Hello

I don't know if this will be of any help.

I really have no knowledge of the company that have offered you this promotion.

The new hotel in Golden Bay is (they tell me) a top quality 5 star spa resort and will be branded and managed by Radisson.

Part of the hotel will also offer time share and I would be fairly certain that they are offering you a trip on the basis that you attend a "presentation" of some kind.

http://www.islandhotels.com/goldensands/page.jsp?id=2427&siteid=6

We have already booked to stay in the hotel in August and have payed very substantially more than the £60.00 that they are asking you for.

We also stay in the Intercontinental in St Julians and they also have part of the hotel that is time share. This does not particularly bother me. Timeshare resorts are often very plush and well maintained and can be much cheaper to stay in than the "Hotel" part of the complex.

I think this all depends on the terms and conditions of what you are actually being offered and whether you trust the company who are making the offer.

If you fancy the resort then drop them a mail direct info@islandresidenceclub.com and ask them to give you a price to stay. At least this way you are in charge of situation. I can tell you though that it won't be costing you £60.00.

I doubt if either of you will be going there in August! We have just had a phone call tonight to tell us that the hotel will not be ready. We were due to be there on 7th August.

We were in Malta 10 days ago and went down to see how the new hotel was progressing. It is progressing but it is still a building site with at least three massive cranes in situ.

It looks as if it is three separate buildings although they are very close together and may well be linked.

Although the position is spectacular I still feel it is very isolated ie nowhere to go in the evening unless you use the car. OK it is only 10/15 mins in the car to St Pauls Bay or Meliehah if you want to go out for dinner but it will be no drinks for the driver!!

Hi All

I have been contacting the Golden Sands people regularly who even about three weeks ago were telling us that the hotel will 100% defenitely be open for our stay next week.

They said that the third block would be open ready and fabulous. The middle block would be finished externally but still having work inside. The third block was still being finished externally.

I phoned them yesterday to check that it would be open to be told "we were just going to call you - yeah right!!!"

From booking and paying a deposit for a two bedroom suite for two adults and a child they have booked us into the Intercontinental (good hotel and no problems with it) into a standard double room with a roll away bed for our son.

This really is pretty poor. I have upgraded our room at the Intercontinental to a suite at quite a substantial cost. I think that however good the Golden Sands is they are very likely to never have our custom in the future.

Bearing in mind the comments from the last post concerning the location being isolated! it may be a good thing that you have not gone there!

They contacted me too and offered me a week stay for just £60Stg for myself my wife and two children in a One Bedroom Suite. I was very sceptical about this at first but asked some maltese Friends to check it out for me and it is a genuine offer. At the end of the day paying £15Stg per person per week, that is just over £2.00 per person per night to stay in a luxury five star Resort leaves me speechless not exactly an offer you can turn down....yes we are obliged to take a tour of the resort and given a presentation witha view to joining the vacation club which sounds like timeshare to me. My brother bought a timeshare apartment several years ago and he is over the moon with it so I really cannot understand why people are so much against the concept....well I guess I will soon find out. As for the hotel not being ready I work in the construction industry myself and can understand and appreciate that certain delays do crop up.....I guess being a month late on such a project is not that bad after all and you say they did offer you an alternative five star hotel. Philtucker if you paid the same price as me, which I assume might be a bit more due to the larger apartment you cannot really complain. I have also spoken to a couple of freinds of mine in Malta and they have all said that it is going to be an amazing hotel probably the best one on the island. Proof of the pudding is in the eating I guess. I will let you have a report on my return

Hi Expat

We really can complain.

We did not book the deal as you are tempted to at £60.00.

We have Maltese friends who live about a mile from the Hotel. We only visit Malta to visit our friends and so for us the location is excellent.

After seeing the Hotel last year I contacted them directly and booked at that time. The hotel was costing us about £1000.00 for two weeks. OK I know that this is still very cheap for this standard of hotel but that was the price that they offered.

The booking was not made on the condition of attending any presentations etc.

I emailed them regularly and was told time after time that the hotel was going to ready. Even a couple of weeks ago after our friends in Malta called us to tell us that the Hotel would not be ready they were still telling us that it would 100% be open in time.

The Golden Sands people put us in one room in the Intercontinental. I have paid very substantially more to again have a Suite at the Inter. My problem is that by keeping us in the dark it stopped us being able to book elsewhere at a time when we could sort a decent hotel at reasonable money. By only giving us a few days we had to take pretty much whatever they offered.