how the evening runs
A Dancing Water night, step by step
From the free shuttle to Cotai to the last bow, here's the shape a night at the Dancing Water Theatre tends to follow.
Choose your seats ↗The evening at a glance
| What happens | |
|---|---|
| Arrival | Free City of Dreams shuttle from the Macau peninsula, Taipa Ferry Terminal or the airport |
| Before curtain | Some packages add a meet-and-greet with performers ahead of the show |
| The show | A single staged love story told through diving, aerial acrobatics and dance over a flooding pool |
Getting to the theatre
City of Dreams sits on the Cotai Strip, and its free shuttle bus reaches the resort from the Macau Border Gate, Taipa Ferry Terminal and Macau International Airport, the Hong Kong–Zhuhai–Macau Bridge port and the Hengqin border. Visitors arriving from Hong Kong by ferry can take the Cotai Water Jet directly to Taipa Ferry Terminal, a few minutes from the resort on the same shuttle route.
Before your session
Some City of Dreams packages include a meet-and-greet with performers ahead of the show — worth checking for when you book. Either way, City of Dreams runs its own calendar of sessions rather than one nightly slot, so treat your booked time as an arrival time.
Finding your category
Tickets are sold by category — City of Dreams prices this show from Gallery up to Golden Circle, with a separate VVIP Box sold outside general admission. GetYourGuide shows you whichever categories are open for the date you pick; whichever you book, every category faces the same 270-degree theatre and the same pool.
The pool arrives
Within the production's opening stretch, the flat stage floor sinks away and the pool — holding roughly 17 million litres at full depth — rises to take its place. It's the theatre's signature piece of stagecraft, built on the hydraulic elevators and water systems Melco's own account of the technology names.
The story, scene by scene
The current production tells one continuous story — a stranger's quest to rescue Princess Aani from the Dark Queen — through named settings including the Magic Garden, the Aquarium Cage and Future City, scored with new orchestral music written for the 2025 relaunch.
After the bow
The show closes with its full company on stage and in the water together. From there, the free shuttle buses run back to the Border Gate, the ferry terminal and the airport — check the last departure times on the City of Dreams schedule before a late session.