Hotel Review: Grand Hotel Excelsior Malta

This review contains affiliate links. This is not a paid review, my opinions are my own. 

 

Whenever I come back from traveling I love to go on websites and leave a small review for the places I loved. At the very least I’ll leave a review on the site I booked my hotel on, but I usually leave a few more as well. Booking.com is usually where I book my hotels and they have a great review system that only allows you to review a hotel for 28 days after your trip. After our trip to Malta, I got busy, and I completely forgot to leave a review for the Grand Hotel Excelsior Malta where we stayed for our trip. I feel terrible about it! So I wanted to get a long review of our stay down to try to make up for it because we really had a lovely time.

 

If you’re looking for a quick TL;DR review of the Grand Hotel Excelsior Malta I’ll leave a short paragraph here, but I strongly encourage you to read further to find out more about my experiences there.

Grand Hotel Excelsior Malta is a 5-star experience just outside the walls of the tourist heart of Malta, the capital Valletta. It’s in an excellent location right on the water and within easy walking distance of both Valletta and the main bus stop for the entire island. However, wheelchair users will have a monumental struggle to overcome if they wish to stay there.

Location

The Grand Hotel Excelsior Malta is just a 15-minute drive from Malta International Airport or 30 minutes by bus. It sits just outside the wall of Valletta, the capital of Malta. It’s only a 10-minute walk to the city gates, which makes it the perfect place to stay for easy, regular access to Valletta. The city gates are also the location of the main bus terminal where almost every bus on the island will go.

Because it sits right on the shore of Marsamxett Harbor the hotel has its own private beach and overlooks the yachts of rich and famous. Its location right on the water does have one downside, however. It sits at the bottom of a VERY steep hill that you will have to walk up and down anytime you want to leave the hotel or return. For wheelchair users, I go into this a little more depth further in the review, including a photo of the hill of doom.

 

Comfort

No matter which part of the hotel we were in from our room to the pool we were incredibly comfortable. The seating in all of the dining areas is inviting and you may find yourself spending more time enjoying the atmosphere of the dining rooms than you would expect, I certainly did. The rooms are spacious and even if you’re staying in their smallest room you’ll never feel cramped or in a hurry to leave. I quite happily spent one day of our trip in my room and only left it to eat and swim in the pool. The bathroom is also perfectly sized so you don’t feel cramped, even if you have two people in it at once.

The bed and bedside chair are both very comfortable. As someone who sleeps sitting up, I rely on my husband’s opinion of the bed and there were days he didn’t feel like getting up. Sounds like a glowing review to me. I slept in the armchair next to the bed and found it much better than any other hotel room I’ve ever stayed in. It was still a little bit stiff for what I like, but miles ahead of anywhere else.

 

Staff

The staff was incredibly helpful and happy every time we interacted with them. From our midnight check in where we were greeted with juice to helping us find a wheelchair repair shop when we needed one the staff of Grand Hotel Excelsior Malta went above and beyond. You could tell that everyone working there really loves their jobs and loves interacting with guests. The cleaning staff is also ninjas. One time we had left the do not disturb sign on the door when we went out for the day. We came back to drop some things off then went to the bar downstairs to get drinks many hours later. Thinking that there wouldn’t be anyone doing housekeeping at that hour we didn’t bother with the do not disturb. We came back to find the bed made, fresh towels in the bathroom, and the trash was taken out. We were only gone 15 minutes at most! Ninjas.

Food

Depending on the time of year you visit there are three restaurants available in the hotel. In Admiral’s Landing, you have an all you can eat buffet. The cuisine served there changes depending on the night you go, but you can expect to have a variety of international flavors. Spice Island is where you go to for breakfast or lunch. Admiral’s Landing feels almost formal in its setting while Spice Island is much more relaxed. It was a nice treat, but I wouldn’t go back more than once. My husband and I aren’t very adventurous eaters and much of what was on offer just didn’t appeal.

The third restaurant is the Tiki Bar and Restaurant which is outdoors but sadly only open from June to October. We were able to walk around the bar and it looked like the perfect place to sit to watch the harbor, sadly though, the restaurant was closed when we visited.

Speaking of bars there are 4 in the hotel! One, I’ve already mentioned is the Tiki Bar, again, limited to June to October. Castaway is part of the Spice Island restaurant and only open during the restaurant’s hours. Yacht Club is the poolside bar but is only open from Mid April to Mid October. And then there’s Harbour View bar which was our favorite place to get late night drinks and sneaky slices of cake. While we were in Malta we found ourselves there every night unwinding after the long day of adventure. It was an incredibly comfortable place to sit and if you’re there during daylight hours it has a great view.

 

Wheelchairs in Grand Hotel Excelsior Malta

Getting around the hotel in a wheelchair is incredibly easy. The halls are wide and easy to maneuver in, as are the elevators. There is one small place where they could improve, however. If you want to go to the outdoor pool or down to the harbor/beach you have to go through a sliding glass door which has a rather tall lip that wheelchairs get stuck on. In my manual chair, we were able to tilt back enough to get over the lip but I’m not sure that others would be able to get through that doorway.

The other problem is one that honestly the hotel can’t do much about. It sits at the bottom of a massive hill. When you leave the hotel this is the hill you face climbing:

My husband was able to push me up the hill and hold on tight going back down again but he’s quite strong. I’m not sure that others would be able to make it and I don’t know about powered chairs.

 

Final Thoughts

The Grand Hotel Excelsior is a luxurious 5-star hotel that is centrally located to make your travel around the Malta a breeze. From the moment you check-in you are well taken care of and anything you want you can find. If you’re looking for a luxury experience in Malta you can’t go wrong by picking the Grand Hotel Excelsior as your base.

The exact price of your stay at the Grand Hotel Excelsior will vary, find out how much it will cost on booking.com.

 

My Rating: 10/10 Best hotel I’ve ever stayed in.

Find out more about my hotel rating scale here.

If you’re looking for things to do in nearby Valletta check out my post here.