Poseidon VIP Residence Club Balneo & SPA Resort — Hotel in Nesebar

We travelled as a family of 4, 2 teenage children 18 and 15 on a family holiday.||||We chose Nessebar so that we were in easy reach of the old town, Ravda and Sunny beach. Public transport is about a 5 minute walk from the complex.||||I will list the good and bad points separately and give a brief overview of tips for holidaying around this region.||||The Good||||The apartment is beautiful, well equipped, spacious and clean. The complex was only completed last year and everything feels new :-) It is equipped with everything you'll need including a washer, dishwasher, hairdryer, TV, iron and ironing board. A decent sized fridge and freezer, microwave oven and hob are also included.||||The grounds are well maintained and manicured. It's a very large complex but you don't really see that many people. There are 3 pools in total. A children's pool with slides and water fountain, a large main pool and a VIP area pool which can be accessed for an additional cost of 50 lev for the day. You get a daybed, controllable piped music, an electric point for charging your phone and a private gazebo.||||The complex is well situated if you want a relaxed holiday. The buzz of Sunny Beach is a 10 minute taxi drive away, Ravda centre can be walked to in 15 minutes or 5 minutes by taxi and Nessebar old town is 10 minutes by bus or taxi. The Aqua park is literally within 5 minutes walking distance. There are local restaurants, shops and supermarkets very close by and the beach is 5 minutes walk away.||||The Bad||||The reception area is not clearly marked out and given the newness of the complex, your taxi driver will probably also be unaware of the whereabouts of the reception. It's next door at the Esteban Complex.||||Although advertised, there is no lobby/ pool bar as yet. This is not a major inconvenience as there are supermarkets near by.||||We tried the VIP area but the fob for the gate didn't work and it was hard communicating the issue with reception staff. We ended up climbing over the wall to get in. Once settled, a lady came across to us with a menu for the Amour restaurant. This was nice as it meant that we could have had lunch by the pool. However, once she had left, no instruction was given about how to order. The restaurant was a good 5 minutes walk away! We ended up giving up with the planned VIP day and handed the fob back to reception. I think by next season, once a poolside bar has been set up, this will not be an issue.||||There is no safe in the room. Again, this is not a major issue, but it made it slightly awkward when travelling out for the day. It would probably be better to use your plastic rather than take large sums of currency. ||||Given that English is the international language and during our stay, noted Dutch, French and German people reverting to English, it was more often than not a case of ending up signalling with hands and Google translate with a lot of people around the resort! This is not a criticism, as I should have improved with basic Bulgarian phrases, but is something to be aware of.||||Tips||||Local supermarket prices appear to be comparable to the UK with most products other than tobacco and alcohol, which were very cheap. If you venture further afield to the larger supermarkets, prices are more reasonable, but you are supposed to be on holiday and may not wish to!||||Resort taxis are expensive! Nothing to do with the complex itself obviously, but be aware. Agree a price before getting in and barter if you are not happy. I was quoted 35 lev from Nessebar to the bus stop 5 minutes from the complex and ended up paying 15 lev (not with the same guy I might add). The same journey by bus for 4 was 8 lev.||||Taxi drivers, on the whole, don't appear to know very many destinations such as restaurants or hotels. Be prepared to screenshot details of your intended destination before asking. This is due to most taxi drivers only doing the job as seasonal work from June until September.||||Healthy fast food - there are loads of locals selling salted corn on the cob at the roadside for around 1 lev each. They are very tasty, but quite amusing to see loads of people walking around eating corn :-D|| ||The road side fruit sellers are quite happy to take your money. We got stung on our first day buying a watermelon and were overcharged by 4 lev. Needless to say, we didn't use the stall again.||||Bulgarian people can come across as rude, but this is not normally intentional. They are just very direct and are always polite and smiley. ||||Old Town Nessebar - We visited here 4 times during our holiday. The prices in the souvenir shops are inflated and you can buy the same things (generally) cheaper in Sunny Beach. However, there are a few specialist items that only appear to be available in the Old Town, such as the Moroccan style lamps and leather goods. We found the day time to be slightly hectic with the crowds, so would advise that you come here to eat, drink and soak up the atmosphere in the evening. The shops and stalls lit up at night, set against a backdrop of the old buildings and narrow...

We stayed at the hotel for 5 nights a group of 7 families. And I would like to share my experience with you. Over all , all of us had a very pleasant time staying in the hotel.

the hotel is big and clean with plenty of siting areas in the sun and in the shade. The swimming pools are very big and there is a very nice kids pool and playground. The BBQ area is well equipped and there is a lot of parking around the hotel. IT is located 15 MIN walk from the water park an10 from the beach. the drive from the hotel to the old city takes about 8-10 minutes.

The reception: I conducted the booking process via phone and emails , talking to a girl name Elena Georgieva. And I have to say that it is rear to meet a person in Bulgaria with such high service oriented attitude. She was extremely professional, nice, and pleasant. And so was the reception team in general.

The rooms : The rooms are big, clean and comfortable. However, as they are equipped with all kitchen utensils there is NO cleaning supplies for the kitchen what so ever. No towel, mop or tablets for the deash washer. THERE ARE NO BEACH TOWELS ( which was a complete and unpleasant surprise in a Beach hotel with such a high rating) . There is no floor towel in the bathroom and in the master room shower there is a tab with no curtain to prevent the water spiling all over the bathroom, and the floor in that bathroom is a slippery tile which becomes slippery like ice with a single drop of weather- Thankfully there where two bathrooms in the apartment and the second one had a shower stall so it was the only one we actually used. Another problem where the bad sheets. The matrasses is bare and not covered with a protective sheet. The bed sheet is put on top of the matrasses directly it is a square of fabric that is too short to be tucked under the mattrass (like in every other hotel in the world), so it ends up crumbling around you in your sleep and you end up touching the bare mattrass which is completely not hygienic.

The Breakfast: The breakfast room is big and comfortable enough , they serve VERY basic breakfast ( including some cheese, sausage, vegetables, fruit and eggs) all of the ingredients are very basic but it is okay. What was the absolute unacceptable highlight for me where 1. plastic disposable cups for soft drinks - and here I have to ask WHY ? I have been to many vacation houses in the word including very cheap youth hotels and in non of them, EVER , no one use disposable utensils. 2. There was a stand where they placed the cereals for the kids and right next to the stand one of the employees pleased her hand bag - which is supper unhygienic.

To sum up : the hotel it self is really nice and I would come to visit it again. as the price and the quality are a match. However I would bring my own bed sheets and I would not be including breakfast.

I hope that my comment reaches the owner of the facility- You have an actually good product on your hands, with a good stuff which is actually not an easy thing to reach, why not invest in the small things to insure that the guest actually have the best experience. it is so ease to buy starch clips to hold the bed sheet in place and ad a cover for the mattrass, add a bedcurtain and two floor towels. Put one kitchen towel and two tablets for the dish washer in each room. Put normal glasses and a supervisor on breakfast.

Those are little things but they absolutely impact...

Close to getting 5 starts but not quite.||Firstly we arrived after 1am. We booked a transfer through Poseidon given our late arrival. I'm glad we did. Our taxi driver had no idea where we got our key from other than security had it. Everywhere was in complete darkness. We drove around a bit and asked the security for another hotel a couple of times and after 15 minutes or so eventually found a non descript hut with mirrored glass (see photos) and someone came out. I doubt we would have found it without a Bulgarian speaker with us!||The place itself is lovely. The pool was great. There was never a shortage of sun beds and it was mostly very peaceful (apart from the odd person with their portable speaker!). I do wonder if that's partly due to Russian being unable to get a visa currently. You can order poolside (see photo). It only worked with a Bulgarian phone number though! I just ordered at the bar and showed them the number where we were sat.||Our 2 bed apartment was huge and mostly very impressive. The downside was the lack of AC in one of the bedrooms. We managed by leaving the bedroom door open on the other bedroom which brought it down to an acceptable temperature. Not a great fix but otherwise it was like an oven in the bedroom without AC. Generally our apartment seemed to have been kitted out on the cheap. Not much in the kitchen, no microwave. TV points in the bedrooms but no TV's. One bedroom was a big empty space other than the bed, no mirror etc. A lovely 1st floor balcony with no furniture. Other apartments had drapes but ours must have been broken as they were in the wardrobe. Maybe all this was down to who owns the apartment?||Breakfast was good but not the biggest room so could get pretty busy.||I booked the gym for a week (50 lev I think). It wasn't the best and I think they have a cheek charging for what there was but there's no other option if you want to work out. If you just want CV machines it's OK as it never got busy.||We also booked a 'tent' at the VIP pool (60 lev) and loved all the extra space and how quiet it was. We often had the place to ourselves on the 2nd day we booked it.||It's not Poseidon's fault but we didn't have the greatest time with the local restaurants and the road to the beach wasn't great as there was a lack of pavement...