Frequent Miler's latest team challenge, Million Mile Madness, is happening now! Follow us as Greg, Nick, and Stephen compete to earn 1 Million SAS miles by flying 15 airlines before November 23rd. Who will complete the challenge with the most Speed, Affordability, and Style?
The Westin Dragonara Resort & Spa is on the island nation of Malta (which is located just south of Sicily, Italy). I just spent six nights there and walked away satisfied with the resort and thrilled with Malta as a destination despite much hotter-than-normal weather (I can’t wait to return in the future – loved Malta!). On the whole, the hotel itself wasn’t more than what you’d expect from a Westin resort, but the service was very good and the facilities were perfect for our needs.
Westin Dragonara Malta
Bottom line: The Westin Dragonara isn’t a particularly good value on points based on current cash rates, but when rates are a bit higher, it’s not a bad way to use a 50K free night certificate or two and it is a good value for the price if you have Platinum status or higher since there is a decent club lounge and Platinum members and higher can eat breakfast in the lounge or they can choose restaurant breakfast as a welcome amenity benefit.
I used one expiring 50K free night certificate plus 7,000 Marriott Bonvoy points to cover the first night of my stay (getting less-than-stellar value, but putting to use one of my COVID-extended certificates that was due to expire on 6/30). I paid a cash rate for the other five nights I spent at the Westin Dragonara for two reasons. First, the nightly rate was cheap enough so as to make Marriott Bonvoy points a relatively poor value. Second, I have written in the past that I have a very old Capital One VentureOne card that has a “Hotel Special Offers” option to redeem Capital One Miles for Marriott Bonvoy gift cards at good value. I can redeem 64,250 Capital One miles for a $900 Marriott gift card, yielding 1.4c in Marriott gift card money per Capital One mile. Most Capital One customers do not have this option, but it was apparently offered for a short time in the past and I have an old account grandfathered in to this redemption option. I had enough in resulting Marriott gift card money to cover my entire accommodation and almost all of the food charged to my room. In essence, each night was costing me about 16,500 Capital One miles (16,500 x $0.014 = $231) — and because I was paying a cash rate, I earned Marriott Bonvoy points (with Platinum status, I should get 15 points per dollar or almost 3,500 points per night of my stay). All of that combined to make paying the cash rate a much better option than using points.
Side note for those with this rare Capital One redemption option: those $900 Marriott gift cards are currently branded as St. Regis or Ritz-Carlton gift cards, but they are redeemable at any Marriott brand. For example, I used a St. Regis-branded card toward this stay without issue.
Here are the key details regarding the Westin Dragonara Resort Malta:
- Points Price: Currently 40-60K Marriott Bonvoy points per night. Bookable with the annual 50K free night certificate that comes with the Marriott Bonvoy Brilliant card or Chase Ritz-Carlton Visa Infinite (sometimes you’ll need to add some points). Alternatively, you can pay for 4 nights and stay for 5 on award stays with Marriott (the cheapest award night is free).
- Cash Price: There is a fair amount of seasonal variation. The nights that I was there, I ended up paying a cash rate of about 230 Euro per night for an ocean view room (higher than base level) with two double beds, which I upgraded using Suite Night Awards (but I gave up my ocean view when I upgraded). I saw the base level room go as low as 209 Euro per night. I kept a very close eye on rates in the months between when I booked and stayed and saw base-level rooms range from 209 to around 330 Euro per night during my dates. In fact, I originally booked an ocean-view room (higher than the base level) at about 320 Euro per night and I rebooked for 230 per night just a couple of weeks before my stay.
- Points Value: Even during my peak summertime dates in early July, point value was not particularly good against the cash rate. At the low rates I saw around 209 Euro er night, that was around 0.45c per point during my dates. However, if you are able to successfully use suite upgrade awards to snag a 1 bedroom suite (as I did), the value against cash rates becomes closer to our Reasonable Redemption Value of about 0.8c per point. Beware that the 1 bedroom suites are basically 2 regular rooms with part of the wall between them knocked out – there is no bedroom door.
- Resort Fee: None.
- Parking: Self-parking is available and free, though the garage is quite small compared to the size of the resort. That surprisingly wasn’t an issue during my stay. However, the day I left, people were waiting in the garage for spaces to open so they could park.
- Turndown service: Nightly refresh of towels / bath amenities and bottles of water (when we were in the room, they always asked how many bottles we wanted and gave us plenty).
- Housekeeping: Every day for all guests. We did have to call one day when it seemed like they forgot and hadn’t cleaned the room as of about 5pm, but most mornings this magically happened while we were out at breakfast.
- Internet: Speeds seemed good. I had no trouble streaming / downloading files throughout the resort.
- Dining:
- There are currently a number of dining options:
- Terrace Grill: Serves buffet breakfast each morning (indoors, outdoors by the pool, or in sort of a middle-ground area that is covered and cooled but with a lot of natural light).
- Quadro: Upscale / “fine” dining Mediterranean restaurant (I heard that this had a Portuguese-leaning menu, but we didn’t try this restaurant unfortunately). Open Tuesday-Saturday from 7pm-10pm.
- Palio’s Trattoria & Grill: Italian / Mediterranean restaurant with a family atmosphere (plenty of other families with kids ate here). Open 6:30pm-10:00pm 7 days a week and on Sunday from 12:30pm-2:30pm. We ate at Palio’s twice and the pasta dishes exceeded our expectations. The proscuitella (bruchetta with Parma ham, fig chutney, and ricotta cheese) was worth ordering twice.
- OVRM (Lobby bar / restaurant): There was a bar in the main lobby and they served a wide range of the food found on the menus of the various resort restaurants.
- Room service: available 24/7. We ordered room service a couple of times and it was fine, but not great. The menu can be found here.
- There are currently a number of dining options:
- Spa: The spa is open by appointment only. It looked nice, but I didn’t go inside.
- Fitness Room: The Westin Workout fitness center looked nice enough with plenty of “TechnoGym” branded equipment. I didn’t get a picture as there was a full time attendant at the door and each time I stopped by people were working out and there wasn’t a good way to take a picture. Note that the gym is not open 24/7. It was open 6am to 10pm during weekdays and 7am to 7pm on weekends and public holidays.
- Marriott Bonvoy Elite Benefits:
- Suite Upgrade: I used a total of six Suite Night Awards. I reserved the first night of my stay using an expiring 50K free night certificate plus 7K Marriott points and applied a suite upgrade. Out of the many upgrade options offered (mostly simply upgrades in view), the only upgraded room I chose for my suite night award was a 1 bedroom Executive ocean view suite and that upgrade was confirmed 5 days in advance. My other 5 nights were a cash rate reserved separately. My suite upgrades did not confirm into that same suite as it was not available for the rest of my stay. When I inquired at check-in, they had me set to switch rooms after the first night. I asked if there was a suite available for my entire stay and I was initially offered the ability to buy up to an ocean view suite for an additional 350 Euro per night on top of my cash rate (which would have been about 580 total). I declined that and we settled on redeeming my suite night awards for a 1 bedroom “Garden View” suite that had a sliver of Mediterranean Sea view. Since I was traveling with two kids, the additional space of the suite meant more to me than the sea view.
- Club Lounge: There is a club lounge on the top floor with lovely views of the restaurants and water. Offerings were quite good compared to reports I’ve seen from other lounges. Beyond breakfast, the lounge offered assorted snacks every afternoon from 12pm-5pm including cakes, muffins, fresh fruit and assorted nuts as well as pre-packaged snack bars, crackers, and breadsticks along with coffee and soft drinks. An evening “happy hour” was offered from 6pm-8pm with complimentary wine and beer and a fairly substantial selection of appetizers. Note that children are not allowed in the lounge during the evening happy hour (It was explained during check-in that this was because they were serving alcohol. I didn’t totally understand that since they also serve alcohol at the lobby bar and restaurants where children are welcome to dine with their families, but neither did I intend to use the lounge with our kids in the evening so it was a non-issue for me. Maybe this was because the alcohol is self-serve?). My wife witnessed one guest who was quite upset that he had paid for a room with lounge access and his son could not eat the evening hors d’oeuvres and I could understand that frustration since I had been unaware of the policy prior to check-in.
- Free Breakfast: Served daily in the club lounge and in the main restaurant (7am-10:30am). The lounge had a fairly abbreviated version of what was offered in the main restaurant (a handful of the same pastries, cured meats/cheeses, and a selection of fruits). The lounge had a toaster and also had sparkling wine to make Mimosas (I did not see any sparkling wine in the restaurant). As a Platinum member or higher, you can choose restaurant breakfast as your welcome amenity (and you should over 1,000 points or a “local amenity”, which I believe was a $10 food & beverage credit). Restaurant breakfast was extensive with a nice mix of local/regional specialties and both sweet and savory dishes. There was plenty of variety to mix it up each day.
- 4PM Late Checkout: I didn’t need or ask for late checkout on this stay.
- Would I stay again? Yes, I probably would if I were traveling to Malta with kids again. The club lounge offerings were perfect for a family traveler (my kids often eat a lunch consisting of mostly fruit, so the club lounge was a perfect afternoon stop to refuel between breakfast and dinner) and we would probably try out the kids club next time. If a beach were important to me, I’d head to the Radisson Golden Sands (we stopped by the beach in front of that property and though crowded it was quite pretty). If I were after good point value, the Hyatt Regency may win out, but I would more likely than not end up at the Westin again.
- Westin Dragonara pros:
- Great service. Every staff member seemed to reply to every request with “of course” and they mostly came through with their promises.
- Club lounge attendants were terrific and afternoon snack options (and evening appetizer options for adults) were substantial enough to stand in as a light meal.
- The food was pretty good overall, particularly at Palio’s Trattoria (though many of the same dishes from Palio’s are also available at the lobby bar and may be as good there).
- The pool had two jacuzzi tubs to the side that were the opposite of hot tubs: they featured very cold water (much colder than the main pool) with jacuzzi jets. That created a nice break from the heat (while the Internet tells me that temperatures in Malta rarely exceed 94º in July, we had several days of 100º+ weather during my stay).
- There is a casino basically on-site (the Dragonara Casino is located behind the hotel and is accessible by the hotel road that runs along the main restaurants). I list this as a pro because I believe this is a unique feature for the Westin over other properties in Malta. On the other hand, see the “cons” (in short, the casino is tiny and it can take forever to get in the door).
- There is a Kids club and rates seemed reasonable
- Rooms featured plenty of international outlets! I am a stickler for a hotel placing appropriate outlets near the bed and the Westin did a great job here with a strip of international outlets on one side of the bed and a single international wall outlet on the other side.
- Westin Dragonara cons:
- Our “Suite” wasn’t really a suite in the true sense. The resort has essentially taken two rooms and knocked down most of the wall between them to create “suites” with one side being a living room with pull-out sofa and a dining room table and the other side being a traditional bedroom (the bathroom is enlarged because it seems to incorporate the entire space of what would have been 2 separate bathrooms before the rooms were combined into a suite). This creates a lot of space but in one large open space. There is no door separating the bedroom from the living room / dining area. The room is billed as featuring 2 balconies, but that’s just because the bedroom and living room have separate adjacent balconies (which makes sense since I imagine they were originally separate rooms)
- The resort swimming pool was big enough, but not very interesting (no waterfall-like features or slides as you may find at some resorts). There was a secondary pool, but it was long walk from the rooms as it was across the road and down some stairs (we didn’t spend any time there).
- Our room had an off-putting smell at times throughout our stay. It wasn’t a huge deal but we did mention it to the front desk and were told someone would check on it and they never followed up. It wasn’t enough of an issue for us to pursue changing rooms.
- The casino was very small. When I stopped by on a Tuesday night, there were 3 or 4 table games (limits started at $5) and two roulette tables as well as a poker room with the final table of a daily tournament and a single cash game table of no limit hold-’em. There were of course many slot machines, though overall the casino was far smaller than what you’ll find at any place in Vegas or Atlantic City and smaller than most I’ve visited outside the US as well. Furthermore, to get into the casino, you need to join the players club by providing your passport, home address, mobile number, occupation, and the hotel where you are staying. That process was slow and resulted in a line at the door to get in on both occasions I stopped by to check out the casino (I gave up the first time and only stayed on the line the second time to be able to report on what the casino was like). Once you have a players card, you enter through a separate line that moves much more quickly.
- There is no sandy beach. Adults can swim in the ocean in a couple of places around the property (and we did see plenty of adults in the water), but there was no children’s swimming area.
- If you are COVID-concerned, this is probably not the place for you. Breakfast is a full serve-yourself-style affair and you’ll be squeezing between tables to get to and from the buffet, etc. There are elements of COVID-era precautions still being practiced (some staff had masks, there were plastic barriers at the check-in area, things seemed well-cleaned), but the experience was mostly pre-pandemic-like. This is surely a positive point for some, but I’m listing it under cons for those who aren’t yet ready to return to a pre-pandemic style of travel. To be clear, we were comfortable with everything during our stay, but even as recently as a few months ago we probably wouldn’t have been.
Pictures
The Room
The Club lounge
Westin Dragonara Kids Club
I didn’t take any pictures inside the kids club, but here are rates and activities and the playground outside the kids club.
Westin Dragonara restaurant Breakfast
The breakfast buffet was quite large, taking up about three full rooms. The pics below represent a selection from breakfast, but there was truly enough variety to satisfy most people for several days. Not pictured, but I highly recommend finding the chickpeas and cannellini beans if you enjoy the flavors of olive oil and garlic. Never have I eaten so many beans/chick peas at breakfast!
Westin Dragonara dining
A few dinner pictures:
Facilities:
Want to learn more about miles and points? Subscribe to email updates or check out our podcast on your favorite podcast platform.
Would you mind sharing your flights and/or redemptions for this trip?
Thanks for a great review, Nick. Were you able to check out the other Marriott on the island to compare? We may hop over on a ferry ride from Sicily to stay a night or two, but the Marriott is 40k points per night instead of 50k (I wanted to use free night cert, but that extra 8k could book a cheap hotel somewhere else). Was it really worth the 58k?
I’ve been visiting Malta for a few years now and considered staying here but I always found it to be too far away from the centres, my personal favourite is the recently refurbished Marriott as Balutta Bay [ ex le Meridian ] . Just a perfect stay!
I’ll be back there is November for my summer holiday!!
Would you recommend this over the Westin? It is cheaper on points too!
Great review. We spent a week in Malta way back in late November 2006, long before most Americans had ever heard of it, and before all the cruise ships started calling there. We stayed in this hotel back then on my corporate rate – very inexpensive. Looks like the property has been greatly improved since that time.
Loved Malta and rode the buses everywhere. There is so much history and a lot to do, but more geared to adults than kids. We did have a cruise ship port day back in 2009, but I would love to return again for another multi-day stay..
Malta is fantastic. I was just there for three weeks in February. This was my second trip to Malta. My first visit I stayed at both the Dragonara and the Hilton Resort, right around the corner from the Dragonara. One of my three weeks on this trip was spent at the Hyatt Regency, and the Intercontinental. The other two weeks I had a penthouse rental on the harbor in a small fishing town south of St Julians. There are several Unesco World Heritage sites on both Malta and Gozo. The fortifications in the harbor of Valleta are truly stunning, and a boat tour around the harbor is definitely recommended. There is without question more than a week’s worth of things to do on Malta. One comment regarding roads and driving, the roads are some of the crappiest I have encountered anywhere in Europe, and it it should be noted that driving is on the left hand side. The island bus network appears to be extensive, so a car is probably not necessary however.
Going this coming February & booked at the Hilton but also considering the Hyatt Regency, any preference between the two? I have Hilton Diamond or could book a GoH with the wife’s Globalist.
Both hotels have their merits. If you are fine with limited and slightly distant water views, I think the HR is a good choice. It is also the smaller of the two hotels by quite a bit, with more limited facilities. I was given a nice upgrade as a Globalist, and the breakfast benefit was quite good. There is a nice small beach right down the street from the hotel, and there is a rooftop pool
I popped into the Hilton when I was staying nearby at the HR this winter, and it looks like it’s been well maintained. I stayed there fifteen years ago, when I first visited Malta. In terms of location, you are right on the water, but there is no beach. I was Gold at the time of my stay and IIRC, they had a nice lounge, and I do remember getting breakfast in the dining room, which was good, but obviously this may or may not still be true.
How was the location?
Good. I wouldn’t call it “great” because I’d be happier if it could be in Valetta or Medina, but on the other hand I’m not aware of any chain hotels in either of those cities so that’s not a realistic “want”. It was easy to walk from the resort right into town (out of the driveway, turn right and walk down hill for less than 5 minutes and you’re in the middle of a bustling little bay area with restaurants and stores (and a “mature” sort of vibe); turn left out of the driveway and go down a couple of blocks and then make a right and in 6 or 7 minutes you’re in a sort of young clubbing / hookah bar scene. Valetta, Medina, and the airport are all about 30 minutes away by car — though if I didn’t have kids and I were comfortable with public transit I might have skipped the car since buses seemed to cover the major areas quite well.
The big downside is no sandy beach, but that’s not very common in Malta it seems. The Radisson Golden Sands sits above a sandy beach, but not exactly on it (you’d be walking down a bunch of stairs) and it is farther afield from the major tourist sites.
Thanks for the elaborate reply. I’m considering staying at the Hyatt in Malta but up until now I hadn’t read anything about the island or points hotels there from what I’d call a reputable source.
Great review! Any chance you stayed at the Marriott Malta also? Would love to see a review on that property.
I did not. There was definitely part of me interested in that and also interested in the Radisson properties (mostly the Golden Sands one) and the Hyatt Regency, etc. With two young kids, hotel hopping just doesn’t appeal to me the way it would have pre-kids.
Agree completely Nick. Stayed here for 3 nights in August 2018 and loved Malta. The country is a hidden gem for us Americans. The weather is perfect and the food is outstanding.
The hotel is nice and the breakfasts are good. We had an awesome ocean and pool view upgrade, but the room was a little dated at that time. Would definitely stay at this property again, even for 50k pts.
Agreed that it feels like a hidden gem in the sense that I’ve not heard many people talk about it before. At some point, I said that I feel like Malta has a marketing problem because it seems like such an easy sell for Americans yet I’ve not seen it advertised much before. That said, I heard what felt like a surprising number of Americans given my impression that it isn’t such a well-known destination, so maybe I’ve just been living under a rock.
Good point on the marketing problem. I remember reading somewhere after we returned that at that time, only something like 30k Americans visited Malta the previous year. I may be misremembering the stat, but if that’s true, it shows the opportunity the country has to increase tourism.
They certainly seem to be working on increasing capacity. I haven’t seen so many cranes in such a small land area anywhere ever. We said that they must be importing crane operators from other countries because there is no way there were enough local crane operators to support that much demand.
Malta is huge in the “retire abroad” community. It has easy foreign residency, cheap rent, and a “retirement climate”.
@ Nick why Malta?
We originally had a cruise scheduled but cancelled back in February. We didn’t cancel our flight to Europe and eventually decided to go somewhere. We were talking about maybe Corsica, then my wife sent me a message and said “Malta?”. I Googled pictures and replied, “Malta!”.
In short, it has beautiful old towns and architecture that you would want in a European destination but also has gorgeous clear tropical-like water, it’s small (easily manageable by car), English is an official language (not much of a concern for me in general, but obviously makes life easier), food is very Mediterranean of course (we love Mediterranean food) and prices were pretty reasonable. There’s a lot of interesting history that I’d like to explore more, but I could have taken days strolling around Valetta and Medina if my kids were a little older.
Thank you for adding a Covid concerned viewpoint to your review.
You’re welcome. Glad you found it helpful.
Great hotel review Nick! Looking forward to hearing about the rest of your trip to Malta 🙂
Although I know you guys don’t tend to do location articles I too am interested in hearing about Malta. Maybe in the Facebook FMI group if it’s not appropriate for the blog?
I hope you were able to avoid the plague of jellyfish in the Mediterranean this year.
I intend to do a post like Greg’s old “less words, more pictures” sort of trip reports. Keep in mind that I’ve got two young kids, so I skipped some sights that others would surely go see. It was still great! More to come.
We found a safe enough beach the one day, but a waiter at the Westin did warn us of the jellyfish and showed us his arm from a sting a few days prior.
I have the same arm, from two or three weeks ago. Hurt like a. . . thing that hurts a lot.
Yeah, my wife got stung by a Portuguese man o’ war a few years ago and I certainly got the impression that it did hurt like that thing.
They have them there too? I was hoping that they confined themselves to Florida.
We were in The Azores early last month, and ran into them there too.
Maybe a really stupid question, but I didn’t realize Marriott Gift Cards worked overseas. Do you just have the hotel charge the room in USD, dealing with whatever conversion rate they assign?
That’s a great question. I’ve used them in many countries. I’ve actually never asked how they handle the currency conversion — it’s always been more or less what I expected. I say that because it has never been a situation where I want to use a gift card and it’s just like “Ok, swipe here” and I choose which currency to be charged — it’s always a situation where I have to leave the cards with a manager for a couple of hours to figure out how to redeem them and then I come back and it’s done and frankly I’ve never been concerned enough to dig into it (and I feel like most managers might want their employees to do what’s worst for the customer regarding currency conversion but they likely don’t want to come across personally as being that cheap, so I’ve (perhaps incorrectly) assumed that the average overseas manager will handle it in a way that does not intentionally rip me off).
However, I just looked over my folio from Malta and the folio shows Euros getting charged to each gift card — though it certainly could have been a dynamic currency conversion that they used to get to that point. However, it looks like the rate I got is about 1.043 USD per Euro. It really should have been about 1.02 per euro based on official rates. That’s close enough for me, but in fairness it does change the math a little bit and I could see it being a factor.
I should have also noted that I went through a shopping portal and I expect to get 6% cash back as well