"FOUR-STAR PRICES, TWO-TO-THREE-STAR EXPERIENCE – hugely disappointing
We paid €2,520 for nine nights all-inclusive at Qawra Palace (€280 per night), expecting the four-star resort experience advertised. Having stayed in plenty of two, three and four-star hotels and all-inclusives over the years, I genuinely cannot understand how our experience here justified either the rating or the price.
I deliberately waited over a month before writing this review because I submitted a detailed formal complaint directly to the hotel after returning home, supported by extensive photographic and video evidence, and wanted to give management a fair opportunity to respond.
They haven't.
Booking.com subsequently tried to resolve the complaint with the hotel, told us they "cannot reach a resolution with the hotel" and ultimately provided us with €189 compensation themselves.
So, here we are.
THE ROOM WASN'T EVEN THE ROOM DESCRIPTION WE BOOKED
Our Booking.com confirmation specifically said our balcony overlooked "the internal courtyard and the mini golf course".
It didn't.
We overlooked a public road, apartment buildings and enormous piles of bin bags regularly accumulating directly opposite the balcony. Obviously the hotel's management of Malta's rubbish collection isn't my complaint – the fact that this was categorically NOT an internal courtyard or mini-golf course is.
I have photographs of the actual view and screenshots of what we booked.
The room itself had a non-functioning bathroom extractor, persistent unpleasant musty/stagnant plumbing smells, poor drainage, mould/damp-like staining around the air-conditioning vent, shoddy decorating, an unfinished hole with a cable sticking out of the wall and various smaller maintenance issues.
The spare pillowcases stored in our wardrobe also had significant pre-existing brown staining. One was so bad we immediately replaced it; unfortunately we didn't photograph that one. We DID photograph the second stained one – which was somehow the better of the two.
Apparently both had previously passed someone's definition of clean.
THE FOOD – genuinely one of the poorest all-inclusive offerings we've experienced
This was perhaps the biggest disappointment.
The main buffet was basic, repetitive and mass-produced. The afternoon "snack buffet" ran for a very limited window and largely consisted of burgers, hot dogs, chips and similar basic food.
The poolside ice cream offering was partially melted, very basic ice cream scooped into tiny disposable tubs.
Large sauce pumps at the buffet became gunky and messy. There was routinely no readily available ice for self-service soft drinks or wine in the restaurants – even in the "speciality" restaurants – and sometimes pool-bar drinks arrived without ice despite it being around 36°C outside.
Individually, are ketchup pumps and a lack of ice the end of the world? Of course not.
But when you're paying €280 PER NIGHT for a four-star all-inclusive, the sheer number of corners being cut starts to become ridiculous.
THE "SPECIALITY" DINING
This one really annoyed us.
The hotel heavily advertises its speciality restaurants with posters inviting you to "Discover a world of flavour" and "Book your unforgettable evening today!"
Tsubu (Asian) and El Vagabundo (South American) are basically... more buffets.
You serve yourself the food. You serve yourself the drinks. There is no à la carte ordering.
We have photographs from Tsubu showing exactly that.
These visits are limited within the all-inclusive package and would otherwise cost around €30 per person. I cannot imagine paying €60 for two people to access another self-service buffet.
The Caribbean restaurant was considerably better and actually felt more like a restaurant, although the starter and dessert were fixed and you selected from a small number of mains. Cocktails were still extra and cost around €8-€9 – more than we paid for some cocktails outside the hotel.
AND THEN WE BOTH KEPT GETTING ILL
This is where the experience stopped merely being disappointing.
Both my husband and I repeatedly suffered diarrhoea and significant stomach cramps after consuming food and drinks in the hotel.
I want to be very clear: I cannot medically prove what caused our symptoms and I am NOT stating as fact that the hotel food caused them.
What I can state is what happened.
We repeatedly experienced gastrointestinal problems after eating/drinking in the hotel, particularly around the buffet/self-service drinks, while we were generally fine when eating away from the hotel.
Eventually we decided to avoid the buffet and ordered room service instead.
Two extremely basic meals and a bottle of wine: €67.
And afterwards? Both of us were back to severe stomach cramps and diarrhoea.
By the end of an ALL-INCLUSIVE holiday, we increasingly didn't want to consume the food and drink we'd already paid for.
THE ADULTS-ONLY ROOFTOP POOL
This could be one of the hotel's best features. When it was quiet, breezy and relatively empty, it was genuinely lovely.
Unfortunately, it frequently wasn't.
Sunbeds were incredibly difficult to get unless you arrived early. Loud groups could dominate the adults-only area with seemingly no management of the atmosphere.
The pools were extremely warm and sometimes felt unpleasantly slippery/slimy, with visible oily films accumulating on parts of the water's surface.
Tables weren't consistently cleaned, with glasses and rubbish left around.
And then there were the FLOOR TILES.
Multiple tiles around the rooftop pool were loose and physically rocked under your feet.
Around a swimming pool.
Where people are barefoot.
On wet flooring.
We have video evidence clearly showing them moving.
But my favourite detail – because it sums this place up better than anything else possibly could – was the music.
THE FOUR-STAR SPOTIFY FREE EXPERIENCE™
The adults-only rooftop pool played what appeared to be the same tiny playlist over and over and over again.
If I never hear Ed Sheeran again, it'll still be too soon.
But every so often the music would stop and, through the speakers of this €280-a-night "four-star resort", we'd hear:
An advert from Spotify.
Including the little messages encouraging whoever was running it to UPGRADE TO SPOTIFY PREMIUM.
I'm not joking.
We recorded it happening.
Nothing says luxury Mediterranean rooftop pool quite like being asked by Spotify to upgrade the hotel's account.
ROOM SERVICE WAS AN EXPERIENCE TOO
Our room telephone had a broken number 5 button – unfortunately, 5 was required to call room service.
I called reception instead and tried to explain that their telephone was faulty. I was abruptly cut off and transferred to the bistro before I could even finish explaining the problem.
When our €67 order eventually arrived, the waiter didn't know how to uncork the bottle of wine.
This was absolutely NOT his fault. He was lovely, and having previously worked as a waitress I happily showed him how to do it.
He then told us that senior staff hadn't shown him because opening a bottle of wine to teach him would be "a waste of a bottle of wine".
If that's accurate, that tells you everything you need to know about the approach to staff training.
GENERAL CONDITION
We photographed mould/damp-like staining, poor decorating, damaged surfaces, stained linen, unfinished maintenance and loose flooring in various places.
The hotel itself is also an absolute MAZE. Different lifts serve different floors and sections, so you can genuinely need to change lifts to reach parts of the hotel.
Nine days in and we were still playing Qawra Palace Lift Roulette.
AND ONE FINAL €70 GOODBYE
Checkout was 11am but our airport transfer wasn't until later.
Having already paid €2,520 for nine nights ALL-INCLUSIVE, we were told it would cost another €35 EACH simply to continue using the all-inclusive facilities until we left.
€70.
We had arrived late on our first day, meaning we'd barely used the all-inclusive we'd already paid for that day, but apparently continuing to use it for a few hours after checkout required another €70.
We paid because we wanted to enjoy what remained of our final day.
It was a fitting final transaction.
THE VERDICT
There WERE positives.
Our bedroom air conditioning worked well. Malta itself was lovely. The rooftop pool has the potential to be fantastic when it's quiet. We met some genuinely lovely individual members of staff. The Caribbean restaurant was considerably better than the other dining experiences.
That's why this isn't one star.
But as an overall package?
Absolutely nowhere near four-star standard.
We paid €2,520 / £2,263.52 for nine nights and I would not pay anything remotely approaching that amount knowing what I know now.
The frustrating thing isn't one catastrophic failure. It's the CONSTANT accumulation of things that are cheap, poorly maintained, badly thought through or simply below the standard being advertised.
A misdescribed room.
Stained linen.
Mould/damp-like staining.
Broken equipment.
Smelly plumbing.
Loose pool tiles.
Poor cleaning.
Basic buffet food.
Underwhelming "speciality" restaurants.
Repeated stomach problems.
Overcrowding.
Poor staff training.
Expensive extras.
And Spotify Free adverts interrupting the supposedly relaxing adults-only rooftop pool.
Any hotel can have a maintenance problem. Any restaurant can serve a disappointing meal. Any member of staff can have a bad day.
But when the problems span virtually every aspect of a nine-night stay, it's no longer an isolated problem. It's the standard of the product.
And perhaps most disappointingly, after we returned home I sent Qawra Palace a detailed, measured formal complaint explaining all of this, offering photographs and videos and giving management the opportunity to respond before I posted a public review.
More than a month later, Qawra Palace has not even acknowledged it.
Booking.com subsequently attempted to resolve the matter with the property, told us they were unable to reach a resolution and provided €189 compensation themselves.
For a hotel happy to take more than €2,500 from us, complete silence when presented with a serious, evidence-backed complaint speaks volumes.
Would I return?
Absolutely not.
Would I recommend it at €280 a night?
Not remotely.
If you're looking at Qawra Palace because the photographs, four-star rating and marketing make it look like a premium all-inclusive resort, I would strongly recommend managing your expectations – or spending your money elsewhere.
Two stars, and one of those is doing some VERY heavy lifting."
