I watched the Monte Carlo Bay being built and first stayed at this wonderful hotel soon after it opened. Each time I return, it manages to impress me a little bit more. The hotel remains as pristine as the day it was built. The decadent marble and finishings remain in perfect condition. The expensive rugs are as fresh and luxurious underfoot as when they were new. The whole hotel is immaculate.
I love the flower arrangements that always delight (as I write this, they are giant yellow tulips!), the incredible Christmas decorations which turn the hotel into a winter wonderland every Christmas, the glorious sun-drenched and enormous balconies that look out to sea, across the pool or back to Monaco, and the incredible pools; the indoor-outdoor pool that is open year-round and is arguably the best hotel pool in Europe for kids, and the lagoon pool beside, a wonderland of rocks and tropical foliage, rivers and waterfalls and with a sandy bottom.
Discounts & Cheap Deals At Monte Carlo Bay, Monaco
The best way to get discounts, special offers, free benefits, and ultimately the cheapest rate at any resort, including the Monte Carlo Bay, Monaco, is to never, ever book on the Hotel’s website direct. You will not get the best deal.
Book your next Monte Carlo Bay, Monaco hotel stay via our luxury travel concierge and we can give you free loyalty-style benefits, such as room upgrades and perks, at the same rate as the hotel website. Our rates are as cheap as the hotel website but also offer a bunch of valuable free additional benefits. These benefits will be added to your booking at no extra cost even if the rate is a special offer rate, such as four nights for the price of three or three nights for the price of two promotions.
In fact, out of season is the cheapest time to visit this hotel, and Monaco is in the lower season. You can grab some great deals from October through to May, such as three nights for the price of two, four nights for the price of three, and seven nights for the price of five. All offer a great saving on the high season rates.
Our Special Offer
Monte Carlo Bay hotel, Monaco is an official partner of our luxury travel concierge. Book with us and benefit from early check-in / late check-out (subject to availability). For extra freebies like free breakfast, room upgrade, and welcome gift, contact our luxury travel concierge with your dates, and we can let you know the best deal with perks.
The great thing about booking with our luxury travel concierge is that you can get these free benefits whilst taking advantage of these special offers.
Get To Monte Carlo Bay Hotel
The Monte Carlo Bay Hotel is located on the Eastern edge of Monaco, on the French Riviera. It can be easily reached by a 45-minute taxi transfer from Nice airport. We usually recommend Blacklane because they have smart Mercedes cars and offer good value with their Blacklane discount code which will give you money off your first ride.
You are not in the center of Monaco at the Monte Carlo Bay hotel, it’s perhaps a 10-15 minute stroll to Casino Square (or apparently a 5-minute complimentary shuttle ride, although not being a fan of waiting around for shuttles I don’t take up this option), and it’s further from the main marina. This hotel has a resort feel rather than a Monte Carlo city hotel feel.
Best Time To Visit
The Monte Carlo Bay is brilliant all year round, but for guaranteed heat and sunshine, you are best to visit June to September. This is also the most expensive time of the year, with prices 3 or 4 times their cheapest winter rates. At this time of year, the lagoon pool is open, and you can laze all day listening to funky music surrounded by palms and taking a quick dip in the sandy-bottomed pool.
Because the hotel is on a peninsula, the pool also enjoys views across the Mediterranean, and you can swim in the actual sea from a pontoon out to the side of the Bay if you prefer to swim in the fish.
It is much cheaper to visit the Bay from October to March, but at this time of year, the weather is not guaranteed, and the lagoon pool is closed. That said, I just enjoyed a glorious week in the Monte Carlo Bay in February. I spent every day out by the indoor-outdoor pool where I could sunbathe while my son played in the water fountains and hurled himself into the pool again and again. While you cannot bet on good weather here out of season, it is possible.
Why The Monte Carlo Bay?
The Monte Carlo Bay sits on its own reclaimed peninsula on the Eastern border of Monaco with four hectares of lush gardens. The look is a grand roman pantheon style with hugely tall pillars at the entrance, arched stonework on the balconies, and marble inside and outside the cathedral-sized lobby.
The circular driveway that you climb to reach the hotel is surrounded by tropical palms, all lit up at night with fairy lights, with the centerpiece being a fountain. At the impressive entrance, where even the road becomes marble, revolving doors invite you into the tangerine scented vast lobby hall with black marble floors that extend throughout this level of the building.
The tropical L’Orange Vert orangery style restaurant is arranged in front of you, and neat receptions and concierge desks sit to either side of the hall. The immensely high ceiling and modern, stylish finish make the place feels more like a palace than a hotel.
Restaurants
There are several restaurants: The L’Orange Vert, which is a tropical orangery filled with palms that spills out onto the courtyard patio, a relaxing if quiet place to grab a beer and a bite in the evening. The Las Brisas, a summer restaurant located next to the hotel’s pool with a wonderful view of the sea, and lastly the Monte Carlo Bay’s high-end establishment, the wonderful Blue Bay.
The Blue Bay’s 4-course seasonal menu always tempts me. The high ceilinged modern room has wonderful views out upon the verdant greenery so that even in the winter, you feel like you are eating in a tropical destination. The modern style of the restaurant exudes a trendy and youthful feel. The dishes themselves are always exciting. You can be sure to have your palette inspired by chef Marcel Ravin.
Breakfast
Blue Bay is also where you take the extensive buffet breakfast, which includes just about everything under the sun. There is an incredible salad selection, fruit salads and yogurts, juices and waters, charcuterie meats, cheeses, smoked salmon, bread and pastries, cereals, and hot plates (egg, veg, potatoes), and you can order omelets as complimentary too. In the winter, breakfast is an indoor affair, but they throw open the doors in the summer, and you can eat out on the terrace with wonderful sea views across the Mediterranean.
A few special things at breakfast beyond my son’s favorite Choco Flakes (so much better than Coco Pops) are a bowl of Twixes and a tray of sliced cakes (chocolate, almondy, lemon), such a delight to have with your tea or coffee at breakfast.
Bar
The Blue Gin bar next to the Blue Bay restaurant pounds the latest tunes every night and is the perfect “before” spot to enjoy a beer or cocktail on its alfresco balcony overlooking the sea. Finally, Las Brisas, open in the summer, offers a brunch menu and glorious views of the sea and the sandy lagoon.
Rooms
The rooms at the Monte Carlo Bay are a highlight for me, virtually all the same in design, featuring a gorgeous balcony. They are so quiet (Monaco is a noisy town!), and the beds are so comfortable.
On the balcony, you’ll find a sofa seat at one end and two more rattan seats with a small table. You can easily spend a whole day just lazing in the sunshine gazing at the view. I prefer the rooms facing west as these offer the most interesting and active view of people going to and from the pool, the ever-changing Monaco skyline, and if there are fireworks (so often you can enjoy unexpected impressive displays from the direction of the Sporting Mote-Carlo), you’ll have a perfect view.
If you are not overlooking the pool, you’ll be looking towards the sea and towards Roquebrune-Cap-Martin, or back inland if you book the least expensive rooms. I recommend booking a west-facing sea view room, and if you are a family, the family room (with 2 doubles), then you get afternoon and evening sun.
Pool
Out of the main season (October – May), you can only use the indoor-outdoor pool, which sits inside a large glass-sided spherical building full of tropical plants with an exotic ambiance. It flows to an outside pool also surrounded by tropical plants and with fountains at its edge. It is easily the largest indoor pool in Monaco and is certainly impressive, if a little on the cool side.
If the sun is out, the outdoor bit of this pool is a sun trap and the most wonderful area to sunbathe out of the breeze. If you get lucky in the winter, it can be almost as hot down there as the summer.
Of note, both pools welcome children. There are all sorts of ledges, fountains, and jets in the pool to amuse children. Wonderful for my son and lively, but if you are searching for an adults-only resort, this isn’t it. I personally love the joy and pleasure these kids have in the pool. It makes the area a happy place, and while there are kids in the pool, it is never over-run. They tend to be well-behaved, with plenty of lifeguards keeping them in check.
Separate to the indoor-outdoor pool is the amazing free-form Lagoon, which expands over a large portion of the peninsula and is a tropical paradise of waterfalls, vegetation, and wooden bridges, completed by the sandy bottom that feels so good between your toes! This is the only pool like this of its kind in Europe and reason in itself to book the Monte Carlo Bay hotel in the summer. Laze on a lounger, many of which are dipping their legs in the pool and watch the beautiful clientele attempt to swim whilst keeping their heads out of the water, thus retaining their chic coiffured look and perfect makeup.
This is absolutely not the land of screeching children and excessive splashing, although the lagoon is large enough for everyone to enjoy. Each group of loungers is hidden in one of the many private corners of the gardens so that you feel an element of privacy as you admire the views over the bay while the trendy music tinkles in the background. The sandy-bottomed lagoon is open from May through to the end of September, whereas the indoor-outdoor pool is open year-round. In July and August, there is also a kids club for 3-12-year-olds with loads of activities, including boules, ping pong, painting, and films.
Conclusion
For me, the grandeur and the immense lagoon make this a must-stay hotel in Monaco. My ideal stay in Monte Carlo is to combine the Monte Carlo Bay hotel with the Hotel Hermitage so you can enjoy strolling and experiencing the center of Monaco before lazing in the Cote d’Azur sunshine at the Bay.
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