"Rather frustrating and disappointing start to our holiday. After checking in and going to our room on the 5th floor we were greeted with an extremely hot and humid room with a strong stench of damp/mildew. We proceeded to switch on the air-conditioning full blast at the lowest possible temperature hoping that would clear the odour and heat, however after an hour the room had continued to get hotter and the odour remained equally as strong. My sister and her partner were in a different room on the 3rd floor and when comparing with their air-conditioning, their room even though set at a higher temperature was much much cooler than our room - mildew, sauna sweat box is the only way I could describe it. We decided to go down to reception and notified the lady there about the issues and she informed me she would organise for maintenance to check the room. I asked her how long it would be for maintenance to arrive as we were now feeling unwell in the room, as a combination of the odour and heat were overwhelming. She told me "now, immediately". We returned to our room and after 30 minutes waiting for maintenance, I phoned down to reception again to ask how much longer. The lady told me she had done her job and put in the request to maintenance but didn't know how much longer. At this point, I told her this was not good enough and we needed to be moved to a different room as we felt very unwell in the room, and that they could repair the issues in that room in their own time then. She said she would need to ask a manager. We then proceeded to go back down to reception where I requested to speak with the manager. I told him about the issues with our room that I had reported regarding the air-conditioning not working and the strong odour of damp/mildew. He had not been informed of the smell, only that we had reported an issue with our air-conditioning and so he added this to our complaint form. I told him I did not wish to wait for maintenance and we needed to be moved into a different room immediately. He said he had room 0503 available for us. We received no assistance with moving our belongings into the new room even though we had be inconvenienced and voiced how unwell we felt. Maintenance then arrived and locked us out of our previous room which meant we had to wait for the manager to come up and open the room for us to be able to move our belongings. The air-conditioning in our new room worked much better, however do not expect ice cool air-conditioning and it does take time before it will eventually cool the room down. Also to note, if you open the balcony doors the air-conditioning automatically shuts off and you have to manually turn it back on every time and adjust the temperatures back down to the lowest and fan speeds. We ended up not using our small balcony at all as it is very annoying that it turns the air-conditioning off the minute the door is opened. Also, there is a sensor on the main door for each room that turns the air-conditioning off when you leave the room and when you return you have to turn it back on and wait for the room to cool back down. The showers in both our rooms and my sisters room on the 3rd floor were not ideal as they flood the floor of the whole bathroom when you shower - a very odd design. The hotel is multi-level and multi-blocks so there are many stairwells and elevators needed to access rooms, pools, restaurants, etc. The hallways and elevators are all non air-conditioned and extremely hot. The stairwells and hallways are narrow. The elevators are very small, it would be a struggle to fit a buggy in. Maximum amount of people per lift is 3/4 at a tight squeeze and are very slow. The cave bar provided delicious lunch, cocktails and great service. The breakfast buffet was also delicious and plenty of options to choose from. The two outdoor pools and decks are clean but a pity the outdoor pools close so early at 7pm (the hotel information leaflet states 8pm however at check in we were informed it was 7pm). The indoor pool and accompanying jacuzzi were not heated while we were there in August - both very cold so not suitable for children or for just relaxing in as you need to stay swimming to keep any bit of warmth in your body. The spa area is very relaxing and zen. Overall, if returning to Malta I would not stay here again."
