Treating yourself in Monaco, where I'd spend more and where I wouldn't

This page is about spending more, not less. The budget version is in Monaco on a budget, and the boutiques of the Carré d’Or are in shopping in Monaco. Here I set out where I’d happily part with money in Monaco because what you get back is genuinely impressive, and where I wouldn’t even with cash to burn. Only treats whose price or conditions are published by whoever sells them make it in. Where there’s no official price, I say so, so you don’t pay blind.

Flying in, in seven minutes

Nice airport puts it plainly, 7-minute helicopter transfers between the airport and Monaco. Monacair’s scheduled service, part of the Blade alliance, sells seats from €195, with departures every 30 minutes from 08:15 at Nice and 08:00 in Monaco, until dusk, and an electric van takes you on to your final address in Monaco. Blade has its own lounges in Terminals 1 and 2, and in the other direction it drops you straight into the airport’s departure area. If your flight home to the UK leaves from Nice, that’s where I’d see the most sense in the spend.

To put it in context, the airport’s 80 bus takes 50 to 55 minutes. The helicopter strikes me as one of the few luxuries in Monaco that also buys you time. I’d use it on the way in, in good light, and return by train.

There’s an even more extravagant version. Héli Air Monaco sells «Héli Gastronomie», with a transfer to the heliport, a return flight and lunch at Chez Bruno in Lorgues, deep in Provence. It doesn’t publish a price, so I can’t tell you whether it’s worth it, but as the idea of a complete treat it’s hard to beat. Everything about the flight itself is in the Nice to Monaco helicopter.

Le Louis XV, the star I would pay for

If one restaurant in Monaco justifies the trip, it’s this. Three Michelin stars, Mediterranean cooking under Ducasse’s name with Emmanuel Pilon, and Sandro Micheli in charge of desserts. The trick is the hour you book. At lunchtime, on Fridays and Saturdays only, the Riviera Lunch is €230 a head, or €300 with two glasses of wine, water and coffee. The long Agape menu costs €420 before any wine. Hours, rules and booking are in my guide to Le Louis XV by Alain Ducasse.

For me the choice is obvious. Lunch costs close to half and puts you in the same dining room. In the evening, a jacket is required on top of that. If your trip doesn’t include a Friday or Saturday, go up to Le Grill at the top of the same building, which serves lunch and dinner every day and is proud of its Grand Marnier soufflé. The other tables, ordered by what they cost, are in where to eat in Monaco. For a pricey Italian with its menu and prices out in the open, Cipriani Monte Carlo publishes the lot.

The Casino by night, Monaco’s cheapest luxury

This one I’d do no matter what. In the morning the visit costs €20 and you can wear shorts. From 14:00, though, the gaming rooms open and entry is also €20, but with €10 included for the machines, the bar or the restaurant Le Salon Rose. You have to be 18 and carry your original passport, with no photocopies or digital versions.

The clothes are part of the ritual. In the afternoon shorts, tracksuits, trainers and ripped jeans are out, and from seven in the evening T-shirts and sweatshirts go too. In exchange you walk into rooms built to impress, such as the Salle Blanche, opened in 1903, or the Salle Europe and its glasswork. That change of scene, from museum in the morning to dress-coded salon at night, seems to me the best way to understand Monte-Carlo. What time the tables close is something the SBM doesn’t publish, and I won’t guess. All the detail is in my Monte-Carlo Casino guide. If your treat is a summer one, by day there are the daybeds at Nikki Beach Monte Carlo on the Fairmont’s roof, and by night the terrace at COYA Monte Carlo, next to Jimmy’z.

Opera, spa and a night in a palace

The opera house Charles Garnier built beside the Casino opened in January 1879, and the chandelier in the middle of it weighs five tonnes. The 2026-2027 season runs from 7 November to 13 April, with Cecilia Bartoli as artistic director, and under-26s get 50% off single tickets. Regular performances ask for smart city clothes, and galas for black tie. How to book a seat is in the Monte-Carlo Opera.

The Thermes Marins, the SBM’s spa, has a seawater pool at 29 °C, a sauna, a hammam, a jacuzzi looking out to the Mediterranean and treatments from €195. The price of a day’s access isn’t on its website, so I won’t invent one. If the treat is where you sleep, the largest suite I’ve found documented is the Hermitage’s Diamond Suite Princière, 283 m², part of a refurbishment that since 2024 has renewed 40 rooms and added the Gustave bar beneath the glass dome. The SBM prices by date and publishes no fixed rates. Staying at the Hermitage also brings privileged access to those baths, and the hotels are compared one by one in where to stay in Monaco.

Is a Grand Prix grandstand worth it?

This is where I’d put the brakes on. At the official 2027 prices, which are the ones published, a Sunday grandstand seat runs from €800 to €1,150 in B-GOLD by the Casino, and VIP hospitality is sold separately with no public price. Standing on the Rock, below the Palace, Sunday costs €200. If you’re a devoted fan, go for it, because it’s a race like no other, and the full price table is in Monaco Grand Prix tickets. If not, I’d head for the Rock or walk the track another day for nothing.

What I wouldn’t pay for is a so-called driving experience on the circuit. I haven’t found an official operator selling one, and the track is just city streets. Nor would I recommend hourly yacht hire, because I couldn’t verify any official operator or its prices, whatever the charter adverts promise. The nearest thing I’ve seen with a name attached is Monaco Riviera Navigation, the company that runs the Bateau Bus, with a boat trip of about 50 minutes around the Principality and evening hire of its boat Camille for groups of up to 30. Its prices only appear in its booking system, so I won’t quote them.