What Reopened at the Lai Chi Vun Shipyards and What to Do There

The Lai Chi Vun Shipyards are not a working boatyard and not a restored village. They are a classified heritage site in which five plots have been turned into a free public park and exhibition, while the rest of the waterfront yards stand outside the visitor area with no published plan to open them.

That makes the question of what "reopened" means worth answering carefully. This guide uses the Cultural Affairs Bureau's releases, its 2018 consultation document, the tourism office's current record and the transport bureau's route sheets to set out what you can enter, what you cannot, and how to fit a visit into a day in Coloane.

What is open on the site today

Plots X11 to X15 are the only part of the Lai Chi Vun Shipyards open to the public, and they have been since 24 June 2023, apart from a closure for works in the second half of 2024. The Cultural Affairs Bureau (文化局) says it has run "a phased revitalization and restoration plan for the Shipyards since 2021", and this first phase is the only one that has opened.

Galaxy Entertainment Group, the bureau's partner in the revitalisation plan, closed the five plots from 1 July 2024 for what the bureau called "first-phase site optimisation works", and they reopened on Saturday 7 December 2024. The bureau's reopening notice lists a renovated history exhibition hall "integrating digital technology", children's play facilities including a rope-net park about 60 metres long, an arts space, an audience area for about 80 people, a "shipbuilding fun" game and outdoor camping tables and chairs beside the sea.

The five plots are not five shipyards. According to the bureau's 2018 consultation document, which used Marine and Water Bureau data, X11 was a sawmill, and X12 and X15 were shipyards that the Marine and Water Bureau demolished on 8 March 2017 because of serious structural safety problems. Only X13 and X14 were standing shipyard buildings when the plots were taken back.

The tourism office lists the site as free, suggests a stay of 30 to 60 minutes, and describes it as covering "over 3,000 square metres". Its record still describes the 2023 offer of a thematic exhibition, weekend market and busking, and its data source is marked as an August 2023 travel bulletin, so treat that description as dated even though its hours match the December 2024 notice.

Whether the 2023 exhibition "Moments in History – The Story of Lai Chi Vun Village" survived the refit is not stated. That exhibition, in three sections on the boats, the shipbuilders and the village's memories, included a sawing machine, fishing and shipbuilding tools and a multimedia boat-graffiti game; the December 2024 notice describes only a renovated history hall.

No government source names a permanent café or restaurant inside the site. Food has been official only as stalls at the 2023 weekend market, where five of fifteen weekly stalls sold snacks made by Coloane residents, local coffee and pastries, and as food and drink at the December 2024 Christmas market. Plan to eat in the village; the three eateries the tourism office names there are set out in the guide to a weekday meal in Coloane Village.

The June 2023 opening set the tone for the site as a public space rather than a museum. The bureau's release says the plots opened to the public from 3pm on 24 June 2023, with an opening ceremony at 6:30pm officiated by the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Ao Ieong U, the bureau's president, Leong Wai Man, and the tourism office's director, Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, with Galaxy representatives attending.

That first year also offered free guided tours in Cantonese and Mandarin at 3pm and 4pm on Saturdays from 1 July 2023. No government notice since the December 2024 reopening says whether guided tours continue, and the June 2024 closure notice said tours and the shuttle were suspended during the works.

The plots behind the fence

Most of the shipyard waterfront is outside the visitor area, and no official source published since 2018 says what state those plots are in. The Cultural Affairs Bureau described twelve shipyards as surviving in 2017–18 and called Lai Chi Vun "the largest surviving shipyard cluster in Macao".

The bureau's consultation document records how the site reached that point. The Port Authority took back three plots between 2009 and 2012. In May 2016 the Marine and Water Bureau and the public works bureau fenced off eleven badly decayed plots, X5 to X15, and began proceedings not to renew their licences.

In March 2017 two engineering bodies, the Macao Civil Engineering Laboratory and the University of Macau's engineering centre, assessed nine of those plots, X5 to X11, X13 and X14, and both found the structures "unstable and in a dangerous state". Typhoon Hato on 23 August 2017 then collapsed the seaward parts of X3 and X5.

The 2018 document gives areas for each plot, from 28 square metres for the lime kiln to 7,846 for the 三和 shipyard at X17. It gives no entry for X1 or X18, and one small shipyard, Panda, has no plot number.

The second phase announced with Galaxy in September 2023 has not been reported complete. It was to include an imitation ice rink, an urban farm, an arts-group hub and a bookstore and café, with "more details to be announced later". A legislator's written question in October 2023 asked whether plots not yet opened could be used for parking; no government reply was located.

The first phase, as described in that September 2023 announcement, was to include a history exhibition hall, guided tours, workshops, landscaped rest areas, art installations, and children's and sports facilities with large bikes and scooters. Much of that list matches what the December 2024 reopening notice describes.

The debate over what the site should become goes back to the 2018 consultation. At a March 2018 seminar reported by the government information bureau, experts said revitalisation "need not keep the entire original appearance", with better-preserved yards reinforced and others rebuilt. Asked about a hotel, the Cultural Affairs Bureau said it had no concrete plan, but that space for displaying shipbuilding craft would definitely be reserved.

How the yards got here

Shipbuilding was one of Macao's four main traditional industries, alongside incense, firecrackers and matches, according to the Cultural Affairs Bureau. The bureau says it developed from the late Ming and early Qing and was "especially flourishing" in the 1850s to 1870s.

The yards at Lai Chi Vun came late in that history. The bureau's heritage record and consultation text say building there began in the 1950s, after yards moved from Lam Mau, Fai Chi Kei and Avenida Almirante Lacerda "due to city development and silting of the river". A June 2023 bureau release says "the first half of the 20th century" instead, so the two official dates differ.

The industry's scale is well documented. In 1952 Macao had about 2,000 fishing boats and "more than 20 shipyards were regularly operating"; by 1990 there were 40 wooden-boat yards, 16 of them in Coloane and Taipa, employing 800 people. The 1965–66 Macao Commercial and Industrial Yearbook lists six yards at Lai Chi Vun, and from the 1960s they built vessels including the "澳門號", "阿媽號" and "海安號".

The 1965–66 yearbook's list includes the 信榮 (Seng Weng), 周家 (Chau Ka) and 范九 (Fan Kau) yards. The three named vessels came from the 六合 (Luk Hap), 文記 (Man Kei) and 華南 (Wa Nam) yards respectively, and the Man Kei name survives on plot X14, one of the two standing shipyard buildings inside today's open area.

The settlement is older than the yards. The bureau notes that Lai Chi Vun was formerly called Lai Chi Van (荔枝灣) and that a village there is recorded in an 1853 document. In its September 2023 announcement it called the site Macao's "only surviving and relatively complete shipbuilding-industry site".

From the 1990s the yards "closed one after the other" as fishing declined and neighbouring areas competed, the bureau says. Its 2018 document states that the last boat was completed around 2006. The plots had always been held on temporary occupation licences, known locally as "水位紙", which gave the occupants no property right to the buildings.

Classification came after a public petition. On 22 March 2017 the bureau received a petition with 670 signatures asking it to start the process, which it did on 15 December 2017. A public consultation from January to March 2018 drew 308 valid forms, with 82% supporting classification. Administrative Regulation No. 33/2018 classified the shipyards as a site, code SC003, with a protection zone; it was published in the Official Gazette on 11 December 2018 and took effect the next day.

The consultation document proposed a classified area of about 40,000 square metres, including about 19,000 of water. Its water boundary sits 40 metres from the shore, which the document explains as "the length of one wooden boat built in the 1990s".

The consultation itself was substantial. The bureau held three public sessions, on 27 January and 11 February 2018 at the Macao Cultural Centre and on 24 February at the Coloane Luso-Chinese School, and its final report records 308 valid forms and 163 oral comments. Of the forms, 90% agreed with the bureau's statement of the site's value and 86% supported revitalisation; a provisional buffer zone of about 18,285 square metres was also proposed.

Hours, events and closures

The current hours are Monday to Friday 10am to 6pm, and weekends and public holidays 10am to 7:30pm, according to the Cultural Affairs Bureau's December 2024 notice and the tourism office's record. No official source lists a weekly closing day.

That replaced the 2023 arrangement, when the X11 exhibition space opened 10am to 6pm daily and X12 to X15 were described as "open all day". If you read older material suggesting you can walk in at night, it refers to that earlier layout.

Parts of the site also close for events. The bureau closed X13 and X14 from 3 to 7 September 2025 for a Macao City Fringe Festival show, "Wendy and Neverland", and that notice is the most recent bureau news item on Lai Chi Vun found up to 22 September 2026.

Typhoon signals and their effect on the rest of a Macao trip are explained in the guide to season choice and storm signals.

Events have been seasonal rather than fixed. In 2023 the bureau ran a Friday-to-Sunday market from 3pm to 7pm, a busking point, monthly free sunset concerts until February 2024 and a traditional shipbuilding craft class taught by veteran craftsmen. In December 2024 it announced a Christmas market on weekends and 24 and 25 December from 1pm to 6pm. None of these is announced for 2026 on a government page.

The 2023 market shows what the site can hold when it is busy. In its first phase the bureau received 41 applications and selected 31 brands, running 15 stalls a week: ten selling souvenirs and creative products such as model boats, Coloane sketch postcards, Portuguese crafts, leather and handmade soap, and five selling food. Stall applications were free.

The craft class was small and serious. The bureau's 2023 "Traditional Shipbuilding Craft Class" ran 14 sessions totalling 100 class hours for eight students, taught by veteran craftsmen 譚錦光 and 林偉球, and the students' model boats were shown in X11 until 17 January 2024. A public-art design call for the plots, coordinated by the Architects Association of Macau, drew eight entries, and the gold award went to 周宇正 for "ARTIFICIUM" in September 2023.

The District Development Center, which now runs activities in the area, reported a Galaxy-run summer market with children's boating and sand play every weekend in August 2026. That is the operator's own report, not a government notice.

Getting there from Coloane Village

The Cultural Affairs Bureau's advice is to take a bus to a nearby stop and walk; no official source gives a walking distance or time. The routes it listed in 2023 that still stop nearby on the transport bureau's current sheets are 21A, 25, 26, 26A, 50 and the night route N3.

The stops the bureau named are the Coloane Village stops and the PSP Training Camp stops. On the current sheets, routes 21A and 26A pass PSP Training Camp-2 (C656), Vila de Coloane / Rua da Cordoaria (C659) and PSP Training Camp-1 (C657), while routes 25, 26, 50 and N3 end at Vila de Coloane / Posto de Saúde (C686), with route 25 also passing both PSP Training Camp stops.

Route 15, which the bureau listed in 2023, now runs from Jardins do Oceano to the Ká-Hó fuel depot on its April 2026 sheet and shows no Coloane Village or PSP stops. The operator's district page still lists it, so ignore that entry.

Every route sheet shows a fare of MOP6 per trip. The transport bureau's fare page says holders of approved stored-value cards pay MOP3 on ordinary routes. How the islands connect by road and bus is set out in the guide to peninsula, Taipa and Coloane links.

Free shuttles have come and gone. The bureau ran one on weekends and holidays from June to December 2023, and from December 2024 a free weekend and holiday shuttle ran from 12pm to 8pm between the Galaxy Macau Diamond Lobby and the site. No official 2026 notice confirms that shuttle still runs. The District Development Center reported a free Saturday and Sunday "Coloane Village Circular" shuttle with a stop at the shipyards in August 2026, running 1:30pm to 6:30pm.

The 2023 bureau shuttle picked up at Rua do Dr. Pedro José Lobo on the peninsula and at Nova City in Taipa. Its service was suspended on 14 and 15 October 2023 when emergency sewer repairs by the Municipal Affairs Bureau made Estrada de Lai Chi Vun a dead end for vehicles longer than 5 metres, though the site itself stayed open. The District Development Center reported that its August 2026 circular shuttle had six stops and carried 572 riders on 21 trips in its first weekend.

Drivers were told in 2023 to park at the Rotunda da Concórdia car park on Estrada de Seac Pai Van and walk, at MOP6 an hour by day and MOP3 at night. A legislator's written question that October complained of distant parking, sparse shuttles, no shade over the dining area and no public Wi-Fi.

Who runs the shipyards now

The Cultural Affairs Bureau no longer runs its own Lai Chi Vun page. Its website menu item "Lai Chi Vun Shipyards" now links to the District Development Center (片區發展中心), and the bureau's own facility page shows only an empty template.

The District Development Center describes itself as formally established at the end of 2025 and undertaken by the Union of Kaifong Associations, a non-government body, with a Cultural Affairs Bureau division head on its steering committee. It says the government adopted a model in 2025 of government supervision, resources from leisure and gaming companies, and civil-society planning and events.

For a visitor, the practical effect is that event news now comes from the center's site rather than from the bureau. Hours and admission have not changed on any official page since December 2024.

What this guide does not cover

The current condition of plots X2 to X10 and X16 to X19 is not covered, because no official source published after 2018 describes it. Details of the District Development Center's 2026 events are not verified beyond its own August report, and a press report of a winter ice carnival at the site in December 2025 is not relied on here.

The guide does not cover the 2017 Marine and Water Bureau engineering reports cited in the consultation document, which were not read, or the Chief Executive's policy addresses. It does not give Galaxy shuttle times for 2026, walking times from the bus stops, or the names of food businesses near the site, none of which appears on a government page.