Macau: Worth It? An Honest Look
Macau earns its reputation as Hong Kong’s best single day trip, but only if the day is spent in the old town rather than on the Cotai casino floor. It is a separate Special Administrative Region, not a Hong Kong district, with its own immigration control and its own currency, the pataca, though Hong Kong dollars spend fine everywhere. Bring the same passport you used to enter Hong Kong. That single fact, that Macau is a border crossing and not a ferry ride to a suburb, is the one most first-timers get wrong.
Getting there: the key facts
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| TurboJet or Cotai Water Jet ferry | HK$190-240 one way, about 1 hour, from Sheung Wan |
| HZMB “Golden Bus” | HK$65 daytime, HK$70 overnight, about 45 min plus immigration |
| Time needed | A full day, out early, back by 9 or 10pm |
| Booking lead | Weekday off-peak sailings are fine same-day; book 1-2 days ahead for weekends |
The ferry departs from the Hong Kong-Macau Ferry Terminal in Sheung Wan and lands you closer to the Cotai side or the peninsula depending on the operator. The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge shuttle bus is the cheaper route once you accept that immigration processing eats into the time saved, and it has the side benefit of actually crossing the bridge rather than sailing past it.
Is Macau worth it as a day trip?
Yes, for the old town. The Ruins of St Paul’s, Senado Square’s wave-tile paving, and the Portuguese-colonial streets behind them deliver a genuinely different atmosphere than anything in Hong Kong, closer to Lisbon than to Kowloon. The Cotai casino strip is worth skipping unless gambling is the actual point of the visit; it’s the same product as any other casino district, just with a passport stamp attached. Most travellers who call Macau disappointing spent their whole day on the Cotai side and never saw the peninsula.
What it actually costs
Beyond the HK$65-240 round-trip transport, budget for a light lunch of Portuguese egg tarts and a proper sit-down meal in the old town, both cheaper than comparable meals in Central. There’s no separate “admission” to the old town itself; the ruins, the square, and the surrounding streets are free to walk. The only real spend beyond transport and food is whatever you choose to gamble, which is optional.
Book a Macau day trip that covers the old town rather than a straight casino shuttle, or check current Macau travel advisories on the official tourism site before you go. If you’d rather stay overnight and see both the old town and Cotai properly, compare Macau hotel rates rather than trying to cram both into a single afternoon.
For the full ranked list of Hong Kong’s other side trips, see the day trips guide , or the 2 day itinerary that opens with Macau on day one.