Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Got back Saturday after a good weeks skiing.

The transfer from the airport to the resort is a B*tch of a journey, 3-4 hours depending on the snow, for any parrents with young children or people with weak bladders be warned that trying to get the coach to stop is almost impossible.

After the decent dump of snow the skiiing was awsome, though the novices need to watch themselves. Several of the runs marked as blue on the piste maps are actually signposted as red on the mountain; none of the runs were particularly well bashed leaving them badly ruted by noon.

All the lifts had minimal waiting time, even the Gondola from the town had no queue to be seen (except at the weekend where it was all of two minutes). BTW the Russians/Bulgarians have no concept of queueing - so expect to be pushed out of the way.

Exchange rates was 2.7 lev to the £. Be warned you will be fleeced if you eat/drink in the hotel or on the mountain itself (still no more than in the UK but v. expensive for Bulgaria)

The food, hmm, when you buy any form of meat check it before you eat. All of our party was served up some form of undercooked/raw meat - be it a burger, chicken or sausage. This was not just limited to the mountain cafes, several times food was sent back in the hotel. Don't expect a wide variety either, and I feel sorry for any veggies...

We stayed at the Orphey - the term under construction should be applied. Every day we came back - something had been added to the room - curtain, mirror etc.
When we came to leave the staff went though all the rooms, the coach wasn't allowed to leave until all mini bar bills had been paid, bath robes had been returned etc.

Don't get me wrong the skiing was great, any Bulgarian not connected to Balkan Hoilidays or the Hotel Managment were fantastic and welcomed us with open arms. But this is not a polished resort, expect the unexpected (power cuts while sat on bench lifts) and don't set your sights to high....

I too have just got back from bansko this weekend just gone and have to differ with some of your points. Firstly, is it unreasonable for a hotel to ensure that people have settled their room bills before leaving? i didn't think so. Secondly, it wasn't power cuts that made the chair lifts stop but it was manually stopped by the operators when people had either fallen off the chairlift or when they had fallen trying to get on the lift. i know this because I saw it happen a number of times. Thirdly, I think that you just had bad luck with your hotel being under construction and the food not being cooked properly. We stayed at the Strazhite Hotel and couldn't fault it in any way. Also, as it was so cheap, we ate out every night and experienced the local cuisine in the local restaurants - it was brilliant.

To take your points 1 by 1

Yes we were unlucky with our hotel.

No, there were two power cuts, this was noted as all the lifts stopped and all the lights etc went out in the restaurants at the top gondola station.

No, it is not unreasonable for people to settle their bills, I'm just making sure that people are aware of this before they try to walk off with several bath robes etc.

I *think* you took my points to heart, all I am doing is reporting what I, and the rest of my party found.

Sorry folks but I cannot comment on this. This is the only place I have been to in Bulgaria, so its hard to form an opinion if one resort is better than another.

The total number of runs is limited, several of or group skied all the runs three / four times in 6 days. However from talking to the instructors there is significant investment planned. This will be in the form of new runs, lifts and a whole host of new hotels. They all agreed that it will take a long time for the resort to get to the level of your average European place, they also said that the Bulgarian/Russians each year move from one resort to another depending on which has the latest and greatest runs. Last year it was Bansko, may be next year it will Bansko and be very busy again.

We flew into Plovdiv, this was a very basic airport, you even had to walk several minutes from the aeroplane to the immigration control (no buses here!). Their was a single baggage carousel, against which was a x-ray machine that scanned all baggage as you exited the hall.