Sands Apartments

I had a one-person apartment with a little courtyard outside the room. It’s a great base for diving in Malta, with spacious, comfortable rooms and a brilliant basement drying room where you can rinse and hang all your dive gear. I’d definitely recommend it.

The owners are friendly, helpful, and relaxed, and the apartment is great value. Though not especially large, it feels spacious. Essentials are provided for the first day, with plenty of shops within walking distance for anything else. There’s also a small basket of usable things left by guests who can’t take them home. From St. Paul's bay, you can get around the island easily by rental car, with free street parking. Without a car, there’s a bus stop only a few metres from the apartment, so you can still reach all over the island.

They list check-out at 9:30 a.m., which is far too early, or you can pay €25 to stay a few more hours. I had packed and waited for the cleaner, who didn’t show up until 11:30, so there didn’t seem to be much rush to clean the apartment. There are a lot of extra charges. Cleaning is €15 an hour, and a welcome pack with basics like toilet paper costs €20. Air conditioning costs extra too: you have to buy prepaid electricity cards from the office, and an hour is roughly 50 cents. When it’s 37 degrees outside, it’s hard to sleep without it. The apartment was already expensive, so paying more for air conditioning felt like too much. The apartments themselves aren’t too bad, but all these issues made the stay poor. I’d choose somewhere else.

We were diving with Maltaqua, and the drying room was fantastic. We could leave our wet kit there instead of carrying it back to the apartment, then return home with everything washed and dry. The location is just around the corner from the dive centre, while still away from the over-commercialised tourist centre. Our room was spacious and clean, the bins were emptied regularly, and there were plenty of ways to recycle. After arriving late, we really appreciated the complimentary tea, coffee, cereal, milk, bread, and butter the next morning. The kitchen was good enough for meals in and packed lunches.