Qawra Palace Hotel

After reading many negative reviews about this hotel, we were really apprehensive, though it was not nearly as bad as we had feared.
Some of the hotel bedrooms appear to have been re-furbished, sadly ours wasn't one of them! However the rooms were serviced every day and clean towels provided. The food in the restaurant was reasonable, though nothing wildly exciting.
Most of the hotel staff were helpful and pleasant, especially Pauline on reception!
Getting a sun-lounger can be difficult, but this has more to do with other holiday makers who stand in line, upto 45 minutes before the pool area opens at 8.30am!
Realistically the hotel is 3 star and no more, it was fine for a base, Malta and Gozo are lovely islands, however we were glad not to be all inclusive.

I cannot believe some of the comments that I have just read about this hotel. I have just returned after a holiday with my husband, son and daughter in law. We were terrified that we had made a terrible mistake booking this hotel after reading the reviews, but what we got was a completely different story.
We were greeted by friendly, professional staff, the room was spotless, and yes, we chose a sea front room and was not disappointed, the views are beautiful. The room was spotless, the towels changed every day the bedding every 2 days, and cleaning on a daily basis, the fridge worked ok, but the air con, did need some encouragement at times.
There are three lifts so your not waiting long. I am disabled and never found it a problem. The food was always piping hot, and variable, plenty of pasta dishes and salads, and the desserts were excellent.
The pool is salt water but a joy to go into, plenty of sunbeds, mattresses at a small charge, plenty of brollies too, a godsend as it was over 40 dgrs at times. The entertainment in the evening was of a good standard and set around the pool at night, sunbeds swapped for table and chairs, plenty for all.
The only criticism is that the bathrooms could have been a little larger but what that matters is nothing really, you don't need a ballroom to use the loo or have a bath or shower. My advice is ,, go to this hotel and have a great holiday, and ignore the professional moaners, who probably are just looking for a cheap holiday by the way of a refund, you know who they are, we've all met them.

My husband and i visited the Qawra Palace Hotel for the 2nd time this May, and found it to be as nice as the 1st time. Although, the food was a bit hit and miss, but the staff were very helpful.
We had an 8th floor room that overlooked the court yard, but we did not find this a problem as you only really use the room for sleeping in. We like the situation of this hotel as it is not far from the shops and buses to all other places on the island. We are in fact returning again in June 2008. The entertainment was quite good, we especially enjoyed Martin Elvis.
When we stay next year though we have opted for a sea view room. We enjoyed the trips that we went on especially to the Blue Grotto. We also like wandering around Valetta.

After reading some of the reviews on this site, I was somewhat 'nervous' about my forthcoming holiday at the Qawra Palace. I must have gone to a different hotel.
Upon arrival we were allocated to a top floor room. Having a 4 year old child, I did not feel comfortable with this so they duly moved us to a ground floor room the next day without any problems.
Our rooms were cleaned to a high standard daily.
The food was to a good standard and the restaurant staff were friendly.
The swimming pool was great (although you did have to get up early to get a shaded spot!) and very much needed in the 45 degree heat.
Finally, our rep (Pam) was wonderful.
All in all, we had a wonderful holiday at the Qawra Palace (my daughter cried because she had to go home) and I would recommend it to anyone.

I read these reviews before travelling to Malta and they filled me with a feeling of dread, so I had to write my own review to reassure all future travellers!
I honestly think everyone who has written a bad review of the Qawra Palace must have stayed in a different hotel! We got back last night from our 1 week stay there, and had a fantastic time there!
We had a family room which was a very generous size, comprising of 4 single beds and a cot. The room was plenty big enough for our family (2 adults, a four year old, and a 6 month old).
The bathroom was quite small, but who cares?! The room overlooked the courtyard, so no sea view (this is the case for all family rooms, I believe), however our attitude is that the room is only there to be slept in. We did not travel to Malta to spend all our time in a hotel room.
The food was fine - anyone who thinks they are going to get Nouvelle Cuisine on an all inclusive holiday is being a bit naive.
The menu changed daily, and chips were not served once, thankfully. There was also the option of eating in the sister restaurant next door, which was a pizza/pasta restaurant (you had to book this 24 hours prior), included in the All Inclusive deal (this was not advertised though!).
There was an option of a childs meal every night (this was on the menu so make sure you look), which consisted of the usual Chicken nuggets and chips, fish fingers, etc (a Godsend if your child is fussy!).
Snacks by the pool included crisps, ice cream, ice lollies, burgers, hot dogs, etc, plus all the usual drinks.
The hotel was clean and the staff were very very friendly.
After reading all the other reviews I can either assume that a) we are very easily pleased, or b) other review writers are very easily miffed!
We truly had a wonderful holiday.

Do you have a screwdriver, was my request to reception.
I wanted to take down the 4th star of this hotel and leave the correct amount of stars for which it is worth!
Food... Eat out.
Rooms... Cheap looking.
View... If you’re lucky it will be a pool/sea view. If not, enjoy overlooking your neighbour across the courtyard. Oh boy!?
Staff... Friendly and helpful. Hurray.
Location... 10 mins walk to more lively encounters.
Entertainment... If your over 50, its ok. Below 50, tell the singer to go home and do it yourself!!
Rep... Good but don’t buy any excursions through them. Go into town and get half price.
Overall... Not too bad for the older generation. I am 39 and was bored after 6 days. Too old for the Ibiza scene, too young for the Qawra scene.

Upon arrival I was reasonably happy with the lobby area, clean & spacious, though the lifts had a mind of their own at times - which wasn't really problematic for my partner or I, but was for some of the older residents.
Our room looked onto everyone else's and was quite horrible and prison like, and we were awoken by very noisy birds the first morning (at about 6:15!), who had made a nest just above our balcony in a hole in the wall, so decided to get a sea view (£60 extra!) - Sea view is a must by the way!
The room had a nice view onto the sea and the pool area across from the hotel, and was cleaned every day with towels replaced also -can't complain with that.
The pool area was probably the best thing about the hotel, nice big pool, salt water but that was ok, and plenty of loungers available (if you got up early enough).
At night the poolside was quite pretty as it was lit up and the pool illuminated, with entertainment provided on the stage/bandstand with tables and chairs situated around it.
Entertainment was ok, could've done with a comedy act rather than just singers each night & only on the last night did they do anything for kids. Staff were helpful and friendly enough.
As other reviews had suggested, the Hotel could do with a bit of an upgrade and redecoration, rooms were clean but basic, 'games area' was disappointing - 1 pool table with ripped cloth, no chalk and old cues, games machines circa 1990 also - wouldn't cost much to have a new table, couple of quiz machines like the ones in pubs in UK...
All in all hotels gets pass marks.

I wish I had read these reviews before I booked as I wouldn’t have gone near. Sadly it was a terrible holiday that cost us allot of money.
We were on the ground floor in a very dark room behind a palm tree looking out onto the courtyard where the so called 18 hole mini golf was. Actually 8 hole crazy golf. People sat outside our window smoking and I have 2 kids under 4...not nice.
The bathroom is so small you have to get between the sink n loo to close the door, and the shower didn’t work properly. My other children were put in a room farther down the corridor and had cockroaches in there bathroom. One they threw into the corridor after killing it and it sat there 2 days before been moved.
The food was disgusting; one of my children didn’t eat for 3 days so we had to start eating out.
Highchairs were broken, tables often not set then not enough cutlery was brought or basics like serviettes. The juice was watered down so much might have well been water.
Snack very limited crisps, poor sandwiches or a burger.
Nothing for kids to do, no play areas best suited to over 60s. Nice view from pool as long as you look out to sea and not behind you at the main road that runs between the front of the hotel and the pool...very strange.
Had to hire a car to find a beach for kids. We did find a small secluded one at Armire bay that was very nice though so spent allot of time there and ate there 2.
Not allot I can say that is good about this hotel shops, bars etc very limited.
We won’t be going again.

We are a family of four and travelled with friends - 4 adults & 2 kids aged 12 & 10 and we have just come back from Qawra palace. Having read the reviews before we went we were a little worried. However, we are people who judge as we find.
All I can say is that if you are a family who has to work and save very hard for a once a year holiday, please please don't go here. We were incredibly disappointed.
The food was not up to the standard that we would expect from an 'officially rated 4 star hotel'. In our view it didn't even compare to 3 star places that we have been. Although the menus say market fresh vegetables, they are not. They are frozen veg and tinned potatoes.
The desserts - 'prepared by their pastry chef' - are not. He may well have taken them out of the box and sliced them into portions but that is as far as his preparation went. The desserts may well look delicious but, be sure they are not! They all taste the same. The selection of fresh fruit consisted of apples, oranges, bananas, very hard kiwis and to occasional slice of melon.
The 'fresh fruit salad' consisted of fresh water melon and apple together with tinned fruit. The burgers and hot dogs - if people find them delicious, then I just can't imagine the sort of food they eat at home. I felt guilty letting my children eat them. So, so, disappointing.
Next we come to the accommodation. It is a pleasant hotel. It is clean. The staff were nice too. When we arrived we asked if we could have room that did not overlook the courtyard. We were told that even if we were to pay (the £80 that it costs) to upgrade to a sea view we wouldn't have been able to because the family rooms all overlook the courtyard.
We had a corner room. Our balcony was a half length balcony - as were our balcony doors. We could fit two chairs on our balcony but there wasn't room to actually get out there with the chairs. Our neighbour's balcony actually protruded half way across the front of ours.
The rooms are very dark and dingy, tired and shabby looking and it is true what people say about the bathrooms. If the door is opened whilst you are sitting on the toilet, you lose the skin from your knees.
The hotel has two pools. Very clean but the inside pool is so over chlorinated that it stings your eyes just to enter the room that it is in. Also my son's dark blue swimming shorts lost all their colour within two days. The outside pool is so, so cold. We found that the sea was actually warmer than the outside pool.
The entertainment - well, that's what they called it. All but one was absolute rubbish, unless of course you are aged 75 and over and enjoy ballroom dancing - which we don't.
All in all, this was a complete waste of a lot of money. We did venture out. The coast line is lovely but stray from that into the streets and beware. Make sure you look where you are walking, there are a lot of unmaintained pavements, lots of building work, lots of rubble and rubbish and we even came across an uncovered entrance to a basement just next to a pavement which, had it been dark, could have been absolutely disastrous.
I don't normally write reviews but if by doing this I save another family from this awful place it will have been worth my time.

We stayed at this hotel 22nd May - 29th May, myself, my husband and our 21 month old son.
Firstly when we arrived 1.30am (long night) we were put on the 8th floor (with a 21 month old son), so just make sure if you have young children you specify you want a ground floor or 1st floor room, we didn't but presumed if we had a cot in the room they would realise we had a young child.
However, we were told to sleep in this room for the one night and then they would move us. This they did promptly at 9.30am the next morning to a ground floor room overlooking the Courtyard.
Like other reports we too could hear the noise from some sort of generator going constantly but I have to say this did not keep us awake, once the door was shut we could not hear it, just made sitting on terrace a bit noisier at night but beats the 8th floor any day.
The food we found to be good, although burgers, pizza's etc wouldn't have gone a miss for one night. The waiters in our section Kevin and David, Section D were two of the nicest men I have ever met, in one report they complained that the waiters were rude, I definitely didn't find any member of the hotel staff to be nothing other than polite and extremely helpful at all times.
We did eat one night (although we were all inclusive) in the Pizza place over the road owned by the Qwara Palace, would definitely recommend, it was lovely, obviously not included in the All Inclusive but good value for money.
The entertainment was a bit dull for our likely, more stemmed towards the older generation, definitely glad I didn't bring my two teenagers as they would definitely have been bored with the evening entertainment. No daytime entertainment at all, also needs some sort of children's entertainment day and night.
Fridge in our room seemed a bit hit and miss but only used it to store the bottle water which if you go all inclusive are free from the bars anyway at anytime they are open.
Agreed with someone else that seems pointless stopping the All Inclusive drinks at 11.00pm when the entertainment went on until 12.00 (would suggest you get two drinks each time you go up to stock up).
The outside and inside pools were lovely to cool off (didn't like the salt water in the pool outside though). The inside poor has two Jacuzzi’s but during our stay one kept packing up. Talking of packing, up the lifts can be temperamental and can take ages to arrive.
The Air Tours Representative in the hotel we found to be very helpful.
The only thing I would say is that we went on the half day tour to the Sunday Market and to Blue Grotto (or so it said) but actually it was about 50 minutes at the market and then off to a small (but quaint) visit to a small village church and refreshments at the Captains House, and then back on the coach to the Blue Grotto, although lovely hot day the sea was rough so the boats were not running, good trip I am sure on the right day but felt it was very rushed and all we seemed to do was put the pushchair up and down.
I would go back to this hotel in about 25 year’s time (when I am in my 60s); I don't feel this was a hotel for families. One week was just right to relax but couldn't have stayed any longer.