Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Just Back from Bansko........Disaster !!!!! - The Donkeywalloper

just arrived back from bansko today and heres report (warts and all !). I have skied in USA x7, Andorra, Val D'sire and Bulgaria x 3, so i have a little experience. Stayed in the Guinness Hotel. Quite impressive. Rooms clean, food , hit and miss, bar in Hotel, daylight robbery by bulgarian standards. 7 lev per 330 ml bottle, shorts similar. Although hotel was only 200 metres from gondola, you had to go through a building site to access it. Gondola Itself, busy with queues, aprox wait was 30 - 40 minutes over the course of the week. Skiing was good for myself and others, however beginners in the group seen very little of mountain. Not suitable for beginners in my opinion. Food by gondola station expensive ( bulgarian standards) and often undercooked despite pleas for chicken, meat etc to be well done. Apres ski, totally non existent. Bar beside gondola, the happy end, had poeple in it for about an hour, after that empty. Only we had a large group and entertained ourselves, it wold have been a disaster. General customer service was poor to say the least. Venues to go out at night very limited. Taxi rides were totally random pricing policies with many taxidrivers taking the preverbial. One short run for one of our group cost 23 levs for aprox half a mile, and although they knew were they were going and pointed out to taxi driver, the driver decided to take a mystery tour. Having loved bulgaria, i fear the latest encounter has finished me with the country. In my opinion it have become an economic honey pot with everyone out to screw as much money as possible from as many as possible. We travelled with Balkan tours belfast, who had a rep bilko that was unreal.Common practice is to go to your rep if you needed something. In this case it was him constantly coming to us looking for money for this that and whatever. The final straw was when he conned 22 of us of of ten levs each for the karoke bar for admission/ drinks. Now its not the 220 lev but the principle. Wrote out a reciept and said to present to barman for free cocktails/drinks. When we arrived we found it was free entry for everyone and our "cocktail voucher" entitles us to one free soft drink. Thats only one story, i could go on with many more, but safe to say i wont be using Balkan Tours in Belfast ever again How the resort will cope next year with the number of developments and increased holiday makers, boggles the mind. Inadequate at the minute. In a nutshell, good skiing for intermediate and above.Inadequate for beginners. Prices from last year have trebled at least. ( That was the general consenus of our entire group who have been in Bulgaria over the last 3 years). Atmosphere in resort is non existent,apres ski is non existent. I for one wont be visitin Bansko again( Probabaly not Bulgaria again)Its not a patch on Pamporovo for charm , craic and atmosphere. No side agenda, just a true account
Date : 02-17-07 17:14