Bulgaria Ski discussion board

My thoughts on my second trip to Bansko in 2 years. Last year with the lads, this year with the family.....

Arrived late evening on Sunday 31st Jan, after a fairly arduous journey from Sofia. I decided to rent a car as the apartment I was staing in was on the opposite side of town to the gondola and for the time we were there the car hire was about the same cost as return transfers. It took about 3hrs and a steady pace - the roads are as reported, not great but we made it without getting stopped by the rozzers or getting lost in any of the pot-holes.

Very little snow on the ground in resort but all that changed by the following morning as there was a good dump overnight - which cntinued well into Monday. We thought we'd take it easy and head for the gondola about 10 - BIG mistake. Queued for 45mins for passes and another 1hr plus to get on the gondola. Urgh. This came as a shock to me as I've never queued for more that 5 mins to get on in Bansko!! Apparently it was a national holiday in Bulgaria on 1/Feb?? So I suppose not much can be done about that. Once we were up there the queues eased up a bit as everybody speaded out. Conditions were good up the mountain - excellent snow cover, and I love the majority of the runs in Bansko.

Day 2; 3 and 4 were better - got to the lift at about 8-830 and only queued for a max of 30mins. I was still surprised by the amount of people and the length of the queues - a couple of other prople suggested that it was due to Romanian half term. Conditions on these days were just superb - blue skies and loads of snow - it was just lovely up there.

I used the Ski-Kindergarten for my 2 girls who are 4 and 6. They both realy enjoyed it - they we indoors from 10-1230 then outside for 1-2hrs for their ski lessons. There were a lot of kids in the class which wasn't so great as the ratios of kids:instructors was way out, but hey still loved it and given it was their first time it was a great introduction for them. We could drop off at 10am and collect 3-330 (even though it says 9-430 on the banskoski website) - when I asked someone about this she sort of shrugged and said 'well this is Bulgaria' - it was ok as we wanted to get the kids at this sort of time anyhow. Kids were happy to go in and I was happy leaving them there. Cost was 50lev per child per day. Caters for 4-7yr olds but my 6 year old was itching to do something a bit more testing on the skiis.. If we were staying any longer I would have wanted to put her in a class.

We only ate in a few different places whilst we were there - Happy End - widely reported - slightly more expensive but nice. 'El Torito' which was very cheap and ok-ish... We had most of our meals in the Irish Bar - mainly because th kids loved it and there was food on the menu that they liked. I like to sample the local cuisine (and did last year) but with the kids it's not that easy ). The owners Rob and Gemma were very friendly - in fact all the staff were. There were games for the kids to play and it was a nice relaxing environment. Liked it a lot.

Also met a nice lady by the name of Wendy who is a brit who now lives out there with her husband Steve - they do transfers etc and lifts up the mountain which in times of heavy queues I thought could be a good idea. I didn't use them in the end so I can't speak for their service but I liked the sound of it - especially the one that takes to up high before the lifts are even open.... Earlybird I think they were called.

Overall I'm glad I went - but the folks of ULEN REALLY need to sharpen up their act if this place is ever going to be able to sustain the higher level of visitors I'm sure they want. Simple things like barriers outside in order to snake the queues and stop people from pushing in - which is very annoying to say the least. I don't know if it was bad luck last week or just an increasing trend of people deciding to go to Bansko, but whilst I expect to queue at busy times, the busy times seemed to be all week long.

Would I go back? With the lads - definitely. With the family - maybe. I would certainly do some things differently..... Like looking into school holidays for other countries in the region. I would also book my passes in advance to save that headache!!!

So, fairly reasonable then Mcmoodle
It was the Rumanian/Serbian half term. We normally would not expect so many visitors for this period but those i spoke to who would normally visit Austria/Switzerland had commented on the ever increasing prices in alpine resorts, and had also seen the glowing reports of Bansko's snow...
The queues this week are a lot lighter, and amazingly the snow is even better.
I agree that Ulen need to review there ongoing plans, to a great extent they and Bansko are beginning to become victims of their own success, and more effort has to be seen in queue management, information... and ideally.... expansion.....

Anyway, glad you and the family had a good time

Steve (Wendy's other half )

Well as we were there at about the same time I will put my review in here aswell.

We flew out on Thursday, and had a nice trip up to Bansko from the airport. Friday we got up early and headed straight to get our stuff from banskoskimania who were really good. From there we went up to get our lift passes and there was a massive queue nearly up to the end of where the buses park to get on the Gondola. We queued for about an hour and finally got up the top.

We came down 6 and then 4 and then carried on down 1 which were a couple of good runs. We then decided to go right up the top and come down 3 which was a big mistake, dont know if it was because it was so Icy with it being late afternoon or because we were tired but it was really hard work getting down there.

Friday night we never went back to the hotel to get changed and had a pub crawl, ate in the Irish Bar which was very nice food.

Saturday we woke up to a fair bit of snow and the queue at the gondola was shorter at about 30 mins. Conditions were really good but there were no signs that the piste has been worked on over night, the piste really cut up quite quickly. Half way through the morning I came off my board and landed straight on my right shoulder/chest cage. Thought nothing of it so just carried on, decided to go down the ski road to find the cheap bar. Big mistake, 1, we didn't find the bar, 2, I fell off again when cut up by a skier!! 3, ended up walking to the bottom as the Ski road just didn't seem suitable for a board.

Saturday night we hit the town pretty hard, with many Jaigermeisters in Happy end (5lev a beer), Friendly bar (3 lev a beer), Shots in the Irish bar(cant remember how much a beer) and then we finally left Lions bar(definately cant remember how much a beer) at about 3.30am. Music was good in all the places mentioned and the staff were all really friendly. Think we got to Happy end a little to early.

Sunday I woke up and could not move, it was not down to the beer or shots I was in agony with my shoulder/chest. Stayed of the slopes all day but my two mates said the piste had not been worked on again and they were really hard work.

Sunday night we took it easy before our nightmare trip home.

Would I go back? Yeah I would I think, its definately cheap enough. Ulen need to sort out the queues as above and also need to work on the pistes to get them better prepared for the next morning. If I had to pick between Borovets or Bansko I would have to say I would go for Borovets. The runs are probably not as good, but I preferred the resort to Bansko.

Well as we were there at about the same time I will put my review in here aswell.

We flew out on Thursday, and had a nice trip up to Bansko from the airport. Friday we got up early and headed straight to get our stuff from banskoskimania who were really good. From there we went up to get our lift passes and there was a massive queue nearly up to the end of where the buses park to get on the Gondola. We queued for about an hour and finally got up the top.

We came down 6 and then 4 and then carried on down 1 which were a couple of good runs. We then decided to go right up the top and come down 3 which was a big mistake, dont know if it was because it was so Icy with it being late afternoon or because we were tired but it was really hard work getting down there.

Friday night we never went back to the hotel to get changed and had a pub crawl, ate in the Irish Bar which was very nice food.

Saturday we woke up to a fair bit of snow and the queue at the gondola was shorter at about 30 mins. Conditions were really good but there were no signs that the piste has been worked on over night, the piste really cut up quite quickly. Half way through the morning I came off my board and landed straight on my right shoulder/chest cage. Thought nothing of it so just carried on, decided to go down the ski road to find the cheap bar. Big mistake, 1, we didn't find the bar, 2, I fell off again when cut up by a skier!! 3, ended up walking to the bottom as the Ski road just didn't seem suitable for a board.

Saturday night we hit the town pretty hard, with many Jaigermeisters in Happy end (5lev a beer), Friendly bar (3 lev a beer), Shots in the Irish bar(cant remember how much a beer) and then we finally left Lions bar(definately cant remember how much a beer) at about 3.30am. Music was good in all the places mentioned and the staff were all really friendly. Think we got to Happy end a little to early.

Sunday I woke up and could not move, it was not down to the beer or shots I was in agony with my shoulder/chest. Stayed of the slopes all day but my two mates said the piste had not been worked on again and they were really hard work.

Sunday night we took it easy before our nightmare trip home.

Would I go back? Yeah I would I think, its definately cheap enough. Ulen need to sort out the queues as above and also need to work on the pistes to get them better prepared for the next morning. If I had to pick between Borovets or Bansko I would have to say I would go for Borovets. The runs are probably not as good, but I preferred the resort to Bansko.