Best hotels in Gibraltar 2023 for a luxury or budget holiday

What an oddity is Gibraltar – so ordinary, from certain angles, and yet so spectacularly out of place. A stray chunk of Blighty, replete with most of our familiar high-street shops and banks, transplanted to the far end of continental Europe, where the Iberian landmass heaves itself up a final limestone precipice and almost tips over onto North Africa.

The Rock, as we know it, was ceded to the British Crown as a spoil of war some 310 years ago, and only granted “city” status in 2022 (correcting a longstanding admin error). While residents remain pretty emphatic about their sovereignty, post-Brexit convolutions may soon see them absorbed into the EU’s Schengen area, potentially allowing visitors to skip across that thin frontier from Spain without even showing a passport.

Whatever the outcome of those ongoing talks, Gibraltar tends to reward the curious weekender. These 2.6 square miles encompass prehistoric caves and 18th-century siege tunnels, sailboats and cable cars, bottlenose dolphins and Barbary macaques, a botanic garden and a clifftop nature reserve. The urbanised westside, somewhat shabby in times past, now relies less on Brit-kitsch signifiers, such as old red phone boxes, and more on contemporary draws like a newly opened small-batch gin distillery, or a Georgian-era naval bastion repurposed for modern art shows (GEMA). And with so little land to develop on, some of the best places to stay are high above sea level or right down on the water, afloat between The Rock and The Strait.

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Billed as the world’s first five-star superyacht hotel, the Sunborn was originally designed for ocean-going, her engines were never installed and she’s been permanently moored to the Ocean Village promenade since 2014. (The appeal of a cruise liner that never leaves port – zero chance of seasickness – has since proven out with another Sunborn vessel at London’s Royal Victoria Dock.)

The guest experience begins with a walk up a red-carpeted gangplank, and a glass of champagne. Inside, as with any such ship, there’s a certain glitz plated over utilitarian bulkheads and corridors – a lot of chrome and crystal alongside the requisite nautical driftwood sculptures. The 189 tastefully stylised cabins and penthouse suites max out the available space, all opening onto balconies or terraces with views of The Rock, sea or marina. The top deck is given over to a well-appointed spa, a small plunge pool with adjoining cocktail bar and sun loungers, and the Barbary restaurant where the chef has his own distinct way with the Moroccan-Mediterranean fusion fairly common to high-end dining in Gibraltar. Deck two is the casino level, an elegant arrangement of slots and gaming tables in keeping with the leisure-class profile of the enterprise.

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Built by order of John Crichton-Stuart (Marquis of Bute at the time) in 1932, The Rock derives its air of enchantment, in part, from an imperious location, set high on a hill above The Strait and opposite the Alameda Botanic Gardens, with a swimming pool and restaurant amid the bougainvillaea blooms of the hotel’s own adjoining hidden garden.

Longtime owners The Bland Group have subtly refreshed the Art Deco style of the place – high ceilings, checkerboard flooring, pastel colours – without wiping off the stardust of a bygone world. Past guests have included Errol Flynn and Sean Connery, not to mention Sir Winston Churchill, a staunch partisan of Gibraltar and its resident Barbary apes. In Churchill’s honour, today’s check-ins are still offered a welcome sherry, while afternoon tea (with homemade scones) on the Wisteria Terrace is as much an institution as the building itself. Most of the 94 rooms and suites have balconies, and all offer superlative views.

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The only luxury boutique hotel in the city centre makes the best fit for a weekending couple, set as it is amid Old Town streetscapes of archways, Genovese shutters, and Regency-style ironwork balcones, with the bars and cafes of the quays a very short walk away. At ground level, the hotel’s own Veranda Bar provides an outdoor patio for leisurely cocktails, and an elegant indoor performance space for weekly jazz nights through the warmer months. The real showpiece is the rooftop terrace though, which encompasses a sun lounge and swimming pool with its own adjoining bar, as well as a fine Mediterranean restaurant called Rock Salt, looking out across the rooftops to the Rock and the Strait. Most of the 130 good-sized guest rooms are positioned for similarly romantic views to one side or the other, the colour schemes tending to reflect the whites, blues, and golds of those sunsets over the water.

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Not a hotel, per se, this dockside “village” of brightly painted wooden houseboats offers buckets more colour and character than generic bricks and mortar, as well as being a very short walk or bike ride from the beaches – Western Beach and Playa de Poniente – that flank the marina on both sides. Bicycles are even provided for the duration of your stay, with boats available to rent by the night or the week. Standing out from the dock in vivid greens, blues, yellows, pinks and purples, these units are fairly basic but almost disproportinately cosy and charming, with furnished terraces/sun decks on each roof and hammock chairs hanging over each stern. The interiors make for tiny floating homes with well-equipped, ergonomic kitchens and bathrooms around sweet nautical sleeping quarters.

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This hotel may be housed in a bluntly functional building, but it’s unbeatably handy location-wise – a short walk from the Spanish frontier, the airport, the marina, beaches and all the central attractions. That somewhat unedifying structure also allows for unusually spacious guest rooms with large bathrooms, all simple, neat and unobtrusively designed. Amenities provide excellent value for your money too, with a decent house restaurant and a large outdoor pool with a cafe-bar on the terrace and a commanding view of the Med.

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