Bulgaria Ski discussion board

having been to bansko 3 years earlier i and having a great time,cheap food and beer, great conditions, bit of a building site but hey in three years it should be sorted by now!!! how wrong could i have been!
i booked the holiday through balkan holidays.london, after being booked for about 2 months i got a letter saying that our flight was being directed via edinburgh from manchester! great! and there's nothing we could do about it!
fair enough we put up with it,crappy old airbus plane tv's not working, loads of pissed up wlesh and glaswegians! gets better!!! absolutely dreadful food,not seen a smile or a thankyou off bulgarian air staff yet!!
think it was the pilots first day after driving tractors for a living as the approach and landing weere shocking to say the least!
got on the transfer coach(read bus)!never been off-roading in a bus before!!surrounded by more druken scottish swearing etc in front of kids and such like!
got to our guiness hotel 5star which was actually quite nice!
crap staff again expensive beer prices, really smokey due to open fire and chimney not doing a deal!
1st day board hire adventure, got passes etc, i have never in all my life seen someone so un interested in helping you out with a hire service, gave me a tiny board eventually swapped it with 2 right bindings on it!!! such a knob head!took 4 of us nearly 40 mins to get 4 boards! and they weren't great!
then wen't on to get the gondala!!!! ha ha yeah right the cues about 8 miles long waited for ten mins without moving so sacked that off and got a taxi up bartered him down to 40 lev for a ten min taxi ride("bulgaria's so cheap")|no it's not! got on the slopes which were all just shear ice! on a poor board is not the best idea of fun!
one massive red/black sloope closed due to the europa cup there next week!
all slopes are so overcrowded, all being slushy by lunctime and very rocky, there are snow cannons everywhere but just think the bulgarians are too bloody lazy to switch them on!!!
after the first average day got back down on the gondala and got proporsitioned by a group of whores accompanied by ivor the terrible!
went for a few beers in the happy end, last time i was here it was about 40p now well over 2 quid and the miseerable staff expect tips all the time!
and our walk back to the hotel is literally a building site infact the whole place is a building site,it's ridiculous the amount of aprtment buildings going up, anyone who's buying one there must be mad because it's overcrowded now so god help em when or if there finished!
after this trip i will never be returning to bansko or using balkan holidays ever again the service of 99 percent of bulgarians is rubbish to say the leeast! sorry for this to sound like a rant but it;s just an honest acoount of our experience in the awful tip of a town and to top it all i had the privelage of spending a grand to do it! goodbye and good riddance!

Flights sound shocking (mine changed by a day and as I opted for the no refund had to take two extra days leave.... as it was sat to sat its now Fri to Fri.

Tfr Sofia to Bansko or in fact any Airport to hotel if there are 2 people its the same price as a coach gets you there quicker and much more relaxing >3 you save.

Sofia to Bansko it costs us £100 rtn so we get 4 in a taxi and 2.5hrs each way it is fine.

Building site - fully agree there is too much of it (I cannot see anyone disagreeing with that). I'd love it if they actually finish streets & footpaths for some areas rather than dig them all up and only once everything is done then pave them over.

Ski conditions - were going 1st Week in April first time it will be quiet then hopefully there will be good enough snow.

As for over priced food & drink Ive said before on other threads you can get food & drink very cheaply & good food too. Of course the beers in the Hotel are going to be more than in a pub its like that in any country (even the UK shock).

Not seen these ladies of the night so no comment until I see them.

General costs you must remember that the Lev is linked directly to the Euro (at a fixed rate) and due to the credit crunch and our lowering of interest rates + Eurozone increasing their rates the £ strength has dropped from E1.47:£1 to E1.25:£1 so on currency changes alone you will effectivly see price rises of 18% be that France or Bulgaria or anywhere else in the Eurozone.

I get a beer in the bars from 0.8Lev - 2.5Lev which is somewhere between £0.25-£0.70. I live in the S.E. and beers average £3.80 a pint so I could get 5.5 pints for 1 even buying at the most expensive or at the cheapest 15.2 pints.

Note Easy Jet fly there too but they seem to have normalized the cost of a flight to that of Balkan airways given that fly with Easy Jet

And you say about language on the coach - this is a family friendly board don't you know!!

Sorry you had such a bad experience - seems all of BG is in for a slating this season, bit it Boro, Bansko or Pamps!

I will be back in Bansko for my 4th year in two weeks time. Yawn - YES - it is a building site as it is a 'developing' resort - FACT! I have seen it 'develop' more and more each year I have been - not great I know - I will admit I thought last year was pretty rough as no snow in the town and due to where I stayed I had a walk each morning to the gondola over potholes, cables, bricks, you name it - some would be disgusted but it was no less than I expected knowing I was re-visiting a 'growing' resort. Got covered in dust - the downfall of having no snow in the town - not great I agree.

Am staying at the Kemp this year - disappointed that snow conditions seem to be getting poor again but at least I will not have to go far for the gondola.

Comments about gondola queues do concern me - will just have to wait til I am there and form my own opinion. If needs be will have lazy breakfast and later start on the slopes - that suits me but appreciate it does not suit all.

Snow conditions are not just in BG and not BG's fault - this is just how the weather goes and is something that we, as skiers, all know is a gamble.

Snow cannons and staff too lazy to switch them on? Err, I doubt it - does not help them really does it? If they are not switched on, it is because temps do not prevail! Surely you as a snow addict (ski/board) will understand that or do you not have any idea how a ski resort works??

Prices are up all over it would seem - shame - us Brits have prob priced it up by all the blagging "go to BG cos it is SOOOOOO cheap" - if you worked there/owned a bar or hotel I am sure you would do the same. It is happening over here too - we are ALL being ripped off in one way or another - that - sadly - is life!

Sad you had such a poop experience - now you know next year to book elsewhere - as will many others on here perhaps as there are so many bad reports about BG this year.

As I said - out there in a couple of weeks. If I feel the same, I will vote with my feet also, but do still believe BG has a certain charm about it - hope that feeling remains!!

Kim, I am kind of with you on the Bansko thoughts, went last year, groty town/building site, fantastic hotel (kempinski) great mountain, good enough snow, had a great week, obviously Bansko lacks all the charm of other European ski resorts but it does have somethings going for it, as I've said before on here, did Austria in Jan and am really looking forward to returning to Bansko in 2 weeks time, we will stay in the hotel and get up the mountain early to avoid any gondola problems, for us it's all about snowboarding hard with private lessons and relaxing in a great hotel, I don't care what happens out on the street or what the place looks like, I certainly would never recommend it to first time skiers or people wanting a complete holiday experience, but I am going back.

Kevr1, I'm glad I wasn't out the same week as you, it was Bansko you were going to not Klosters so what did you expect. From reading your report I'm sure that you make even the grumpy Bulgarians look happy.
Regarding your trip alterations you would or should have beeen offered a full refund if you had wanted but you obviously didn't read the letter or decided against it.
Kevr1 you should get out a bit more, people are suppose to try and enjoy themselves on holday and they do let their hair down a bit. I don't condone the swearing but you get bad parents all over the UK not just in Glasgow and Wales.

no it just seems to be the scottish,yeah we're all out there for a good time but they were shocking, so many of the guests said the same obviusly not bg's fault i just think because there are so many hotels going these lower class individuals are getting there hands on 5 star accomadation in late deals and ruins the whole reason of having a 5 star hotel!
and for your info pete it was between -2 and -10 so why the cannons aren't on i don't know,
read all the small print and even called them up asking for a refund because of the flights but there's nothing you can do!
re beer prices i have a bar here in the uk, beer prices do not go up ten fold in 3 years, they're just out to make a quick buck!
a much better holiday was had in la plagne last year for the same money which had so much more variety of slopes, better kept slopes, better service which the french aren't renowned for!
better quality hire boards!
even a smile now and again from the staff!
this place has sold out it'll be too overcrowded, it needs another gondola and more runs otherwise it'll fall on it's arse!

Well as per my point above in under a year if a pint did cost £1 if would now cost near on £1.20 purely due to exchange rate changes.

I have been 3 times and not seen any changes in prices as said above its always 0.8-2.5Lev. Can you state how many Levs you were actually paying this year and how much you were paying 3 years ago.

So your saying that beer has increased by 26% year on year which given my 0.8-2.5Lev means that 3 years ago that range would have been 0.3 - 1 Lev and at the time the exchange rate was 3lev : £1 so a beer would have cost £0.10 - £0.33. Can anyone confirm if this is the case? I can confirm in Aug06 the lev range was 0.8-2.5Lev.

With Flights as I said in my post as I had specifically chosen the cheapest flights where it said you couldnt cancel and if you did zero refund then I have to accept the consequences if I pay more then fiar enough.

Final point how many went for this £1k total holiday cost? & how many went on the la Plange last year + what class hotel/facilities?