Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Hotel
Stayed at the Breza and it was better than I expected. The food was ok, staff friendly and the bar was excellent, to sit down watch a film in surround sound with a beer after skiing was superb and very relaxing. Free pool table too.

Bars/Restaurants
Excellent VFM, good service and great food. My favourite was the peppered steak from the Golden Horn, at £3.40 it’s the best valued meal that I’ve ever had.

Money Exchanging
I took 270 levs with me to begin with and used the cash points (I noticed 3no.). I have a Nationwide card which converted at 2.92 levs to GBP.

Gifts
There is an option to take an early trip to Sofia on your final day (£8 each) which was quite good as you get a guided tour for about 45mins and learn a bit about Bulgaria itself. Anyway if you are thinking that it might be cheaper in Sofia than Borovets you’d be wrong. Trainers in Borovets are 40-45 levs (Puma & Nike) and 120-150 levs in Sofia. If you are buying cigarettes then wait until you get to the Duty Free at the airport e.g. Marlboro Lights are £13.50 in Borovets and £9.10 at the airport. Perfume – I got Joop, Gorgio Armani and Issey Myake all for £11 !!! Obviously they are fake but they’re not bad fakes.

Skiing Conditions
The first three days were very good but icy at times and for the last three days the gondola was shut was everybody was on the lower slopes which got a bit hectic especially in the morning. The weather also got a bit warmer half-way through the week which made it a bit slushly/patchy in places. It definitely needs more snow, and soon.

Equipment
Boots, ski’s and poles were average, get your ski’s hot waxed for 5 levs, it makes a big difference. Socks, goggles and gloves etc are available to buy cheaply on the main street too.

Instructor/s
Absolutely shit! I’ve read lots of reports saying how good they were and other ones that we spoke to were superb, but ours was shocking, and this is why………..
1st morning we told our instructor that we had 3 lessons on the dry slopes before before we came out and we could snow plough, he said that he would assess us and move us on if we were good enough. At the top of the mountain at lunchtime he told my girlfriend and I that we could start doing snow plough from the top of the blue slope which was fine by us. At the end of the 1st day he said that he’d spend more time with us the following day and teach us a few new things. 2nd day was exactly the same except that another 7 from the group joined us going from the top of the blue slope whilst he tried to teach the two remaining people how to snow plough. At the end of the second day we consulted our rep (John from Crystal) and told him that we weren’t getting any tuition at all, he told us to go to the ski-school at the Rila the next morning. The next morning we gave the tutor (Val or Valentino) the benefit of the doubt and joined him again on morning three. Morning three…….still the same and at lunchtime we spoke to another instructor about it and our instructor bounded over and went ape! He dragged us over to the intermediate slope (bearing in mind that we could still only do snow plough and hadn’t been taught parallel skiing) and said that we were now intermediates and wanted another £30 of each of us!!! Also at the bottom of the lift he said “if you come of this, I don’t care”!!!! We coped, just.
We told our rep later that evening and he was disgusted and told us that we definitely had to move groups, we did the next morning, 7 of our group joined an existing group of 7 and finally we learnt parallel skiing/stopping etc but at lunchtime he was off with his original group and we could join them up the mountain……for 30 levs each!!! We declined and decided to practice our parallel turns etc. fair play to him though he came back at 3:30pm and gave us 30mins tuition. Next day he (George) sat with his original group and drank coffee all morning as the queues were 30mins long for 2-3mins skiing and he said what do you want me to do? I said that he was paid to teach us and not drink coffee, the other instructors were on the slopes. Final day we couldn’t be bothered so went for a hydro-jet and swim at the Samakov.

Summary
Great place, choose your instructor carefully.

Hi Pete

I think the same roughly as you. I didnt have any instructors but my mates did. They were intermediate skiiers and on the 1st day they skiing for 5 hours solid without a break. They were so knackered the second day relaxed and brought some new boots as the rented ones were really painful. Then the group were skiing off pist doing blacks so they never really went back much as the group had just gone way beyond there level. Ended up skiing with me instead, which I did enjoy.

Nice place though, with nice freindly pleople. I was lookign for Jeans in Sofia and found the shops to be £40-60 for a pair and not £20/30 as I was expecting.

Michael

Bob, we were there as complete beginners on 10th Jan this year. If you are travelling with Crystal you will use the ski depot oposite the Rila. Our instructor was Rumen, and you can ask for a certain instructor, he was brilliant, never asked for any more money or expected us to buy him lunch at lunchtime. he had a great sense of humor and will within reason let you choose the slopes you want to ski on.

If you get a good instructor don't forget to tip at the end of the week, this will make the good ones stay and the bad ones maybe get another job!!

We have been lucky with our instructors and I was sorry to hear you had a bad experience. We have found them to be genuine people who go out of their way to make your holiday enjoyable.

On both occasions we have been our group had ended up with people on different levels. This makes it difficult for them to please everyone. Last year I was towards the bottom end and as I repeated the beginners class this year managed to be a little higher up this time.

If you are a quick learner, good and confident the instructors enjoy pushing you on which can make the gap bigger!! My husband was skiing down the mountain last year - I was not ready to do this for myself or by the instructors standards. It would have been foolhardy for me to try. I happily caught the Gondola back down to the bottom so as not to hold up the group. Other people thought this was poor leaving one or 2 of us alone. We were not skiing and as responsible adults able to make an informed decision.

Both years our instructors have said straight away that if we were not happy then we should say so and arrangements could be made for us to change groups. We have on both occasions decided to stay put but be flexible within our group.

Again, I'm sorry you had a bad experience and I can't speak regard the request for money as I don't understand what that was for.

I hope this helps new skiers like you Bob

Have Fun

Ellie

Ellie,

You're right it must be difficult for an instructor when he has various levels of begginers within one group, but saying that all of the instructors sit together every morning and talk over a cup of coffee, so surely they would be able discuss the levels of the individuals and move them around accordingly?

As for the money, the first instructor wanted money off us because we'd moved to an intermediate slope and the second instructor wanted 30 levs to take us on a snow mobile to the top of the mountain to come down the red run (roughly 30mins).

I agree with you also in respect of the instructors, they all seemed great, it was just that we had bad luck I think, in fact the Crystal rep said that we were only the third complaint he'd had this season.

Still enjoyed my holiday though.

Pete

Pete
sorry to hear about your skiing experience.
Agree with you about the Breza, it was exactly what I expected, rooms small and dirty (what did the maid do??) but at least they were warm and dry. Lets face it my family didnt spend long in the rooms! I notice the pool table must have been moved a bit, by the end of the week the slope had changed!
Bar was excellent, as people had said on here Zac was very friendly. Up to date films, cosy setting etc. Top marks.
Our instructor (Boyko) was excellent. Gave each person individual tuition as required, spent a long time with the kids (Thanks to the rest of the group for their patience) and was honest with us. Explained the situation (as you detailed above) and gave us our options. We sat and had coffee until the slopes cut up a bit and then skiied when we were ready. Took us up in the 4 man lift on the last day as often as we wanted. Also took us up in the piste basher (30levs each) sso we could do the 3.5 mile ski. Very sociable, joined us for a beer straight after we finished each day.
Gondola - on the last day we could use it the damn door didnt shut! Had to close it manually, but hey ho it only added to the excitement.
And to cap it all I won the skis in the raffle at the end of the week.

All 4 in my party have said they would not hesitate to return, and would have the same instructor.

Also, as you say, the trip to Sofia is very very worthwhile, you learn the history of the country, see some amazing buildings and ruins, and then are free to shop/eat/drink.