Just wanted to leave a review kinda thing seeing as i used trip advisor alot when i was planning my trip here, so i thought i would repay the favour.
Was gonna give the full hotel (Iberostar) and resort review, but posted the hotel review under the hotel. So this will just be one of the resort.
Well might as well start at the beginning. Burgas airport, not great but not terrible either. When you arrive you get the bus from the plane to the terminal, and then you get your passport checked. Took a while as there were only 3 members of staff to check 2 plane loads of people (Manchester flight landed just after us). However once through here the bags were just starting to go round the carousel so i suppose you would have been waiting one way or the other, for your passport or the bags.
Once we had our bags, went to find the Thomas Cook rep, who was standing just at the exit, asked our name and hotel, and told us which bus to go to. On the way out of the airport got asked maybe 6 or 7 times if we wanted a taxi, which a polite no seemed to get rid of.
When you are travelling from the airport the surrounding area looks run down, with half finished hotels all over the place, looking abandoned, not sure why. Once you hit sunny beach though, it changes to looking like an actual resort, roughly took 40 mins to reach the hotel, which was last on the drop off.
First day was kinda cloudy so we went for a walk. First thing you notice is the guys with the cherrys and strawberries and the people trying to get you into their bars/restaurants.
Ill start with the people selling the cherries. These were probably the worst part of sunny beach in my opinion, and obviously lived by ripping off tourists. They come up waving the cherry right in your face saying %26quot;free taste%26quot; then if you have a taste, and try to walk away they say %26quot;4 lev a taste%26quot; then you can either pay about £1.50 for a cherry, or say you have no money and walk away, hoping for the best. As the holiday went on though, its just a simple case of saying %26quot;No%26quot; firmly and they tend to just walk by you.
The people outside the bars and restaurants might seem annoying, but are pretty alright. You can have a laugh and a joke with them, and they are always polite (well what you can hear. lol) and even if you say %26quot;No%26quot; or %26quot;later%26quot; they still say have a good evening, or holiday etc.
Next thing is really the shops. There are loads of stalls and shops in the resort, with each one pretty much selling exactly the same stuff. Either T-shirts with various brand names, shoes, watches/perfumes, sunglasses and stalls with batons and swords. All the stuff is of good quality, and you get what you pay for - some sunglasses were 10 lev and some were 32. T-shirts were roughly around 12 - 15lev each, with sunglasses between 10 -15 lev.
Watches were 10-15lev with a %26quot;buy 3 get 1 free%26quot; which im pretty sure noone takes them up on. Again they had more expensive automatic ones which looked pretty good for around 60 lev.
Perfumes were 12 lev each, or %26quot;buy 3 get 1 free%26quot; as well, and although obviously fakes or copies, smelt quite real and we picked up a couple of bottles.
I never looked at the swords or knives, so no idea about prices of them.
Prices in supermarkets for say a litre of vodka was roughly 14 lev for bulgarian brand Flirt, which wasnt bad if you had enough cola. Cola and other juice was around 3 lev for 2 litres.
Drinks in bars could range from 7 to 12 lev a cocktail, with most places having a happy hour either all day or between certain hours, which was buy one get one free. Vodka and coke in a bar was around 4 lev.
Food in restaurants varied alot between place to place, with Djannys being an excellent place to eat, and not that hard to find. Got quoted 20lev from the reception in the Iberostar for a taxi there, which was around a 10 minute walk.
Most places was around say 8 to 12 levs for a pizza the size of a dinner plate, and 4 levs for chips. Pasta was around 8 lev.
All in all, prices were still a good bit cheaper than the Uk, but not as cheap as i had heard, so if you are going expecting it to be dirt cheap, you are going to get a suprise.
The resort as a whole was clean and tidy, with most of the shop keepers cleaning their windows, sweeping their shops etc regularly. Police prescence was high, and i regularly saw around 10 a day, which is a lot more than in the Uk. Also on the bus the Nessebar there was a security guard, not sure if it was for protection against pickpockets or against any trouble, but still reassuring anyway.
Had read bad things about people trying to rip you off or not giving you the change back, but we never had any problems with this, just the occational .20 lev which wasnt a large problem. Most people if you just said %26quot;No%26quot; and never showed any interest, left you alone, like the pubs and restaurants.
Anyway, thats all i can be bothered typing just now, sorry for any spelling or grammar, getting pretty tired now!!
if anyone has any questions, ill be happy to sorry for answer them as best as i can
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Thanks Dr woo for an excellent post. Its good to read such a detailed post for any newbies like me.
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Good report, seems as if you enjoyed it.
Glad to hear another person reporting no problems and hopefully reassurring to those who are saying they were feeling nervous about going.
Toonman
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Hi Toonman,
Yeah it was really good, the resort as a whole was kinda repetitive, dunno if that was cause the football was on and the bars and pubs tended to show the games rather than have either live music or a dj on.
Took your advice and went to Djanny%26#39;s, glad i did, best food in the place in my opinion.
Never really experienced anything like the stuff i had read here, about muggings or pickpockets at all. More chance of it in the Uk i would have said.
Although because of where the Iberostar was, it was kinda out of the way, once you went down past the main/middle street though, going towards the Hotel Victoria, there were alot more people, and probably more chance of getting pickpocketed there. Also all the bulgarian people were really friendly to us, all the waiters who served us kept asking where in Scotland we were from, which was a nice touch as they must have heard the accent.
I didnt like how the reception said that 20lev was a good price to Djannys, when it was a 10 minute walk, and also they said it was 20lev to Nessebar? :S
All in all, really enjoyed it, and would recommend both the hotel and the resort to anyone, preferably both :)
I would say its just a case of doing what you would back in the UK, keep your wits about you, and if it looks to good to be true, it probably is!
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We%26#39;ll be back at the Iberostar in Sept and from what you say it%26#39;s maintained its high standards.
Have read 6 reports all from June, 5 very good ones and very complimentary about the food whilst the 6th said it was cr.p !!! I always found it to be very good.
Toonman
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I wouldnt say it was the food quality that was the problem, more peoples tastes. No way would they be able to cater to everyone so they try their best.
Entertainers dont half put a shift in do they?! From about 8:30am to 10/11pm! They even waited with the kids when we were getting picked up at 1am in the morning to say bye. Nice touch
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I may have been the reviewer who didn%26#39;t like the food. That said, I%26#39;m vegetarian and I now realise that Bulgaria is just not a country that caters for vegetarians! There%26#39;s not much imported food by the looks of things, which isn%26#39;t surprising due to their low prices/low wages etc.
I thought the selection was very limited compared to another Iberostar I%26#39;d stayed at (Las Dalias, Tenerife).
That said, if you like pretty regular food you probably won%26#39;t have a problem.
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Hi Lesley, Don%26#39;t worry it wasn%26#39;t you who said the food was crap. I could have maybe have understood it had it been from a vegetarian.
In fact the review I read was virtually saying everything about the hotel was poor and not rated above 3*.
If that was the case how come this site has it as the No.1 hotel in the resort as voted on by site members who have stayed there.
Toonman
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