For our first three nights in Malta, we decided to venture further out beyond the typical tourist areas, to stay at Damare Resort & Spa, which looked fabulous.

For our stay, we booked into a Deluxe Suite with direct beach access, three nights in which set us back – by our standards – a pretty noticeable €905.

Upon arrival, we were checked in by the very friendly Chris, and sent down to our room after the check-in formalities were complete, the €200 deposit had been authorised, and an old-school paper receipt for same furnished.

Oddly, because of the steep slope of the adjacent landscape, the hotel reception is effectively on floor 3 – and the beach access rooms involve going down to ‘ground’ level. The reception floor also includes both the bar and restaurant, while the rooftop pool involves going up a further several floors.

While I would overall say both the location – and especially the tremendous views from the rooms and the restaurant – and the staff were excellent, those will both probably be the highlights of this review, unfortunately.

First impressions generally were a little mixed – the corridor from our lift appeared as if it was somewhat still under construction, although I’m not really sure if it was, or just blocking the view of a neighbouring concrete wall?

Our room meanwhile – for a ‘suite’ felt more like a standard room that just happened to have beach access. The ‘Damare signature circular bed’ available in all their promotional pictures on booking platforms, including their own, was instead replaced by a very low wooden bed that was the same as what our next-door neighbours got simply as their outside day bed.

The bathroom, on the other hand, appeared tastefully furnished until we began to make use of it.

Aside from the lack of any shelving in the shower (shower gel bottles to be left on the floor), no matter what we did it just flooded the room very extensively. Meanwhile the toilet seat and toilet roll holder both were extremely loose – I actually took a video of both and reported it via their WhatsApp line they had provided us with for any issues – a promise that this would be resolved was made, but that just never happened during our stay, nonetheless.

On the evening of our arrival, we ventured to the restaurant upstairs for a quick dinner before bed – again, the staff were the highlight here, although the food was also quite reasonable and tasty. The local wine in particular was an oddly good value, all accompanied by a live singer.

Next morning we made our way to breakfast, where guests can order from a selection of items, or pick up fruits, pastries and breads from a buffet counter setup.

Breakfast was actually very enjoyable – though again, the stipulations on the menu that you could only order one of a hot food item, or two hot drinks maximum just felt so unnecessary and a bit cheap. Has this been such a big problem that the menu needs to include a hot drink maximum? I’ve stayed in 2-star hotels and never seen this.

Back downstairs at our ‘suite’ meanwhile, and I was little dismayed to see very average standards of attention to detail, particularly with housekeeping. Because of the bathroom / shower flood situation, we’d forgotten to throw our otherwise soaking wet towels on the floor to be changed (who wants to throw a wet towel on an already drenched floor) – needless to say, because of this, they weren’t changed. Surely some proactivity would be good? Admittedly this was on us, but it still felt like a missed opportunity.

The beach access meanwhile, while exactly what it says on the tin, only permits access to the water via a ladder due to a rocky drop. It probably wouldn’t be a ‘beach’ as many would consider it to be; and otherwise, as you can see, consists of astroturf and a series of common-use sunbeds.

I will however give the rooftop pool top marks, and this was a place we did enjoy spending time at. The views are spectacular out across the bay, and the pool is very generously sized – and in our experience, under-utilised.

In general though, considering the price, this stay just felt far less impressive than we’d have hoped; things not either delivered or resolved as expected, the needless ‘budget’ vibes with the breakfast maximums, the attention to detail. It all felt far more like a budget stay than somewhere aspiring to be a true luxury stay.