Хотел Мелник ( Melnik Hotel ) — Hotel in Sandanski

There are a few very good things about the hotel and I'll start with them. First, they're pet-friendly which is rare for a Bulgarian hotel, so cheers for that. Also, the location is pretty good and you can have a wonderful view of the small town of Melnik when you're in the restaurant or if you're lucky enough to be in a room facing the town. The hotel is also located near a forest so there's a good chance you'll be woken by the sound of birds singing in the morning. Pretty wonderful. The staff is also polite.||Despite that, there are also a few things that kind of ruined our stay. First, the room smelled like cigarettes and we couldn't get rid of the smell. It was coming either from the bathroom (maybe someone was smoking in the bathroom above or under us and the smell was coming through the ventilation) or the previous guests smoked there and the smell was persistent. It was pretty bad.||Second, the breakfast was terrible. Especially if you're vegan/vegetarian. You're basically paying for white bread and tomatoes and cucumbers that weren't even tasty. Which is definitely not okay. I'd suggest they invest more in the food as it was pretty disappointing.||And third, let's get out of the middle ages and stop advertising how many hunting trophies we've got, okay? It's very off-putting. The world is trying to enter a phase where we respect nature and try to protect it, but places like that seem to be stuck in the past. I'd suggest you get rid of all the dead animals covering the walls as it's pretty terrible to see and I'd avoid your hotel in the future purely for...

Firstly, the pluses - the Hotel Melnik is an old communist era hotel that is so centrally located. The views of the town and the spectacular hillsides are excellent. The rooms are comfortable - modestly furnished, but very clean. There was very little noise, except the odd dog barking. Overall, we had a comfortable night.||||The minuses - there is no lift and lots of stairs to negotiate. We had luggage that we didn't want to leave in the car - so there was a major task of lugging them up long sets of stairs. In order to go into town meant re-tracing those same stairs - ditto to the restaurant (although not as far).||||Breakfast when there is a tour group staying in the hotel was sheer chaos. The group from a large country a couple of neighbouring countries to the north demonstrated the ugly side of mass tourism. The only such incident we witnessed in Bulgaria or Romania. Pushing and shoving as well as outright rudeness to staff. We re-treated and waited for them to finish before we moved near to the buffet - what remained of it. The hotel wasn't prepared for the onslaught of rude and aggressive tourists.||||Other than the stairs and the Russian tour group we thought the hotel was acceptable. It met our needs for the...

I paid for VIP suite. Turns out you have to pay additionally for the use of the SPA centre and request the use in advance. It's not about the money but the inconvenience caused. Wanted to use it for no more than 20 minutes for my entire stay. I was not informed by the personnel about these details. I tried calling the reception from the SPA centre, nobody answered. I went to the reception- nobody there. I rang the bell (using it for the first time in my life, been in countless hotels all around the world...) but nobody came. I waited 5 minutes which I think is far from enough for waiting in front of reception while wearing bathrobe. Eventually, I gave up. I try to avoid such places at all costs. Giving two stars because of the personnel.

P.s. the personnel was polite. Breakfast- had to choose between eggs and fried bred slices. Tasty but far from enough for a grown man. The serving was...