Winslow Infinity — Hotel in Bansko

We are two retired pensioners. We normally stay at 5 star all inclusive beach resorts. We’ve been to Bankso during winter months only. We chucked caution to the wind, and decided to give this place a whirl during September. We were not disappointed.

We stayed in a 3 bedroom apartment in C Block (even though there was just the two of us). The apartment is significantly bigger than anything we’ve experienced at beach resorts. Granted, it’s not 5 stars, but it’s comfortable. This apartment had a ground floor twin room, a queen sized en-suite and twin room on the first floor. We paid £370 a week which was discounted as we stayed 3 weeks. We only used two of the bedrooms when we stayed. They were comfortable beds. There is no bath in this apartment. This was a blessing rather than a curse as we prefer showering. Might prove a problem for some, so would recommend enquiring before booking. The kitchen was small and we didn’t have a dining table, I expect this type of apartment is designed making the basics. It had a two ring hot plate, microwave, toaster, and kettle. It had ample cooking utensils. It also had a fridge and small fridge freezer. We used the kitchen for one or two meals on our visit and ate at the coffee table and sofa. This was fine for us. We also had the balcony to sit out and eat. This had a table and chairs. Again, a lot bigger than some of the beach resorts we’ve stayed.

Reception was well staffed when we were here. My only compliant, probably due to time of year we stayed, was the pool and spa facilities were closed for just over a week. There are plenty of other Spas in Bankso so wasn’t a problem. We had a few niggles with our apartment that were all resolved within 24hrs of notifying reception. The manager even came to ask if everything had been resolved to our satisfaction. Which it had. Thought that was a nice.

The 2nd week we were there it was very busy. Probably fully booked as no tables available at restaurant. I believe this was due to National holidays. Would recommend booking ahead during busy times. There are lots of restaurants nearby. If you walk into the village (20 minutes) - there are many very affordable (pensioner affordable) places to eat and drink. Paid £1.30 for 500ml of beer and about £3 for a meal.

WiFi isn’t that great in the apartment but we used it sparingly. The apartment does have a TV but we didn’t really use it.

I imagine this would be a fantastic place for skiing as it’s close to the gondola. For the village it’s a good 20 minute walk downhill and a then you have the uphill to contend with on the way back. We got a taxi. Again affordable.

Did I enjoy my time here in Bankso in September? Yes. Would I come to Winslow Infinity Spa again? Yes without doubt. It’s a very reasonably priced 3 star apartment. Are there areas they could improve on? Yes, there is always room for improvement. Things I would do differently:

Modernisation in parts although I believe this is a new building. Some of decor looked dated by normal British standards. WiFi needs to be strengthened. Room service would be nice as limited cooking facilities in our apartment. Pre-warning if Spa is out of order.

Any problems we had were swiftly resolved.

For an establishment of its type - a 3 star apartment/hotel then there isn’t much to complain about. The value we got for the apartment certainly...

I will say that this was the first and last time I've stayed at this hotel here's why: I had only booked this hotel because most other hotels I would have taken into consideration where overbooked and I thought that the hotel looked ok on the photos and it was surprisingly cheap so I tried it (also on the booking page it was not clear that the hotel had only two Michelin stars, I thought it had three which is acceptable but not really that nice but two, that's really not that nice. When I arrived, my room's bathroom had a disgusting stench to it (besides it was very eastern european, very disappointing, although it was cheap I thought they'd care more about their guests and would try to give them a nice ambiente suiting the price point) so I called the reception, they said they would send someone over to look at the problem, so I was sitting there, waiting for the plumber. Of course I wanted to take a look at the Internet and the TV. Regarding the Internet it was very inelegantly solved, every room had its own router but all had the same password (bansko007), as well as it not working for the first half of an hour afterwards quite good with a download speed of about 20mbps. Same can not be said for the TV, it took me some time to figure out how to get it to work properly, afterwards I zapped through the 30 channels and had to discover that only one of them was partly in English and it also featured annoying Bulgarian subtitles. So would this be just some random hotel in the Bulgarian countryside this wouldn't be a problem but the guests of this hotel mostly consisted of Romanians, Greeks as well as British people. But back to the plumber, after about an hour I called the front desk asking what had happened and if anyone would come sometime around, they just told in not that good English that they were preparing a new room and someone is also going to come around or whatever, leaving me as smart as before and hanging up on my before I could ask detailed questions. So after the plumber arrived he did whatever and then everything was fine. Breakfast is ok but not amazing, the spa is quite dirty but the pool is fine although the lifeguards aren't as professional as they should be for doing it for a living. I would recommend it for everyone who doesn't want to spend too much money and if everything else is overbooked...

We were pleasently surprised with our apartment when we arrived it was very spacious and very clean. ||||As we arrived late at night I had only my card no cash. Went to the lobby bar that only takes cash but the bar man was absolutley fantastic and offered me 2 bottles of water and I could drop the cash back the next day after I had been to the ATM. I made sure to gice hik a good tip after this. He was really the only member of staff that engaged with us during the whole stay apart from another security guard who was a nice guy too. The rest just kept their heads down and wouldn't even make eye contact.||||We made good use of the shuttle bus to and from the gondola each morning and evening.||||When exiting the hotel if you take the dirt track to the left it will take you alot less time to get to the bars and restaurants around the gondola. There is a sign pointing to a supermarket so you cannot miss this track.||||Now the bad.. After skiing on our 2nd day we decided to use the swimming pool. On arrival to the spa we were met with 4 members of staff who were advertising the massages etc. When we said we only wanted to use the pool you would have thought we had just told them we had coronavirus. The male pointed to the changing rooms so we went in. When in I noticed that you needed a key for the locker and asked another guy there how he got his key and he advised going out to the staff I had just spoken to. I went out and asked for a key to be told by a very rude male "Im busy". So busy that he turned away and sat on his seat chatting to the other staff. This was enough for me so decided against even going into the pool so I waited for my wife to come out then went back to our room.||||This experience wont stop me coming back to the hotel itself but I have seen other reviews mentioning how rude the staff are so I would hope that it would...