Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Firstly check out our footage on 'You Tube' and you will see my husbands huge wipe out!

Had a fabulous week skiing. Whilst we were there we had a two foot dump of snow which refreshed all the runs but wasn't enough to ski down to the bottom. Two of our friends did try and had to walk the last few hundred yards! The skiing was amazing towards the end of our week as the sun was shining and visibility was better than the start of our hols. When we left Friday, the runs were a little slushy but still lots of snow i.e. no dirty/bald patches.

The Happy End bar opposite the gondola station was a welcome sight at the end of the skiing day, as was the Friendly Bar for really nice food and drinks. We also tried out the pizza place under the Kempsinski Hotel which was also really nice. Another good restaurant is next door to the Perun Hotel, under the Karaoke Bar. It's a typical Mehina with a lovely log fire. Best to book - Tel +359 889 100 263. I can recommend the Shopska salad and a skewer off the grill. They have a wine cellar there and take you in to choose your vino! We all had starters and mains with plenty of wine and it was £10 per head!

The Kempinski is luxurious and offers the female skiers some VERY nice treatments.

Take LEV as Euro's wasn't very popular. M&S was the best on rates.

For lessons, you can save money by approaching the instructors who tout for business as you come out of the gondola at the top where the nursery slopes are. You'll pay 1/2 price compared to booking lessons at the ski school at the bottom of the gondola.

If you are renting skis and boots, rent them from inside the gondola station as you can then get a 20% discount off your ski pass.

Another good tip is to leave your skis and boots each day in the luggage shop in the gondola station at the bottom. It's dirt cheap and you won't have to carry them anywhere and you can then change back into normal shoes. The guy that runs it is really friendly.


Be really careful using WizzAir if flying with them. When you depart from Luton, you're not charged to take skis or boots and can pool the excess baggage, if you have any, with other members of your party. This is NOT the case at Sofia when you return! The dirty, cheating, robbing, XXXXXXXX made us empty our cases to even out the 20kg per case. We were filling up our hand luggage with dirty clothes to make our cases match the 20kg! Then the cheeky so and so's charged us 25 Euros to take our skis!

All in all a great weeks skiing. I'm not sure what Bansko will look like in years to come as they are building so many hotels and apartments. If they do not install another gondola, they won't have the infrastructure to support the immense development going on.

Go now and experience pretty cheap skiing as it will be completely different in a few years.

well done suz,
an excellent write up. Having been to borovets for past 6 years and also jan this year I was realy surprized at bansco in feb as with your group an excellent week we stayed at the Lion hotel recomended. also the happy end a life saver did your hubby tell you about the girls on offer in the gents

so it's sit back and dream of next season jasper in jan, well at my age you've got to do it once and then difficult decision Boro or Bansco

ffelau aros

s.p.

The Lion Hotel looked really nice. We were next door in our friends apartment in the Grand Montanna. Had our own hot tub on the 3rd floor of his apartment which was ace looking out over the mountains. There was a really cute dog hanging around the Lion and Perun Hotels who enjoyed some of my steak and pizza leftovers!

Hubby didn't mention the girls on offer in the gents but we were there only early evenings as most nights in the Friendly Bar.

Check out my husbands bad wipe out if you fancy a laugh on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hN05h9FpW5w We'll be adding some more ski footage as we took a head cam with us.

Did you use the button lift next to the 7-bar at the very highest point of the runs? Wasn't it severe!!!!

We (a group of five mid-twenties ski virgins) returned from Bansko on Friday. Skiing was excellent - slopes were empty, we never had to queue once and the progress we made during the six days was staggering.

Three of us learnt the basics from Svet, our ski instructor, a bit quicker than the other two, so on the second day, we headed off to find a nice easy blue run while Svet brought the two stragglers up to speed on the nursery slope. Looking at the map, we decided that we'd head to the top of the mountain as there was a blue run that we could do after taking in the views. Bad idea. We got to the top and only saw signs for red runs, the map was wrong. After five minutes of bricking it, we set about trying to ease our way down the run. Bearing in mind we'd had 4 hours ski experience each up to this point, this was perhaps a bit ambitious. It took us an hour (and plenty of falls) to get down. Needless to say, we stuck with Svet for the next couple of days. By the end of the week, that particular red was no challenge and four of us did Tomba with relative ease (and no falls).

I couldn't complain about the skiing or the 30p half-litres of Amstel on offer in the supermarket, but the town was a hole. Half-built accommodation everywhere, mud tracks rather than tarmac and no atmosphere whatsoever. Granted it is the end of the season and I'd imagine it's completely different in January.

I've not seen Diamonds Pub mentioned on here, so I thought i'd point people in its direction. We were staying at River Lodge in the north of the town, so this place was handy for us. Recently done out, it's clean and modern and the food is good (by Bulgarian standards). The 60p shots of Tequila went down well every time there was a corner in the Israel-England game. We had to do something to ease the boredom!

All in all, it was a good first ski holiday. Conditions were perfect and the place is ridiculously cheap, I just hope there is less building work when we go back next time.

ski instructor in boro dec + feb/march said avoid bansko, be quick as well boro going similar ( see google "borovets development")

what a nice place boro is despite cash machines ( why have them if they never work ie next gondola,rila in street etc) flora hotel has x 2 one always works. Boro, its all small and friendly, " my friend you promised to eat in my restaurant, i offer you free wine i make etc etc "

could be described as friendly ? but if you insist on a free drink to test, you can be pissed before you arrive at your meal