Malama Beach Club Timeshare Release

We have just returned from a week at the Malama fron 21st to 28th October 2006. We were on a all inclusive arrangements. We had read the reviews with interest but did not know what to expect as it all seemed to be very good or very bad. Right from the start we were quite impressed with the settings, the gardens, the location. But we were soon to find out that we should not have chosen the all-inclusive arrangement. I chose to split my review into to parts, for and against.

FOR :

We loved the gardens, the flowers. The hotel location is fantastic. We were lucky enough to have a room overlooking the pools and the sea. Best view we have ever had.
Don’t go there though if you want fun and late nights. Go to Agya Napa. The hotel is isolated.

The staff are friendly. The waiters are from all nationalities (a lot of Russians) and try to chat with you mixing all languages which is funny.

We loved the apartments. They are huge, well equipped (we did not use any of the facilities being all inclusive), very clean. Room service is excellent. They change bed linen twice a week.

The children’s playground is fantastic. Even if the games are a little outdated, it is a huge space where my kids had a lot of fun. It is also well lit at dusk and the grass is kept very green which is rare on the island.

Evening fun is good considering it is a 3-star independent hotel . They have a mini disco on every night. Our kids love dit. We liked the Greek dancing show very much. It was very pleasant and beautiful. They also have a magician on one evening, he is brilliant. As for the other evenings, the animation team did their best. They deserve a lot of praise.

We loved the buffets. Especially the midday ones which change everyday and have local and Greek specialities. They are plentiful. The fish is excellent. Salads are brilliant. The evening buffet is nice too with different themes every night. The lack of choice is outweighed by the quality of the dishes. The drinks are HUGE. They certainly do fill your glass ! kids cocktails are 33cl and beer is pint size. The wine with the meals is served at the table in jars. It is ok if you’re not too fussy…The restaurant La Piazza is marvelous. It feels like a real village square. Great atmosphere.

The beach is pretty although small. The sea in October was 24o. It is nice an cosy and just in front of the hotel. Take your drinks there for a unique experience. If you don’t go there early, you will not find a sun bed. They belong to the council and you have to pay for them. But you can lay your Malama towel on the floor, no one bothers you. Careful with sea urchins near the rocks. I had a rather painful experience with them.

What we liked most was the indoor swimming pool, called Cava amorosa. This was tremendous. We just loved it so much, we spend a long time there every day. Look at the pictures, it is wonderful. The water is very clean albeit cool.

The gym is nice although the equipment is slightly outdated. The tennis courts are fully functional. The squash court is very nice, we use dit a lot. There was no body built instructor to annoy you, everything was left unattended and there were very few people using the sports equipment. There is a volley ball court but we did not use it. You can go jogging on the cliffs, brilliant. The sauna, steam room and jacuzzi are ok. You have to pay to use them.

There were plenty of sun beds and very well behaved people. Very few early morning sun beds reservations. Only one German towel with « reserviert » written on it was apposed every morning on the same bed. Pure heaven.

The guests were mostly English (50%), German (30%), French speaking Swiss or Canadians(10%), Russian 10%.. Nearly all of them with kids. Very few teenagers and young adults, very few pensioners. Mostly families with young kids.

There are a lot of cats running about everywhere and a lot of bats too.

AGAINST :

Definitely not a 4-star hotel. I would rate it 3-star.
Do not go all inclusive ! The main problem is that the hotel offers timeshare deals, half-board etc. There were very few guests on an all inclusive deal. We had experienced other hotels in Crete, Fuerteventura etc which were all 4-star hotels. There, all the guests were on a an all-inclusive deal and there was no fuss about what you were entitled to or not. Here, you are given a very limited list of things you can do, facilities you can use, drinks you can have etc. You don’t get a special bracelet if you’re all inclusive. When you ask for an ice-cream or a drink, they make you sign the receipt. Make sure the bill says £0. I got caught on a number of occasion ordering « non home made »ice cream for the kids or a cocktail which was not on the allowed list and signed bills which I had to settle at the end of the week.
The price we paid for the all inclusive arrangement was much too high for the value we got. This is undoubtedly due to the high standard of living in the country.

We did not like the breakfast buffet at all. There was very little choice apart from baked beans, sausages ang egg. It was the same assortment everyday.

The restaurant looks like a canteen inside, terrible taste. Plastic chairs, no decoration. Avoid the kids food , your children will end up overweight. It is all what children should not eat : fat, batter everywhere, very greasy chips, tasteless fish fingers with mashed stuff inside etc. A real shame. There is no cheese at the buffets and fruit consists of apples and bananas. The desserts are tasteless.

The animation team did their best but were obviously pleased when noone would join in. The proposed « activities » were very scarce and lasted 5 minutes.

Even if the hotel and its grounds were spotless, the surroundings were very dirty. There was litter everywhere. The path to the beach was covered with papers, empty cans, tyres etc. The hotel claims it has direct access to the beach but obviouly thinks it is not their duty to make it clean for the guests.

The pools were freezing cold. I only saw a couple of very brave children in them.

They charge you £8 for one beach towel. For us four, we had to change £32 to use the towels. They make sure you pay in Cyprus pounds so you can spend that money at the hotel shop when you return the towels at the end of your stay. One British guest shouted so much they allowed him to pay in Serling for his towels. We were not so lucky…

The mini club was a terrible let down for our kids. It was so badly organized, they preferred to stay with us at all times. We’d read the programme of activities of the children’s club on the hotel web site and my kids were looking forward to « turtle feeding », « visit to the zoo » etc. There were no turtles to be found, the visit to the nearby mini zoo was canceled for no reason at all. You had to pay extra for most of the other activities, again do not think all-inclusive means what it means at other places. It lacked atmosphere The animation staff did their best but to no avail. A terrible let down for a « kids super welcome » hotel.

The day animations are taylor-made for English people and little effort is made to entertain the other guests in their language. Animation wise, don’t trust what is written on their web site, it is out of date.

The Le Repos bar was closed all week except on our last night as it was very windy and stormy and they had closed the outside one.

We rented a car for a couple of days from the British run company on the hotel car park. We did not like the island but this is a personal appreciation. So, overall quite a nice holiday. But I wouldn’t recommend the Malama as an all inclusive resort. The hotel staff do all they can to make it resemble a real 4-star hotel but they still have some way to go yet.