InterContinental Hotel Malta: An Upgrading Hotel Experience

Author:
Liz Westwood
Updated:
Dec 6, 2023 12:00 PM EST

InterContinental Malta

This article combines general information about InterContinental Hotel Malta with our own experience of staying in the hotel in the following order:

About the Hotel
Location
Leisure Facilities
Food and Drink
Why We Chose to Stay
Initial Impressions
Check-In
Junior Suite
InterContinental Club Room
The Club Lounge
Indoor Pool
Afternoon Tea
The Meeting
Highline Suite
Pre-Dinner Drinks and Canapes
Breakfast in the Club Lounge
Building Work
Our Hotel Rating
Thoughts on Our Experience
Top Tips: How to Make the Most of Your Hotel Stay

1. About The Hotel

InterContinental Malta, with 481 rooms, is one of the largest hotels in this luxury brand. The lower front section of the hotel is topped by a large rooftop lagoon-style pool. Behind this, the hotel extends back around a courtyard/garden area. Opened on 18th January 2003, the original building consisted of 15 floors and was designed to resemble a cruise liner with its distinctive balcony railings. Wings extend on either side of a central block at the rear of the hotel.

Around 2015 three further floors were added; the two top floors of Highline suites and the roof area boasting the Skybeach with an infinity pool. Rooms on the lower floors are deluxe rooms, family rooms, junior suites, and clubrooms. The higher you go, the better the room and the bigger your bill. Clubrooms and above have a private check-in on the 15th floor near the club lounge.

The added floors stand out clearly from the 15 lower floors.
Eurofile

2. Location

Malta is a European island in the southern part of the Mediterranean, located 50 miles south of Sicily (Italy), 176 miles east of Tunisia, and 206 miles north of Libya. Malta gained independence from the UK in 1964. Since then the tourism industry has become very significant for the Maltese economy, as visitors enjoy its mild climate.

The residential areas around Valletta, the smallest capital in the European Union, have expanded greatly. The construction industry now seems to be involved in a competition to build the highest structure. The bays around Valletta, especially to the north are densely populated.

The InterContinental Hotel is located on Bay Street in an area called Paceville in St. Julian's. Although some sites describe the hotel as being by a beach, it is a 262-yard walk to the small beach at St. George's Bay, where the hotel has a beach club (in season) and a restaurant, Paranga.

Paceville took its name from Dr. Giuseppe Pace, who built a few summer houses in the area in the 1920s and funded a chapel. It is now known as the main nightlife hub of Malta, with nightclubs, bars, strip clubs, pubs, and restaurants. As locations go, this is not the most salubrious. Tall buildings, building sites, and cranes abound. InterContinental has a cinema and a Holiday Inn Express as neighbors with more cinema screens and a bowling alley opposite. Further down the street, there is a shopping mall with a McDonald's outlet.

Any guests looking for a glimpse of the sea would be well advised to go for a room on a higher floor, which will come at a premium. Or you could settle for an upgrade to a pool view room.

St. George's Bay tucked between the highrise buildings.

St. George's Bay.

3. Leisure Facilities

As befits a 5-star hotel, InterContinental Malta has a wide range of facilities for its guests.

Swimming

There is a choice of three pools; two outdoor, one indoor, and, of course, the beach club at St. George's Bay, down the road.

Lagoon Style Outdoor Pool

Covering an extensive area on top of the front hotel block, this pool also provides a pleasant view for those in rooms on the higher levels of the block at the rear of the hotel. There is plenty of space around it for sunbeds, along with bushes and palm trees, as well as access to sundecks on other levels.

Lagoon style pool.