just been to balmoral hotel for 2 weeks good clean hotel friendly reception staff rooms very comfortableand lovely views of the sea only 2 minute walk to beach bars restuarants and bus stops on both sides its about 30mins walk to marina super modern and plenty of shops bars restuarants sea life centre downsize lots of spanish coach loads only about 12 english in but it did not put us of only the food was terrible all for the spanish breakfast were very good bacon sausages beans eggs toast jams coffe e tea only evening meals were bad fish fishin tomatoe sauce chips every night cold mostly all spanish food we only ate at breakfasts except i had salads at teatime just above las arenas hotel was very good for entertainment every night

Very big and not new hotel, clean. Good organization even if very crowded sometimes. The restaurant is a normal "self service buffet" with simple variety of spanish/european food.
We stayed there for eleven days half-board, every day we used to take the bus in order to visit new beaches because we didn't like the one in front of the hotel.
Quality/price not so good.
If you plan a vacation in this area, consider torremolinos or much better marbella.

Stayed @ the hotel with family and friends for my cousins hen weekend. The hotel was really nice for a 2* so was highly surprised. It took us ages to get checked in as the service was so so slow. There seemed to be a vast amount of spanish people staying at the hotel and only a handful of English people.

I wasnt particularly happy as 2 of us (including myself) was on a seperate floor to the others when we would have prefered to have all been together on the same floor. However having now checked in we was all too tired to try and tackle the stairs, so decided to wait for the lift - 20 mins went by and we was still waiting so myself and my room mate decided to try and tackle the stairs as we was getting rather impatient.

Rooms was quite small but ok. If you wanted aircon in your room you had to pay a 20 euro deposit which you got back when you checked out.

The food in the hotel was edible and was ok. You had quite a bit to choose from

Main place we went to for lunch was called "The Last Resort" the food there was delicious hense why we went everyday. It was excellent value for money and the staff was very helpful and very friendly.

The beach was really nice but the sand got VERY hot (so becarful if you go). Make sure you top up regularay on sun cream as its so hot and i got badly sunburnt.

Overall was generally happy with the hotel apart from the service from the reception people.

I travelled to Benalmadena and stayed for 3 nights at the Balmoral with other girls for a Hen Weekend.
When we arrived at the Hotel and queued at reception for checkin in, the time we waited was ridiculous. The reception people were so slow, although when we finally got to the desk it only took about 5 minutes! It seemed the vast amount of Spanish guests in front of us took ages at the desk.
Then came the wait for the tiniest lift in the world, about 20 minutes we waited, and as our rooms were on the 7th floor we didn't fancy walking with our luggage so we waited.

We were pleasantly surprised when we got to our rooms though, very clean, although ours smelt faintly of cigarette smoke. We put the aircon on as the weather was beautiful and hot. The aircon was free but we had to pay 20 euro deposit for the remote control which we got back on check out.
After spending the day on the beach we all got ready and headed to the restaurant for dinner. After reading the reviews on Tripadvisor we were apprehensive about the food. We were pleasantly susprised again though, There was salads to start with ham, cheese and chorizo slices. Main was veal stew (which was lovely!), sliced pork, layered potatoes, green beans, fish in a creamy sauce. The second night there was Chicken pieces in gravy, vegetables, mashed potato. And the onion soup for starter was lovely!
Breakfast was sausages, fried eggs, boiled eggs, bread, toast, cereal, fruit, ham, cheese, jam etc. Quite a lot of choice.

The pool area was ok, not great though as the sunbeds were all on a grassy area under trees, not by the pool. So as the sun moved we had to constantly move the beds to escape the shade. Hence we only stayed at the pool on the last day so we didn't get all sandy, the other 3 days we spent at the beach which had quite big waves! It was great for lying on a lilo in the sea, floating about for hours!

We ate out for lunch at a place called Last Resort. We went there 4 times, very good value for money. 4.50 euros for pate, salad and toast, baguettes and sandwiches and jacket potatoes ranging from 3.25 - 5.50euro. We treated ourself to paella for Dinner on the last day at a seafood restaurant near the beach (I cant remember the name to recommend it though! The Guy outside offering menus looks a bit like Jimmy Carr if that helps anyone who goes to Benalmadena!!)

Checkout was much faster than check in and there was a locked room to keep luggage in downstairs. However, we had to check out at 11am and didnt leave for the airport until 11pm we wanted to keep a room on or get another one (obviously we'd pay for it) to shower. We were told by 2 different people at the desk that the hotel was 'complete' and there was no way. They didn't even look. We asked about a shower room and were just told 'no, there isn't one', so all 7 of us took our shapoo and soap to the poolside showers and showered there at 5pm. We got some funny looks but we were clean!

All in all it is a clean hotel, with free aircon and reasonably good food. The service at the desk was lacking though, although the Spanish guests seemed happy.......