Hotel Pamporovo — Hotel in Chepelare

Firstly I will be honest and say that the transfer from Sofia airport was long but not that bad. It took4 hrs but was well worth it.||The rep (slavi) was excellent, as they all were but he was our main rep. The apartments were clean and tidy and very spacious. My only gripe and it is a small one is the layout of the bathroom. It was a wet room and once you showered the whole bathroom floor was flooded and using telephone toilet meant getting ur feet wet, but again a minor very minor issue. We were b+b and the breakfast was no issue, fried eggs, sausage (large hotdogs) toast, hard boiled eggs, eggy bread, hams, salad, cereal etc.||To eat out was cheap enough, our most expensive night was 104 levs, which is approx £45, that was 3course for both of us and 8 large beers and 5 vodka lemonade, and 2 sprites. Some nights it would cost us 40 levs others a little more but I would say average of 45 levs (£22).||Skiing was an immense laugh, not sure what to of expected but both myself and life thoroughly enjoyed. We had ski instructor George and he was brilliant. He was very patient as no one in our group had skied before, he took things slow and we all picked it up relatively well. By day 3 we were up on the green run and it was immensely enjoyable. There are plenty of cafes on the slopes, would recommend the calsone for lunch as it is massive. Lunch was an average of 35 levs (£16) for 2 of us. We tipped our instructor £30 at end of the week, which is roughly 68 levs but they say 20 levs per person is normal. We never skied before and we were so pleased we chose Bulgaria and pamporovo as it was friendly and relaxed.||We were offered nights out and would HIGHLY recommend the Bulgarian night.||We were 10 minutes from hotel to ski resort with buses provided free for us. If you have your own ski gear then right behind the apartments is ski run 7 which takes you right down to ski center 1 ski school.||I am being honest here and if you are a beginner skier like us I would say do it, the total for our holiday was £800 but that included lift pass, ski hire, boot hire and lessons everyday, hotel, flights and transfers. Yes skiing hurts your knees and feet at first but as you improve you rend to put less pressure on your knees etc. It doesn't hurt when you fall it's just cold, I wore shorts and t-shirt under my ski trousers and jacket because it gets very warm when skiing.||Again if you have never skied before...

this holiday was booked through Balkan holidays. our first inkling of trouble started at the Airport whilst looking on facebook,a comment was made about there being a powercut in the resort and the lifts were not running. once we landed at Sofia I asked our transfer rep about this but he replied no no everything is ok. we started our four hour transfer to the resort, which turned out to be eleven. the road upto the resort was blocked with fallen trees and we had to wait three hours for help to arrive. the second blockage we tried to remove ourselves, luckily a man with a chainsaw turned up. the next blockage was a jackknifed Lorry and the police stopped us from proceeding. when we finally got to our resort we were transferred into taxis to finish our journey as the coach driver wouldn't go any further. after arriving at our hotel we were kept waiting for 40 minutes as there was nobody to let us in our room. finally when the receptionist arrived we received our key to the honeymoon suite(I was with my sister) the next morning we woke up to no power and this continued for another two days. we were stuck in a room with no lights, heating , cooking facilities. we were sat with tea lights in the room(which we had to ask for aswell as extra bedding due to the cold). after speaking to our rep about being moved on numerous occasions we gave up and accepted our fate. the hotel staff and management didn't care. we asked to be moved to another room were we could at least light a fire to keep warm as the one in our room was blocked. we were told no rooms were available. the hotel was empty. the hotel bar was never open unless you were staff. we walked upto the entrance and the bartender said I am closed yet there was staff members in there. we asked the rep for his managers telephone number to speak to them seen as he was incapable of helping us. he refused to give us this number and told us to look on the Internet for it. (there was a powercut at the time remember).this hotel boasts about being right on the slope, we had to physically climb out of the hotel grounds to get to the slope it was well over knee deep in snow it was never cleared....

I stayed in the castle apartments in December . Firstly to be aware that the transfer from Sofia airport to Pamporovo is nearly 5 hours but it is well worth it. The resort is beautiful and set in alpine forests. The people are very friendly and the ski school is excellent. The ski area is quite small but I am a pretty good skier and it kept me going for a week. There were a few tough reds and blacks and I think a couple of very long beginner slopes and then a good range of medium slopes. Food and alcohol is very good value but there are only a few bars and restaurants. It is a small resort but is quite lively if you go out on the pub crawls and other apres ski. Also something to be aware of in this resort is that most of the ski lifts are a short bus ride from the main resort centre but all the hotels seem to do free bus rides.||Finally the apartments themselves were excellent. The rooms are very large, well equipped and fairly newly decorated. It was well heated and clean. I had a one bedroom apartment that was much larger than most flats in London. There is a fridge, microwave and a hob so enough for a basic meal in. There was a very resonable restaurant on site - about 20 levs per person (£9) for a meal with a beer or glass of wine, and also a small shop and two nice bars. The only slight issues are that the apartments are not in the town centre and there is no pool on site - but there is a sauna and jaquzzi which you had to pay for but it was only a few pounds. To get to the centre you have to either get a taxi which was expensive (£4 each way for about 1k), walk 15 minutes down the side of a busy road with no pavement (though it had just snowed loads so maybe there is a pavement in summer) or walk about 15 minutes down the ski run which went past the outside of the hotel which i did a few times and it was fine but it is steep. So overall an excellent holiday - i really enjoyed and can't stop looking for cheap...