Qawra, Canifor Hotel Review

Overall Rating

Everything!

None for the holiday - see general comment for Thomas Cook.

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.