Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Hi Folks,

Just gopt back from a great weeks holiday in Pamporovo, first skiing holiday and first Christmas away so nothing really to compare it with but here goes my thoughts.

Had an horrendous journey from Manchester on 20th, 6 hour delay then put on a plane to Sofia instead of Plovdiv (was there ever a plane going to Plovdiv I wonder!) so a further 4 and a half hour transfer on top of the delay!

Hotel Merian was fantastic brand new this year, great food very helpful staff and a great small cosy feel to the place. Expensive charges for the spa facilities though (40 Lev for a Jacuzzi!).

No Skiing the first 2 days was dissapointing and the trip to Shikoro Luka on the Monday was crap, I think if snow is not going to be reliable at this time of year then the ski school should either prepare a better green programme and put some thought into it or not bother. I'd suggest they get the ski instructors to run a number of guided mountain walks of various lengths for people of various abilities, I'd have been more than happy to walk up the whole mountain if someone had shown me the way!

Skiing on Tuesday - Now I'm a very basic skier having just had a few lessons at home and this being my first ski holiday. Was put into an intermediate group with 8 others including my 10 year old son, with an instructor called Jerry. Jerry was fantastic he apologised for the crap snow and rocks and ice but really helped us to negotiate the conditions and we all had a great time on the limited green ice run that was open. Wednesday more skiing on Ice but Jerry again doing his best to get us all down safely and get the best out of the conditions. Christmas day! We meet Jerry and we all travel up to the middle station and he suggests we travel up to the top on the lift and check out the conditions and if not good we can travel back and at least we will have seen the top of the mountain. Once at the top Jerry decides there's enough snow and we are skiing down! Fantastic barely any patches of ice enough snow for me to work on my parallel turns and every body is having a great time. Went down from the top to middle station 5 times that day and loved it. Boxing day back to the top, unfortunately the ice patches are getting bigger so Jerry decides to take us down a few of the short blue runs that link in with the green where there is a little more snow and then at the end of the day takes us down a red! Saturday morning manage to get a few more hours in skiing before having to leave unfortunately ice patches spreading and more snow needed.

Had a great time and really enjoyed it as a first time skiing experience.

Would I go back? If there was snow then yes, so if the price was right for a last minute deal then I'd reccomend to beginners like myself.

Saving up now for the next ski trip and as I seem to have been bitten by the bug and am willing to spend a little bit more in the hope of better snow.

Cheers

Michael

Agree with everything Michael said, fab for beginners, though we went with Balkan and I never would again. The 4 hour journey to Pamps was interrupted with a 15 minute break at a service station which just couldn't cope with a coach full of people and made us an hour late arriving. Our return journey to the airport was at 5am in a freezing bus. The coach had 'technical problems' and so the heating didn't work. I think we would book independantly when we come again and we would also go self-catering.

We had pretty much the same problems as you but was topped with a 3 hour delay on the way home also. Dani was our instructor and she was fab also. Our main bug bare was the food. For some reason it seems they serve it luke warm in the hotel (snezhanka) it was a nightmare considering we had gone half board. The best and hotest food we had was on the slopes in the little shacks. All 12 of us enjoyed the skiing/ice skiing... and will definately do it again but possibly drive (been put off by the delays) and somewhere with guarenteed snow......the cannons weren't much cop.
Sarah