Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Returned from Bansko on the 30th December, this was our third visit just a quick review of what we thought.

Flew with BA on the 23rd from terminal 5 sorry but not impressed. We had stayed at a hotel near the airport over night as we had an 8.30 flight, left the hotel at 5am we were checked in at 7.40am it was one of the worst check in ever. Not sure if this is normal for terminal 5 or if it was just down to amount of people travelling. The flight in general was really good although the staff on board were a miserable lot!!!

Arrived at Sofia to be meet by Stevec for the transfer to Bansko, would highly recommended Steve and Wendy for transfers, very smooth and snacks and drinks were provided for the journey. Even though the traffic in Sofia was terrible only took just over 3 hours. Had rented an apartment in the refectory block about a 5 min walk to Gondola. Apartment was well equipped with everything we needed for our stay.

The slopes on the first few days were very quiet, temperatures though were quiet hot and in the afternoon the snow turned quiet slushy and some areas of the slopes did get bad and some of the streams broke through which meant parts of slopes had to be closed off. On the third day the temperatures dropped and Ulen had the cannons running which filled in all the gaps and made the slopes excellent. One down side though was all the top chair lifts were closed, Ulen said it was down to high winds but we would argue this wasn’t the case as on most days the winds were very light. From the 26th on wards the slopes got crowded and in the afternoon and the ques were very long in some cases it took us 30 to 40 minutes to get on the chair lifts. We had private lessons for my daughter which were excellent value and the instructor was great, think is name was sevel? He worked for bankso ski mania just opposite the street to the gondola. There is a small shop/office to the side of the stairs in the gondola station great place to leave your shoes in the day and ski boots over night, the guy in there has been there for the past five years and is really helpful, we also noticed he is has learnt a lot more English than before and really appreciates it if you try out your Bulgarian.

Food and Drink, we thought the prices had dropped this year compared to 2008, three of us for an evening meal and two or three rounds of drinks was between £20 to £50, with the most expensive being Christmas dinner. Highly recommended places to eat are the Irish bar for pizza very good and prices were excellent we payed around 30 to 40 leve for three of us, this included side orders, a couple of deserts and three rounds of drinks. If you are looking for a good Bulgarian then the 1792 monephte at the start of the village is excellent, I would recommend the old man of bansko which is a mushroom and sausage platter in a garlic sauce for starter and the lamb for main but be warned the lamb is huge and could easily be shared, very good value at around 90 leve for three of us.

All in all we had a great holiday the prices on the slopes were on the more expensive side although the restaurants at the bottom of red 8 was good value, with lunch for three of us costing around 25 leve. Ski passes were more expensive due to the Christmas period costing just over £150 each which we do think is starting to get a bit too much when you consider the size of the ski area. The village is starting to look a lot better and the paths are getting finished off. There were a lot of posters who were concerned about smoke in the bars and restaurants but in general we didn’t find it a problem. We would return to Bansko again but possibly not over Christmas and new year as the lift system and slopes cannot really cope with the amount of people that were there.

Hope I havent gone on too much.