Three Concerts, One Macau Sauna Night

The encore ends, the house lights come up, and the whole arena stands in the same second and moves toward the same exit. You go with it, phone still half raised, and the thing on your mind is not the last song. It is whether tonight is still a night for that place you had half planned.

Mr Chan drives for NIGHT KING, and on any Saturday with a big show he has the car parked and is watching the doors when this happens. The way he tells it, a crowd leaving an arena goes to the hotel lobby, the border checkpoint or the taxi rank, and all three are queues, with the taxi rank the longest of them.

On Saturday 24 October it happens three times in one night. Grasshopper at the Venetian, Ian Chan at the Londoner, Richie Jen at Galaxy Arena, all three in Cotai, one starting at eight and two at half past seven, so the get-outs land within an hour of each other. Mr Chan calls it the clearest night of his October: you can see exactly who follows the crowd and who does not have to.

There is one thing for you to do, and you do it before the last song: tell us which door you will come out of and how many of you there are. Mr Chan’s private car waits on that side. You get in, the door closes, and the queue outside stops being yours. The private car is free and covers all of Macau in both directions; how the pickups run is on the shuttle page.

Mr Chan drives to the peninsula. His reasoning: on that night every hotel lobby and every taxi line in Cotai is full of people who have just left a show, while the houses across the water, in his experience of these Saturdays, are having an ordinary one, because nobody from those three arenas is crossing the bridge to find a recliner.

Half past midnight, the lounge at Number Nine

The car stops at the door of the Royal Dragon Hotel and you go up. Therapists at Number Nine Spa are on from 15:00 to 06:00, so this hour sits well inside the shift. Bag into the locker, then the shower, the steam, the pool. That stretch is your own time; the session clock starts only when the therapist begins.

Hair still dripping, in the house clothes, you walk into the rest lounge. The lights are on, and under them a whole row of recliners, every one of them empty. Not one person from that exit has followed you here.

You sit, towel over your shoulders. Across in the hall the LED wall is still lit and the multinational line-up is still there to choose from; see someone you like and say so. The rooms each have their own colour, red, pink-violet, blue-violet, and which one you take is your second decision of the night, a far easier one than the first.

By the time the session is done it is usually two or three in the morning. Number Nine takes overnight guests, there are paid private rest rooms to ask about on the night, and the recliners were never going anywhere. In the morning Mr Chan drives you back to the checkpoint; if you would rather your hotel, say so before you leave.

Two more peninsula houses with the lights on

Majesty Spa is on the first floor of the Harbourview Hotel at Fisherman’s Wharf, therapists on from 14:00 to 06:00. Here the therapists stand in a row in the hall and you sit opposite, close, and say so when you see someone you like. More than ten theme rooms, Egyptian, Chinese wedding bed and boxing room among them, and the moment the door opens you are somewhere else entirely.

Empire Sauna on the peninsula has therapists on from 14:00 to 06:00. You sink into the marble bath first, dark new wood and stone all round you, everything still new; its signature is a water-bed room, and if you want to try it, say so when you book.

The question we hear most after a show

”If I only decide once the show is over, is there still time?”

Yes. At Number Nine, Majesty and Empire the therapists work until six in the morning, so arriving after a get-out is well inside the window. Every extra minute you stand beside the queue outside is a minute Mr Chan waits on that side.

Booking through NIGHT KING gets you a free private car covering all of Macau, and free add-on services inside, head massage, foot massage, ear cleaning and the like, chosen when you are there: two picks per guest, one each at East Castle Spa and Majesty Spa, none at Clube Rio, on bookings through this site only. If you want to know which house suits tonight, ask first; the advice is free. For a first Macau sauna visit the steps are on the guide page, how each house handles service charges is on the Q&A page, and the rankings page puts every venue side by side.

On 24 October, when the house lights come up, you will stand with everyone else and be carried toward the same exit. The date, and whether you stay until morning, one WhatsApp on the contact page; where the car waits, which house comes first, what time you are driven back, we arrange. The crowd walks to the taxi rank, you get into Mr Chan’s car. Across the water, the lights in the lounge at Number Nine are on, still waiting for you.