Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Hi everyone

As a novice family, thought it might help others in a similar position, to post our thoughts.

Firstly to address the 'rip off' topic, we would have to agree that it isn't that cheap to eat/drink in resort. For example a small glass of orange juice was at least £2 with nearly £3 for a milkshake, how this compares to other ski resorts I don't know. Also meal prices are significantly bumped up with chips, garnish etc being charged as extra. However we were told that their suppliers prices have gone up, so naturally that cost has to be passed on, but if you compare the central resort prices to what we paid at the hotel Lion (about half on soft drinks) prices are obviously inflated, but that is the same in any resort I should imagine. At the end of the day we spent a lot more on food than we had bargained for, but we had some great meals- especially liked the Derby!

I notice there's a long thread on the 'crime' issue. To be honest other than one person having their skis go missing while at the kids ski presentation we didn't hear of anything major. Like any busy resort, you just have to take sensible precautions.

OK, the holiday itself!! We loved the Hotel Lion, it was clean, the rooms were large and although it was a bus ride in it never bothered us. The food could have been better, but we didn't starve. The resort was lovely, the scenery was breathtaking and the people very friendly.

If there was one thing that didn't work for us it was the ski school. Getting the skis etc was a real scrum and the rep hadn't explained how we found the instructor, it just sort of happened. We were advised by one instructor that the children would be better off in a kids group, which was fine by us, but it was the timing of the lessons where it all fell down. It would seem that the instructors 'time' the lessons in a way that works best for them, and understandably the childrens' instructor would literally have a short lunch break and finish at three. However the adult classes were more stretched out not finishing until at least four, so we found especially if we needed to get down on the gondala, to get to the children on time, we were missing half our lesson. However, the kids did brilliantly and I'm sure were better for not having been with us and having to just get on with it. Next time I would consider staying together though, to get the most out of the lessons. We did meet some people who had been in a group of families which seemed to work better.

All in all the general consensus was that we would return to Borovets- we had a great ski group, it's such a sociable holiday and the people we were with were lovely. I just hope the season brings more snow for those that are still to go, because the queues for the Gondala were horrendous, although well worth the wait!!

Pam

As another novice family, I wanted to add some thoughts to the above. I agree that the ski depot was a scrum on the first day and sent our blood pressure boiling but once we knew the system it was fine. More of a problem was carrying the equipment up the road to get started - we had to work out a way of distributing the kids' stuff so we could all get there. Again, everything was fine after the day-one hassle.
Highlight for us was our ski instructor Svet (Svetoslav) who was fantastic. Spoke good English, always patient, explained everything really clearly, and was able to deal with the spread of ability in our group as the week went on - some people (the younger ones) got it quickly, older ones like me needed more time. He took it all in his stride and was a perfect pro.
We booked through Balkan Holidays and stayed in Chalet Rachel which was lovely. Borovets isn't really geared up for self-caterers but the supermarket round the corner from us had enough basics for simple evening meals. Lunchtimes we ate with the group - I've seen some posts saying the instructors take people to expensive places but Svet took us to reasonably priced ones and always gave us a choice (he told us the restaurant at the top was very expensive and we avoided it). It was burgers and chips every day but that was fine. Typical price was about 60-80 lev for the four of us (I gave up converting on the first day - there are several cash points so don't bother taking traveller cheques).
I can understand what Pam says about split groups being a problem because they don't really stick to the 2 hours morning, 2 hours afternoon - it just doesn't work out, if there's queing for chairlifts, gondola etc. Some days we did one long session at the top then had lunch and stopped. One day our afternoon session got wiped because there was a huge hold up in the restaurant at lunchtime - Svet made sure we did more skiing next day to make up. It suited us to be all in one group because we're all beginners but if you need to put your kids in a separate group they need to be old enough and independent enough to wait safely and meet up afterwards because you'll all be stopping in different places at different times.
BTW I was warned that the resort might not have helmets for children and we took our own but they had plenty. And my kids refused to wear them anyway!
The Balkan Holiday rep, Prolet, was very helpful. We didn't do any excursions because we didn't want to miss the skiing but the bowling/Chinese evening was fun.
Only crime I heard about was a lad who got mugged on the slope and robbed of his rented snowboard - he wasn't hurt but had to pay 500 lev for it. Borovets seems to have an awful lot of "erotic bars" for such a small place and obviously has its seamier side but we had no hassle of any kind.
We'd all happily go back and do it again. I was nervous about skiing for the first time (at the wrong side of 45...) and I wasn't the oldest in the group, but nobody got hurt (snow is soft!) and Svet told me that in all his time teaching he'd never had anyone break a bone, which I can believe, because he always made sure everyone was safe and within their limits.
So full marks all round - a fantastic holiday.