Park Hotel Gardenia — Hotel in Bansko

Never stay at this hotel during the holidays – the prices were high, and the quality was low. The problems began at check-in when we discovered that none of the three rooms we had reserved had a balcony (one of the features I specifically called to confirm before making the reservation). At the reception, we were told that the person we spoke to back in October had misled us and that only 12 rooms in the hotel had balconies, which required an additional fee – information that was not mentioned anywhere in their website.

When we got to the room, we found out it had two separate beds, even though our reservation explicitly stated we wanted a double bed. After arguing at the reception for about 15 minutes, they finally changed our room. However, the room was in terrible condition – it screamed “Soviet-era station” from every corner. The furniture had worn edges, and there were holes in the wooden pieces, covered with some unknown materials. The bathrobes in the room had holes around the pockets, and the mattress and pillows were stained with who knows what.

The bathroom was no better – all the metal fixtures were covered in black spots, clearly not replaced or maintained for years. The hotel’s spa centre was not very large and often overcrowded. The pool was unheated, though the sauna and steam room were spacious.

The food was decent, though the dinner options were limited. Most of the waitstaff and bartenders were untrained – my partner waited 15 minutes at the bar for hot chocolate and a beer, only to find out that the hot chocolate was just regular milk with cocoa.

The New Year’s Eve program was decent, and the food wasn’t bad, but again, the poor service from the waitstaff left us disappointed. When you ask a waiter to clear your table, they tell you it’s not their job. When you try to order a drink, they can’t even tell you what brands of vodka are available because they don’t know.

Since the hotel offered brunch on January 1st, we decided to sleep in and go for breakfast after 12 pm. To our surprise, we found out that breakfast ended at 12, and after that, they served grilled meats, fries, soups, and so on – yet another thing no one had informed us about.

On the evening of January 1st, we discovered that an after-party was taking place at the hotel’s lobby bar, something we weren’t informed about either.

Overall, instead of relaxing, we spent most of our time frustrated. I do not recommend staying...

This hotel deserves max 3 stars, not 4, I think. There were some things that ruined our experience (during our stay in the superior apartment) such as:

Under the shower you have to wait for a warm water. And freeze in the process. Then warm water goes, but not hot. Spa tube in the room fills slowly and only with warm water, not hot, so that limits the max temperature of it and during the process you have to wait in the cold. There is a really bad smell coming from the restaurant, I think, next to the spa. Steam bath is not as good as in hotels we've visited for cheaper or the same price. It is half the steam you expect from a steam bath. There were a lot of stink bugs in our bedroom and it smelled terribly during our stay. We were extremely annoyed and leaved hotel for the 2nd night. Maybe that's normal considering the mountain atmosphere, but you should keep it in mind. The mechanism with card for unlocking the room doesn't work properly. We had to try again and again every time until it turns green.

However there were nice things that left us with positive feelings overall towards our stay. The apartment is big, it has a great view and the backlight in the big spa tube is great. The pool is great if there are not many people there. The hotel has a good...

I see lots of reviews here that are quite positive, but either the standards in Bulgaria for 4* hotels are much lower than in the rest of Western Europe, USA, Australia or this isn't a 4* hotel. As advertised, it has some of the amenities of a 4* hotel, including a pool, jacuzzi (not working), hair dryers and bar fridge in the rooms (mine didn't work) but the standard just isn't there - a lot of things are dirty, broken, the linens are cheap, there is mouldy silicone in the shower, there were dirty lampshades that didn't fit the lamps. I was just here for a few nights, so no big loss - originally I had booked a 5* up near the gondola but that was too far from restaurants so I had settled on this because it is in the middle of town and I didn't have time to do a lot of research. Good thing this place is centrally located because restaurant at the hotel is pretty boring and not great quality - food is greasy, few vegetables, no spicing (but this is true of a lot of Bulgarian food anyway). I ate there for breakfast and one dinner, rest of the time went out as first impressions didn't make me keen to stay in. I think it gets a heavy use by school groups, package tourists from UK. You can get an apartment or boutique hotel for a...