Locals are booking into hotels to get some relief amid ongoing powercuts

The options: sleep in your air-conditioned car or check into a hotel to beat the power cuts in the heatwave.

Exasperated people, craving a decent rest, have resorted to both over the last few nights, with some hotels confirming last-minute bookings to escape the scorcher in the blackouts.

Hotel Juliani, in St Julian’s is even offering a 35 per cent discount for those affected by the outages, with a promo code Local35, on its room rates for the next two days as about five were booked by residents in Malta on Tuesday night.

The boutique hotel’s website is offering “a little comfort when you need it most”, explaining that, with the ongoing power outages affecting many homes across Malta, “we would like to do our small part to help”.

General Manager George Rouvelas said one family from Mellieħa prepaid a large room at the Juliani online on Tuesday night but the electricity at their home returned just before they left. They did not show up and offered their reservation “complimentary” to someone else, he said about the generosity in times of need.

Local guests – some expats, as Maltese could also camp at their families – were extending their stay on a daily basis, depending on the erratic electricity supply.

Another five-star hotel in the area filled up its last few remaining rooms that evening – “clearly taken up by people who live here” – with eleventh-hour guests even ready to pay premium rates for top-tier accommodation.

One spared no expense to run away from the power cuts, spending over €2,000 for a night for its last available presidential suite.

Two foreign couples living in Malta thought they would escape the unbearable blackouts by resorting to rooms in a Sliema hotel, only to experience a power cut in the property upon checking in. “We do have a generator but the AC does not run on it, so they opted not to stay,” the hotel said.

While another Valletta hotel did not experience local bookings, its own chef had to leave home and check into a hotel.

Onto Sicily

Lucienne Ciantar and her husband, from the enclave known as The Village, in St Julian’s, were also among those who opted to leave home after 30 hours and counting without electricity.

They told themselves they would take it as a “little break” but their experience turned out to be quite the contrary as they hopped from hotel to hotel, racking up €1,500 in costs.

The interminable power outage led them to book their first five-star hotel in St Julian’s, only to be told by the general manager as they were heading to their room that the property was functioning on generators – meaning no AC. The couple immediately changed tack, planning to head to another hotel in the locality only to realise most were operating on generators.

The next step was Attard but that hotel was booked up and, again, not all ACs in every room were working anyway, Ciantar said. The couple continued on their trek to find a room for the night, opting for Valletta. It took them one hour to get a room in a particular hotel and it was not even clean. Apart from complaining to Enemalta about the power cuts, they also had to complain about the state of their room.

Stressed out, the Ciantars have now booked the ferry to go to Sicily instead. “We want to get out of here,” they said. “Even if the weather is hot, they do not have blackouts!”

Travelling was not the most convenient option. They had just returned from a trip to the neighbouring island and had no intentions of going back so soon. The day would be spent packing and preparing their car, Ciantar said, and, though the ferry was booked, they were still shopping around for accommodation hours before their departure.

Summing up the cost of 30 hours without electricity, Ciantar said the contents of their two American fridge freezers at home – stocked up with €1,000 worth of meat for summer barbecues – had gone to the dogs and compensation was not on the cards “because if appliances are working, there is no reimbursement for lost food”.

Apart from the hotel cost, they also had to pay for their meals, she said. But the 60-year-olds, and others on their residents’ group chat, were most annoyed by the so-called feedback they received from Enemalta, with the standard answer being “we are working on it”.

The energy ministry said it would give the couple an update when they lodged a complaint but they heard nothing back. Enemalta’s phone lines were always engaged, they said, and, when someone answered, they were told: “Just pray!”