The Baker Abroad: Life as a not-so-trailing Spouse: Our Weekend in Macau

Happy Monday everyone! For our second weekend in Hong Kong, Bryan and I decided to explore Macau. Since we love (and frequent) Las Vegas, we wanted to give Macau a try and see how it compared. The main difference was that is was almost solely focused on gambling, and a lot of it! Las Vegas has such a giant night life - clubs, walking the strip, etc., and Macau is much more focused on gambling inside. But I can't blame them because its 100+ degrees F, and SO humid.

I have to digress slightly to explain the humidity. Imagine this: you're standing in front of a heater, that has moist air, and it's constantly blowing on you. The trouble is, you can't get out of the way, and have to continue to standing in front of this moist heater. That's walking through Hong Kong in the summer.

Now, if I'm truly going to explain our visit to Macau, I have to include the good and the bad. Because I am a positive person, I will start off with the good - we had a lot of fun trying new games, the food was delicious, we saw "Beauty and the Beast" live (amazing!) and the one club we found had a great band (although they played the exact same set list both nights - so maybe we'll try to find a different place if we go again!). It was also a lot of fun being able to spend the weekend with Bryan, and give him the chance to kick back and have fun.

The major con was the hotel itself - the Venetian. Do NOT stay at this hotel if you go to Macau. Yes, it's beautiful, and yes it's popular - but the customer service was the most terrible I've ever seen. And yes, this sounds like the beginning of one of those online reviews where someone is overreacting to a tiny little issue - but I'm not that type of person. Our big issue: Bryan had multiple chips stolen directly off of the casino gambling table, and the hotel did NOTHING. After hours of waiting, and then having to contact the security team and explain the situation multiple times, they finally told us that the videos confirmed that we were stolen from. Unfortunately, their response to this was almost as bad as the theft itself. No apologies. No reimbursement. With an air of offense (towards us!), they explained that it was simply out of their hands. The thieves had left the casino, and until they returned, the Venetian wasn't responsible and couldn't help us. They said the only way for us to be reimbursed was if (major if) the thieves returned to the casino, the cameras spotted them, and they were caught by security. In addition to this, they can't send money in the mail, so we would have to pay for tickets to come back to Macau to be given back the money that was stolen from us. In other words - NO POSSIBLE WAY of being reimbursed. As if the thieves would be idiotic enough to return. And every single person we spoke to at the Venetian, in every single level, was beyond rude and seemed like we were wasting their time - horrible. So after this rant, I'm obviously saying - do NOT visit the Venetian Macao ever. They will not be held responsible for anything. They will treat you with complete disrespect. And they will look smug while doing it. *major eye roll*

Now that I've gotten myself worked up thinking about this, I'm going to have to change the subject back to something more positive. Bryan handled all of this with absolute grace, while still being stern with them, and I really appreciate him for that. I flew off the handle a little bit and had to rein it in because it wasn't really helping anyone. But we even each other out :)

I've included some photos below of the fun times we did have there. We had both seen "Beauty and the Beast" (live) when we were about 10 years old, and it was so much fun to see it again! We both grew up with all of those original Disney classics, and by far this is my favorite Disney movie. I love Belle and the Beast, and it was a wonderful show - and their voices were great!

So, although our issue with Venetian put a temporary damper on our weekend, we didn't let it ruin everything. We did have a fun time in Macau in general, and I just enjoyed spending time with my wonderful husband.

Side note: For the photos - I apologize that they are all selfies, as we didn't have any other "friends" to take the photos for us. See this hilarious video to see what I'm talking about: A Better Kind of Selfie Stick (College Humor)