Canifor Hotel

1 reader found this review helpful

We went to the canifor on May 1st for a week with an open mind.We were dissapointed with the room we were given as it was dark, dirty and had a balcony so small we could not sit out together in comfort. It took 3 trips (and a lot of nagging) to reception before they changed our room. The food was disgusting, cold and bland. Breakfast was edible on the days bacon was served otherwise it was pig liver. Customer service was non existant and we felt that we were in the way, cleaners waiting for tips after they cleaned your room and barstaff refusing to give lemons in your drink as they "cost money!" All inclusive, I thought, was disgusting as there were no snacks etc after 3 o clock and if you wanted fruit or bottled water then you had to pay extra. Entertainment very poor with someone playing a key board most nights. We understand some people enjoyed the canifor, we would have too if we had paid what they paid, but when your annual holiday costs nearly 1000 pounds for a week we expect better than shoddy service and inedible food. The hotel is in a good situation, close to bars, restaurants and the bus station which we were thankful for.

1 reader found this review helpful

Then there are lots of hotels out there who will give you:first class:service,food and accommodation, free safe,free newspapers,pool towels in fact the full bhoona ,but you will not get it for 12 quid a night. However, if you are looking for a very good value for money hotel,with good food,clean rooms and good service then you will not do much better than the CANIFOR. My wife and I stayed at the Canifor the first week in April, we paid £80 pp for half board for a week.The room was comfortable, cleaned well every day,towels changed every day,linen changed once.We paid 11 euro for use of safe( 7 euro cheaper than Canaries)did not pay for fridge as it was not locked.The food at breakfast was quite good,would have liked bacon every day,even tried the dreaded Liver! it was nice.Coffee from machine was really good. Dinner service was really good with much better than average quality and choice, the desserts were superb. The main courses are served by chefs,not to limit the amount you can eat(I observed a guest having 3 meat courses put on his plate)but to save mess.Ice cream and fruit was brought by waiting staff,no melted ice cream all over the shop. Complaints: pre toasted bread poor and no teaspoons. The dining room is a bit cramped when busy, but moving aside to let someone pass and a polite excuse me helps. This problem is nothing compared to Spanish Pensioners arriving en mass at meal times. Drink prices in hotel were reasonable 5.50 euro for a half decent bottle of wine. The pool area in the hotel is not very large, but was never very busy, some of the sun bed mattresses have seen better days but there was no charge for them,as can be the case in some hotels. The pool area was cleaned every morning, but they were fighting a loosing battle with the dust being blown in.
In conclusion, I had great holiday at the CANIFOR the weather was good,I was not robbed,was not trapped in lift,did not suffer from stomach problems,did not get the "Canifor Cough", did not encounter surly staff only pleasant,helpful,professional people. Maybe I was lucky ! I don't think so. I went to the Canifor with not very high expectations considering the pittance I was paying and was pleasantly surprised by the great value for money holiday I had.
I hope to return to the Canifor in the very near future as the holiday prices in Spain and the Canaries for similar hotels are £100+ pp more than the Canifor.

1 reader found this review helpful

My two friends and I Booked the Canifor Hotel for a month. Having paid an upgrade (£80 pp) for a superior room we ended up in a room approx 18ftx10ft with 1 small wardrobe! No where near big enough for three women staying for a month. Room upgrade LOL. The biggest con. All this entailed was a tea making items, an iron and ironing board! Got another room to look at , again too small. The third room was a family room. Large two bedrooms two wardrobes so we grabbed it. As the days progressed BLACK MOULD developed in one of the bedrooms and got rapidly worse. Again we got moved only to find two days later more mould. This may have been kept at bay if the heating was available all day instead of only being put on at five each evening for an hour or two. We asked for the heating oeasier but wre told it was on a timer! My heating is BUT I can also change it We had a few other requests (another duvet, a stool at the dressing table and a mirror above it) but they all fell on deaf ears. The British people are keeping that hotel afloat but come the weekend the Maltese take over the entertainment room for the dancing. Quite a few residents had to either go out or to their rooms as there were no seats for them. One night a fight broke out because of the seating situation. I myself had had enough after getting a cold and not been able to keep warm it was not getting any better so I came home ten days early. I will definitely will not be going back to Malta.

4 readers found this review helpful

First time at this one & didn't pay that much so wasn't expecting anything fantastic. We got pretty much what we thought, a decent room without view and passable food at dinner. Staff were ok although a few without manners. Hotel looks like it could do with a bit of a 'remodelling' but it is in a good location with plenty of restaurants, bars around plus bus station 100yds away. You have the Elvis Tribute place closeby, cozy little pub on corner (Victoria)and brother said mention Rookys bar as a sport watcher.(see maps on maltamaltamalta)The long promenade is the highlight of what otherwise is quite a run-down resort. Of the hotels we noticed in the area, Canifor seemed like it was better than most & we would use it again if the price was right like it was in November.

3 readers found this review helpful

Canifor Hotel is close to local Bus station
The Hotel reception was fine, The room we were given was clean but bedding was at the end of its life no mattress cover on bed so you could land up sleeping on mattress
Breakfast was fine but dinner was of poor quality
Only used indoor pool once water was quite cold, did not fancy jacuzzi did not look clean and contols broken
99% of the staff where fine, room maids and waiters pleasant, but you only need one and he was in the cafeteria.
WE were served a toastie with side salad and crisps which we paid for.
Toastie fine but salad and crisps stale. when we complained he had an attitude problem and became confrontational, we complained to a manager dont think he was interested because he never came back to us.
This Hotel has a long way to be 4 star. What we paid was good value for money but we would never return to this hotel

1 reader found this review helpful

room double was dark and dirty.bathroom ceiling covered in mildew, toilet seat stained, light faulty. Moved to a twin room overlooking pool. This was lovely. Food was terrible. All meals were Luke warm. Hot units were not on during our one week stay.food kept warm by lights above. Not good enough. Had upset stomach by our third day. All inclusive stay not worth paying extra for. Food only available at meal times. No ice creams etc.Limit on choice of alcohol ( local wine and beer and soft drinks )
Entertainment not great, mainly ballroom type music. All staff friendly and helpful.

3 readers found this review helpful

Hotel Canifor is located in Bugibba to the left of the police station on the second road, which is about 5 minutes walk. There is no direct bus link to the airport but Victoria private car taxis are available in the main square opposite the bus terminus in Bugibba for 20 Eu to the airport at any time of the day or night.
The hotel costs a reasonable price for bed breakfast and evening meal and is clean and tidy with a fee swimming pool and free WI-FI connection if you have your own pc. Coffee and tea facilities would be expected in the room although there is a fridge and air con with a large separate ceiling fan. No complementary newspaper, not even in reception and no coffee bar, although there is a lounge for alcohol drinking at night. The hotel does not have a noisy disco but if you are in say room 228 you will be directly opposite the noisy bars open until 2am. If you want to swap rooms you will have to let them know in reception at around 08:30am and then vacate and wait until 2pm for a new room. Check in is strict to the minute and you will have to wait until 2pm to check in. Bags can be left unattended in a cubbyhole. They told some people that there were no spare rooms available that wanted to move, but when I found my room was dismantled and being painted a spare room was suddenly found for immediate occupation. Some one said that both lifts from reception have been known to work, but if not and frustrated with heavy bags there is a service lift just past the gymnasium. The gym is 5 Euros, towels for the pool area are 3 Euros to loan as room towels are not allowed.
The restaurant is similar to a military canteen where you grab a plate and walk along the line picking the best from the uninviting dishes from both breakfast and especially evening meal. The are no teaspoons to measure sugar into your drink, just a spatula for stirring.
There are no noisy teens in the hotel, which was nice, but on the other hand too many older ones make meal times an added nightmare when passing along the food run.
Would I come again? There are cheaper places that are smaller and less hectic at meal times with just the same amount of complimentary facilities available. Although I am told coffee and tea making facilities are not common in Malta hotels.

7 readers found this review helpful

My Wife and I have recently returned from a week’s holiday in Malta staying in the Canifor Hotel, and to say we were disappointed with this hotel is an understatement. How this dirty, grubby hotel has been rated a 4 star establishment is a complete and utter mystery to us.
The room which we were given was quite small with, for some strange reason, four beds in it. The rest of the furniture was quite dated and again, for some strange reason, half of storage space situated in this furniture was filled with bedding which reduced the storage area we could use. The bathroom was quite spacious but very basic especially the shower at the end of the bath which consisted of a rubber pipe from the bath taps to the small shower head which was fixed so close to the wall as to make it quite difficult to use. Over all not what one would expect to find in a four star hotel.
The room was served by a small balcony overlooking the pool area on which were two very dirty plastic chairs and an equally dirty plastic table upon which some child had drawn using various colours of marker pens. This balcony was never cleaned once during our stay as the same detritus was present when we left as when we arrived, also the table and chairs were never moved. As for the cleaning of the room I do not think it was ever carried out as, again, the same the same detritus was present when we left as when we arrived and nothing was ever moved on the work/storage spaces either in the room or bathroom. The beds were simply ’pulled over’ and after some six days we managed to find a cleaner and ask for the bedding to be changed as it had not been changed since our arrival. I say managed to find a cleaner as they were not in evidence as in other hotels, they were sometimes seen standing about in groups chatting and I almost fell over one on the back stairs where she was sitting reading a magazine.
As for the food in the hotel, firstly the dinning room is quite small into which they have placed as many tables as possible which causes problems when moving from your table to the self service area, this problem was worse when trying to return to your table carrying your food. As for the standard of food on offer this falls well below what you would expect to find in a four star hotel. On offer for breakfast was pre-toasted toast which was, of course cold, fried bread which was also cold plus fried eggs, sausages, bacon and baked beans. Also the usual selection of cereals and cold meats, cheese etc. All the ‘hot’ food was served to you by a Chef to make sure you did not take too much. Not too bad you might think, apart from the food being at best lukewarm or at worst cold, however the downside came that every other morning the bacon was replaced by ‘boiled liver’ not what you would expect for breakfast. I have spoken with my Maltese friends regarding this and it does not appear to be a Maltese habit so just why the hotel does it I have no idea, apart from the fact I saw no one eating it so the hotel saves money. Also no fruit was on offer, if you wanted any you had to pay for it, one Lady we spoke to was charged 50c for a banana.
The evening meals were in the main uneatable with meat you could not chew to over/undercooked vegetables, also after speaking with some all inclusive guests it appeared that the evening meals were repeated for lunch the next day. Most of these guests, like us, were eating out as the food was so bad. The cutlery, plates, cups, glasses etc were far from clean so you were obliged to sort through to find the cleanest and then finish the cleaning yourself.
Regarding the facilities within the hotel they are far from satisfactory, the outside sun deck next to the small swimming pool is far to small for the number of guests in the hotel, this meant that most of the sun beds were ‘booked’ by 7.30 each morning. We tried the ‘Sun Terrace’ which turned out to be a grubby little area on the roof between the main AC units and water tanks housing approximately 12 sun beds, some of which were broken, all of which were filthy, half of which had mattresses which were even more filthier than the beds. There was also a small Jacuzzi, this was refilled with fresh water each morning but never cleaned which made it at best a container for bubbling grubby water or at worse a health hazard. This area is served by two toilets, one Male one Female; these toilets were not cleaned for at least five days. There was human excrement behind the toilet bowl in the Male toilet for five days and as far as I know could still be there. If, while using the ‘Sun Terrace’ you required a drink this meant a trip in the lift eight floors down and then eight floors back up again, once more not what you would expect in a four star hotel.
In all this is a grubby dirty hotel which in no way warrants a four star rating I would not even give it a two. As one of the guests commented ‘the lobby looks quite nice, but it’s certainly down hill from there on’. In the 28 years we have been taking our holidays in Malta this was the first time we were glad the leave. No, we did not complain to the management while we were there as some guests did and received no help or consideration what-so-ever, they, the management, were just not interested.
Our advice would be, if you are thinking of booking a holiday at this ’hotel’ DON’T, if you have already booked, CANCEL.

1 reader found this review helpful

Our stay at the canifor hotel have been most enjoyable THEs staff are friendly and helpful THE food good and the rooms comfortable and clean will definately stay there again roy and freda muscat

2 readers found this review helpful

On arrival we got fired straight out to the coral hotel with no explanation other than there was a problem with our room. What a dump it was, hot and cold dribbling water, a pool on the roof only a tadpole could love, and the food was beyond belief. 3 star my eye more like 1 star.
Got to the Canifor next day, room very basic, air con barely worked, new towels every day but you won't get a bedding change at all and given the heat that's not nice. We were on an AI and they didn't seem to like us very much for that, there were restrictions that we weren't made aware of at the time of booking, all inclusive finished at 23:00. What rubbish!! Pool and pool area really pathetic given the hotel capacity, if you don't have a sunbed by 8:30 forget it. Restaurant is an assault course and if you liked school dinners you'll be in heaven. Stealing in the hotel is on an epic level, and according to the reviews has been going on for a number of years, even the safes get ripped off the walls. But the strange thing is the rooms are never broken into, work that one out for yourself. While we were there we heard of two instances, one related to me personally and he got very little concern from the management other than a shrug.Wouldn't give this more than 2 stars.
On a positive note, thanks to Clifton and Stoyan. Great lads, the hotel doesn't deserve them.