Asia’s first Hard Rock Hotel and Casino combo starts life with a teensy handicap—but it’s not the fault of the hard-working and cheerful staff.
The problem is that the swimming pool to be used by the guests has a stunning view of… Galaxy’s part-built and currently mothballed Cotai resort next door.
We admit that on our preview visit to the City of Dreams site we didn’t have the usual poolside distractions of lightly clad members of the opposite sex, sun loungers and cocktails—or even water to swim in. But really whichever way you turn (unless you choose to face the curtain wall around the pool), there’s no getting away from the building site next door. It’s a big (and currently not very pretty) concrete skeleton looming up at you. Given that Galaxy announced recently it was suspending its Cotai work until ‘market conditions’ were right, there’s no immediate prospect of that landscape changing. Even when it does, sun-seeking guests at CoD will still have to put up with the noise of Galaxy’s construction team at work.
AGI is hoping the landscape gardeners employed by MPEL will be getting busy in the weeks before CoD’s June opening day to put up a few fast-growing palm trees or other greenery to screen off the Galaxy carbuncle. Alternatively the Hard Rock board might like to consider opening a hotel in Linfen, which has the dubious distinction of being dubbed one of China’s ugliest and most polluted cities. That way the Hard Rock Macau pool will seem like an oasis.
