Bansko, Bulgaria

MissB from BULGARIA writes:

Queues, queues, and more queues...terrible!

I will start the review by advising everybody to never go to Bansko based on the abysmal experience myself, partner, and friends have just had on our snowboard/ski holiday there.

The queues for the main gondola and chairlifts were, in a word, horrific. On average 1 and a half hours to get up to the mountain, and one day the queue length was, wait for it, three hours long! Once we got to mid station on the mountain, half of the lifts were closed and the average waiting time to even get on a chairlift was between 25-40 minutes

The organization on the slopes was nil - the width of the queue of people waiting to cram onto a 4 person chair lift at times was about 50 people wide - that is by no means an exaggeration. It was such mayhem, that many people were getting onto lifts holding skies and boards in their arms! I dare to think what would have happened if you happened to be going down a slope below and take a knock from a falling pair of skis! Health and safety seems to not be of a concern in Bansko.

The Hotel Lion was just far too hot. And the heat was constant. I read in reviews before we left that the corridors were hot, but this was an understatement. The rooms were nice and big and modern, the cleaning staff were lovely and worked hard, but this was negated by how relentlessly hot the hotel was. The room had no air con either, and when we opened a window to get 'fresh air', we were greeting by plumes of acrid black smoke from god knows what being burned by the Hotel Perun over the road. Rest assured, if a hotel was burning what smelled like carcinogenic materials in the UK like that, health and safety would close it down within an hour! The chimney was burning black smoke for four days of the seven we were in the hotel.

This brings me onto the cigarette smoking in Bulgaria! It seems like this is a national past time, and it reminded me of how much we take the smoking ban for granted in this country. One of my friends who came on the holiday is a smoker, and even she could not stomach the constant smoking everywhere. You only had to walk out the door of your room in the hotel and you would be greeted with a waft of cigarette smoke - not to mention people puffing away faithfully at breakfast and dinner when you are trying to eat - not very nice at all.

Hotel Lion is one of hundreds of hotels in Bansko - it is over-developed to a hideous extent which means the mountain infrastructure cannot cope with the influx of people wishing to strap on a board or pair of skis. Even the locals I got speaking too all said the same thing; “There are too many hotels in Bansko for it to cope”.

We were told that Bulgaria was good value for money also - not so true on the mountain, as one meal (which was freezing cold when we ate it because the restaurant was so busy we couldn't find a seat so we had to eat outside) for two people was a surprising 58 lev, which is about £27. Not cheap by any means. We did find a place to eat on the mountain that was cheaper, but alas, we found that gem on the last day - typical.

Save your money and go to Eastern Europe or long haul, we spoke to families who were enraged and upset at how much money they’d wasted on Bulgaria, as it turned out to be a false economy. On average, you were lucky to get in 4 runs in an entire day, and even then, the slopes were packed with people. This was by no mean feat. Not only the worst snowboarding holiday experience of my life, but the worst holiday full stop I have ever been on. Please don’t waste your time or money like we did on Bulgaria!

2010-01-12