Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Wronguns on Tour 2006

Just back from borovets. 7th - 14th.
Apologies for the long review, just got carried away.

Flight : If your taller than 6' it will be an uncomfortable 3 hour flight and a rather loud one at that. Got very hot on the flight out there very basic, but then less money you pay less you can expect. Food was same as most other flights of this length. Outbound flight seemed to go on forever. Overhead storage very small, don't take you ski boots as hand luggage they won't fit and you will have to have them under your feet. Making it more uncomfortable. Flight back was considerably better due to the fact i put my boots in the hold and we were all knackered so fell asleep on way back.

Plovdiv airport : About the size of my house, not a bad thing though. In and out in 30 minutes if that. Staff friendly no problems with baggage. Long wait for the single toilet after everyone got off and needed to go.

Transfer : Approximately 2hrs 30mins we were the last hotel drop off. It was an absolute dream to get on the coach, nice coach could actually stretch legs and get some shut eye. Missed the reps usual chit chat en route.

Hotel : Arrived at about 9 o'clock checked in, took luggage to room. Hotel was huge, had everything, swimming pool, bowling alley, shops, several bars and restaurants. Because we had arrived after dinner usually closes they had an extended dinner for new arrivals. After a bit of food, which was usual hotel food. Rather large selection usually few choices of meat and fish and then choce of vegetables/ potatoes. Salad and fruit, soups, bread, rolls and then chips, pizza for you really fussy people. Drinks not included but could drink what you like, and drinks very reasonable. Nightclub downstairs, didn't use much, nice comfy sofas could chill out when the pikeys were not down there. Don't know if hotel or resort is widely used by them but we had a bit of trouble and made us a bit embarassed to be british. Suppose you get them everywhere. Cocktail bar and normal bar. Could get a pint of bulgarian draught for 2.5lev, 75p and you got half a pint free . Gondola about 2 minute walk from hotel, and the other mountain about 10-15mins.

Room : Room was better than expected really. Toilet, bathroom and bedroom. Plenty of cupboardspace and hanging space with hangers. Bath and shower most times hot water was ok occasionally had to wait 30 mins for it to heat up. Couple of power cuts only very short no problem at all. Sky television, german sky television, you won't be watching it although there was a good "you've been framed" style program about 5-6 every evening. Probably only use it for bbc world channel keep up with news. Radio, german /bulgarian channels again. Sofa bed. Balcony nice view out to main gondola and end of the strip. Beds were very soft, but had good nights sleep most nights, for the few hours we did sleep. Maids did beds everyday, no problem with having to wait while you crawled out of bed late. Forgot to take own toilet roll, that would have been a good idea, the toilet roll was not very nice.

Bars/restaurants : Large selection of bars and restaurants all of which were quite small little places so sometimes you would have to try elsewhere for space, especially if you wanted to sit down. Katys steak house was a very quaint little place and had a nice steak there, 20 lev, about £7. Had some nice food at joy at lunch after half days skiing. Buzz bar was good happy hour helped. Best night was had at the happy duck. Was a live band which was good and you got to try there fishbowls there deadly. Other good place we found was 101 cocktails. Tryed to work our way through the list. Terminator and (the one above, can't remember) was a kilelr though. Food was definitely better in restaurants but saying that, hotel food was sufficient, have a good meal at lunch. Bars on slopes were about twice the price but when you need a drink you pay anything. When your feeling a bit under the weather a nice hot chocolate with brandy will sort you out. You got a little bit of hassle walking up the strip but they would only shout at you, lots of little stalls and stuff selling little gifts and bits and pieces, plenty of shops for cheap supplys and gloves/hats/clothes for if you forgot/lost anything. Lots of strip clubs as well if thats your thing dances varying from 10-20 lev, about 5 quid. Extras not much more (although can't comment on anything apart from dances, which were "pleasant". Provided quite amusing nights, drinks only slightly more expensive than normal. Worth the experience. Cheap dvds/music/games. I suggest you get them to play each one to you just to make sure there ok. They very from perfect to very poor.

Slopes/skiing : First day we got there we went straight upto the top on the gondola, i would say it was about 20min journey up. They had obviously just had a bit of snow but it still wasn't really enough. There was quite a lot of ice and rock on the slopes and you really had to pick your route well. We did find a slope which had been closed which had some good off piste skiing with no ice and rocks. The slopes were pretty well groomed and there was some good runs. The reds on the left side of the mountain as you look down from the top of gondola were good. Right side of the mountain there was a beginners slope with a drag lift. Then next to that 3 more slopes with there own drag lifts. And a long green slope to the bottom which you could have fun on. Was a bit of a trek back to the gondola unless you used the donkey carriages 15 lev each about a fiver. Split between 5 people not bad. Other side you had a couple of reds which had a quad lift taking you almost back to the top. Nice long runs and some really nice cut threw trails which were fun if you spotted them quick enough. The slopes were not particurlarly well marked, you just had to try and follow people who knew where they were going. Only problem with these runs you would end up with a bit of cross country to get back to the lift and loads if you wanted to go right back to the gondola. That was my only little niggle with the resort, I don't think the slope layout was particularly good on the gondola mountain. The rila mountain on the other hand was much better you could ski straight back to the lift and up again, although we used this mountain much less because it was much shorter slopes and was the hub for all the ski schools. Some good runs on here, just don't go down teh green at the top it's almost flat. This mountain served by two quad lifts one going slightly higher than the other. And a few drag lifts. Queues for the drag lifts were unbelievable (thank god we never used them) People where queuing from the top of the lift just to walk down and get on teh lift, we thought it was hilarious. The slopes were varied though with some blacks and reds, some of the slopes with tree cover were very icy, this was the case for both mountains. They still need more snow. Gondola was only operational for afternoon one day because of restocking then following day it was closed to half way point because they had no power. This did mean the top slopes had some time to recover and the following day they had improved a lot.

Ski/boot hire in samakov : I had taken my own boots and short skis, so can't make too much of a comment but everyone in our party was happy and the one day i tried full length skis they were fine. They had no problem with storing my boots and skis there too which was nice. Ended up having a day snowboarding with a lesson from the bloke from white magic, he took us to a ski/snowboard hire place to get snowboard. Word of warning make sure your snowboard boots fit in the bindings before you leave, if you have big feet. We ended up walking about 15minutes to mountain, doing stretchs, then when it came to putting the board on 2 out of 6 of us could not do up the bindings. So we had to walk back to the ski hire place another 15mins, change the fastenings on the boards which took over 30 mins. Then walk another 15mins back. Didn't get any discount or extended time either which i felt was a bit off. Not very amused and a bit of a downer. Although the bloke was nice, i suppose it's not really his fault.

Money : I didn't know what to do about money and ended up changing it over here, in hindsight i would have taken sterling and changed there. Exchange rate varyed about 0.10 lev on different days and different places. Pay in levs though they would only give you a rate of £1 to 3 Lev if you paid by sterling.

Conclusion : Definitely worth it for the money. Skiing is not the great, with more snow it would be a lot better though. Food not really as bad as everyone says. Go with a good group and you will definitely have fun. Shout out to the family we met in the happy duck in middle of week, you were all great laughs especially the birthday boy (Frank the tank), and the barmaids. Sorry if we were a bit rowdy.
Also if anyone was doing the filming we would like to know whether we could get a hold of it, Think you was wearing a orange jacket.