Hotel Victoria Reviews

Have just returned from a week at the hotel victoria in Borovets. The hotel, an austrian chalet type building, is a small 14 roomed hotel, situated about a ten minute walk from the resort centre, in a pine forest. the staff were friendly and helpful. the rooms were very good, basic, but clean with plenty of cupboard space and a fridge filled with drinks and chocolate etc. The rooms were cleaned six days days a week and towels changed 7 days a week, there was always hot running water and the hotel was very warm, so much so, we had to sleep with the window open.

Breakfast was a bit limited, with no choice, we had scrambled/fried eggs seven days running, but on an evening, there was a menu with probably two or three choices. (four courses). typical bulgarian foods, salad, soup with bread, a meat course and a cake. I myself am not a fussy eater, but if you are, then you would probably be best off going self catering. Although we had thought there was a free shuttle service to the resort, on our arrival, this was proved wrong. However, on a morning, there was always a taxi waiting outside to take you down to the resort if you preferred (10 lev- about £3,) and on your return, there are plenty of taxis and horses and carts, which was our preferred way to travel back after a hard day on the slopes. On our departure at 4.30 in the morning, the receptionist kindly gave us all a packed lunch. for the journey, which i have never come across before. The locals were very friendly, if not a bit pushy sometimes, waiting outside their restaurants/bars to coax you in. There were many excellent bars and restaurants in the village, our favourites were the golden horn situated by the button lift at the bottom of the main run, and a fantastic restaurant, on the right hand side as you come into the main street, i think it was called sunny's. (with a large red illuminated pizza sign above the door). where they serve fantastic steaks, pizza and pasta dishes. We ate here on our last evening, as wished we had done so before.

The ski school we attended was fantastic. (samakov). Ivo, our instructor had us on the slopes by 9am every morning, and had finished by about 2.30 - 3pm, giving us time to put what we had learned into practice. I have never skiied in my life, and we were all skiing down the blue runs by the end of the week. A celebratory evening was laid on for us with free drinks at the Samokov hotel on our last evening, where we were presented on stage with our certificates by our instructors, and photos were taken of our group classes.

We were so very lucky with the weather, I think Bulgaria is having a nightmare of a year for snow, however we had about 1.5 foot of snow fall in the first three days we were there, which made conditions ideal. Plenty of off piste boarding for my partner, who was a bit dubious about holidaying in Bulgaria, but was very pleasantly surprised. I would definately go to this resort /hotel again, but would probably book last minute next time, to save myself all the weeks of anxiety, as to whether it would snow or not....
An excellent first time ski holiday.

No real complaints about the Hotel Victoria - is small, cozy and clean. There is limited choice for meal and they are waiter served rather than buffee as at the larger hotels but we always found somethings we liked - 3 courses of good quality food.

It is a little way out of the town centre though, about 10-15min walk, but there are taxis around if need be and it is quite a pretty walk. Not good for mobility problems though.

Balken Holidays were possibly the worst holiday company I have been with though - the reps were at our hotels at very inconvenient times and we never saw them. The skies and equipment we hired were of very poor quality. And unlike the broshure says, the resort is very limiting for beginners and beginner-intermediates. When the cable car to the top is not open (which happens alot due to bad weather) there are no long (greater than 20m) easy runs - just one that can only be reached by going down part of a red run. Signs and maps are poor - very unclear signs (ie. blue arrow is actually a faded black arrow, v.dangerous) and depending on what map you look at, routes are completely different! Also never found half of what was advertised in broshure or other lifts on map. Red runs very steep and icy - only for an advanced intermediate. Balken holidays also failed to mention 1 lift was closed all season for maintence - cutting off 1/3 of the ski area.

Borovets has some nice resturants - Katy's Steak Bar especially - but seems bit run down, and although generally welcoming locals, a Bulgarian will always get served before a tourist - no matter when you arrived and they did.

Overall, would not recommend. Pay a little bit more and go to France/Austria/Italy where runs are better looked after.

Bulgaria is lovely and the people are lovely, very child friendly. Food at hotel was boring(eggs every morning with cucumber ham and cheese) not much vareiety for young children. My children lost weight with the lack of decent food. Evening meals were basic, soup, salad, meat and chips, and piece of cake for dessert. Again very basic and monotonous. Hotel was nice and clean, warm and friendly. However hotel was 10/15 mins from resort and at night it gets very dark,very dark and even though it's supposedely safe it has an eerie feel to it. Advise females not to venture around on their own. My only gripe about the resort is the amount of erotic dance clubs that were dotted around the resort, not so child friendly.I counted at least 10, seems odd in such a small resort.However all said, I would still visit the resort again being all the wiser for the Bulagarian people and their culture. One word of warning if booked into a ski school, the instructors do work you hard, 10-12 in morning, 1 hour lunch with group then 1-3 in afternoon. You use muscles you never knew you had and boy do you ache, many people generally drop out after the first few days. Bulgaria is full of beautiful architecture and there are many deserted buildings which is another story ... Enjoy, it's worth the experience.