Skim this table first. We’ll unpack every line below.

This is where the comparison gets most interesting. The two hotels approach the swimming question completely differently.

Ramla Bay’s beach is its own — a private rocky bay with a small sandy area, multiple sea entry points, and the kind of clear Mediterranean water that makes Malta famous. It’s not a wide sandy beach. It’s a properly Maltese coast, designed for swimmers and snorkellers rather than sandcastle builders. There’s also an on-site PADI 5-star dive centre, parasailing, and motor boating — Ramla Bay’s watersports programme is one of the strongest in Mellieha.

db Seabank’s beach is across the road — Ghadira Bay itself. Wide, sandy, public, and one of the few beaches in Malta where kids can build sandcastles in the traditional British seaside sense. It’s a public beach, so it gets busy in peak summer, but it’s right there.

On pools, db Seabank wins clearly. Malta’s largest outdoor lagoon pool sits at the back of the property, alongside an adults-only pool with a swim-up bar and a dedicated shallow pool for younger children. A heated indoor pool covers cooler months. Ramla Bay has a decent outdoor pool and an indoor pool, but the focus is sea swimming rather than pool capacity.

Both hotels have refurbished their food offerings in the last 24 months. Both do British family food well. The differences are in breadth and concept.

db Seabank runs six restaurants: the Coral buffet (refurbished, expanded), L’Orient Asian, El Rodizio Brazilian rodizio, an Italian, the Jungle (themed family restaurant), and a seasonal Caribbean concept. The à la carte restaurants need pre-booking through the resort app, often on day one. The variety is genuinely impressive for an AI in this price range — six restaurants means six different evenings without repetition.

Ramla Bay has four: Terramar buffet, Piatto Nero (Mediterranean à la carte), the Waterline Snack Bar by the pool, and Kofi & Kale (casual café). The buffet quality is high and the Mediterranean restaurant is genuinely good. But four versus six matters across a seven-night stay if you like variety.

This is where most British family bookings get decided.

db Seabank is the more “family resort” of the two. The kids’ club is structured and well-staffed. There’s a dedicated entertainment dome that hosts evening shows for kids and families. The bowling alley is genuinely useful on a rainy afternoon. The shallow kids’ pool is properly designed for under-fives. Family rooms come in multiple configurations — including interconnecting doors and lockable connecting suites — which matters more than parents realise until they need it.

Ramla Bay leans more towards families with older or more active children. The watersports programme — dive school, parasailing, motorboat trips — is exceptional for kids aged 10 and up who want to do more than splash about. The Gozo ferry from the doorstep means proper day-trip adventures. The atmosphere is calmer in the evenings, which suits families with younger kids who want bedtime routines, but the structured kids’ programming is less comprehensive than db Seabank’s.

Ramla Bay completed a major refurbishment in September 2025, adding 200 new rooms across two new blocks and updating most of the original building. The curved-block architecture means an unusually high proportion of rooms have a sea view, and a small number of rooms uniquely combine both sea AND pool views — a configuration we haven’t seen elsewhere in this part of Malta. Rooms are modern, well-finished and properly air-conditioned.

db Seabank’s rooms are a linear layout — fewer combined sea-and-pool views, but more variety in room configuration. Family rooms with separate kids’ bedrooms, lockable interconnecting suites, pool-view rooms and sea-view rooms all bookable at different price points. The hotel knows family bookings inside out, and the room inventory reflects that.

This is where the two hotels diverge most clearly on the booking page.

db Seabank operates as a fully all-inclusive resort only. There’s no half-board or B&B option. You’re committed to eating in the hotel for the duration of your stay, which is fine because the food is good and there are six restaurants to rotate through. The AI package covers all meals across all six restaurants, soft drinks, local alcoholic drinks, snacks, and most activities. Premium spirits, motorised watersports and the spa are extras.

Ramla Bay offers a choice. You can book B&B, half-board, or all-inclusive. The all-inclusive option covers meals at the buffet and Mediterranean restaurant, soft drinks, local alcoholic drinks, snacks, and pool/beach access. The diving school, motorised watersports, the spa and a few premium dining experiences are extras.

Before we get to our verdict, here’s how the two hotels actually score on TripAdvisor right now — across thousands of real guest stays. The full subcategory breakdown for both, side by side.

Scores from TripAdvisor, May 2026. Both hotels’ ratings update continuously.

Two things matter when you look at these numbers side by side.

First, the gap is real but smaller than it looks. db Seabank scores a third of a point higher overall, and that holds across every subcategory. Cleanliness, service and rooms are the strongest gaps in db Seabank’s favour. Location, value and sleep quality are closer. By TripAdvisor standards, both are firmly in the “guests come back happy” zone — but db Seabank’s score profile is consistently a notch higher.

Second, the timing matters more than the score. Ramla Bay’s 4.1 reflects a review history that’s mostly pre-refurbishment. The hotel reopened in September 2025 with 200 new rooms and a thoroughly modernised guest-facing experience. Reviews from 2026 onwards — the ones starting to appear now — are already trending higher and tell a different story. Watch Ramla Bay’s score over the next 12 months; we’d expect it to close the gap.

Honestly? Closer than you’d think.

If you’re booking a one-stop, hassle-free, all-inclusive week with younger kids who want a kids’ club, a big pool and structured evening entertainment, db Seabank is the more straightforward call. It does exactly what it sets out to do, and it does it at scale.

If you’re booking with older kids, with diving on the wish list, with a half-board preference because you want to eat in Mellieha some evenings, or if a quieter, more peninsula-style atmosphere appeals — Ramla Bay is the stronger pick. The September 2025 refurbishment is also genuinely transformative; the hotel today is meaningfully better than the hotel even guests visiting in early 2025 will describe.

For couples without kids choosing between the two, we’d lean Ramla Bay almost always. The sea-view rooms and the calmer atmosphere just suit that brief better.

All Malta holidays booked through GoToBeach are ATOL-protected · Caria Holidays Ltd · ATOL #11211 · +44 208 211 00 01 · info@gotobeach.co.uk