Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Hi Laura, and all readers,
I am really sorry about your start of the holiday.
I must say that it's not the Thompson or any other UK company who's to blame. I don't want to defend them, but the reallity is that the blame is on the "bloody" Bulgarians again and again. They do not have any clue as to how organise things promptly and communicate with people and mainly each other.
If we think that the UK customer service is appaling as it always gets ranted on about, there is no names for the Bulgarian system apart from the very rude ones.
I was coincidently at the Plovdiv airport on that Sat. night on the other side waiting for people to take them to Bansko. Let me tell you, what a carry on.
The planes were showing up delayed to 21.00 hours and around that for all of them, to start with.
Then at 20.20 they cancelled them all and told us that everybody will land in Sofia at precisely 21.10 for the plane from Dublin and around that time for the other planes.
What is already wrong about this, is the fact that I could tell from past experiences that there is probably no way that the planes are going to land with the amount of snow. (which by the way wasn't that bad. If in Canada, there would be no planes landing at all for the whole wintrer nearly)
But as you can imagine, one always hopes that they made improvements from the past and so the planes will be ok to land in Sofia instead. What a huge mistake that was.
Everybody rushed to Sofia, which is 150km away and the motorway was covered in snow really badly.
I got there first with my new minibus and manged to get a hold of the customers themselves. "WHAT ON EARTH?" I thought, when they told me, that they are in Burgas.
There was no information about anything from Sofia airport. They will just let you wait and let you hope.
They should know pretty well with the equipment they have and what amount of snow is coming down if they will at all be able to land 'A PLANE' never mind a whole lot.
It looks like it's just a typicall Bulgarian way, when no-one knows anything. It's more than frustrating. I would have to be rude to express how incompetent most of them are.
The whole of the nation with brains and good attitude, needs to stand up and SCREAM "This is enough" we cannot carry on like this. Things have to change and it has to be done really fast, otherwise we are going to go under. All the investment will soon finish, because people have had enough of thier beaurocracy and bad attitude towards getting things done fast and mainly right. All the initial exitement and price boom is nearing the end very fast.
That is aslo to your point about snow situation in Pamporovo. They have had a plenty of good freezing temperatures to make the runs near perfect with snow cannons. Some they have done alright, but overall it's a disaster in the standards of the rest of the world's good resorts. They do not have enough infrastructure to do it. But who's fault is that? No forward planning, people steeling funds wherever you look, just a complete disaster.
They aim very high, but the delivery is a complete or at least a huge failure.
They are digging themselves into a huge hole and unless a miracle happens, they will not get out of it for another three decades, unless things change rapidly.
With all their paperwork and stamps needed to get anything done, you would think that investment from europe is going to the right place and will help to improve thing very quickly. That is the wrong assumption. A lot, and I mean huge amounts of money has dissapeared into private projects where only individuals benefit. Not the towns or villages as they are suppose to. And that is due to the leftovers from Communist days, where you just need to know the right people with the right stamps and have a fund for pay-offs.
Can we do something about it? I say yes! Europe needs to focus on making Bulgarian goverment build seriously strong regulatory bodies for the system here and make them to simplify all processes so everything is very clear and you can find a crook from a mile away. With all the paperwork now, there is no wonder, that stuff gets lost. No-one can make a head and tail of it.

I really hope that things change and people like you will come back to have a great holiday. That Bulgarians will stop this ripping off society they build over the last 15 years and will try to do things honestly and take pride in what they do and can achieve that way.

All the best regards
Pavel

Excellent post Pavel. Good to hear some honesty coming out of Bulgaria. Your comments illustrate what those of us who have been going to Bulgaria for twenty years know. The problem is that every difficulty, every bad decision and piece of mis-management is clouded in a mist of mis-information. It's always someone else's fault and no-one takes responsibility or is accountable.

Galina started a very useful thread on 'What needs to change in Pamporovo' and the comments were spot on. What Bulgarians always appreciated in the past was the value of the customer and that they had to have a great holiday or wouldn't come back. Now the perception of many tourists is that they don't care. Just give us your money and p*** off! This is particularly true with younger workers in the resort eg the difference between the older workers and younger bar staff in the Snezhanka.

The problem is that although many have contributed to Galina, few believe that anyone will listen or that real meaningful change will take place. It appears enivitable, therefore, that Pamporovo is in serious trouble!

The question here to anyone with a love for Pamporovo is CAN ANYTHING TO DONE??? and will anyone listen

I to went to Pamps on the 3rd January. We went twice last year and had a fantastic time.

We were stuck in Varna in a freezing hotel after spending 8 hours at the airport. No communication from travel company so no one knew what was going on. Eventually got to Sofia 24 hours after we should have and guess what the insurance company will not pay as we had left Gatwick.

We understand about the weather, but what has happened has put us off Bulgaria, which is awful as we have family living there and were hoping to buy ourselves. This was also our 5th visit in 18 months.

The snow conditions at Pamps were really bad, the green run was highly congested and the top part was mostly ice and rock. Why were the snow cannons not working all the time and the runs not groomed.

The new runs were not open, though my partner and a friend did go and look at them and said they required grooming as there was plenty of snow. Come on Pamporovo do something or the visitor numbers will drop and a beautiful part of the world will become a ghost town.

Hi guys,
thanks for the replies to my post earlier.
I would love to talk to Galina about all of it. How can I get hold of her?
Perhaps she could get in touch?
My number is +359896335218
I love this area and am very unhappy about the way that things are run in here and Bulgaria altogether.
I believe that someone will eventually listen. The main thing is to get people like Bulgaria Ski and other big companies to start a serious discissions with people who have experience with the way that things are run in the west and the heads who are running the place like Pamorovo and Chepelare. However we need a seriously quick and targeted action to take place promptly after these discussions. In my experience people mainly talk around these parts of the world and nothing happens. Or it does happen, a long time in the future and it is a big dissaster in many cases.
I would most certainly like to get involved very seriously in these things as I rely on making a living out of tourism and other closely related areas of business. Our family does as a matter of fact.
People here don't look ahead very much. Everybody I talk to is just thinking about making as much as possible tomorrow and they don't really care about the future many years to come. We have to have a sustainable income for many years to come not just today and tomorrow.
We also need to protect this beautiful area from spoiling it with developing anything for as long as the investors pour money into the pot.
That is soon going to run out and what are we going to do next. People with a lot of money, big companies etc. will move on to ruin another lovely part of the world and we will be left here to pick up the pieces.

I could go on and on... but I have to stop myself.
If I could speak to the right people who want to act, I most certainly will.
And would like to think, that I might have a lot of good points on how to improve things around here.
Will anybody get in touch? Will the big companies with interests in Bulgarian tourism try to do something together with people on the ground like me or you?

There are a lot of questions like these and I honestly hope for the sake of this beautiful country, that the answers to those will be "yes".

Let's do something and make it count for the future generations not only to make a fortune tomorrow and not care what is going to happen next year or later.

Thanks
Pavel
P.S. Sorry for the long post again