InterContinental Malta

We stayed at InterContinental Malta by IHG with my wife and daughter in November 2025 and were very disappointed with the overall experience. This hotel does not feel like a true 5-star property and fell well short of expectations in several important areas. The hotel in general looks and feels dated. Our room was particularly odd: half of the floor had what appeared to be vinyl-style carpet, while the other half had old wool carpet. The contrast felt strange and uncomfortable rather than premium. The furniture was clearly dated, and the bathroom décor and fittings were more in line with a 3–4 star hotel. The shower was underwhelming too — weak water pressure and a cheap-feeling unit. The worst issue by far was the air conditioning. The hotel uses an old centralised system, meaning guests cannot control the temperature in their own room. We were unable to sleep because the room temperature was uncomfortably high. I called the night manager at midnight, who said engineers would check in the morning and that the day manager would follow up with us. Unfortunately, no one did. Despite leaving messages and requesting to speak with the day manager, my call was never returned and no attempt was made to discuss or resolve the issue with us. When we returned the next evening after a long day of sightseeing, we found a fan placed in the room and the temperature close to 30°C. We were told — unapologetically — that the engineer had turned off the room’s air conditioning entirely, as they feared leaving it on might make the room even warmer. We were also informed that from early November, cold air conditioning is turned off hotel-wide, leaving only ventilation and heating in guest rooms. This explanation made little sense, especially as the corridors and public areas were noticeably cool and air conditioning clearly worked there. I even remarked that I would probably have had a better night’s sleep in the corridor than in the bedroom. Breakfast was acceptable with a decent spread, but the main breakfast area has no natural light, which makes it a poor environment for the first meal of the day. The hotel’s location is another downside — it is in a very busy and chaotic area, as many other reviews have mentioned. If you are renting a car, expect to pay close to €10 per day to park in a nearby building, which feels unreasonable for a hotel of this supposed calibre. After this stay, we moved to Malta Marriott Resort & Spa, and the difference was night and day. The Marriott truly feels like a 5-star hotel: modern, calm, and well-designed. The rooms were sublime — contemporary décor, extremely comfortable beds, high-quality furnishings, and individual climate control in every room. The location was excellent — quieter but still very accessible to restaurants and bars — and there is a secure, free car park directly opposite the hotel. Unfortunately, our stay at the InterContinental Malta was uncomfortable and frustrating, and we would not return. There are far better options in Malta at this price point.

This is a hotel which fell *very* short of delivering anything close to 5 Star, and as we found out, there are much better alternatives close by. Context – IHG Platinum Member & Top Status with Hilton & Accor – sadly stay way too many nights each year in hotels. We have seen better quality Crowne Plaza hotels than IC Malta, which also comes nowhere near the standard of other InterContinental’s. Were it not for the team members, who were simply amazing, it would easily be a one star review, and no surprises that whilst WE will return to Malta (next month), we won’t be staying here, and suggest others lower their expectations of what to expect. So for us, Pro’s: • Amazing super friendly, hard working, polite and professional team members, everyone from front office, F&B, Club Lounge & Housekeeping were superb, no doubt about that. Hard working, friendly and a credit to the hotel. • If you want to be right in the middle of Party Central, and next to the late bars, night clubs & fast food outlets etc then this hotel will likely appeal. • Great F&B offering in the lounge, such as the A La Carte Breakfast options and drinks / cocktails available during evening happy hour. • Gym is huge and well equipped – not too surprising given it’s a commercial gym next to the hotel, and thus whilst lots of equipment, expect lots of people too Con’s: • No tangible recognition of IHG Status, such as offer of room upgrade, despite the hotel being very quiet, given it’s out of season / off peak time and despite numerous upgraded rooms being available. True, we didn’t ask for an upgrade, despite loyalty to IHG making me eligible to one, but we don’t have to ask at Hilton or Accor, they proactively acknowledge loyalty and offer upgrades on pretty much every stay we have with them – makes the guest feel valued and their loyalty to the brand appreciated, after all guests have a choice of where to spend their cash. • Nothing about the Garden View room felt premium nor luxurious in any way – have stayed in better rooms at Premier Inns. For example, numerous patch it paint jobs throughout bedroom and bathroom. Dirty shabby balcony, rust in places, broken / missing tiles (or part of tiles) and DIY jobs for drainage, ill fitting and uneven. Very bad DIY silicone sealant job around the air con fan in bedroom, and rust around the shower area in the bathroom. Old room furniture, scuffed in many places and very dated. Even if this were the base room it would still be grim, but for it to be a higher class room amazes me – god only knows what the base rooms are like? • Noise – As mentioned, this hotel is smack bang in the heart of Party Central, so if you’re not into loud noise & clubbing, you may find it annoying to suffer the likes of music noise / shouting & singing / cars revving / people vomiting in the street until the early hours. Worse still dare you leave the balcony door ajar, which incidentally is needed as the air con can’t cool the room and so you feel the brunt of the noise. We had a room at the back of the hotel, far from the main street / strip, yet each night the noise / music / cars racing each other was heard. God only knows how bad it is for the rooms closer to the street / strip. • To me, this hotel is simply a large Corporate Conference Venue, which happens to also have some rooms too – it seems, at least during my stay, the large scale Conferences taking place too priority over other guests. Conference guests placed in rooms next to tourists / non conference guests, which meant we suffered further noise disturbance during the night owing to parties / loud noise from conference delegates as they enjoyed their all expenses paid trip to Malta, and as they did so on the balcony next to mine. Now we know why Tom Ford & Jo Malone toiletries cost so much, they need to recoup the vast amount they spent on taking their teams for a p***s up, aka brand conference in Malta. • Facilities – practically non existent , and whilst out of season, was in stark contract to other hotels we visited such, as Voco, Hyatt, Corinthian, Raddison and Hilton, the first four of those being located close to the IC, however offers way more, such as outdoor spaces to sit with bar service, outdoor pools open & available, and numerous F&B offerings available & open. Ended up spending more money & time with these other brands and more time at the other hotels than we did at the IC. Even if the outdoor pools / bars etc were open, we imagine they are rammed in summer, as guests from the new & neighbouring Voco Hotel (which incidentally looked way better) are able to make use of the IC facilities as the two hotels are connected and Voco guests can use the IC facilities. • Loud and disturbing building works taking place – part of the hotel is a building site. Whilst there’s mention on their website of their outdoor pool being closed for the season, it’s interesting to see no mention of the building works taking place nor the level of noise disturbance you will suffer during the day, to add to the noise disturbance you suffer during the night. In summary, totally appreciate the IC can’t move the building, nor the position of the sun (other hotels, such as Voco and Hyatt got way better sun coverage), however they could / should, imho: • Acknowledge brand loyalty & deliver upon this, not least when the hotel was so empty. • Open up some of their F&B outlets they boast about, not least outside – areas that had sun were closed off / under going works and any outside area open (hardly any) had no sun / no bar service / no one there • Deep clean the bedrooms, and address the dodgy DIY décor issues in the bedrooms and bathrooms, rectify the DIY botch it jobs and sort out the broken, dirty & grim balconies • Consider separating conference guests from others guests, whom may not want to party all night on company expenses and whom may just want a peaceful nights sleep – impossible to achieve at this hotel. Appreciate we didn’t raise these issues during my stay, perhaps some could have been resolved had we done so, however fundamentally the big issues would remain, given the hotel can’t relocate it’s position nor stop the noise from the bars / clubs nor can they instantly decorate rooms & repair balconies etc – these things take time and investment. The value for money was questionable for the rate we paid, not least when compared to neighbouring hotels (modern and better facilities) and it would be non-existent during summer times when the rate was showing as 2-3 times what we were paying – who is paying that much for this place when so many other better places exist? We don’t like leaving such reviews, as my previous reviews will prove, far prefer to compliment than complain, however this time around complain we must, the IC was simply not the luxury it claims to be, it was not 5 star, and it was not a hotel we would ever consider returning to, not least when there’s better equipped, cleaner and more modern options such as the neighbouring Voco and Hyatt Centric, where we spent time at both and both were poles apart from the poor experience at the IC. Guess the IC depends on the constant & numerous very large corporate conferences and thus perhaps doesn’t have to up its game re having facilities open, decent accommodations, and acknowledging loyalty. Such a shame, the team members were superb, truly super, the rest was not, far from it. Our advice, and it pains us to say it, is to stay elsewhere, unless your expectations are very low, as there’s so many better local options other than this loud, noisy, dated & dirty IC – really was a poor experience which is such a shame.

The best experience ever thank you front office fir the warm welcome especially Mina the amenities surprise are super nice you are professional and helpful I will come back for sure, additionally the room was amazing

Amazing hotel, great location and perfect view. Thanks to Katerina for all her help during our stay. We will definitely come back :))

The staff here are beautiful people!! From the concierge team - James, Malcolm, Christopher to the Front desk team of Tarek to the breakfast restaurant managers the leadership and hospitality is incredibly obvious here!!! So grateful!