Qawra, Canifor Hotel

Travelled from airport through a continuous concrete jungle and arrived at the Hotel amidst a sea of building sites. Easy to find reception area by following the footprints in the dust and were almost fooled into believing we were in a 4 star hotel as reception area not bad, but downhill from here on.

The Hotel is NOT non-smoking as we found out immediately on entering bedroom by the stink of stale smoke and an ashtray on table, when we complained about this was told “it’s for going onto balcony to smoke, not in rooms”. The curtains reeked of smoke as well as it coming through bathroom ventilation system and blew in from other balconies for those who actually did smoke outside.

The balcony was the width of one chair and was north facing, we took in the rays at 6.50am for 10 minutes before it disappeared for rest of the day at 7am

In the brochure it states “building works…..may cause some light disturbance”!! The whole of Bugibba is a bloody building site. From the roof terrace amongst the air conditioning units I counted 15 cranes around us. To the front a 10 floor building being built with housing slum adjoining it, to the right an 8 floor building going up, to the left 5 floor building directly attached to hotel. The builders start at 6.30am 7 days a week (9am on a Sunday if you’re lucky)

There were stains on wall, mould and grime on ceiling and ceiling fan, curtains hanging off their runners, balcony door so stiff could only open it about a foot

The pool area is horseshoe shaped overlooked by buildings and has corrugated iron to stop building dust, but the bottom of pool is full of it. Because of the shape and the buildings around it, it only receives the sun in the morning and probably less so when the extension that they are adding to the end of horseshoe is finished. The pool area acts as an ampi-theatre due to its shape so every sneeze, drunken adults and screaming kids adds to the “relaxing” atmosphere, and with a bar opening onto the pool area, that has karaoke evenings, don’t expect a good night’s sleep. The indoor pool looks lovely in brochure, taken with an extreme wide angle lens I would assume, as in reality 2 strokes and you have swum the length of it (maybe 15ft long x 10ft?) Could be a snug fit in the summer,

The brochure states tea and coffee making facilities as well as an iron & board were included… no they are not. To HIRE tea and coffee making facilities was an extra €3.50 per day (x14 = €49). The Tourist Pub next door hires kettles for €1 per day. One black coffee and a cup of milky water (we provided our own tea bag) cost €2.50 in hotel.

On our 1st outing was approached by an old woman right outside the hotel offering us free bus tickets, jewellery and holdalls if we come with her and just look at her time share hotel “tell them anything and I’ll get commission”. After escaping her we bumped into her daughter hawking exactly the same deal. There are so many hawkers in Malta that they have their own parking spaces. The one thing in common that these hawkers have in Bugibba is slagging off the Canifor Hotel and its 4 star rating, the most ironic thing is that the hotel allows these people into the hotel to use their facilities and are all on a first name basis. The same woman approached us for 8 days in a row, every time we left the hotel as she parks right outside, until we finally told her we wouldn’t return to this hovel even if you paid us to stay here

Breakfast and Dinner is a free for all buffet style and several times guest weren’t allowed in until a table became available (and this is in February!! Can’t imagine what it’s like in peak season)

Had a meet and greet with other guests with SUPREME TRAVEL rep next morning and we were going to let her know what we thought about the 4 star!! Hotel……she never showed up. We had to ring to find out shuttle pick up time for airport and her phone was switched off (great customer service!) We were picked up from hotel reception at 3.10am (2 members of staff weren’t happy as one was sound asleep on one couch and the other was sprawled on another couch watching TV and were well peeved that we disturbed them) and dumped at the airport at 4.05am. The flight was at 7.10am, over 3 hours wait…disgusting.

On a positive side 75% of staff were friendly, but 25% were ignorant and rude, (the opposite % can be said when you are outside the hotel) wine was €4.50 a litre, lager €2.80 pint (cheaper outside hotel) and bus station was in walking distance.

If you must come to Malta, avoid The Canifor Hotel at all costs (the all-inclusive deals just attracts the p---heads when we were there) and Bugibba if you can. As a final piece of irony all the windows and patio doors have a logo of the hotel with its four stars rating, most of which have been peeled off by disgruntled guests I would assume, leaving 1 star

Very disappointed that companies like Supreme Travel and Love Holidays can falsely promote this hotel and unlikely we would book through either of them again. If it was rated as a 2 star the above could almost be accepted but it was booked under the impression of it being a 4 star especially for a 50th birthday present which was almost ruined by this hotel

PS. A lot of other guests we spoke to wouldn’t come back here either

Plenty of photos and video to confirm these comments if required

First impressions of hotel were good. Room and bed/pillows good, but that was it. Bathroom dirty, brought it to the attention of reception that night,told me to tell cleaner in morning. Did this but nothing done. Reminded the cleaner the following day and got the remark, It will all be good. The filthy water glasses in the bathroom never moved [unless from a foreign body ]. The bath and bath soap dish along with the floor had the previous occupants hallmark. The Indoor pool water was dirty with lots of tissue floating in the water and foreign objects on the bottom. Pool area floor dirty with drain lids propped up for the water to drain away which it did not do.

Food more like a transport café than a so called 4* hotel. Most staff looked miserable and as if they did not want to be there.

The hotel in its day may well have been a 4* but now I would give it 2* Would I go to Malta again? YES, Would I stay at the Canifor? Definitely NO!!

Would I use SUNMASTER Holidays again? NO!!! Every time I phoned to book holiday the cost was nowhere near what was being advertised. Cost of Holiday advertised was £296 for 7 days. That is good, BUT that price although advertised on the web for 4 days was not the price!I phoned Sunmaster and when I enquired several times about the above holiday and a couple of others over those 4 days [Tues to Fri] I was quoted between £365 and £608.

The excuse given was the flight cost had gone up, then the hotel had gone up then the flight etc. SUNMASTER Holidays, part of STELLA Travel said their web site is updated continually and prices fluctuate. This did not happen for the 4 days I was on their site! So when you contacted them the cost was much higher and NOT the same. The cost was only upwards!!!I feel this company misleads potential customers with cheap quotes, then when you phone to book, the price rises and in some cases more than doubles. PLEASE BEWARE

Canifor is an awful hotel. At arrival our reservation had disappeared. At the room we were greeted by a semi-dead cockroach on the floor. The bed linens were full of black hairs. We were at the first floor and the karaoke went on until midnight.

Pool looked shabby. We left the hotel early next morning never to return again. Cheap, yes, but I would not stay in a hotel like this even if they paid me.

THE HOTEL CANIFOR. THE INDOOR SWIMMING POOL NOT MUCH BETTER THAN A LARGE BATH ? . AS FOR THE OUT DOOR SWIMMING POOL & SUN BED AREA. ONLY GETS THE SUN IN THE MORNINGS ? . THE 2 LIFTS ARE A JOKE ONLY FOUR PEOPLE AT A TIME IF YOU ARE LUCKY. THE BALONY HAS NO PRIVACY AT ALL. THE FRONT OF THE TV WAS BROKEN. THE RESTAURANT WAS SMALL TO GET TO THE FOOD AREA TO YOUR TABLE YOU HAD TO JIGGLE AROUND. THE STAFF IN THE RESTAURANT WERE VERY HELP FULL. & EFFICIENT. THE FOOD WAS QUITE GOOD. THE ROOM WAS CLEAN & TIDY, THE MAIDS CAME IN EVERYDAY. THEY WERE VERY GOOD.. NO I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND TO GO THERE. WE STAYED THERE IN OCTOBER 2009.

had a great time, hotel clean, food very nice , hotel staff make your time at the canifor much more fun, told all my friends and we will be going back to Canifor Hotel next year

Booked into the court appartments but they were full so was put into the Canifor Hotel holiday complex which is next to the pool and so glad they did as when we were having breakfast in the cafe on the corner of the street we saw the court building and it looked grotty and dirty and there was no lift in it so if you was on the 5th floor it was stairs all the way..The room we had was on the 5th floor overlooking tourist st it was pretty basic with your 1 bedroom with 2 single beds bathroom with bath and overhead shower and lounge with 1 table 4 wooden chairs sink baby belling 2 ring electric cooker 14in tv (no english programs) medium fridge and a balcony with a sun lounger and small table and chair.booked a couple of meals in the restaraunt which were good had a drink in the bar and the beer is disgusting it has the tang of the pipes and the smell of not being cleened i asked the barman how often they flushed the pipes and he said he did not know as he had only been there 6 weeks???. for the best beer and entertainment go to the tourist bar (first bar you come to after turning right at reception steps) .will stay in the complex again but not in the courts as that needs to be seen to be desired....

Background. A friend offered his timeshare for £85 for the week - get budget flights, nice cheap holiday - WRONG! Have to fly Friday to Friday - EasyJet £50 out, £155 back (x 2) / RyanAir £200 return, but from Luton. Car Park costs arm and a leg, National Express cheaper but get back 2300, bus not leaving till 0830. Wife decides she doesn't want to drive to Luton (we live next to East Midlands Airport) and she's set her heart on Malta, so we can't just not bother. Co-op Travel in Castle Donington have a Thomas Cook package for £265 each (before extras) at The Canifor Hotel, so we booked for 21 to 28 Oct. Then we read the reviews of the Canifor on the Net - Oh my God, what have we done???? However, we can't cancel, so we left hoping for the best, but expecting the worst.

Check-in. No other word for it than BRILLIANT! We were in and out in minutes.Flight out. Good flight out, nice in-flight meal. Surprised to find that tea and coffee weren't free (ours were, because we paid for our meals). Only minor irritation (not a criticism) was that we were delayed for an hour once on the plane. Arrival. Hassle-free - short wait for transport to the terminal, same for baggage. Rep waiting, coach waiting, well organised. Arrived Canifor 1330, can't check in till 1400. No problem, luggage can be left in the bar. Actual check-in no problem - the receptionist handed out several booking-in cards at a time, which speeded things up nicely. Room 215, no problems, I've stayed in worse at more expensive hotels in UK.

Canifor Hotel. There must be 2 Canifors in Qawra - the one we stayed at and the one where everything is wrong, bad and hopeless. We treated the Staff with respect and were treated in the same way in return. The food was fine, better than we expected, especially the desserts. I'm probably the world's most picky eater, but there was something I could eat at every evening meal. I've certainly had worse at Little Chef's.

There were a couple of small problems, but they were speedily rectified. It took three keys, and the maintenance engineer, to open the fridge because someone had changed the lock. The computers in the Internet room were very slow and timed out before you could log onto the Net. No problem - they gave me my money back without me even asking, and there's a big Internet Cafe on the main strip not far from the Hotel (and they do a cracking large ring doughnut).

Our rep was a star. On the first night, we took the Malta by Night Tour, which she hosted. It was a cracking night, made more enjoyable by the quality of the passengers on our coach.The holiday. What a lovely place Malta is - not everyone's cup of tea, I'm sure, but for two boring old people like us, it was perfect. We took 4 of the tours on offer, and used them as a guide to what to go and see in detail. One strange thing was that, on the Gozo tour, you have to pay for the ferry as an extra. I can understand that happening on the two lagoon-type boat tours, because they might not be running when you get there, but you can't get to Gozo if you don't get the ferry! The old buses are great, and I'm sure the new European-spec ones they've got to start using will not have the same character. We've already booked for next year - for 2 weeks AND at The Canifor. We're even considering retiring to Malta.

The return. The transfer and check-in were fine again. The inbound flight was over 2 hours late, and we were delayed at the holding point for another hour or so. Again, we weren't told the reason - we just sat there - and I found out when I got home that the runway had been closed for a Lufthansa jet with an emergency. After departure, we reached the top-of-climb and I asked if I could use the toilet - "No, wait till seat belt sign is off!". Seat belt sign off, stand up and head for the loo, behind another guy. The cabin crew had already dragged their trolley out, blocking the aisle, and we both received a mouthful for interrupting their cash-flow. The one who spoke to me was as bad an advert for Thomas Cook as our rep in the hotel was a good one. Thomas Cook. All in all, a great holiday, but the bad parts all seem to be down to Thomas Cook.

Apart fom the lack of briefing about the delays, the Gozo ferry add-on, plus the surly stewardess, which I've already mentioned, I have one major complaint, plus one suggestion for Thomas Cook to address.

At the welcome briefing on the morning of our first full day, we were addressed by a lady, invited by Thomas Cook, who offered everyone a 35 Euro discount off their tours if they were prepared to visit her Hotel to see the "offers" they had on at the moment. Now, I don't know about you, but "offers" to me means "2 for one", "20% off", "3 weeks for the price of 2" - that sort of thing. 2 minibus-loads from the Hotel set off for the Radisson Hotel at Golden Bay. My wife and I sat there for over an hour before our host, turned up. I was suspicious by now, and asked for reassurance that this wasn't just a "timeshare" type deal - "No, definitely not!".

There followed a tour of his, admittedly, beautiful Hotel, with me constantly asking "How much?", with him constantly replying "We'll get to that later". We finally finished the tour, retired to his office and, guess what - it's the new version of poxy timeshare!!!!!!!!!!! He tried to get me to sign up for 37 years (that's right, 37 YEARS) of holidays. As I'm 61, having had a triple by-pass in 2002, there was a pretty good chance I wasn't going to be around in 37 years! His reply? "No problem, just leave it to your sons". He couldn't, or wouldn't, understand when I explained that I wasn't prepared to spend the rest of my life paying for holidays which I wasn't going to take. A couple of revised plans were offered but, by this time, even my wife was cheesed off, so we asked to leave. We were marched to reception, without a word being spoken, no "thanks for coming", no "enjoy your holiday" - he just stormed off. How's that for a no-obligation inspection of the Hotel? I am writing to Thomas Cook and Radisson separately, advising Radisson in particular that, should I win the Lottery, I will be on the first flight back to Malta, where I will stay at The Canifor, NOT, DEFINITELY NOT The Radisson.

So, Thomas Cook, if you are going to subject your guests to a timeshare presentation, TELL THEM it's a timeshare presentation.

My suggestion to Thomas Cook, in the interests of customer relations, is that, if you make your passengers over 3 hours late, the least you could do is NOT charge for tea and coffee on the flight home. It may incur a small cost to you, but the PR-value would be immeasurable.

Rooms clean with a good service. Good access to local buses. Shop in easy reach. Four days to repair toilet, three requests to repair tv, restaurant too small led to always queuing waiting for a table for any of the meals, selection of food repetitive, staff not very polite, inside pool cold always although pass the 1st Nov. We would not return to the Canifor hotel.

We read the reviews 2 days before arriving in Malta but we were assured that there was no problem with this luxury 4 star hotel. That the reviews were from fussy people so we left home with an open mind. The hotel lobby was very grand but what lurked behind was worse than we could have imagined and the worst place I have ever stayed in. Room allocation a shambles, promises that problems would be sorted next day, we did ask, but we were told to come back the following week. Rooms on first glance very basic, as it was late when we arrived we didn't look to close but waking up in grey stained sheets that were to short for the bed filthy pillows you would be ashamed to put in the dustbin. In daylight the bedspread was filthy. They hold private functions and make you leave the pool in the afternoon. 3 functions in 2weeks. The restaurant staff think they're in the Ritz. All inclusive, they haven't a clue!! We ate out most days or lived on bread and cake, breakfast was rubber eggs, bacon, a joke. No fresh fruit unless you asked at the evening meal. Pool dirty. It would take for ever to describe this place, never a 4 star a basic 2 on a good day.

We booked the Canifor as it was a 4 star hotel and apparently won an award for the best hotel in Malta 2007 if this was the best what were the rest like. This is no 4 star 2 at best. Impressive lobby conceals the horrors that lurk behind, poor shabby rooms and interior communal areas, basic. Cheap food. Pool not big enough for 20 and dirty. All inclusive drinks, one beer, half dozen cheap spirits, soft drinks. Breakfast rubber eggs, bacon tasting of fish, undercooked sausages and beans continental, processed cheese slices cubes of tasteless cheese and some sort of meat resembling spam, cereals again budget buy, and we did get toast if you wanted to stand in line for the one toaster or you could have a slice of hard bread. Hotel entertainment a joke if it wasn't for the bar. The snacks were very basic and only the ones printed in red could be had by all inclusive we were not allowed the goodies. Use of gym, jaccuzi, tetevision, safe, internet, sauna had to be paid for even if all inclusive. We didn't eat at he hotel and not many did although we had paid for it.