Barceló Fortina Malta

Stayed for 2 weeks in a seafront room. Fantastic views. Large modern room with everything you need. Very large comfortable bed. Great bathroom with bath and shower. Had breakfast every morning at Stella's. Very good buffet with lots of choice. Staff always friendly and efficient. Didn't use the gym, spa or pools, but they looked very good. Location is great. Quick access to buses and ferry. Lots of local restaurants and shopping mall at the rear of the hotel. The only negative comments I can make are the room was not very sound proof. You could hear inconsiderate guests in other rooms and in the corridor, though it was only a problem once or twice in 2 weeks. The bathroom would benefit from better lighting over the bath and shower.

Beautiful view across the harbour to Valetta from the room. Balcony very tight with table & 2 chairs. Theme nights every night for dinner. When ordering wine with dinner make sure that the price is correct when signing for it.

A clean, big, modern but impersonal hotel in Sliema. Great views over Valletta (paid extra) and near to the ferry terminal, blue and red bus routes and Tigne Point Shopping Mall. Good and friendly staff and a superb breakfast bar. Comfortable room with a big bed. Poor safety in the bathroom, with no grab handles around the shower (over the bath) and a big step to get in and out. Inside of bath was slippery and we had to ask for a bath mat. There was a blue neon sensor light that came on every time there was movement in the room which was very disturbing at night. When reported to Reception, they shrugged their shoulders and suggested we covered it - so we used a sticking plaster!!! Also, no coat hooks at all! All of these are not acceptable in a 4star hotel!!!

Modern hotel with excellent breakfast and quality accommodation. Quieter end of Sliema which did make it a little lifeless. Disappointed with indoor pool which needed repairs to leaking ceiling and defective lighting. Surprised as this hotel is only a couple of years old

Having been home for a couple of weeks now, it has given us time to reflect on our stay here. We booked this hotel through Jet 2, which they have in their vibe category. So, we were advised that this is likely to have a noisy party type of atmosphere. Now whether it was the time of year, or that the Lido attached to the hotel was closed, or just the location but we found the opposite. The hotel was reasonably full, with most of the guests around our age bracket (45-55) and older. This may change as the tourist season hots up. The worst noise disruption we experienced was the occasional bit of drilling, but very rare in the week we were there.. The location is great for easy access to The Point shopping centre, a wander north through Silema and up to St Julian's Bay, or turn right along the road in front of the hotel, less than a 10 minute walk will bring you to the Ferry that can take you over to Valletta (9.6 Euros return for two of us). You can pick up a number of bus routes from this location too. Greeted with a drink and a smile while we checked in. We found the hotel to be very clean, not only in our room (1256) but also everywhere else around the hotel. Yes, if you look hard enough you are always likely to find imperfections no matter how good the hotel. The room we had was spacious, although I did find using the safe was a little awkward just because of its location in the bottom of the wardrobe combined with the wardrobe doors and proximity to the bed. One handy thing I found was that the TV had mirroring setup, so I was able to cast our Tablet to the TV and watch films. Tea / Coffee and Water were regularly replenished. The bathroom was huge and well stocked with everything you need. Great rainshower, always hot water and a good pressure. The food – the breakfast was top draw, couldn’t fault it, so much choice and didn’t notice anything run out, even the fussiest eater would be hard pushed not to find anything to eat here. The evening meals though we thought in comparison a little underwhelming, don’t get me wrong they were perfectly fine. I think the main issue for us was on a couple of occasions we had to point out that although the card with the dish name on showed no allergy information and it was quite clear by looking at it that it was covered in almonds. The result was that we lost confidence in the allergy labelling. On this subject, the hotel may like to produce a key to what the allergy symbols mean as several times I overlooked a dish as I thought it contained nuts, turns out that symbol was grains (looked like a monkey nut to me 😊). So, if you have any allergies please talk to the staff, they are very helpful, and I feel if asked they would have got the chef to make something bespoke. All the staff we had contact with were excellent, very welcoming, courteous and helpful, so a big thank you to all of them, especially the room cleaners. Housekeeping would check every evening if we needed anything replenishing, and leave us a couple of chocolates, a nice little touch. Some handy things to know. If you are getting the ferry to Gozo, the easiest way we found was to get the ferry from Selima to Valletta, then as you come out of the gate there is a bus stop, this bus will drop you right outside the ferry and only 1 euro. There are also various travel cards you can buy that will cover all these journeys. We just went with cash payments of 2 euros for 2 hours of travel (this changes in the summer months I think). If you are getting the buses, they are popular and you don’t always get a seat, if you are standing, all I will say is hold on to something 😉. I downloaded the Tallinja app for the buses and the Bolt app for taxies. Also google maps will give you the bus numbers as well