Tell the Manager First, Then Choose

You have changed, had your first soak, and walked out of the bath hall into the black marble corridor. Lines of gold run along the ceiling to the far end, a stack of towels sits against the wall, and the floor is quiet. You stand there waiting for something to begin. The lights do not change, no music starts, nobody calls a number. What happens instead is that a man walks over, says he is the manager here, and asks you a question: what would you like tonight?

The man is Mr Yin, the floor manager who arrived with the new management team in August. At New Victoria, introducing therapists to guests is his job. The scene he sees most often is a guest who is used to a runway, standing still in the corridor. “They are waiting for the lights, for the music, for a start. Nothing here starts. The room stays as it is, I walk over, and the conversation begins. The first few minutes feel strange to them. After that, most of them stop wanting the start.”

His method is short: you speak first, then he takes it from there. The style you like, the kind of technique, one therapist or two, in whatever words you have. You think for a second and say, “Someone calm, with a gentle style.” He nods; that is enough. If you cannot put it precisely, it does not matter. It is a conversation, not a form.

Then face to face. Not photographs, but a person in front of you, close enough to see properly and to speak to. Look for as long as you like, think for a moment, ask one more thing; nobody hurries you, and this stretch of time is yours. It does not count toward your treatment, which is timed from the moment the therapist begins.

Once you have chosen, the corridor is the same corridor. You walk from it to the room with the black marble and the gold lines keeping you company, or sit a while first in the purple velvet lounge under its plaster relief ceiling, where the light is just as warm. From corridor to pool to lounge the materials change several times and the light is made for sitting down everywhere. Each room is pictured on the facilities page.

The one thing you do is answer in the corridor. Everything before the corridor, we do. Book through this site and there is a free private car out and back anywhere in Macau; two add-on services from the back-scrub-and-ear-cleaning column are yours to pick once you are there; and anything you want to ask before booking is answered at no charge. On the 5th floor of L’Arc Macau you step out of the lift and give your name, and after that it is the changing room, the pool, and then that corridor.

The two questions people ask before they come

”What time do I need to arrive to choose?”

Therapists are on shift from 13:00 to 06:00, and face-to-face selection happens inside those hours. The house itself is open 24 hours; the two are separate things. Arriving in the small hours is still inside the shift. Other questions are answered on the FAQ page.

”It is my first time and I cannot say what I like. What then?”

Say exactly that. It is the reason the selection is face to face: tell him what kind of evening you want, and the rest is looked at and talked about in person, at your pace. The venue describes this stretch in its own words on About New Victoria; the menu’s series and grades are on the price page if you want to glance first, and if you do not, the sentence in the corridor works just the same.

You do not need an answer ready. A date, how many of you, roughly when you will arrive, in one message on WhatsApp, Telegram, LINE or WeChat, all four on the contact page. When the car comes and when you go in, we arrange. What you like, you can leave until the corridor, when he walks over.