Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Having read the board for many months taking other peoples knowledge to gear myself up for our trip (We drove from Bodrum (Turkey) in our car 1100km's with our 3 kids).

We stayed for 2 weeks and rented an apartment using Balkan property management service.

Having never been to Bansko or any other ski resort in Bulgaria it was dificult to picture the place. we were pleaseantly suprised, it was quite nice, there are some great facilities. That said when the snow melts the place did indeed look like a dirty building site but im sure this will improve as the developments are completed.

We skied Bansko for the first 4 days, and put the Kids into Ski Kindergarden whilst we had some private tuition from the Solomon Ski School (situated on the main road just down from the kemplinski hotel). It was quiet expensive for the family of 2 adults and 3 kids 5ys and under it was costing us approx £200/day for us to ski including ski hire and liftpass.

The private ski school was also quite expensive (£20/hr and there may be another person in your group - even though it was private!!!!) Initially they tried to put me (Advanced) with my wife (Beginner/intermidiate) which I didnt think would work but Georgie said no problem the instructor could make it work. It may of worked for his profitability but it didnt work for me. However in fairness when I said its not working he got Lynda another instructor - for the following 2 lessons (both different which was a shame as you get used to an instructor).

My instructor spoke restricted english so didnt induldge in idol chit chat, he managed to tell me I skied like an old man (i'm 35) as I was now skiing on parabolic ski's I should change my ski technique and seperate my legs to shoulder distance apart, Ok I said, it felt strange but went along with it, and I could appriciate what he was saying although he wasnt great.

The ULEN ski instructors seemed well organised and seemed to be full of character and substantially cheaper with guaranteed 1:1 lesson. although I had no personal contact them.

After spending 4 days skiing with the wife and getting her confidence back (she'd not skied for 7 years) we decided to consentrate on the kids and as it was so expensive in Bansko we decided to go 6km down the road to a little village called dobreinishte it was about 30minutes in the car to get to the carpark of the base lift (1700m high). this sounds alot but sometimes it took me and the family 1.5hrs to get to the bansko ski reagion with the Queue and 20min Cable car. so I was sometimes saving 1hr /day.

This was a small local ski facility with local prices, lift pass £6 not £20, Coffee £0.50 not £2, Beer £0.60 not £2.20 and so on!!

This area was ideal for teaching the kids as the drag lift was a nice gradient and very quiet apart from sat/sun (Bansko was busy permeneatly 2-10minute queue after 10am when the ski schools were out on the slopes.)

We basically started to just use bansko as a place to stay and eat (Big variation on food prices you need to seek out local eateries not to pay the over priced tourist prices, there are plenty of places charging £0.60 - 0.80 a beer but more that are charging £2.00 (especially if they had sky) I thought the Avalon was reasonable they had Sky but kept their beer prices to £0.80. I also did the Curry night on recomendation from the forum but though that at £10 for a Curry it was a bit steep, my fault for not finding out the price before I eat, but they had a 7lev meal night on a tuesday so as this was so cheap I incorrectly assumes the curry night would be les than 25lvs (Must say the curry was very nice)

There is a Sunday Market which starts down towards the bottom of the town here they have loads of copy ski clothing, cheap 2nd user ski equipment, well worh a visit if the weather is not nice enough to ski, it seemed to pack up at about 3pm.

We fould a great local Eatery directly opositte the Skateing rink (on the main road going to the gondola about 200m from gondola). The food here was very reasonable, 2lv cheese toastie - 8lv for steak, 2lv for beer, great location and local prices.

Thanks for the people who took the time to post and answer posts, I hope this repays the privialage somewhat.

Take care

marc