Bulgaria Ski discussion board

My boyfriend and I are are going to Bansko in March, staying at the Hotel Lion (booked through Inghams), not heard much about this hotel anyone got any info? is the food in the hotel any good? are we close to other bars and restaurants etc? how far from the gondola?

we are both snowboarders, i will be mostly on the easier runs as i'm still a beginner really, does anyone know what the chairlifts are like? are they easy to get on and off? also i understand there is a 7km run down from the gonodola, is that a decent run or is it better to go further up the mountain on the dreaded chairlifts?!

one last thing, we are planning on just taking GBP with us, is that the best currency to use or is it worth getting levs before we go?

I haven't stayed at Hotel Lion so I can't comment on it other than to say that I met some people who stayed there last year and thought it was pretty good. There are transfer buses that will take you to and from the bottom gondola station each morning and pick you up again after skiing so don't worry about that.

The chairlifts are modern and pretty fast which is always good. Yes, there is a 7km run (really a road) that you can ski all the way down to the bottom gondola station when the snow allows. I have done it many times and find it a lot of fun. However, i know that snowboarders don't like it as much because it is very flat in certain sections, so you will end up walking these sections and it can be quite slow.

We always take GBP with us BUT be sure to only take notes that are not torn or written on in any way as they won't accept it in Bulgaria.

We will be back in bansko on the 27th Jan and really looking forward to it as always. In my opinion, it is the best Bulgarian ski resort!

Hi,
Went to Bansko last year and going again in Jan, you'll love it. I got some levs from Marks & Spencers, then used my card in ATM while we were out there as exchange rate was better. I'm only a beginner myself, there's a baby slope where you get off the gongola but I found this was too slow to practice turning on the snowboard, we took a chairlift up from the left of the gondola (well I tried and gave everybody a good laugh), they have this sort of conveyor belt that you step on and it moves you along until the chair comes round but you only get a few seconds to get through the gate, (apparently the trick was to lean against it), was all good fun, hopefully I'll ge tthe hang of it this time When we got to the top of the lift the exit was quite flat and not a steep ramp like some are. We then went down the run to Shilligarnika. From there it looks like there's loads more blue runs but we were only there 2 days over New Year so I never got chance to go up to the plato but hopefully I will this year coz it looks really good for snowboarding. (if you click on the Bansko link at the top, theres a ski zone map link on the left)

Not sure where the hotel is as we were only there for a few days but I went to Canada with Inghams and they were really good. Hope this helps, have fun