IBB Hotel Palazzo Bettina Malta

Everything was perfect

The room 104 was a disaster - you can have a nice stay in the Hotel IF YOU AVOID this room. In past it was a kitchen hall for deliveries. The floor of the room is one meter below the narrow street - the room has only one small dark window - in fact only electric lihght is available. It is also extremely WET - AC was drying all day and night , and additional electric dryer added by staff produced 6 liters of condensate for 24h. It is not a room - it is a dark joke. In contrast everything else was great in the hotel - the helpful staff, the roof terrace, cleanliness and great breakfasts. But this dark ( perfectly cleaned everyday ) dungeon dominated memories - AVOID ROOM 104 and a room adjacent to 104 - I hope other rooms are dry, bright and do not leave smell of mold on your belongings when you leave...

Nichts

We visited at Easter so the nearby Church was a bit noisy for long periods of time but it was atmospheric!

Everything was great.

There is not a thing to dislike.

In the Deluxe room there’s only one window which is the terrace’s door, facing the internal patio. That means that there are two options: 1) you leave the terrace door open and can hear all the noise coming from the patio or 2) you close the terrace door and then there’s no air circulation. Regarding breakfast I don’t understand why it’s only a la carte, a better option would be to have a table with cold cuts, cheese, cereal, tea, juice, etc, and have only hot dishes (eg. eggs, pancakes, etc) to order. It took a long time to be served breakfast which I don’t blame the staff because the hotel should hire more people to help with the service not make the receptionist double down as a waiter/waitress too. We were not in a rush but it bothered me a bit how long we needed to wait for the breakfast to be served.

The staff were incredibly friendly and helpful but being a small hotel there was just one person which isn’t ideal at busy periods. The breakfasts were great but there isn’t a restaurant any other time of the day. I ate at their sister hotel which was fantastic, top quality food at great prizes and there are lots of restaurants close by.

Our check-in was less than friendly and the older gentleman at the front desk was rude and difficult.

I had changed to this hotel while we were traveling in Italy because we had already stayed in Valletta while in Malta the previous week and decided to stay in Birgu on our return trip in order to see the other side of the harbor.

I booked three rooms, each with one large sized bed. I didn’t pay much attention to the number of adults I added in each room booking because there would be no more than 2 adults per room. One room would only have one adult. Our flight was delayed and we arrived later than originally planned, not late in the evening, just later than anticipated. As soon as I gave my name for the reservation the desk clerk curtly asked “How many people do you have?”. I replied 5… he said “I have you down for 3 people”. I said we have three rooms but there are five of us. He was very upset by this and said “well that’s a problem”. I asked if it was an issue because the rooms were too small or if we would have to pay more or what was the concerning issue? He curtly responded “YES, it’s going to cost you more!”. I asked how much and he said he didn’t know yet but acted very upset. I asked if he couldn’t accommodate us or should look for another hotel and he didn’t answer and kept clicking on the computer for another 3-5 minutes. He finally stated the other two people in our party could not take advantage of the breakfast plan, which I informed him none of us each breakfast, so it wouldn’t be an issue. He repeated twice that if they did eat the breakfast we would have to pay extra. Twice I informed he we would not be eating the breakfast.

He then informed us he did not have enough towels for us in the two rooms where two adults would be staying, because I only put down one adult in each room. He seemed very irritated by this. After 15 minutes of clicking on the computer and checking in passports and signing the paperwork, he showed us to our rooms.

We would have preferred some elements of a buffet breakfast (e.g. fruit, cereal, bread, coffee). Cooking and assembling everything from scratch just takes a bit too long when you are keen to get out for the day.