Qawra Palace Resort and Spa

We booked an all inclusive with EasyJet. This hotel was our second choice as the one we wanted sky-rocketed in price. We were a family with two teens and travelled with another family with two teens.

We had a family room consisting of four beds and a bathroom with a shower. The room was cleaned daily with new towels, although we did have a small amount of ants visiting us daily considering we were on the 8th floor. You need to give a €20 deposit for the safe key and a €10 deposit per beach towel. Note both the bath and beach towels are on the smaller, thinner side.

The hotel is large and on a main road broken up into sections. The main building has 12 floors, including a number of restaurants and three main pool areas. The main child-friendly pool is outside, where to get to is a corridor under the road. They seem to have built the main buffet restaurant under the road with the pool on the other side. You can reach a small section of a very rocky beach for the sea. The staff were lovely and considering the size of the hotel were very much on top of all the cleaning especially at the bars and restaurants. You can see that they work very hard and we did appreciate it.

Food-wise: Breakfast was the same every day. Hot food (scrambled, fried, and boiled eggs), sausages, bacon, beans, etc., choice of cereals, ham, cheeses, and fruits with 2/3 toasters, which always had a large queue with a selection of breads.

Lunch and dinner had a wide choice of salads, meat, and a choice of two pizzas and two pastas. Not a huge amount of hot vegetables but always a vegetarian choice. The hotel had the title of the food and indicated whether it was marinated or herbed, etc., however, it could have included whether it was vegetarian. That would have been really helpful. Saying that - as a vegetarian, I ate very well and my family also enjoyed the food. There was one sign saying that you couldn’t take food out of the room. As my teens were too lazy to get up for breakfast but were always hungry when awake, I did manage to sneak out some pastries and toast a couple of times, but be ready for food to be confiscated at the door!

Drinks are available throughout the day and include wine (not pleasant) cocktails, which were nice, Bavarian lager, and soft drinks. Note that all the bars shut at 11/11.30pm and the only one showing sport is not part of the all inclusive.

Snacks apart from 3.15-5 in the main buffet (burgers, hot dogs, and chips), there were none, which is a bit poor for all-inclusive. You could get ice cream at certain bars throughout the day.

The specialty restaurants - Asian buffet - the food was lovely. South American buffet ( as we ate there the night of arrival, we didn’t rebook, and the food seemed decent). Caribbean fixed menu was nice but forgettable.

You do need to get up early to get sunbeds, unfortunately. Especially around the main child pool, which has a tiny pool for babies, a 1m pool for little ones, and a main pool. No slides and considering the size of the hotel, it was not big enough. The adults’ rooftop pool was very nice, and at lunchtime, you could get a bed here or there. This area is good to chill in the evening as it has its own bar.

The evening entertainment - we tried to watch this a couple of evenings. We had the pleasure of watching their very first “Legends”show. We expected to see various singers singing as legends such as Cher, Michael Jackson, Elton John, etc. Instead, we saw one lady singing every female singer such as Tina Turner, Cher, Madonna, etc. She did not have the range to sing as these singers and in the end it was just one singer singing every female song. The male legends were just male dancers dancing to the songs whilst the music video played in the background. Quite poor, unfortunately. Other evenings included karaoke, which is not for me, as well as a very good father-and-son show singing songs outside by the pool. Highly recommend that show. There is a Charlie’s Lounge near the entertainment area, which is quieter but has no bar. It did have screens showing sports though. Unfortunately, there were some dead cockroaches there. However, this area isn’t near the restaurants.

There was no daytime entertainment that I could see, although there was a posting about what was on when and where, etc.

Venturing outside the hotel, we had crêpes at Cheeky Monkey, which were lovely, and drinks at Murphy’s. There are an Iceland and Dave’s supermarkets nearby should you need them.

We enjoyed our holiday, and I think it is what you make of it. I would definitely return to Malta, but don’t think I would stay at the Qawra hotel again. It is lovely for those families with very little kids who want to be by the pool daily and don’t want much entertainment. I wouldn’t say it was genuinely an all inclusive hotel.

Qwara Palace not for us unfortunately definitely not a 4 star. Rooms in need of a renovation. In need of paint work, deep clean especially of the shower and bathroom as on arrival we were greeted with cockcroaches in our shower even on the 8th floor. All rooms have a balcony however very small and overlooking a courtyard. Felt like a prison. Opt to pay extra for a pool or sea view.

Pool: main pool dirty and not cleaned up properly after each day. Pool cold but too deep and couldn’t stand in it. (2m) No fun allowed as we were stopped from playing with a small ball, no inflatables were allowed and no music. Daytime entertainment was poor. Sunbeds were taken by 7.30. Drink selection was good but the slushies were very popular so limited as would run out fairly quick.

Rooftop: this made our holiday it included an adults only pool but pool was warm and not refreshing.

Entertainment: Shows repeated weekly, talented performers but music was far too loud. Could have done with being longer and the bar shuts at 11.30. Felt very crowded as lots of tables and chairs left everywhere.

Food: Main restaurant was very slippy every day and drinks felt watered down. Food was repetitive but good quality. Pizza and pasta every day. Would benefit from bigger selection for children and could do with a sandwich area for lunch. Breakfast: toast machines were a nightmare long que and in a small contained corner. Very overwhelming. I would have liked a live cooking option at breakfast so could have omelettes etc. Added bonus was the speciality restaurants with the Asian being our favourite.

Lifts: Not enough lifts for how many floors and people they are. Would tend to skip us and we would be waiting a while for lift to come.

Would not return.

Family holiday. On arrival we were given all inclusive bands and allowed to go to lunch we arrived at 12, couldn’t check in to our room until 3pm, fine. Food was great all be it kind of repetitive but there was something for everyone every night. Chefs very talented and servers very attentive. We visited the Asian and South American restaurant, wouldn’t necessarily bother again they are all self service and there was more choice in the main restaurant. Lifts, not big enough for size of hotel as there are 11 floors some days we had to wait 3/4 times to get a lift with space in going the right way for us. Pools, adult pool on the roof is a hidden gem and saved the holiday for us as the downstairs pool was not out vibe at all and a lot smaller than we expected again for the size of the hotel. The usual sunbed wars at 7:8am luckily for us we do get up quite early so not to much of a problem. Drinks not all included in all inclusive, but the measures were not tight and local spirits fine. Cocktials and slushes included great. Room was spacious and everything we needed, however the angle of the shower ridiculous as it faces the wall not the person using it. Shower flooded multiple times as no shower tray so be prepared these are more WET rooms we had to use towels to soak it up. Bath towels very small, however house keeping happy to provide extra. House keeping were brilliant nothing was ever too much of an ask and rooms always clean our only comment would be we did not want the balcony doors left open and for some reason they kept doing this. Entertainment was good but started quite late 9.15pm, and VERY loud a lot of younger children had their hands over their ears. Location of the hotel was lovely for the sea view but we found that we couldn’t really walk anywhere no strip as such for bars and restaurants. Do not rely on the WiFi it was crap despite asking multiple times for someone to look in to this. I didn’t reach our room, barely worked on the rooftop and even the wifi from next doors hotel reached further. Had to pay for extra data which was a shame as in this day in age we’d expect it to be pretty standard. Over all a good family stay but for summer holidays we should have expected the sheer volume of people that were in this hotel.