Albatross

I'd like to share my experience staying at the Albatross in Malta (unfortunately, I can't call it a hotel). It's managed by a private individual who takes a €25 deposit and a €5 tax (which, by the way, is already included in the total booking amount)—the deposit is non-refundable. The only amenities listed on the website are a room with a bathroom and a kettle. Both the owner and his friends smoke in the house (this noisy group sits in the kitchen until late in the evening). It always felt like we were occupying someone else's room, as his relative slept on the sofa in the kitchen, and the closet in the room was filled with her things. The advertised breakfast (English or Irish, buffet) was not served (even though it was listed as an integral part of the reservation, and I paid for it). The kitchen was also unavailable. The owner suggested going for coffee at his companion's café 500 meters away, but we declined, considering the type of place and the type of crowd that frequented it. There was no cleaning service during our entire stay. The room had cobwebs on the walls, a moldy bathtub, and broken shower doors. This is a negative rating; I can't even rate it. How can they even have a high rating? Unless they faked it themselves, or are terrifying people by telling them they'll return their deposit after a positive review. This is my first bad experience with Booking.com, and I'll be more careful about trusting reviews in the future. Please take action!!!

You need to know that kitchen is share with others

Very chaotic communication:
- phone number on Booking to someone else
- no answers to messages on Booking ... finally after an hour some lady let me into the appartement (luckily I was standing in front of the entrace that time), but she knew nothing about the breakfast
- later two different people were calling me and messaging on WhatsApp ... the level of English quite poor
- no clear instructions before contacting the main boss

Room not equipped appropriately:
- light in the main room broken
- no soap in the bathroom
- wardrobe filled with some owner's stuff

Generally, strange feeling and very poor instructions/communication

Requested an unexpected damage deposit in cash and said would return to the booking credit card but this did not happen

forse il bagno era non po' meno bello di tutto il resto e i fornelli della cucina che faticavano ad accendersi. ma comunque niente di preoccupante.

I did not realise it was a room in an apartment, with a shared entrance, kitchen, and living area, which you needed to pass through to get to the room.

Meie toa rõdul kuivas omaniku pesu. Omanik tatsas pool paljalt ringi öeldes, et on gigolo. Päevad otsa tüütas kirjadega ja pinnis lisarahasid välja. Hommikust pidime käima söömas mingis baaris kus kokku läks kõigi hommikutega mingi 40€ ja ta väitis, et sõime palju ja tagatisraha tagasi ei saa. Jne jne jne

The room I rented had a faulty lock — it could be locked from inside, but not from outside when leaving the room. It would be good to fix the lock.

the room is in someones apartment, the common spaces do not feel comfortable because they are constantly crowded with the owner and his friends instead of by guests. The deposit has not been returned to me after 2 weeks - I would not advise anyone to pay it. I found two cockrouches in the room. There is no breakfast option on site.

Kauciót kellett fizetni, illetve úgynevezett eco tax-ot még pluszban, ami sehol nem volt feltüntetve. A kaució a távozás után visszajárt volna . Azóta se kaptam vissza.

It’s was great, no faults!

I would NEVER recommend this stay to anyone . He asdvertised this stay as a full private apartment but it’s literally an apartment with 3 rooms , he rents out 2 of them and the host stays in the other one. The host smokes in the house so the house smells bad , he told us about a 25 euros deposit that we had to pay which we made the agreement to give it to him in cash (because we had read the previous reviewss and saw how eveyone said he doenst give the deposit back) and on the day of departure he was supposed to give it back. HE DIDNT, he started being rude and making up excuses. I had to text him for weeks after my trip everyday to get my deposit back and he would take long to answer and ignore my messages. It had come to the point where I had to threaten him before he actually realised how serious I was . Also he told us before hand that we were allowed to drop our bags of at 9 am as we landed early , when we arrived in front of the appartement and were calling him he didn’t answer . Later on he answered saying that he’s sorry but we can’t drop our bags off anymore , so we were sweating dragging our bags to a drop off location which we had to pay for . the communication between us was terrible as he doenst speak English properly. There’s so many bad things I could say ab this experience.