Macau Hotel : Pousada de Mong-Ha

I would like to introduce a hotel in Macau. I know many people would make a bee line for those super duper hotels in Macau such as Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel, Lisbon Casino, Wynn, Sands etc. Or some would take some expensive but run down hotels near to the Macau Jetty or some of the sights at Senado Square.

But if you want a nice boutique hotel which is charming, quiet (and a little out of the way), then Pousada de Mong-Ha is for you. It is relatively affordable (e.g. I paid MOP 640.00 including breakfast for two which is about 127.45 SGD in March 2009). In fact, it is the number 1 hotel in Macau at Tripadvisor.

The hotel itself is actually part of the Macau Institute For Tourism Studies (IFT) which was formed in 1995 and the Pousada de Mong-Há opened its doors to the public and reinforced its purpose as a training unit, being entirely run by IFT students. So you will see students serving you in the hotel reception as well as in the restaurant. And I enjoyed their great service. You can see the sincerity and the enthusiasm of serving you !

The room I got actually comes with internet access. No wait.. it is not just a simple internet access. It is a whole new Dell PC with a proper keyboard/mouse, a LCD monitor and fast internet access. When rebooted, it will clean up the last user’s files and installation and so it is very safe and clean. Cool and smart. And it is not just a room. It has a small entrance foyer (where the computer is), a huge King Size bed and a nice clean huge bathroom.

The bathroom has many nice touches but the best part is the shower. It has controls for different ways of “cleaning you”. The traditional way, the massage way as the water jets hit straight at your body instead of from the top and even water that flows to your feet only. Interesting..

The toilet is nice and full of useful toiletries. And there are even two set of shower gowns which I did not get in Hong Kong ! The bedroom has a very unique safe that is pretty fun to operate and I got a LCD TV with many channels (I paid more per night in Hong Kong and got a CRT TV !). And indeed it is relaxing in the damn big king size bed. My wife and I had a most wonderful night in the bed, resting after a tiring day !

Okay. One issue is the location. It is located in the northern part of Macau and not that close to the Senado Square or the big casinos down south. That’s good if you want to be in a quiet part of Macau. It is not so good if you do want to go out very often. It is not an issue with us as I just go out once after check in and stayed out all the way till it is time to go back to the hotel at night. The hotel has very good instructions on its web site and in fact, even has the smart idea of getting you to print the location card so that you can show to the taxi driver when you need it. That way, you can avoid any language issues!

If you are not interested in taking buses, then taxi is probably the only way. I took a taxi from the Macao Ferry Terminal to the hotel (as I have six luggages from all my shopping in Hong Kong) and it did not cost me much either. Alternatively you can take bus No.12 which I did that at night after a whole day in town and it was pretty fast and I did not get lost.

From the hotel, you can walk out to the main road and take bus number 3 to the Senado Square area. We did that too and it was pretty easy and took just 10 mins to reach the sights. End of day, I think it is worth the trouble of taking bus or the slightly higher price of taking a taxi as the hotel is very good.

I definitely like it better than the casino hotels ! 🙂

Visit the web site for more details:
Pousada de Mong-Ha Web Site