Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Hi -
I agree with Karen - Perelik staff were good and ski school was good too. Some runs were poorly maintained though and even Tosh (our tasty instructor) was unhappy about lack of culverts and loose rocks on the runs which ski school can do nothing about. From what he said, I got the impression that there are 3 groups: the ski school and hotel staff (good) the tour operators(Mmmm) and the financial backers to Pamps (who are cheap and don't want to spend money as requested by the ski school).

I got back last night too (Karen - was that you sneaking out the Perelik restau with that bottle of Champers??!)

Let me start by saying that this is my third year to BG. I absolutely love the place and normally, Bulgarians are the some of the warmest people you will ever meet. They are kind, friendly and very courteous. Because I know this from previous trips, I will be going back to BG but not with Balkan Holidays. This was the first ski trip for my pal and I hope it hasn't put him off skiing permanently.

1. Take food, drink and a tenner's worth of leva with you. Assume you're not going to get access to food until breakfast time the next day. Our plane's food was appalling (although they will sell you snacks) and due to fog we were diverted from Plovdiv to Sofia. This meant a 4 hour transfer on a coach. We stopped after 2 hours for the loo and crisps at a petrol station and then continued. All holiday companies know this is a possibility yet there was less than 5 mins info from the rep when we first boarded the coach, no welcome pack with contact numbers, maps or anything, and despite the coach having video/dvd capacity with screens everywhere, there was no chance of a vid about the resort or even a film. What a wasted opportunity! We were told - you'll be met by someone in the morning to be fitted for skiis at the time specified on your hotel board. That was it.

2. Coach would not take us into the hotel carpark and drop us at the door, instead we had to climb 20 metres of steep slippery steps from the road with cases. Nice touch at the end of that trip. You can leave your cases on the roadside and fetch a porter to take the risk for you but we didn't know that.

3. The reception staff at the Perelik are fabulous, but Balkan hadn't told them we were coming. This meant no room and no dinner. It was now 11.30pm. Credit to the hotel, they rushed about, did us supper and a room within 30 minutes. However, the Balkan Holidays board said nothing about our ski fitting and reception organised this too. Well done girls!

4. Take 6 leva with you when you get issued with your ski pass - you have to pay this as a deposit for the new compulsory handsfree card, which, if you're not told about this beforehand, can eat into your lunch money if you haven't changed very much on that first morning.

5. Ski School was fine apart from environmental factors like no snow, continuous rain, lack of culverts which created huge bottle necks. ( and if you can get a lady called 'Joy' (or in BG: Radost) you'll do great. She is about 4ft9" huge brown eyes and a bigger smile) The lift staff were great - very fast to respond to problems.

6. The welcome meeting was just to give us a list of Apres Ski activities. Only one activity was not in the resort and this was bizarrly taking place at the same time as the meeting. This was a trip to the local town 12 km away called Smolyan. If you're like me, and want to see some of the country as well as ski, then pop into the Mourgavyets Hotel next to the Perelik. In their reception, they have a list of excursions out to places like the Bachkovo Monastery, the Cave system, Plovdiv and other places. We discovered this too late. I am glad in a way we missed the Balkan trip into Smolyan because again, the Perelik reception girls came through and gave us info on the local bus into Smolyan. Balkan Holidays cost was £7/8, we paid just 2 Levs.(max 80p) The driver of this bus, a minibus, told us heaps about the area, things to see, restaurants to try both in Pamps and Smolyan, some of the history and demographics. He also asked us where and when we wanted to be picked up again, so there were no worries that we were going to get stuck. We only spent a couple of hours down there for a bit of lunch (Pizza restaurant on the main pedestrian road) and shopping for presents, but there is a planetarium and museum too if you have the time.

7. At the welcome meeting, Eli told us we could have a free gluwein at BJ's after skiing. We tried this and its not true. It cost 12 leva for both of us and it would have been cheaper to have it at the top of the mountain!


8. The Balkan quiz was a pub quiz, but you pay £7/8 again for entry and includes a 2 lev beer. It was fun but the star prize of a pair of parallel skiis was a joke; our instructor told us they are not sold anymore as they all teach on carvers, there were no bindings supplied and were too big for even my 6ft companion. So, I am glad we lost, actually!
9. The bowling evening was ok but don't expect the Balkan rep to socialise with you. She sat across the room from the rest of us and played with her mobile phone.

10. Other Balkan Holidays members of my ski class reported other issues: they'd paid Balkan extra for a family room for 4 beds to accommodate 2 teenage children as well but were given 2 double rooms instead and ended up improvising another bed on the floor. Others reported that they'd paid for ski kindergarten for their children (2 hours skiing + childcare daily) to get no skiing and be told by Balkan rep to pay him more cash for skiing and then he failed to show up. Another had tried to use the sauna at their hotel, 'included' in the brochure description and was made to pay extra. The rep shrugged and said it was a misprint and you must pay. Wrong. The brochure description forms part of your contract with the holiday company. If they get it wrong, its their problem. The way through these problems was to keep complaining, take the brochure with you, your invoice and any info you have from your holiday company.

11. The folder in reception was the thinnest I have ever seen with very little info. Conversely, Inghams' folder was very informative. They're all there on the desk normally, so help yourself!

12. The hotel food is always a sticky issue; perhaps more so when it can be so delicious on the mountain and in restaurants around Pamps. We ate at the White House (nice one lit beautifully with wizard-dressed guy outside on right as you ascend the hill into Pamps up from Ski depot number 1) and it was excellent. I recommend the Kavarma wherever you go - it’s a pork casserole in a ceramic pot served with onions, leeks and mushrooms. I can't comment on their chips or burgers because I didn't try them all week. We booked the day before just to make sure and had to pay a deposit.

13. Departure day was more trouble. Our collection time said 10.00 and rep had said don't worry if we're a bit late as we have to go around all the hotels. We sat there from 9.25 am in reception until 10.30 and then asked other departing guests about their destinations. One couple reported that Balkan had already come in and taken half their group to Plovdiv at 10.10 with no explanation, but we hadn't seen anyone from Balkan. Again, our reception girls came through, made some calls and said that our coach was still on its way to us. At 10.40, a lady walked in and said '2 people plovdiv east midlands…' and we left. She was not a Balkan rep, no Balkan anorak, clipboard, nothing. Like on arrival, no-one asked for our names, there was no checking to see that they had everyone going to the right place, just a headcount. I hope that other couple made it back too.

14. Again, the aircraft food was shocking (stale roll and spam) but we had been to Dak's shop ( little shop on opposite side of road from Mouragvyets/Perelik) and stocked up on drinks, chocs, crisps and biscuits…not very healthy but if you're off to Plovdiv, remember that there is very limited provision for food/drink if you get delayed. Luckily, we didn't, but the Newcastle and Humberside groups did, for 3 hours in the departure 'room'. Be warned and take extra loo paper as well.

In summary - What was good? I would like to recommend Air Parks car park service at EMA because their service was faultless, fast and efficient. The Perelik Hotel receptionists were excellent and really made every effort to sort things out when Balkan Holidays failed to do the basics. Ski School instructors (TOSH and JOY) were good, the local bus driver who lambada-ed up the icy road whilst telling us about the area was a treasure and the unsung heros for me were the strong armed chaps who helped everyone off the lifts and were very fast to stop them in the event of difficulty. What was bad? Balkan Holidays. Never going to use them again. Would I go back? Sure, but only because I know that it isn't like that with other operators from previous experience. In a way, I feel that we'd have been better off organising the flight, hotel and transfers ourselves for more control and less stress.

I find it sad because a trip like that could put people off BG permanently, which means that local people suffer, when really, they're the doing all they can to make you feel welcome and it’s the tour operators who are taking the lionshare of your cash without earning it.

Gaby

Same question about culverts. Thanx Gaby for a very informative report. I just booked with Balkan because they were the only operator with any flights left.Also When I stayed at the Pamporovo Hotel at Christmas I observed the different reps and found the Balkan rep ( with his own office there) to be the most helpful and accessible out of all of them.

Our Thomson rep didn't show on the first morning (claimed to have left a message with hotel staff) I dragged myself and family out of bed at 0730 to meet him at 8. We had ony just got to bed after arriving at the hotel at 0330. We met someone at 0800 hrs and followed him round the resort collecting other customers on the way believing him to be the local rep working for Thomson. After collecting guests at the Prespa,Morgavets, Perelik and Snejanka we ventured to Daks bar for the introductory meeting. We then discovered we were with the Ski instructor who seemed to be working for Balkan Holidays. It was only when he said that some of us would be flying to Belfast and the others to Dublin that I realised what I had done. ( I had flown from Birmingham) We then returned to our hotel too late for breakfast and had to suffer the pay for food restaurant at the Pamporovo hotel. After listening to the excellent talk from the Balkan rep while we waited an hour for a portion of chips for our daughter we bumped into the Thomson rep in the bar. One day later we were ready to go skiing and were allocated a ski instructor in the Hotel, just then the bus arrived and my daughter decided she needed a pee so missed that bus and were allocated ski instructor Nr 2 who took us to Malina. He took us to the wrong area of the ski depot for our tour operator and we were refused skis so had to find the Thomson area and kit ourselves out.

We then queued for an hour and a half for a lift pass. We were at the middle of the queue and the ski instructors from behind collected all the lift passes on their guests' behalf. Instuctor Nr 2 seemed to forget that we had been allocated to him and must have decided he had waited too long and disappeared with our group. We found ourselves at the back of the queue 150 + people from behind us had received their lift passes thru their instructors and we were still queuing. Then guess what ? They ran out of lift passes and closed the hatch saying that they were going to have some more delivered.We waited for another 20 mins or so and were given lift passes and Ski instructor Nr 3. He took us up on the lift and delivered us to Ski instructor Nr.4 (Joy) We felt rather unimportant by now but were soon transformed into happy learners with Joys big smile and sense of humour. We were in a group of 7 in total.By the end of the day we even felt lucky !

Morals of the story are
1) If you are a first timer it's best to open your mouth and check all the way that you are in the right place with the right people 'cos nobody else will check.

2) Queue jump wherever possible or you will end up at the back.

3) If you let it, it only needs one pratt to spoil your holiday.

4) It only needs one smile and a bit of skiing to make your holiday one of the best you will ever experience.

sorry for gabbling on !