Hotel Ela Reviews

Found the Ela Hotel to be absolutely fine. Its rated as a 3* hotel, but I would suggest that by UK standards it is only a 1/2*. The rooms have no coffee/tea making facilities, no telephone, no trouser press, but they do have a TV with lots of english speaking channels available, which is enough entertainment considering you are only in the room to sleep and shower!

The rooms on the ground floor have large-ish balconies and are very spacious, but are quite cramped on the 3rd floor. The rooms are cleaned every day, with clean towels being provided daily. The food is not very good at the hotel, but there are many restaurants and snack shacks that you can grab a bite to eat elsewhere at a very cheap price. Breakfast is a bit of a mish mash, and I would recommend the ham and cheese option as the cooked food was ropey to say the least!

The bar area of the hotel is fantastic, open 24 hours with table waitress service. The Happy Hour runs from 20.00-Midnight every day of the week, offering 2-4-1 cocktails. The price in the bar was more favourable than drinking outside. The waitresses were very helpful and friendly.

The hotel is very centrally located, right next to the Gondola station, and a minutes walk from the main street.

The skiing here is great - and I would especially recommend the ski school. Boro Sports ran the school, and the instructor that I had, Mariana, had been in the Bulgarian Ski Team as a downhill racer. She was brilliant and I would encourage anyone to try to join her classes.

Ski equipment and clothing is a fraction of the price of the UK, and its worth taking some extra cash to pick up some stuff.

The ATMs are a bit hit and miss, so I would recommend taking Levs from the UK, and cash rather than relying on cards. Most of the ATMs were not accepting UK issued cards, only 2 ATMs in the whole resort were useable, however, these also stopped working after 5 days. Nowhere else would take our Debit cards, and this left us having to borrow money until the end of the holiday!! Not a position I would like to be in again. Shops do not accept cards either, even though they display the Visa signs in the doors etc. so don't be caught out.

Just returned from a week stay at Hotel Ela in Borovets. Hotel basic but quite good value for money. Food good but could have been served a little warmer sometimes cold. Hotel in a central location and very near ski lifts. They could however do with changing towels a little more often. Inghams operate a nanny service from the hotel which also arranges for children to have ski lessons this was excellent to say the least. My four year old loved Katie and Mandy and really had a fab time.

However Borovets is not a resort if you are an experienced skier and we were very disappointed with the lifts which at the slightest bit of wind were closed. Out of the seven days that we were there they were only open twice.

Overall though would say that Borovets is good value for money.