First published: 08/02/25.

2flow2 3.0

Hal Saflieni Hypogeum

Hal Saflieni Hypogeum (Inscribed)

Hal Saflieni Hypogeum by Luis Filipe Gaspar

There were two deaf people in my group of visitors. At the beginning of the tour, everyone is given a fully automatic hand-held speaker to hold up to their ear throughout the duration of the tour like a cellphone. As others have mentioned, the tour of this well-preserved underground marvel is limited to groups of 10 and consists of a surround-view movie, then a walk down into the hypogeum. The entire group stops every few feet to listen to a segment of audio coming from each of their respective devices for a number of minutes, then moves forward at the physical guide's prompting and repeats the process. The in-person guide does not interact with the group nearly at all other than to prompt people forward at the end of each audio segment. I was a bit surprised that no services whatsoever were provided for the deaf individuals via sign language or anything else to help point out what was being covered in the audio segments from everyone else's devices. There were likewise no subtitles provided for the movie played at the beginning, so those first fifteen minutes or so were spent by the hearing impaired individuals primarily looking at stock video footage play across the walls in a dark room. Individuals with hearing impairment should make the decision for themselves whether the expensive hypogeum visit is worth it to them. Without being able to hear the handheld audio guide device (which contains no earbuds or bluetooth connections), the tour consists of a lot of standing in one place without context for a good number of minutes, then moving to the next location and repeating. There is no text to read throughout the entire experience.

Ralf's review alerted me to the fact that tickets need to be bought months in advance and that "Last Minute" tickets are available for those (like me) who were not planning the trip months ahead of time. Upon discovering this, all I desperately wanted was to hear as many stories from others as possible as to "how" they bought the Last Minute tickets, and using Ralf's review plus this helpful Tripadvisor user's story I was able to successfully buy tickets for my wife and I! As such, outside of sharing the experience I witnessed in my for my hearing impaired fellow travellers, I am going to dedicate the rest of this review to briefly recounting my experience obtaining Last Minute tickets.

My wife and I visited in December [2024], the "off season" for Malta which is usually packed with tourists during the Summer thanks to its fantastic beaches. We woke up early and parked our rental car nearby to wait in front of the Ticket Office at Fort St. Elmo. We arrived at 7:30 am and only one person was in line ahead of us. (Though each person can buy up to four tickets.) About five minutes later a Czech woman joined us, and then roughly ten minutes after that a male couple from Dublin showed up. My wife left to grab us coffee and something warm to eat, and everyone in line was quite friendly and supportive of "saving spots" if someone left or returned. The Dublin duo also left for a time to grab coffee, and kindly offered to buy the rest of us waiting something. We held their spot, and when they (and then later, my wife) returned, we had a great chat for forty-five minutes or so that made the time in line fly by. By the time 9:00 am rolled around and the doors opened for purchasing tickets, there were about nine of us in line, so we paid the extremely high price of 50 € per ticket and successfully secured our access to the 4:00 pm tour the next day.

FYI my rating of this site and its somewhat-cheesy presentation would likely be four stars, but I am knocking off a half point because in my opinion the extremely high price was not worth what you are actually receiving unless you're doing this to check off your UNESCO list and that is worth any price to you. Plus it was a shame you couldn't ask questions or have live interaction with the guide, having a pre-recorded audio monologue instead.

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