Riu Bolero ClubHotel

We arrived at the hotel at nearly midnight, but were met by the bell boys who kindly took our luggage. We checked in and went to our room. We opened the door to find the most fabulous room. It was carpeted, had 2 large twin beds and a really sturdy bed settee for my son. There was a fridge in the room with water, beer and soft drinks which are all free and stocked up every other day. The food is lovely and will suit all tastes. The chefs cook most of it in front of you so it is really fresh. There was plenty of variety over a week and there was always something for the kids to eat. The pools are brilliant, the upper one is more of a sun trap but is no good for smaller kids as it is quite deep. The bottom pool slopes from the sunbeds so most of the kids play there. There were always plenty of beds and no one was allowed to put towels on them unless you were staying there. You can get fresh pool towels every day. They are brilliant, really big. The entertainment team were by no means proffesional but they tried there best and worked from 10:30am until 11:00pm every day. The kids loved them. The hotel has its own spa with an indoor pool which was really cold, we used it the 1 day it rained. The hotel is 100yds to the beach and you can have a lovely walk along the front after dinner. I would definately go to this hotel again.

We stayed at this hotel from 6th to 13th June 2007. All I can say is we had a great time the Hotel was lovely and very clean, the food was great we had no problem getting sunbeds. The only minor thing was the entertainment, it was ok for kids and the animation team tried hard but it was a bit lacking, the magic show was good. We went on the trip to the forest restaurant that was excellent, very good entertainment all evening and very well run. Hotel has 3 restaurants we preferred the Argentinian as it was quieter but the others were very good too. We went to the dolphinarium near Varna and that was very enjoyable. Nice beach in Golden Sands. The town was very nice with plenty going on lots of cheap shoes jeans etc. All in all it was very good value for money and we are looking to go back same time next year. Tony Joan & Emma (45,44,11) from Merseyside

I stayed at the Bolero 7 June through 10 June 2007. My trip started off with a small problem. I actually booked a room at the Arabella. When I arrived, they informed me they had no record of my reservation. Upon some follow up, they decided since the Arabella was full, I would be transferred to the Bolero. I had visions of a bait and switch. The manager of the Arabella personally drove me to the Bolero where we were met by a phalanx of management and service people, all apologizing for the misunderstanding. I was checked in and escorted to my room - a happy ending! The resort is well placed and is certainly family oriented. The rooms are fairly large and well appointed. They are quite comfortable and clean. The food was very good to excellent with a wide variety. If you go here take a pair of long slacks as they are required for dinner. I am an American and we wear shorts to dinner – LOL. I guess it is a European custom. The service at the meals was excellent; there were many people servicing the tables. If you even looked like you might have a question, there was someone to help you. The drinks were also excellent. There was a wide choice and they were generous with the ingredients. There were nightly shows in the bar area. The entertainment was family oriented and the magic show was excellent. After the shows there was music for dancing and the bar closed at midnight. One night the revelers continued on and at 0130 were loudly singing German, English and Danish drinking songs. I was about to make a call to the front desk when there was an immediate halt to the noise and no reoccurrence. I guess the management was on top of that situation. There are two outdoor pools with plenty of chaise lounges. I was able to get a lounge every day. There is an animation team who goes around entertaining people. Sometimes this was cute. The hotel is close to the beach and all the facilities on the boardwalk (a small street) All in all it was very pleasant stay. I would recommend this place.

When we arrived we were kept on the bus while all the baggage was unloaded - when guests were finally disembarked one of our pieces of luggage had been stolen which was a bad start to say the least! The hotel did not seem too fussed and did not manage to locate it and we had to claim on our holiday insurance in the end. The room was dark and the hotel generally claustraphobic and built on a steep hill. Food quality was very poor and entertainment mediocre, no way should this have 4 stars and really lets down the Riu brand - we have stayed in several excellent Riu hotels elsewhere by the way. Oh yes and in the resort area around 50% of the time we were short changed! Only suitable for singles and young couples as plenty of nightlife, but hang on to your valuables! We will certainly never return and have been put of Bulgaria, although I should say that some of the people were of course friendly and we did have an interesting excursion to a 'stone forest' and glass factory.

I was a bit dubious about travelling to Bulgaria as i wasn't sure about the quality of hotels and food. How wrong i was!! The Bolero proved to be an excellent choice and i liked Golden Sands as well I can't really fault the hotel unlike some other reviews i've just seen before i wrote it. i can only go by my personal experience which was very positive. I'm not going to go into every factor of the hotel and write a long paragraph on each as i would just be repeating myself. Needless to say, the following factors all left a good impression: Food - good variety and suprisingly good quality Facilities - loads of sporting facilities for my husband and kids to enjoy Rooms - wouldn't call them luxurious but they were big enough and very clean Kids - my kids are both under 10 and they had a great time. The only negatives i would add is that it was quite difficult to get a sunbed! Also, i think older teenagers might be a bit bored

great rooms, excellent food, superb location. good outdoor sports facilities (except that you have to run around and look in the bushes and dirt for the tennis balls going out of the court) however: Things to avoid: making noise. If you remember summer camps with "lights out" policy - you will find it here. No room for discussions or enjoying the balcony after midnight. Otherwise security staff will knock at the door and threaten with taking you to the police. Rooms have very poor fonic isolation so you hear everything going on next door. drinking local spirits every single member of the group I organised the travel for - my company's team building had at least one moment of feeling very sick. This had happened before in Bulgaria. Either it is unclean water for ice cubes, or poor quality alcohol. Or both. Nevertheless - as you're expecting it to be a truly all inclusive they should have imported intl brands or at least to use them for the bar drinks. going to the gym old noisy cracky equipment. One bike, one track ("manual", not magnetic), one piece of everything. And they all make terrible noise. having the bell boy take your luggage unless you do have local coins or coins of eur/gbp, or even a small note avoid using him. He took the suitcases up, put them into the room and was simply standing there walking on place awaiting for his tips. No common sense to understand a client might unfortunately for him only have big notes or they are disturbed by such a behaviour. All in all, it is people you go with that matter most, and we enjoyed sharing some free time (there) with each other.

stayed at the riu bolero from september 6th to 20th 2006 hotel is smashing as is the staff but in the first week all our party went down with sickness as did a lot of other guests, one lady was in hospital for 4 days on a drip, i would say 70% of guests and some bolero staff went down with the sickness some worse than others. we reported the problem to thomson reps but nothing was done about it.(if some thing had been done they did not tell us) we also seen a rat near the club room we reported it to bolero staff and the reps again nothing was done about it they laugh and said it must be on holiday, with the problem people had with sickness i found this remark in bad taste. one thing i heard was the sickness started at the riu heliuos and they moved some guests from there to the bolero. i stayed at the bolero in september 2005 and no problems occurred, i feel the standards have dropped since then, i will not be staying there in the future

Terrible, I will never choose this hotel again. The housekeepers stole our things: from our friends they stole their pajamas and from us, a pair of slippers. We told everything to the reception but they told us back that they throw everything that the housekeepers find, at the garbage, we insisted and told them that were not old things or damaged but… they said it was our fault because we didn’t report immediately!!!! We were very pissed off because of that incident. O, and take care with that Asian food !!! Have nice trips !

Myself my wife and my 11 year old daughter spent two weeks at the Riu Bolero from july 26th. The hotel lives up to its 4 stars rating. The food is very good and the service is excellent and one of the biggest rooms I have ever stayed in. It has a bad points though, that is there is nothing to do in the hotel for kids over the age of 13 to 17. These bored teenagers would hang around the lobby area all night being a pain to the staff. another problem there is that every other person there seemed to have either a heavy cold, sore throat or an ear infection. I can only put this down to the disinfection dosing of the pool, Like most pools in the UK you need a pair of googles to swim as the disinfectant stings your eyes, not so the case in these pools. I passed on my concers to the staff but they just shrugged and said they would look into it. The resort for us was far to commercial, if you like the Faliraki, Benidorm, Blackpool, type resort you will love it as it is very very tacky. The whole palce seems as if it is stuck in 1980 they have disco danceing shows, bad singers in frilly shirts and flares singing Tom Jones classics, and water ballet in the outdoor pools. At the far end of the resort there is an area called party town. Beware if you wander into this area as there are a lot of prositutes in this area. All in all We will most definetly not be going back to Bulgaria Mr & mrs Lewis

My partner and I travelled with Thomson from the 19th to 26th july to Golden Sands - Riu Bolero in all inclusive regime. The hotel opened in 2005 so was in really great condition and all the setting was lovely. ROOMS: the room was huge with twin beds, a sofa, a balcony with 2 chairs and table which overlooked the upper swimming pool. The bathroom was nice, but it did not have a bidet. The bath was a bit inconvenient in terms of access - from the picture you can see you have to go over a small wall!! Our room was in the 3rd building which meant going up lots of stairs to access it. FOOD: There were 3 restaurants for dinner: dining room, Argentinean restaurant over the pool and the Asian restaurant. For the last 2 you need to book. The Argentinean is self-service which means they can accommodate a lot of people, but the Asian is a la carte, so you have to book really early. We only were able to go there once. It was well worth it: you should try the fruit sushi!! In the buffet lunch and dinner, the food was OK: there was always a dish of poultry, pork, beef, at dinner some sort of roast, 2/3 pastas, pizzas, etc. the dessert was great: lots of variety, cakes, mousses, and at least 5 ice-cream flavours. The fruit was limited though. POOLS: there were 2 outside pools (upper and lower with jacuzzi) and an interior pool (with Jacuzzi) which was warmed in the first days we were there (it was mostly 1,5 - 1,7 mts deep). And a kids pools, which few kids used, since the lower pool had a huge entrance not deep and the kids concentrated there. For a deposit the hotel provided fresh swimming pool towels (the yellow ones on the photos). For the beach you had to bring your own towel. As you can see from our pool photos taken at 9h30, all the chairs were reserved, but the people nowhere to be seen. This was a practice common with every guest of the hotel (regardless of nationality!!!). When we got to the pool at 9h, we had to try and squeeze the last remaining chairs to find a spot to sunbathe!! This was really outrageous because most people did not bother to show up until 12! We can certainly testify that there were very few people at breakfast around 9h, so everyone was still in bed, after having reserved a sunbed. It seems that in another riu (we read this on this forum), the management decided to take all the towels from the chairs – people were really upset about it. I just wished they had done this in ours, but of course I understand the people in the hotel don’t want to antagonize their guests, despite the warnings that sunbed reserving was not allowed. Also not allowed, was using inflatables in the swimming pools, but noone seemed to noticed, and as our stay progressed the number of inflatables increased and even the adults were buying them and “parking” them in the pool. This was pretty disappointing and annoying by the end of the week, but our anger is towards the guests not the hotel. Perhaps we should have complained, but in 300 rooms it did not seem fair to spoil our holidays by being the only ones complaining. STAFF: everyone was great, from the cleaners to the animation team, the cooks, the waiters, etc. Most were able to speak enough English to allow us to communicate. The hotel was always spotless, the empty glasses and dishes were noiselessly removed from near the pool and there were always new glasses in the upper pool self-service bar. No problems at all. LATE CHECKOUT: we booked a late night check out for 100 lev (about 35 pounds or 50 euro). TAXI TRIPS from hotel: We travelled to Varna with one of the taxis associated with Riu for 40 lev return (the taxi driver collected us from a pre-arranged place in Varna) and we paid only when we arrived in the hotel. The taxi was airconditioned and the driver even made a detour to show us another beach. He was really nice. With the heat in the afternoon, we strongly advice people to use this cheap opportunity to make a few trips around golden sands with these nice taxidrivers – the price seemed to be kind of fixed, so just inquire about destinations and prices. Overall: Great hotel!