Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Hi all,
Just baack after what should have been a week in Pamps. Left Cork for Plodiv on Sat. 19th. 1&1/2 hour late only to be told we were diverting to Sofia due to fog. After four hours, told Sofia fog-bound and we'd have to circle to await "a window of oportunity". Hour and half later, "sorry we have to divert to Thesoloniki in Greece, running low on fuel". Arrived 3:30a.m. and sat for two and half hours when called by a very nice, sic! greek lady to "come". All followed like sheep to front of terminal. What happened next was the nightmare of all nightmares. A coach and fifteen seater to take us all to the three resorts via Sofia. A number of not so happy campers demanded that another bus be provided to take groups to their respective destinations. Our friendly organiser vanished into the terminal and after an hour of awaiting her return a search party saught her out. Eventualy she returned to say that a third coach would not come. As the smallest group was going to Bansko they were persuaded to travel directly on the mini-coach and the rest would endure the coach to the other two resorts .. and what an endurance. It all started with the drivers trying to find their way out of Thesoloniki off the ring road, nearly every slip-road we came to they made to turn off until they realised it wasn't the right one. After almost 3/4 hour we came off the ring-road and made for Bulgaria. Two hours it took to reach the border and no pit-stop. What we didn't realise was that it would take another nine hours to reach Pamps thanks to an idiot of a driver who hadn't a clue where he was going. In all, we counted twelve time he pulled up in villages and petrol stations looking for directions. On the odd occasion at a petrol station he would call out "toilet". Eventually we managed to reach Borovets at 1 o'clock where about a dozen were dropped in the middle of a make-shift car park to find their own way to their respective hotels. This should have a sign of things to come. Eventually arrived in Pamps 5p.m. when he pulled up at the Findlandia Hotel for what we thought was the first drop-off. Oh what fools we were! That was it, the Greeek decided no further, as far as he was concerned this was Pamps and he was going no further. In spite of threats to get the police we eventually had to take off our bags and call taxi's to ferry us to the hotels. To add insult to injury, the taxi driver tried to pull a fast one by double tapping the metre and was charging 16Lev to the Murgavets until I asked for a receipt when he changed it to 13Lev. So all of Sunday was lost but the rest of the week was good but by Friday the snow was gone off parts of the runs but I'm gald, for those out this week, to see
that snow has come in abundance. By the way, prices, mainly in resturants, have gone up considerably since last season.