Grifid Hotel Arabella — Hotel in Varna

EN: There were both goods and bads, but in conclusion we will not return. I start with the good ones. We were lucky to be accommodated in an apartment on the 6th floor with sea view. The room was clean and well arranged. We arrived earlier, around 11, and we were lucky enough to catch parking (20 leva per day) at the hotel. The hotel has 3 swimming pools, 2 are next to each other, the children's pool has a simple waterslide. There is another pool in the Snack-Bar area. They have local and imported drinks available. Snacks at different time intervals, but practically from 10 to 18 were snacks. Fruits, ice cream, cakes etc. In the room I benefited every day from 2 bottles of water, juice, beer. Coffee and tea. I had themed dinners (Italian, Chinese, Bulgarian) but I didn't participate because I needed long pants :). I had included the entrance to the AquaPark Bolero. It's worth going at least once. That's about it with the good ones.

And now with the bad ones: Although I arrived earlier, the room was ready only at 2 pm and a bit. They made us wait and told us that we could go to the lunch if we paid an extra 20 leva. We chose to go for a walk on the beach, instead. I returned to the hotel lobby and waited there for some time when other tourists were either accommodated or given a bracelet. We went and asked in a more pressing tone and suddenly we were invited to go to lunch, without extra payment. In fact, I later heard that the girls from the reception, were expecting some "attention". We finally managed to check in. The shock came in the evening at dinner, when there was a rush, queues everywhere and no one was wearing a mask. We felt like masked intruders. Only the staff had a masks. They served you at a very slow pace, and the quantities seemed to make fun of you. Every time you had to tell him to put another spoon. It was as if they were trying to put as little food as possible. Another shock in the morning. At 8 o'clock there was no free sunbed on the beach. All were reserved although it is clearly specified that this does not exist. No BeachBoy present. During the whole period of our stay I saw about 2-3 scandals on this subject. Obviously on the 2nd day we learned our lesson and woke up early and "booked" a sunbed. When I said at the front desk, they said they knew the situation but that's it. We went with some friends, they unfortunately received a room far below ours (although we paid the same amount of money) and parking at the same price was a few km from the hotel. The towels seemed to be changed but they smelled awful. It was as if they were just dry and not washed. The idea was that they all smelled the same. Luckily we had ours. In the room you only have a liquid soap that barely comes out of that pump. The staff seemed squeamish, and fed up with the work. Beach full of plastics and cysts. It only cleaned superficially. I return to the food which in all 7 days was almost the same. In one evening we had shells, crayfish, shrimp ... etc. The list would go on but we tried to relax and close our eyes. From what I told from others who came for the third time, they said that the difference is from heaven to earth compared to previous years. Even the prices differ between Romania and Germany. It is more expensive for us as we found out later.

I recommend it only after the pandemic passes, although we will...

I give you 3 stars because from the beginning at the reception at check-in it was disappointing...First of all I was in the line at check-in with my little baby it was my turn and because they had another group of tourists they left me behind to check-in that group,cause they are many...Another thing is that i have booked and paid a room with full sea view and the view is the same like in the room with side sea view...the double deluxe sea view room 411 is not suitable for families with small baby like in our case because it has a stair between beds and the sofa is on another side of the room delimited by a small wall and i can't supervise the other kid..i had to change the room 411 with 428 because we came with our family..and they helped us to move the baby cot and everything..also in this room I don't have space to let the table...again a minus between the rooms..in my initial room i had coffe and tea and in my parents room there isn't and we've booked the deluxe tipe of room...now i am asking why those differences?! Rooms are not so clean..dust on the furniture..but overall i came here because i am satisfied with the quality of the food that they serve and i am sure that i can give my kids anything to eat and they won't have stomach problems..hope that you will renovate soon this hotel because it has a very nice position.. In addition we arrived at dinner with my 2 kids and they send me to a walk because they didn't have any free table..we already had a walk and is not my fault that you don't have enough space for all your guests..the water from the filter is smells like whitener or like the water from the pools..can you even drink that?also all the juice machines are asking for cleaning and are very old.. Furthermore this place has good facilities but i am so disappointed that all of them has an opposite and you forget about them....although i don't understand why still this hotel has 4* like Encanto or Marea which are more better than this..here i didn't find any bottled juice,any slippers or bathrobes..although they are all tiring to be nice and make you feel better but like i said one good three bad..i didn't find any bananas to give to my little boy..the kiwi some times are peeled some times they are putting them only cutted...i would like to think that this period is not so lucky for this hotel because is overdue in all the points of view..hope they will do better in the future...for us is the last time we came here..we are customed and pleased with Grifid services but not at this low level..maybe for others is suitable but for us no..see you again when i will know that you renovated this big and with a lot of 5*...

I spent an end of summer week (23-29 Sept) here with my husband. The hotel was not full and although it still had plenty of guests you could feel that it was the end of season for them (the hotel was closing down for the season on Oct 2nd). The room was nice with a lovely sea view and the bed very good. On the downside the air conditioning was very noisy and for the whole week we were subject to a faulty toilet cistern that just kept on running continuously (we reported it the first day) but it was never solved. The food wasn't bad but certainly not exceptional and very repetitive. During our week there we experienced the Italian restaurant and the Asia restaurant also but neither service nor food was exceptional. The sun umbrellas were taken down at the beach on our first day despite being part of our package (2 sunbeds and a parasol) - we were told with a shrug of the shoulder "end of season"... The downstairs night bar was open the first couple of nights then closed! The lobby bar ran out of different drinks as the week advanced and on several occasions the coffee cups were unclean with traces of lipstick! However despite all this I would say we had a good week, that is until the moment of check out. We were to check out of our room by 15:00 hrs rather than the standard 11:00 (courtesy of the hotel - definitely a+) and I admit we were 5 mins late leaving the room but definitely no longer than that. In the lobby we locked our cases and processed our check out and then stored our cases in the left luggage until our departure from the hotel at 18:30 At 18:15 we went to collect our cases and in that instant my husband remembered he had left his jacket in the hotel room behind the door, above the case rack. We mentioned this to the receptionist on duty who was pretty unhelpful but after some insistance sent someone to check the room. They came back empty handed and said there was no jacket. The receptionist gave me an email address and told me to write to them. We had no choice but to leave as there was a bus load of people waiting to get to the airport and we were holding them up. As advised I wrote to the hotel and got a very quick reply which basically said there was no jacket and that they had total confidence in their staff/workers and the hotel was not responsible!!! Personally I beg to differ, yes my husband forgot his jacket BUT it was in the room when we left at 15:05 but apparently not at 18:15 (3 hours later) and it certainly did not vanish into thin air. My 2nd email went unanswered and to this day I have heard nothing more. The whole incident has left us with a feeling of great...