Отель Топаз: ну, если Вы отчаянны… Hotel Topaz: well, if you are desperate…

I do not like to write about the negative, but speaking of the Topaz Hotel, I still have to do a lot. It’s worth going there only if you don’t expect anything from the service at all (! ) and are ready to enjoy what you have, without getting upset about what you don’t have (although it should be). I usually do this, but, firstly, these are usually not 4-star hotels, but cheap ones, sometimes without stars at all. And secondly, I did not rest in Malta, but worked, and for almost 2 months of living in a hotel, I managed to catch too much - and, apparently, accumulated.
The first thing to say is that at least two camps operate on the basis of the hotel - Education First and Perfect English. The latter is Russian-speaking, children from Russia are often sent there, so more on that.
Accommodation in the camp - 4 people per room. The vast majority of rooms are doubles. The triple of them is made without much loss, but the fourth bed has to be pushed obliquely in the aisle, sometimes it is a folding bed.

I also met beds standing directly in the corridor, as soon as you open the door. The hostel of Soviet times is resting! ))
Those who agree in advance with the company about “special” accommodation (2 or 3 people in a room, in one or neighboring rooms with a brother / sister) should be prepared for the fact that in July and August you will have to achieve the promised and paid for for a long time and with scandals. Without scandals, the administration does not react at all: the hotel is overcrowded - and that's it. What can we say about such trifles as 10-year-old boys living in the same room with 15-year-old drinking teenagers. And they cannot be resettled! The hotel is full!
Accounts when leaving the hotel are sometimes presented with the most unexpected. Huge cockroaches run around the hotel. If you ask the maid to remove the cold corpse of an insect from the room, this may be considered additional cleaning and a bill will be presented. And the 9-year-old girls who splashed water in the corridor (these are children!
), were billed almost 200 euros for the fact that the carpet was damp and had to be cleaned. So, when sending your child to camp, be prepared for additional costs.

But I especially do not envy those tourists who are adjacent to the camp! They can pour water on their balcony, throw cigarette butts, at night they can sing songs and swear at the top of their lungs. If you are not at all lucky, they will be from the balcony, sorry, to relieve themselves, throw glass bottles and set fire to airplanes. There are no rules for teenagers, of course. They paid the money, and no matter how they behave, no one will expel them from the camp. The agency will not even send letters from counselors to parents - why negative emotions for parent-clients?

In general, for those who are going to send their child to the Perfect English camp, I strongly advise you to read reviews about this camp on the Internet - and not send it.

Now about what concerns not the camp, but the hotel itself. Check-in in Topaz at 14.00, i. e.

if you arrived on a night flight (and most of them are), there is a chance that from 9 to 14 you will be sitting on your suitcases and nodding in the hotel lobby. They can settle earlier, but it's up to someone as lucky.
Almost all rooms have a balcony, but there are also those whose windows overlook the fire escape (there is no balcony, respectively), as well as those that overlook the pool on the same level with it, i. e. your entire room is viewed from the entire zone relaxing by the pool.
There is no gym, fitness center and gym in the hotel - do not believe what the hotelier writes. There is a small playground by the pool, which can be considered as a basketball court, or as a small tennis court. And there is also table tennis. All.
The pool is open, in the shape of a fish, very cute. The water is salty, sea, but chlorinated. The indoor pool (apparently it is also a jacuzzi, it is also a sauna) worked only in June. I did not have time to reach him - I worked. ((
I can not say that the hotel does not have animation at all. Three or four times I saw female animators in corporate T-shirts going somewhere with a businesslike look. But for 2 months I never managed to catch them at work - probably, I was unlucky. )) However, in the evenings there is live music and karaoke by the pool. Disco, again, I have never seen.
The beach is 10 minutes walk. To bulk “sandy” (you can consider it as coarse sand, or you can consider it as very small pebbles) - 15. The beach is not your own, but a city one, in front of the Dolmen hotel. In defense, I must say that, if I am not mistaken, in Malta, not a single beach is the property of any hotel.
The restaurant has a buffet. Drinks are free at breakfast, water is included at lunch and dinner for the camp (for the rest of the guests, in my opinion, no). The choice of dishes is quite large, however, it does not change much from day to day, salads are not particularly pleasing.

Tomatoes are fresh only on major holidays. Lots of french fries for the kids. There is always delicious pizza for dinner. Of fresh fruits (berries? ), only melons and watermelons are given. But Topaz has delicious cakes! ))) And one more thing - you can ask for ice cream, it is included in the price. Of course, not as tasty as in Italian shops on the waterfront, but still nice.
Sometimes unexpected things disappear from the rooms. That is, not those that could be stolen, but which you need. T-shirts, velcro sandals, lens cases, pajama bottoms… Apparently, the maids consider it garbage and carefully throw it away. Finding the ends is impossible. “Or maybe your sandals were not in the room before cleaning? ” I spent half a day trying to convince the hotel staff that I could have forgotten my bag or cap somewhere outside the room, but when I leave the room in shoes, I usually come back in shoes too! ))) To no avail.
Fortunately, in Malta, very inexpensive shoes are available in the boutiques of Sliema and Valletta. )))
Once, the boy's clothes were lost, handed over to the laundry. A week later (! ), however, found and returned. We never expected such a happy turn of events!
The Maltese are very fond of antiquity! And not only knight buildings, funny old buses and 120-year-old holiday curtains in the church! But also old elevators, hair dryers, plumbing, etc. ))) It is completely useless to wait for an elevator, it will be faster to go up even to the 5th floor from -1 on foot. For young people, this is not such a problem: but you can eat cakes without restrictions. ))) But the elderly, people with sore legs and just not wanting to keep their figure on vacation every day : -) will have to wait. And once, in a few hours of my daytime duty, the children got stuck in the elevator 3 (! ) times. ))) The rest of the days were not so fun: on average, we got stuck 2 times a week, not more often.
And once we had a flood in the room!

Water (and in Malta it is very expensive, desalinated sea water) dripped from two taps, and over time, more and more actively. Evening, night, morning, the next day...First the bathroom flooded, then the water began to crawl into the room - I pushed things away. Coming after. once in the room, I found that these things were already floating in the water, laid them out to dry on tables and bedside tables ...and the water slowly but surely arrives ...I went to the reception about the flood 5 times a day. As a result, the maid knocks on the room with a blanket in her hands: “You don’t have enough blankets on one bed! ” “You know, the blanket is not our biggest problem” - and I open the door, demonstrating. The reaction is amazing: “OH! Why didn't you tell the front desk? ! ” I had to repent: in between my appearances at the reception about the flood, I sometimes wedged other things. I took the problem lightly, in general.
There are many such stories!
You can relate to this in different ways, but I can say one thing with conviction: if you are used to relaxing in comfort, the Topaz hotel is not for you.