db San Antonio Hotel + Spa Timeshare

My wife and I stayed here from the 12th to the 19th of June 2016.

On arrival at approx 21.00 we were informed by a young woman, I think called Mariva, on reception that the “Sea View Room” we had booked and paid for was unavailable due to some “error beyond our control”. By way of compensation for being allocated a “Land View Room” we were offered 15.00 Euro per night refund for our stay and told by Mariva that alternatively, we were “welcome to try your luck elsewhere, but I think you won’t be successful”. So we reluctantly accepted the refund.
After two days in a land view room overlooking a kebab shop (not good….I’m a vegetarian) my wife’s complaints to management bore fruit and we were allocated a lovely sea view room on the ninth floor for the remaining five days of our holiday.

This entire unpleasant business put a real downer on our entire holiday.

Otherwise; the food is not great, often cold and either over or undercooked. The vegetarian selection is woeful, consisting as it does of one meagre “vegetarian option” per meal. Why do meat eaters get six options then? Wi-Fi is so patchy it might as well be absent.

The timeshare hawkers everywhere are a total bind, and many of them are employed on a commission basis by the hotel. We are tough teddies and were not troubled by them at all but we spoke to many people who had been browbeaten for hours by them.

On the plus side the place is kept very clean and the rooms immaculately so. The restaurant staff work very hard and are very pleasant.

We certainly won’t be back this side of h*ll freezing over.

The staff here very friendly and polite very accommodating and kind. ( I’m excluding the timeshare staff here who, in my opinion,were  the spawn if the devil!)

The rooms are very very basic – plastic vinyl sofa and chairs which you stick to in the heat – no wardrobe- you just hang your clothes on a rail over a chest of drawers- air con not very effective at all, bed square firm type of foam Mattress with some sort of neoprene cover over it that made you even hotter. Reminded us of a low key travel lodge. You get a full-size shampoo/shower gel by the sink and another one in the shower in wall dispensers – nothing in the fridge as part of your all-inclusive package, but the fridge is good and there are local shops opposite the hotel where you can get milk/drinks etc.

“All inclusive” (ha) covers food in the main buffet restaurant and you can book 24 hours in advance at the other themed restaurants. Your choice of alcohol beverage is red/white/rose wine out of a dispenser which you pour yourself or lager again from a wall pump. It’s a bit like a frenzied canteen in here, food is ok.wine is rough.
We ate at the other eateries – Chinese one was good on the rooftop – but again buffet serve yourself, the best one is BISTRO the only one where they serve you and you can relax and enjoy your food, have a good selection of items – mussels/ beef steak/lamb cutlets/ chicken. Nice to be waited on for a change!

The bar has a good selection of branded spirits -BUT YOU CANT HAVE ANY OF THEM UNLESS YOU PAY EXTRA – tokens available from reception – locally produced cheap spirits if you are A/I. ( even these are carefully measured out)

You have to leave €50 deposit on check in ( or can swipe your credit card) €10 deposit each for pool towels. If you want to use the beach – you have to PAY EXTRA To hire the sunbeds and parasols and all inc is not available here you have to PAY EXTRA for drinks ( any type). Cafe bar nice, but if you want an ice cream or cake or pastry ( you have to PAY EXTRA. ( there’s a theme here) entertainment was for the children up to 9:30 pm then the last 2 hours was dedicated to adults. This is Butlins type of entertainment and not for us ( reminded us of the TV show ‘Benidorm’ specially on karaoke night) very cheesy. All inclusive stops at 11:30pm – but you can get a drink after this but you have to PAY EXTRA.
Music loud around the pools in the morning.

TIPS: the bar across the road “The George Cross” is great fun, drinks ( branded of course) are very cheap, staff are fabulously friendly and fun. You can meet a lot of hotel resident there too, it seemed to be a bolt hole for those not too impressed with the hotel – you can identify these people by the bright orange plastic wristbands that everyone is forced to wear – got a lovely white stripe where mine was!

Malta changed the bus charges on the 1st July 15. Very new to the drivers, who were just as confused as the tourists – but this is a breakdown:
It costs €2 each to travel on the bus – if you make your journey within 2 hours this can be used as a return ticket i.e buy a ticket at 10.00am get back on the bus at 11:55am you can use the same ticket as a return. Get back on the bus at 12:05 you have to pay another €2 each.

You can get a day pass, but we found the tallinja card – 12 single day journeys to be the best – it’s valid for 12 months. You can use it for couples. Just swipe the card twice on entry( 6 journey’s for 2 persons obviously) we went to Mosta church to see the unexploded bomb ( worth a trip) go on a Monday – it’s market day.
Went to Valletta for the day, and another day Silema- all for €15 for two – bargain.

We did a day trip to Gozo – don’t book through the hotel ( wanted €55 each) there is a tourist type shop at the end of the hotel building out of hotel, turn left until you get to the end. It all day they pick you up at 08:15 and drop you back about 6:00pm. You get to visit 6-7 places of interest and tourism ( the azure window is beautiful – take the 15 min trip in the boat to check it the caves there – citadel is interesting also) and have 2 hours to yourself for lunch. It only cost €12 each and €4:65 for the ferry to the island. A must.

Ok, now the timeshares reps …………groan……! The first day, friendly chap approached us with a bus route ” hi guys can see you’re with our hotel, we can give you a free pass for the buses.. Spent 5 mins circling POI on the map told us the best places to visit , we thought was just a tourism guy from the hotel (as did other guests) he said you just need to pop back into the hotel to get your free tickets and passes, join our holiday club (what like a Tesco club card ??) you can have a tour of the hotel, but as residents, you won’t need that…. Took us back in to get the ” free passes” his colleague took some details – to many details for a free bus pass – we would be taken downstairs for a more I depth chat about the holiday club, guessed at that point it was timeshare – it was. Walked out. Every single day we were approached by these vultures, 3-4 times going out of the hotel and the same back in. They even hung around at the bus station. Typical British ex-used car/photocopier salesmen full of tosh.

AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE. We were sunbathing on the top pool every 20-30 mins or so they would show around another poor heat exhausted family with the same spiel ” well Fred/jack/Jane ( insert name to suit) what do you think to the view, eh, impressive eh…” Same words different guests. They would stand in front of the pool – the same spot- every time – in front of me! I have to admit, my foot started twitching as the female rep was standing very close to the water’s edge, but I restrained my self.
We ate out of the hotel quite a lot, it very cheap to eat and drink here, you are better off if you have to stay here going B&B – not worth paying extra for limited all inc.

Love Malta, but would never return to this hotel again or the db chain the timeshare people really put us off. If you are considering timeshare, research things first, some of the locals told us the timeshare side of things is a “Phoenix” company and warned us off.

If you are thinking of Malta, try the Corinthian hotels – we Stayed at St George’s bay at this hotel it was stunning and just a better class of hotel.

First thing is what a shame such a cheap, quick make-over all done for profit to sell off as Holiday Ownership ‘Timeshare nightmares’. Do look beyond your eyes and sadly if you pay much for this hotel you will feel robbed.

Unfortunately, when we stayed it rained, the hotels like a sieve soaking the top floor and everything out of action.

Fire Alarms sounding in the dead of night having been shorted out with the ingress of water.

No wardrobes, mouldy cheap, falling apart shower cubicles. Take care with the water sometimes scolding, sometimes tepid. Also as others mention building and painting going on still.

Its true weekends are horrendous they fill the hotel with locals, cheap package.

The hotel’s services cannot cope with this deluge and the place becomes a free for all and filthy.

There’s not enough staff and no one seems to be able to organise it.

The food, lots of meat and fish and pickled veg & salads, not many fresh dishes, seems mainly preserved foods and does become repetitive, it’s much better than the Tagine Restaurant though.

Plus points its close to the bus station to escape for the day.

£30,000.000 spent on a refurb we were told. They were conned. Large areas smelled damp. Our room had black mould on the ceiling with paint flaking from the walls. The bathroom had no ventilation so we couldn’t dry damp clothes.

Carpets were fraying.

No wardrobes in rooms.

Not enough lifts and they were all at one end of the hotel and usually at least one not working. In the gym the indoor pool was cold and neither the steam room nor sauna was working, several exercise machines out of order too.

The outdoor pools looked great but were mostly only ankle deep, nowhere was the water deep enough to swim in. Bar prices were high and service slow because of the complex computer systems.

Food was amazing but long queues to get into the dining room again because of the complex .systems.

There were many timeshare touts outside waiting to pounce and lots of salesmen inside.

If you are foolish enough to stay here get a sea view as the back of the hotel overlooks a public car park which boy racers use as a race track at night and show off their air horns and in-car entertainment systems at full volume until the early hours. Oh, nearly forgot the unsilenced motorbikes too.