New Tower Palace Reviews

The New Tower Palace is very nice hotel even though the weather was shocking betwen May 10th and 13th 2008 when I visited. Booked direct with hotel on their website which I thought was a bit expensive but probably average for the increasingly expensive Malta, spoiled by the Euro. Hotel was very clean and all rooms have a balcony, not much use in gale force winds mind you. Had twin beds, TV, air con, heating, shower/bath, hair-dryer etc. Breakfast was continental style but restaurant is quite small. Nice cakes and coffee though I have to say. Cafe for guests and non-guests is good but bar-man lacks a smile. I cant blame him though, the tourism industry does that to people from a work/local people's perspective. Antonella the receptionsit was fantastic and very nice. Large Swimming pool and sunbathing area of roof of hotel, probably great in summer. Overall very satisifed and would stay there again.

Sunspot tours -- poor rating new tower palace hotel, malta -- poor rating calypso hotel, gozo -- outstanding, unbeatable rating!
23 march 2005
(this was sent to sunspot tours on 16 and 9 march. Neither time did they respond. So it appears they don't care about customer feedback)

we recently returned from malta-gozo, patronising sunspot tours in kent (mercury direct). We're very dissatisfied.

We would have liked the van driver transporting us from the airport to wait, and make sure we got into the locked hotel door at 0200, rather than just driving away immediately.

The representative on malta was offhand, casual, more interested in selling a tour and cashing money. She had an inadequate and erroneous grasp of local knowledge -- or simply could not be bothered to be accurate.

The new tower palace hotel (sleima), 7 nights: there were some very nice staff, but the management was uncaring, disregarding our plea about faulty heating; a sympathetic receptionist finally moved us (later, another staff said that they were having heating problems on the entire floor - in the worst winter there in 42 years .)

The catering was extremely unsatisfactory. Breakfasts were the same, small selection, only-continental every day. The brochure did not prepare us for there being absolutely no cooked items, not even hard boiled eggs as in some buffets! The dinners were of child proportions with the same frozen peas-carrots 5 of 7 meals. We joined others counting the number of chips given. I got 5. Once i got one sprout. A main course of fish would measure about 3 inches. Our last supper of beef curry was on a bed of half cooked rice, with 4 - 5 thumbsized bits of gristly meat. Oh, the receptionist said, ";just ask for more";. Really? Would you expect to have to, in a real restaurant -- why does the patron have to be embarrased to ask for an adult portion, to be overheard in a very small dining area that was truly packed cheek-to-jowl. Isn't that the height of poor customer relations? And the staff had their serving up area immediately next to guests' tables, with dishes being washed in an immediate door-less side room. The cook would come out and gossip -- never smiling at or greeting the diners, but just to gossip with staff for long periods! So amateurish. And to boot, there were signs saying outside food and drink were forbidden. The ";lounge"; was smaller than the small hotel rooms, honestly! The tv had no remote control. As i say, most staff were very nice, but the hotel needs an infusion of professionalism.

Value for money: 2 out of 10.

The rep on gozo also gave us erroneous information, and tried to deny that we were entitled to the expenses-only hire car in our package deal.

The calypso hotel (marsalforn) was outstanding, first rate! Excellent staff -- reception, maintainance, wait, and bar -- too numerous to name; personable manager mr muscat; highest quality accommodation; and the best food and drink in dining room and coffee bar. We cannot compliment the calypso enough, and will return often.

Suggest you try malta direct, or bellair holidays. They received good reports from those we spoke to.

Hotel well situated with bus stops right outside to go in either direction. Not an area with ";beaches"; - instead, rocky outcrops from which lead ladders, steps, straight into varying depths of water. Little or no shade until the sun sinks a bit behind the buildings. Hotels are all across the busy Tower Road from the beach.

If you want a lovely beach get on the bus to Mellieha Bay, with fine shelving sand leading into shallow, bath-warm water, plenty of sunbeds and umbrellas (paid for at the beach restaurant - very reasonably priced for food also). Be warned re. buses (or probably, bus drivers) who are manic. Indeed, everyone on the roads is manic - much tooting of horns and screeching of wheels. Old, creaky charabancs and new buses run on all the routes. The older ones, although desperately uncomfortable, are better because you can have the windows open for a wonderful breeze, whereas the new ones are air-con but nowhere near as nice as having a breeze. Look out for the religious icons, pictures and shrines around the driver's seat. With their driving, they need them!

You can get a daily, period or weekly bus pass, but with the fares as cheap as they are (never more than 40 cents) it's worth working out whether a pass would save you any money.

New Tower Palace was a lovely little hotel with friendly, helpful staff. Nice little buffet breakfast with yogurt and fruit every day, meats and cheese, various cakes and bread, plus tea, coffee and fruit juices. Waiter-service evening dinner (although my first choice would always be buffet), which was more than adequate without being super-duper.

Only drop-off was the fact that the air-con in our room was far from adequate - in fact we queried if it was working at all and were advised it was - so we defaulted to opening the windows of our (three!!) balconies instead, to catch what breeze there was. This meant, however, that it was very noisy from the traffic on Tower Road, including large lorries, road cleaners, crane drivers, etc. etc. which start at about 4.30 in the morning. A good night's sleep was indeed a problem because of this.

Plenty of bars attached to the hotels, not only on the main road but also round the little back roads - worth a stroll - and absolutely everybody strolls along the main promenade every evening. All the Maltese come out in their finery. For more choice, and more activity, walk towards St. Julians. In the opposite direction, Sliema waterfront is quite quiet.