Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
06/2007 Love it or loathe it?
Malta, like Simon Cowell and Manchester United, you either love or you loathe. My grandparents loved it, and I must have liked it enough to pay 3 consecutive visits in the early 1980s. (Or was it just cheap?)
But try as I might, I’m finding it hard to find something to love about this diminutive, dusty, densely populated island.
St Paul’s Bay is a mishmash of scruffy buildings jumbled around an impossible one-way system, it doesn’t have a decent beach to speak of and the eating options are unimaginative and basic. Hotels are much of a muchness, mostly unremarkable conventional package options. Bars are either bland British-style pubs offering chips and karaoke or full-on, anything-goes binge-drinking dens.
St Julian’s and Sliema are overdeveloped characterless concrete jungles with nervous breakdown inducing driving and almost mythical parking spaces. The bar and club heartland of Paceville becomes a seething mass of alcohol swilling, fun-seeking partygoers at night and becomes even more frenetic at weekends and in the summer when hoards of students from around the globe descend to claim their student card discounts on an already suspiciously cheap range of paint stripper shooters. Fun if you’re under 25 and need a good choice of kebab shops to keep you going.
All-inclusive – or is it?
Many hotels in Malta are jumping on the all-inclusive bandwagon but the term appears to be rather redundant in some properties; items I have seen excluded include breakfast yoghurts and fruit, ice cream at dinner, drinks with dinner, drinks after 10pm, pool towels, sunbeds, television remote controls, safes, fridges/mini bars, drinks other than local wine or beer, and (this is true!) dinner served after 8.30pm.
Don’t assume all-inclusive means what it says and check with the hotel just what is and isn’t included in the overall cost – it can impact heavily on the amount of spending money needed to enjoy the holiday.
In my opinion, all-inclusive hotels should be just that. Once you start mixing it up with bed and breakfast, half board and full board packages, it becomes impractical, unworkable, and in reality is little more than full board with cheap add-ons.
Holiday homes
Cheap flights to Malta are apparently putting some lower rated properties on the island out of business. Holidaymakers are spending the money they save flying with budget airlines on upgrading their accommodation to 4 and 5 star hotels.
Many 2 & 3 star hotel owners are now converting their properties to apartments to sell on as holiday homes. Malta’s property prices are still reasonable compared to some other Mediterranean destinations, the climate is temperate - sun is virtually guaranteed in summer - English is widely spoken, they drive on the left (most of the time) and it is a manageable 3 hour flight from the UK, with budget carriers leaving from London, Birmingham and Liverpool.
06/2007 Love it or loathe it?
Malta, like Simon Cowell and Manchester United, you either love or you loathe. My grandparents loved it, and I must have liked it enough to pay 3 consecutive visits in the early 1980s. (Or was it just cheap?)
But try as I might, I’m finding it hard to find something to love about this diminutive, dusty, densely populated island.
St Paul’s Bay is a mishmash of scruffy buildings jumbled around an impossible one-way system, it doesn’t have a decent beach to speak of and the eating options are unimaginative and basic. Hotels are much of a muchness, mostly unremarkable conventional package options. Bars are either bland British-style pubs offering chips and karaoke or full-on, anything-goes binge-drinking dens.
St Julian’s and Sliema are overdeveloped characterless concrete jungles with nervous breakdown inducing driving and almost mythical parking spaces. The bar and club heartland of Paceville becomes a seething mass of alcohol swilling, fun-seeking partygoers at night and becomes even more frenetic at weekends and in the summer when hoards of students from around the globe descend to claim their student card discounts on an already suspiciously cheap range of paint stripper shooters. Fun if you’re under 25 and need a good choice of kebab shops to keep you going.
All-inclusive – or is it?
Many hotels in Malta are jumping on the all-inclusive bandwagon but the term appears to be rather redundant in some properties; items I have seen excluded include breakfast yoghurts and fruit, ice cream at dinner, drinks with dinner, drinks after 10pm, pool towels, sunbeds, television remote controls, safes, fridges/mini bars, drinks other than local wine or beer, and (this is true!) dinner served after 8.30pm.
Don’t assume all-inclusive means what it says and check with the hotel just what is and isn’t included in the overall cost – it can impact heavily on the amount of spending money needed to enjoy the holiday.
In my opinion, all-inclusive hotels should be just that. Once you start mixing it up with bed and breakfast, half board and full board packages, it becomes impractical, unworkable, and in reality is little more than full board with cheap add-ons.
Holiday homes
Cheap flights to Malta are apparently putting some lower rated properties on the island out of business. Holidaymakers are spending the money they save flying with budget airlines on upgrading their accommodation to 4 and 5 star hotels.
Many 2 & 3 star hotel owners are now converting their properties to apartments to sell on as holiday homes. Malta’s property prices are still reasonable compared to some other Mediterranean destinations, the climate is temperate - sun is virtually guaranteed in summer - English is widely spoken, they drive on the left (most of the time) and it is a manageable 3 hour flight from the UK, with budget carriers leaving from London, Birmingham and Liverpool.
# posted by hotelreviewer @ 2:36 pm 
