5 days at the Hilton Malta with kids

Malta isn’t a country I’d ever spared a thought for before we moved to Sicily, but since we arrived we’ve been consistently told we needed to go visit. At the end of last month, we finally did! This trip has actually been in the workings for the better part of a year because I wanted to use hotel points to stay in a nice hotel on the island. We landed at the Hilton Malta for our first “resort-y” vacation and really enjoyed the experience! 5 days in Malta.

Straight off the bat, I will say this vacation was a major departure for us, style-wise. Usually, we opt for AirBnBs or apart-hotels that would not be considered “fancy” by any stretch (I’m looking at your, fourth-floor walkup above a sex shop!). We also usually have ambitious plans to see a lot. During our four days in Belgium, for example, we visited Brussels, Bruges, Bastogne and Ghent. Eight days in Scotland had us in Edinburgh, Stirling, Oban, Balmarca/Isle of Skye, Loch Ness and Pitlochry. (Shoot, I still haven’t written about those last two, have I?). Needless to say, we are usually BUSY.

This was … basically the opposite. We came with no more than a vague idea of what to see in Malta, and ultimately ended up playing at the hotel a lot of the time. We took a few trips out and about, by overall the theme of this trip was relaxing. I weirdly had some guilt about this — like we weren’t taking advantage of our opportunity to see Malta the way we have with other countries — but honestly: it was exactly what we needed.

As I mentioned, it’s been a crazy busy summer. At the time of this trip, the kids were a few days from starting school. And while I’ve been lucky that the newbie is making me only perhaps only 15 percent as sick as the previous two did (weeks 6-13 with both Fi and Owie were pretty awful), at 10 weeks the exhaustion was pretty much at its peak this trip. While I’d normally never specifically plan a “babymoon” trip in first-trimester because of how sick I typically am, by pure coincidence it worked out perfectly that we were taking this specific trip at this specific time.

So, we relaxed. We played. We ate all the things. And it was awesome!

Pssst. Speaking of pre-baby trips, my fellow blogger The Travelling Mom has some great ideas about the best babymoon destinations around the world! 

5 days in Malta with kids: our trip

Where we stayed: the Hilton Malta

I’ve been scheming to use points to stay at a resort in Malta for more than a year now (as I described here!). Since there are four of us, I had to shop around a bit before concentrating my efforts on a specific points program. We went with Hilton Malta in St. Julian’s because the hotel both had amazing reviews and offered rooms with two queen-size beds at a rate of 50,000 points/night. We booked five nights at a cost of 200,000 Hilton points using the “fifth night free” perk. 5 days in Malta. 

To accomplish this, I used signed up for two Hilton cards: the American Express Hilton Ascend card ($95 per year fee) and the American Express Hilton card (no annual fee). The combination of these two, plus the minimum spend, easily got us to the 200,000. I wasn’t going to keep the Ascend card originally (it was a Surpass when I first got it), but since they eliminated the foreign transaction fees it gets to stay in my wallet longer after all for one main reason: Hilton gold status.

Right now, it would be even easier to get these points because the signup bonus for the Hilton Ascend card is 150,000 points after a $3,000 minimum spend. At the time I signed up, it was only 100,000 and I thought that was good, ha. If you are interested in getting one, please consider using my referral link to do so: http://refer.amex.us/KASEYHFbLv?XLINK=MYCP

With the gold status, we got extra perks like an upgraded room and access to the priority lounge. Since they offered free drinks (alcoholic and nonalcoholic) and snacks in the lounge every day between 6 and 8 pm, we ended up in there every day. The kids especially liked that they had games on hand, so we’d sit on the lounge balcony, snack on everything and play games for a couple hours before dinner. Probably the best perk was the free breakfast though; the spread at the hotel was epic, but much more expensive than we’d normally go for. Being able to walk downstairs to an amazing breakfast every morning was fabulous!

If you don’t like cards with fees, you could go for the no-fee Hilton Honors Amex card! Right now, the bonus is 100,000 points with only a $1,000 minimum spend. We got this one for Chris already in preparation for us future trips! Only downer is that it doesn’t come with gold status. If you are interested in applying, please consider using my referral: http://refer.amex.us/KASEYH6vgn?XLINK=MYCP

We ended up eating at several of the hotel’s restaurants, and our adult favorite was the Thai restaurant on sight (Blue Elephant) that was both delicious and really cool looking. The kids, on the other hand, preferred the two nights that we ate at the Hilton’s Oceana restaurant’s massive themed buffets (and I’m sure this had nothing to do with the amazing dessert spread). Another benefit of traveling with young children? Both kids ate free there. Ha!

I’ll get into more of what we did at the hotel down below, but overall I will say we were extremely impressed with the staff at the Hilton Malta. Even before we arrived, they were very responsive to our requests, including helping us to order a birthday cake for Fiona that was dropped off in our room that morning. The housekeeper decorated our room for her birthday as well! Every single person we met was extremely friendly and helpful, staff members remembered our names and we just felt completely pampered. Literally, in the case of our spa visit.

How we got there:

We took the quickest flight that any of us have ever been on, from Catania to Malta! We considered taking a ferry since that seemed like a cool idea (and we could bring our car), but it our surprise we found it was much more expensive than flying. So, RyanAir is was! The flight was hilarious because we were either ascending or descending almost the entire time: I timed it, and there were 7 minutes when the plane was leveled off and the seatbelt sign off. From the Malta airport, we took a 20-minute cab ride to the Hilton Malta. So almost the same amount of time we were in the air.

What we ate in Malta:

We ate our heads off while in Malta. To the extent that I’m pretty sure all my “first-trimester weight gain” can actually be traced back those five days. While Malta reminded us in some ways of Sicily, the variety of food available there was so much bigger! As I mentioned, we ate at the hotel a LOT. But when we went out, we also visited an Irish pub (where I got nachos, because I haven’t seen nachos on a menu in ages, ha!), a Thai restaurant (twice), got Indian takeout and had fantastic burgers. We also kept up our tradition of eating McDonald’s in every country we’ve been to. #noshame.

Our favorite meals were:

Cafe Cuba: We liked this place so much, we ended up eating there twice. This one was a crowd-pleaser as far as the food went, plus it had a nice outdoor seating area with a view of the marina. It had an excellent varied menu, but I ended up getting the same burger twice because after the first one I couldn’t stop thinking about it. #pregnancyproblems.

Blue Elephant: This Thai restaurant was actually at our hotel, and it was delicious. Once again, we went here twice. Chris and I got takeout to our room one night (while the kids ate room-service chicken nuggets, which gave them basically the BIGGEST THRILL for whatever reason) and then we went there ourselves on DATE NIGHT. If we go back though, we’d definitely take the kids because the inside of it was really, really cool.

What we did during our 5 days in Malta

Other than eating, you mean? Mostly swimming! The Hilton Malta had tons of pools (I want to say 7?) and we were in them about twice a day. Our favorite was this huge salt-water pool that was pretty much the perfect depth for our little swimmers. We visited the other pools as well, but this one was pretty consistently our favorite.

Visited Valletta:

We also arranged a water taxi to take us to the town of Valletta, the capital of Malta. It was a quick and somewhat choppy ride to get there, which Chris, Fiona and I loved but it turned out kind of terrified poor Owen. Sorry, buddy! (We took a regular cab back).

Valletta was a cool city, but we were hampered by the fact that we — for whatever reason — chose to go at the hottest possible time of the day. In August. In Malta. So, we pretty much melted.

That said, Fiona and I got to see the opulent St. John’s Co-Cathedral in Valletta (Chris and Owen were hot and uninterested, so they opted to go sit this one out). The cathedral was built in the 1570s by the Order of St. John, a medieval Catholic military order. On the outside it isn’t that impressive looking, but the inside is just WOW.

From there, we moved on to Fort Saint Elmo on the coast. We were originally feeling a bit discouraged by our walk around the fort as there wasn’t a ton of stuff to see and it was hot hot hot hot hot so hot we’re going to die it’s so hot, but eventually we figured out where the military museum within the fort was.

The museum — which was mercifully air conditioned — was definitely worth it in our books. Before our visit, I honestly had no idea that Malta was of such strategic importance during War War II. Churchill referred to the island as “an unsinkable air craft carrier,” a vital launching pad for the Allied efforts in North Africa.  Probably the most impressive part of the museum exhibit was a video representation of the journey of an enormous convey of warships and merchant vessels sent to resupply Malta, which was then under siege by the Axis powers seeking to deprive the Allies of this vital asset. The extent of the losses was hard to fathom, but a testament to the sailors who continued on in the face of such adversity.

Visited the Malta National Aquarium 

On Fiona’s birthday, we opted for a visit to the Malta National Aquarium in St. Paul’s Bay. I would say it was a little overpriced in my opinion — it really isn’t that big — but the kids enjoyed themselves very much.

We actually spent just as much time at the playground right next door to the aquarium, which was a typically European hazardous affair. I had about 90 heart attacks watching Fiona climb stuff, but of course she did great.

Got our nails done at the Hilton Malta spa 

So, this was a Fiona and I special event! On her birthday, I took her to get her fingernails and toenails painted for the first time. She was so thrilled! (Though less happy when the paint immediately came off in the chlorine pool,ugh!). I also got a pedicure, which is still flawless more than two weeks later since I stuck to the salt water pool. Lesson learned!

Date night!

Chris and I also took the opportunity of having a hotel babysitter to go on an early anniversary date! The babysitter recommended by the hotel was excellent and affordable at 10 euro an hour, and she had the kids asleep by the time we got back. Winning all around! We had a low-key evening getting dinner and drinks, having concluded we were too tired to do anything more ambitious.

So, that about it for our trip to Malta! If you’ve been there, it is possible that you are now screaming some combination of, you didn’t go to the Blue Grotto? or I can’t believe you missed Gozo! or no Blue Lagoon?? or what about Mdina? 

… yeah, I know. That’s what round 2 will be for!