Bulgaria Ski discussion board

Back yesterday from Borovets, good skiing to be had but a mixed experience of Borovets and Bulgaria.
Things to watch out for, one of our group was pick pocketed in Sophia on the way back to the airport (on the steps of the cathedral) so is still out there waiting for a replacement passport.
One of the restaurants at the top of the Gondola tried a rip off, didn't bring the full order then tried to charge for the missing items as well as the replacements we had to ask for. Tried to argue we must have had it given the number in our group, conveniently missing the fact I only had a hot choc after a rather large breakfast!
A few random charges on the hotel bill for several of our group ranging from phone calls that hadn't been made to use of safety deposit box which hadn't been used.
Worst ski instructors I have ever come across, to call it a complete farce would be to compliment it. I saw loads of perfectly good instructors from the same very big Borovets operation all over the mountain but think we being with a small operator who is only out there a couple of weeks a year were landed with the useless two they didn't dare give a big operator. Instruction from both didn't go beyond telling groups which way to go and one of the groups didn't even manage to get the instructors name out of him in the whole week! That same instructor did the trick reported elsewhere of ducking out for half a day and not making it up as promised but this time did it to a group containing several under 10s without telling the parents at the start of the day leaving a couple of teenagers in the group (thankfully a whole lot more responsible than the instructor!) looking after the little ones till their parents appeared at the time they though the lesson would finish several hours later. Add to that a couple of other major safety issues I'll describe below and I have a hard time seeing how I could suggest Borovets as a good family choice.
Safety issues, the big one was 3 7 year old children being sent onto the chairlift on their own even though they were too small to work the safety bar, one fell off (right at the start thankfully, not hurt) and the other two rode the whole chair near the Rila with the bar up as the lift operators ignored all the people yelling at them in English, Bulgarian and pretty much every other European language to stop it. It was a regular practice for instructors not to wait for all their group to rejoin before skiing on. Maybe OK with experienced skiers who know where they are going but not with kids in their first day! In one case, on the second run of the holiday leaving a kid behind at a junction in the pistes who I waited for then lost the class for the rest of the session (that was before me and one of the others in the class was pretty much thrown out as the instructor said we would be better off just going skiing on our own, at least he seemed to know which skiers knew enough to spot how useless he was!).
On the good side, despite reports all over the internet to the contrary the Rila is a perfectly good hotel. Good food with plenty of choice (not sure if it makes a difference but we always ate in the restaurant near the pool), warm, clean, modern rooms well maintained and the swimming pool at a perfect temperature for swimming even if it was rather bracing after you'd been in the hot tub!
Some very pleasant lunches had in the Crown just up the slope from the Rila, especially when going for a traditional Bulgarian dish.
Excellent local brandy made for some great evenings.
Apart from the Gondola first thing in the morning no queues to speak of at any of the lifts I was using, one or two of the lower drags occasionally had a bit of a wait but there could be a long queue one time you passed it then half an hour later passing it again no one at all waiting.

David,

What a shame you had some bad experiences especially where the kids were concerned. Seems like your kids instructors were really bad. Thats a real shame cos your kids always remember their hols, in detail! Especially when they're learning to ski. Have to say we had the opposite experience, our kids 1st ski hol was in Boro, we've been to other places since but they still say Boro was their best ski hol!

Hope this doesn't cloud you're judgment too much and you and the family will return to Boro again.

Think it was more to do with fact it was a small holiday company so the ski school (I'm sure some of you can guess which one) decided to take them for ride. Contract was for 4 instructors for us (a group of single parent families) which would have been just right for the mix of ability from first time to a couple of decades experience. Ski school provided 2, excuse being they were busy, they know how many instructors they have and how many they have agreed to supply, sounds little short of fraud to me!
Instruction was in mixed groups of kids and adults, not a problem in its self once you get above beginner level, worked fine in Predeal last year. feel sorry for the beginners who don't know better but everyone who'd had lessons before said that they got nothing from the instructors.
Of my family I was in effect thrown out for being too good a skier for the group (pretty much inevitable some of us would be with 2 instructors trying to cover that range of ability), my 11 year old gave up lessons in disgust after the second day as she said (despite having gone over to boarding 6 months ago but was skiing because we'd booked a ski holiday before that) and I have to agree she was a better skier than the instructor. My 15 year old, a competent but not very confident skier said the skiing was OK but she only learnt things from others in the group and my 7 year old had fun chasing after the instructor as he tried to fly off in front before stopping to wait for the group then going off to play on the reds with me, one of my friends and her 7 year old. After the problems described in the first post I followed the kids group at a discrete distance for a bit of the last couple of days, abilities ranged from good snowplough skiing to ones like my 6 year old who were carving turns and doing daft stuff like skiing switch and finding all the bumps and jumps on the piste to relieve the boredom. Shows how much attention the instructor paid as they all got diplomas saying they were parallel skiers.
On the plus side as I said the good instructors were very good. My 11 year old switched to board lessons for the second half of the week, no problem using her ski hire voucher to hire board kit (the first board de-laminated within a couple of runs but she was then given a much newer and nicer one, hire kit given to our group ranged from totally k*&^erd cheap and cheerful stuff like Orion skis and brandless boots to brand new high end Atomic boots and slightly used but decent K2 snowboards. Again I'd feel sorry for any beginners who didn't know enough to realise their kit was making their life much harder) and excellent instruction. Though I do think I have George to blame for her deciding her current jacket and trousers are far too and that she needs some more style kit before heading into the mountains again! At the start of the holiday on our first run on skis she said no way could she cope with the Baraki 1 (a blue) from the top of the Rila chair on her board, after 2 of her 3 half day lessons she was happily cruising the reds down from the top of the Sitnakovo Express and according to one of the experienced adult boarders in our group all 3 of the boarder kids in our group ended the week very close to cracking linked carved turns (Em is off to the Tamworth fridge tomorrow to try and perfect it).

Right David, name and shame... Im sorry, your treatment is just not good enough... Basically your holiday was effected by the lax attitude of a business that basically is there to serve, and in that provide a level of service...
We run a business here, and we would be horrified to discover that our guests had been treated like you had been. We recommend ski hire and instruction to incoming guests that we transport, the first inkling of a problem and the shop loses our business (many 100's of guests, many 1000's of lv) or they will be shaken up to maintain their standards (super to date)

I am also sure that the business in question in Borovets would prefer to know of your complaints, and if they did not, then they deserve all they get in bad press...

Go for it !!!

As for Sofia experience ?? happens in every major city unfortunately, and being ripped off in restaurants ?? should have stuck to the `White House', you can come out of there with more money than when you went in
Please don't let your experiences put you off Bulgaria, you mentioned `single parents', am i right in assuming that the travel company you referred to specialise in catering for these groups ?? It is relatively simple to organise your own holiday if you have local contact (us ??), keep in touch, we could show you a different side to Bulgaria

Steve,
Will email you company concerned as they did a good for most people, think they overcommited in a busy week and felt it better to risk ruining their reputation with a small operator than trying it with a big operator who is there every week.
Sophia yep, happens the world over just reporting it as a gentle reminder to folks stuff happens!
Yep a specialist operator, works really well as the kids have others of their own age to run wild with and the adults have some sane company in the evenings! By day 2 the whole group is looking out for each other like a big familiy, handy when fou have half the normal number of big people to little people! Though think a bunch of us are planning a DIY single parent hol next year so we may be in touch.
Cheers
David