Bulgaria Ski discussion board

taken from snow-forecast reviews( returned -28th Jan )just to balance the info
.UK tourists.....We got back from Bansko yesterday, all in all I was very disappointed with the resort.
The Hotel - We stayed HB at the 4* Strazhite, the rooms were ok and the hotel nice enough but the service was lousy and they were downright unhelpful and grumpy, a theme we saw all too often. The food was also rubbish, pure stodge and crap variation, we ate out every night as a result. Hotel was well placed, about 4 mins from the Gondola and at the top of Pirin St.
The Skiing - The weather as everywhere else in Europe was rubbish, little snow, lots of closed runs, lots of ice and lots of people all on the same 4 slopes! It did snow the last 2 days which improved it a lot. The lift system is new and modern though and with good snow I'm sure the whole mountain would be a different place.
The food - the food in the mexana's we found to be superb and really well priced, great shashlik, Kapama and you must try Banski Starets, yum! The people in these places tend to be a bit more real but we still found them to be cold until they saw us a 2nd and 3rd time. The food on the mountain (as everywhere I suppose) was awful, crap service, cold and horrible, the pizza shack at the gondola level though was superb. A word of warning, avoid "the steakhouse" in Pirin st, I got food poisoning from raw chicken and it's well pricey for what you get.
The people- really strange bunch, some we met were nice but most ignore you, are grumpy and haven't a clue about customer service. It's as if they need you there but don't want you there, spoilt it for me and tinted my attitude towards them.
Summary - it's a strange resort, it wants to be a lot more than it is, huge amount of building and I can't for the life of me see why, it simply does not have the charm, the history or the quality of other resorts. I went there really hoping I'd like it and, with property investment in the back of my mind, if it's purely for investment purposes then it might be worthy of consideration but I wanted somewhere that I could also enjoy and Bansko is certainly not that place.
If you want cheap then Borovets is a better bet, smaller and more intimate. Bansko's only + is the lift system, if you want quality then go elsewhere. The bulgarian's really do not undertstand what makes a good resort!
One other word of warning, there is a lot of crime in Bansko, they don't tell you about it but the whole resort is mafia run, I had my wallet and snowboard stolen and saw more people in the police station than I did on the slopes, beware!............

just a copy of a review....sorry but cant take seriously suggestions and comments from somebody with 2-3-4 thousand postings(with a private interest of making the forum rosy at any price)There is a petty crime n every place and there is a crime and more often in others.
Obviously according this tourist in places like Bansko you have to be on your guard all the time even when you are relaxing.I sence this posting which is very fresh( person has returned only Sunday ) is very honest and objective.like a bulgarian dish called MISH-MASH (all in good and bad and all stirred together).

Yes ski royal mail man.
half of my life I was in there(BG)and I can say that knowing the situation I tend to always look under the surface, still going regularly there all the time but on business only.I never leave anything of value in my rooms unlocked or unsecured.That is general rule.you just dont want to know who has built this or that hotel.who has this or that business.The resorts are like the front line -interests and stakes are high and thing do happen.but above the surface everything looks just reasonable for the untrained eye.