Macau Grand Prix – The best budget day out

If you’re looking for a brilliant day out that includes noisy racing cars, super bikes and a baked egg tart, look no further than the Macau Grand Prix. 

When I think of a Grand Prix, Silverstone, Dubai and Singapore spring to mind. They’re super high-end events that require a second mortgage to attend. The Macau Grand Prix is on the other end of the pay scale. It’s just HK$100 to attend the qualifying, and the food and drink are reasonable too. 

Getting there is also cheap as chips. Get the MTR to Tung Chung, then walk through the plaza, baring slightly left towards the Ngong Ping Cable Car terminal. Go past the cable car entrance escalator, cross the road, then enter the bus depot on the left. The B6 bus is the first stop. You can read all about the process of getting a bus to Macau here. 

Once you pop out in Macau, you can hop on a free hotel shuttle bus; just make sure you hop on the right one! Some hotels have more than one location so check. I ended up at the Wynn Hotel on Tapia Island in error. 

I head to the Lisboa Bend stand. It’s at the end of the fastest straight and usually provides some action in the form of cars crashing into the cowling backwards, especially if it’s been raining. It’s worth getting there early and sitting as far to the left as you can, that way you can see around the corner for double the fun. 

There are bag checks on the way in, but they allow you to take food and drinks in, although the food and drink stalls under the stands provide a decent array of ‘festival food’ to keep you ticking over. 

Once you’ve had enough of the racing action, take a walk into the Old Town for some food and drinks. The Monte de Forto is worth checking out. It’s a bit of a climb to get to the top, but once you’re up there, you can catch a fantastic view of Macau from above and pretend you’re firing the original cannons. 

Taxi’s are like hen’s teeth in Macau. Uber doesn’t operate there and as far as I can tell, there are no other text apps, so you’re better off either trying to get one back to the border terminal from a popular hotel or take one of the shuttles back the way you came. 

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