Visiting Malta after lockdown

Hello! Per usual, it’s been a while since I’ve posted. But, it’s been for a good reason — against the odds, this summer has turned out to be a fun and busy one for our family, albeit quite different than summers past (more on that in another post). Earlier this month, we were able to leave the island for the first time since Italy’s long lockdown. Actually, this was our first time flying since the beginning of December — definitely the longest stretch of us staying exclusively on Sicily since we arrived here in 2016. It was so nice to be able to travel again!

First, I want to start by talking a little about our decision to travel. Only a few months ago it felt like we’d never be able to go anywhere again. Italy’s numbers were very bad (although Sicily’s were always much, much lower than the rest of the country) and our lockdown was strict. As in, our children did not leave our home for months. Chris and I could essentially only leave to grocery shop once in a while. Even people with dogs (not us) were allowed to venture no more than a few hundred meters from their homes if the pet needed to be walked. Failure to comply could lead to big fines.

The thing is though, the lockdown accomplished what it was supposed to. While letting down our guard would absolutely be a mistake, our numbers have plummeted. People here are  (ahem) very compliant with wearing masks and as such, things have opened up here considerably. Because Sicily’s numbers in particular have been so low, Malta — when it opened on July 1 — included it on a list of countries in a “safe corridor” from which it would accept tourists. Malta also happens to be one of the European countries that best avoided Covid-19; as of this writing, the island had suffered 9 total deaths from the virus. On top of that, while airplanes aren’t actually known for being clean, we knew that masks were being required for all passengers from ages 3 years and up. All in all, we felt that if Malta was comfortable accepting us, we were comfortable going.

Anyway, I will get to the airport experience a little later but first — the fun stuff we did in Malta!

Three days in Malta with kids

1. Popeye’s Village!
2. Splash pad in St. Paul’s Bay
3. Swam in the pool at our AirBnB
4. Ate (I know, you are all just shocked!)

I’ve written before about our last visit to Malta two years ago, when we stayed at the Hilton Malta for five days and had a great time celebrating Fiona’s fourth birthday. This was an absolutely low-key trip, so if you are looking for more activities definitely check out that post — we visited various sites in Valletta, went to the Malta National Aquarium and more.

Once again, we did not end up going to the Blue Lagoon. We had considered taking the Hornblower tour to Comino, Gozo and the Blue Lagoon — a trip that was highly recommended by a friend and includes a SLIDE from the boat into the sea — but all the options were seven to eight hours long, and that seemed possibly a little overwhelming with the baby. Next time!

By far our entire family’s favorite activity was our visit to Popeye’s Village in Mellieha! The village was built as the film set for the 1980 Popeye movie, and since then it has been converted into a kids’ tourist destination. We went into it not really knowing what to expect and thinking we’d maybe spend half our day there, but instead we stayed almost until closing.

The place was charmingly cheesy, with various Popeye characters running around interacting with kids, periodic musical performances and the like. But we ended up having so much fun! The kids like playing in the (relatively small) pool and especially running around in a playground set on top of a baby pool, which was basically perfect for Lochlan but still amusing enough for the bigs.

Other activities included a small mini-golf course, a small museum of Popeye memorabilia, a screening of the movie (we did not do this) and a whole bunch of oversized games, including giant Connect Four and Checkers.

The thing we were most excited for was a series of floating water trampolines and obstacle courses in the sea, which Chris took the kids to do while Lochlan slept on my chest on one of the nice beds set up in the shade. I will say that if you are going to do this one, water shoes are a must — all three of them hurt their feet because of all the rocks. They also found it more challenging than expected (especially for Chris, who also managed to get a giant scratch on his leg), but the kids loved it!

We also had a fantastic lunch at the Popeye’s Village, with a view that could not be beat.

All in all, I think that our extremely positive experience at the Popeye’s Village was also helped by the fact that there were so few other people there. While that’s not great for business, it was great for us in terms of basically having the run of the place. 

Since this was such a short trip — really only two full days — this was our big activity of the weekend. Saturday, we mostly spent swimming in the pool at the apartment we rented, walking around the St. Paul’s Bay downtown, dining outside at restaurants (yay!) and visiting the local splash pad.

St. Paul’s Bay seemed a lot quieter and more family-friendly than St. Julians, the busy town where we stayed last time. Obviously some of that “quiet” was that we were there just 10 days after the country had reopened to tourism, but one of our cabbies also told us that it is more of a family place than St. Julian’s, so I imagine it will still be true for you future-readers.

Our apartment was about a two-minute walk to Bugibba Square, a busy area packed with restaurants and shops, as well as to the sea. The beachfront was quite small over there so we didn’t end up spending any time on it, but we enjoyed the beach breeze all the same.

Our best meal was Thai takeaway from Benjawan Thai, but we also enjoyed Fat Harry’s Pub and particularly The Donut Factory, where we ended up every single morning.

Traveling to Malta from Italy after lockdown: how we got around

While there are ferries that can take you between Sicily and Malta, we flew. It is cheap and takes about 20 minutes in the sky, so for us it was a no-brainer. The Catania airport has made some changes post-covid, my favorite of which was warning signs advising us to avoid the “promiscuous use of water bottles.” As of now, only people who are actually flying are allowed inside the airport and masks are strictly required. Per usual, check-in at the Catania airport was a bit of a zoo with only a couple people working a long line. Also as usual, it was absurdly hot in there — so much for our theory that fewer bodies = reasonable temperatures!

The airport in Malta was an absolute dream, we were through both check-in and security literally within minutes. AND it had adequate air-conditioning!

Once we were in Malta, we used eCabs for anywhere we couldn’t walk. This is far from the cheapest option, but Malta in July is HOT and we were not at all inclined to figure out the public buses. Reserving taxis was super easy using the eCabs website, which also allowed us to request car seats. If you are looking for the easy way around, I recommend this!

Overall, visiting Malta was a great first jump back into travel! I have no doubt we’ll be back again some day. 

The post Our first post-lockdown trip: Malta first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post Our first post-lockdown trip: Malta appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.

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!

The post 5 days at the Hilton Malta first appeared on Babies With Backpacks.

The post 5 days at the Hilton Malta appeared first on Babies With Backpacks.