Estival Torrequebrada

Me and my partner visited this hotel at the end of October and I was so happy with our value for money! This was a slightly last-minute trip and I couldn’t have picked a better hotel for our trip. I have never visited Benalmadena before, but I was thoroughly impressed by the location of the hotel, and the surrounding areas. The hotel has 2 beaches located within extremely close range of the resort (literally a 20 second walk out of the back of the hotel for the first beach and roughly a 3/4 minute walk to the other). The hotel was not far from shops, bars, restaurants etc, and we always had something to do! As we wanted to experience Benalmadena a bit more as it was our first visit, we walked everywhere. It is a great way to visit attractions (the marina, Parque de la Paloma etc). Parque de la Paloma was roughly a 15 minute walk from the hotel, with the marina being about a 45/50 minute walk. You can catch a bus to different places, with the stop not being too far from the hotel (about a 5 minute walk). The food and drink was great value for money, we feel as though for a 5 night stay we definitely took advantage of the all inclusive package. Good range of drinks at the bar. Your wristband does get checked when ordering alcohol, I’m assuming to prevent other boards (full board, half board etc) from going up to the bar and ordering drinks without paying, and to possibly prevent alcohol being given to people wearing a different wristband. The bar staff were friendly, as were the restaurant staff. Even though it was the end of the season, they were all friendly and happy to help! I’d say a little goes a long way with the language, even just communicating some Spanish is greatly appreciated and being able to order food can also come in handy if you want to practice your Spanish. The facilities were great, rooms lovely and clean and the cleaning staff were lovely and super attentive we found. We were very lucky with our view from our balcony. I asked for a lower room balcony room as I am not the best with heights, and found we still had a great view of the resort, the sea, and the sunset and sunrise. A tip for anyone thinking of booking, it is a bit iffy with the weather at the end of October/early November as that’s when the season comes to an end. Booking in the summer months would be best for the hot weather! The hotel also had great facilities for families as there was lots of children orientated facilities (kids club, kids pool, entertainment etc). Overall a brilliant hotel and i’d recommend to anyone thinking of booking!

So I will start with the good points. The hotel is in an excellent location right on the sea. There are some fantastic views from bars, pools and restaurants and a great setup outside. There is a bus stop just outside the hotel and from here you can easily get to Benalmádena Centre or Port as well as Fuengirola, Torremolinos and Málaga. If you buy a travel card from any Tobacco shop for €1.50 and then add some credit, the buses are incredibly cheap (much cheaper than cash). Trips are 40 or 45 cents each even to Málaga. The hotel is really clean in all areas and the staff are friendly. The rooms are of a good standard with all facilities needed. However there are a few points which really let the hotel down. The food is poor. The choice is ok, but, even for all inclusive buffet style, much of it tastes quite bland, some of the meat was so chewy it was inedible and a huge problem is that the food was often lukewarm or stone cold. They just don’t have the facilities or rotation systems in place to serve warm food and although there are cultural differences in the desired food temperature, we just didn’t want to risk it and on an all inclusive package, had to eat out most nights which was a significant and unexpected cost. Many people shared the same view. The air conditioning in our room was also a big issue. I don’t think it was our specific room as the maintenance teams came out multiple times, measured temps etc. and said it was ok. The issue was that it has been parred back to much (I assume to manage cost) and it was incapable of cooling the room even after being on for hours. We weee told the reason it didn’t work in the day is because it is sunny outside (we did have all curtains closed) which seems ridiculous!It was not possible to relax in the room during the day and hard to sleep as the room was warm overnight. When we went mid May, there was only one bar open. You often had to queue in a long line for a drink which like most all inclusive bars, was vastly inferior to a drink you would pay for. The all inclusive menu was hidden at the back of the bar so often, we saw guests ordering a local gin without realising they could have a branded one. When there was no entertainment in the bar it was silent with little ambiance. All in all first impressions were that this was certainly a 4 star hotel but the way it is run does not reflect this at all and means this is not a 4 star experience. Despite the quality of the building and location, on balance, I would so go elsewhere as it is disappointing and there are better standards to be found nearby for the same money.

Excellent hotel. We stayed in a junior suite which was amazing, with fantastic views from the double balcony. Facilities throughout the hotel were fantastic, food and drink was plentiful & tasty. Fantastic pool areas which are complimented with help yourself beer on draught! Will definitely visit again.

Food and drink was good,very poor for entertainment,and smell of sewage when entering rooms and when entering hotel,only one bar open at night resulted in big queue for drinks,nice location on the seafront with lovely views unfortunately I wouldn’t stay again

Having never been to Benalmadena area before we didn’t know what to expect. The hotel is in a great position right on the shore only 5 minute walk from Benalmadena beach and Promenade where all the bars and restaurants are. We were also close to a number of brilliant golf courses. The hotel is very modern inside and appears fairly newly decorated. It has two large outdoor pool areas, one is a family area which has a bar and snack bar and the other is adults only and it has a pool bar. Both areas are brilliant. The rooms are clean and well decorated and have a cracking powerful shower. The restaurant is bright and clean with great views out to see. The all inclusive option was excellent. The food choices were far beyond our expectations. Some cracking sea food options every night. All in all we were impressed with the hotel and the attached ******. There is a couple of odd small negatives which I have seen in previous reviews. In the main bar in the evenings there is a drains type smell through the bar which is a bit unpleasant when you first enter. Not sure why they haven’t sorted the issue because it does impact people using the bar. The other thing is the constant large queue in main bar all evening. The other bars all have self service beer and wine but not in main bar which leads to long queues each night. Small negatives though.

Visited here on 21st April for a week. Had high hopes but was slightly disappointed. Booked with jet2 & booked on All inclusive plus basis, although this wasn't throuley explained to us as what it actually included. I asked the rep in resort & was told it was one visit per week per stay to the 'al a carte restaurant '& nothing more. This was disappointing as the food in the main buffet style restaurant wasn't great to be honest. The al a carte was just the 'sports bar' dolled up a bit with a few tables although the food was marginally better because it came out hot & all drinks were served to you from out of bottles i.e Cava, wine, spirits etc. Maybe they change it to other area of the hotel in high season & the sports bar opens as another bar. Also another issue was at the main bar, sapphire, if you asked for wine out of a bottle or a bottle of beer or a coffe from the proper coffe machine you were charged one or two euros but with the hotel being all inclusive I thought this was odd. Again I asked the jet 2 rep & he said that was correct, he gave me a list of what was included & what was & what wasn't on the drinks, It would have been handy to know this before we booked as if you book all inclusive then to pay more for 'plus' you expect everything to be included. Some hotels we have been to before there was unlimited visits to al a carte restaurant when booking all inclusive. One if the positives I would say was our room, we had booked a Juniour suite' & it was huge, had 2 parts to it, a bedroom & a lounge area, a small corridor with the wardrobe in then the bathroom with walk I shower. Balcony way full on sea view facing. The room was on floor 4. The other rooms I'd seen on the same floor were a lot smaller. The entertainment was good, they opened up the function suite, salon atlantico to do the big shows like the Spanish flamenco night, the funny thing was you got wine out of the bottle there in the function suite but if you wanted it at the main bar it came out of a tap or you had to pay more for it, very strange I'd say. We actually bought a bottle to take up to the room one day as the tap wine was undrinkable it was 5 euros on all inclusive basis but it want as good as other Spanish wines I know of so got other bottles to drink in the room from the local supermarket across the road - the supermarcor, they were cheaper too. The spirits were ok at the bar, we had Gordon's gin & tonic & smirnoff & lime/soda, they all seemed to be the real thing. The main buffet style restaurant has no outdoor terrace space for drinking or eating so you woukd be sat inside even in the height of summer but it's air conditioned. The food want great, everything was luke warm at best, all wine comes out of the tap. The beer is Malaga Victoria which was ok. The pool areas are one Adults only & one kiddie/family pool with a splash area for kids to play on slides in. You can only get food from this pool area all day intill 7pm. Drinks are out of the tap again f

Hotel is beautiful. Foods not great . The room entertainment is in is a joke 80 percent of the room watching entertainment through a wall divider that I can only describe as a double sided book case without books in it

Marvellous hotel. Beautiful grounds, views, rooms and helpful employees. Food was great! We prefer the Malaga tower, it may be quieter and we saw a marvellous sunrise.