled on originated from Hong Kong, so most of the Hong Kong locals and tourists like us were law-abiding citizens. By and large, after the first couple of minutes, the hall settled on the low hum of gentle conversation punctuated by the occasional stamp on passport from one immigration officer or another.
But 10 minutes after this relative calm, another boat arrived at the Ferry Terminal. I don’t know where this boat originated from but the passengers on this boat were all Mainland Chinese. They could have been part of a tour group…but they all wore similar clothes and had the same hat on and carried similar bags. The noise in the hall was beyond description. Any push and shove that I had experienced at HKDL paled in comparison. This group of passengers did not respect the single file nor did they respect the yellow line. Friend pushed friend, shoes moved inches to gain advantage over another shoe, yellow lines became non-existent and the whistles just seem to go on forever. Within minutes, the number of officers in the hall quadrupled and slowly…ever so slowly….the single file slowly morphed back into formation. The yellow line never quite recovered; neither did the officer voices nor their whistles. The noise was more than a cacophony in the hall.
Thankfully, we made it to an immigration counter before we were completely overrun by this group. The person who was manning our counter was lenient on us – he processed all 3 of us together; rather than in two groups.
I managed to get a picture of part of the Mainland China group outside.
I was to find out that there were smaller sub-sets of the groups….they were all heading for the different complimentary casino buses.
One of the benefits of today was that Mr TA had worked out that we needed to organise transportation for our group to travel around Macau and see the sights. He had contacts in Macau and within 15 minutes of us exiting immigration, he had placed a call and organised a minivan for our group. We had to wait a further 20 minutes for the van to arrive. I believe that there was public transport at this ferry terminal to take you to the various towns and the city; but we never had to work it out.
By this stage, I had started my cough and was not feeling great. I was perfectly happy with the arrangement!
(Continued in Next Post)
I always have the philosophy that when on holiday, if I want something, I should get it. Afterall, I might not come by this way again for a long time. I moderated this view after the 2000 holiday.....we came back with so much stuff! Now, I go with a shopping list in mind but also look after here to see how much it would cost. That way, I know what is value for money when I do find it! 
Does this mean that you've finally caught up again?
I "might" go back to Hong Kong DL after the new development meeting DBF there...and it is an easy trip there from Disney...although I don't think we'd stay there 
because other than around the two Star Ferry ports (love the star ferry...and the downstairs is actually better for photo taking..), I didn't stop too much for photos city wise nor visit markets.
Everything is so different except the casinos. I will get to stay caught up now.
