Hotel Perun

On the whole the hotel was fine - decent food, decent rooms, and a great pool and sauna. Unfortunately the last day of my holiday was marred (to say the least), by being sexually assaulted by a male masseuse in the hotel's spa. If this experience was not bad enough, on telling the staff, they tried to force me to pay, saying that people had "made up this kind of thing before in order to get out of paying". Truly horrendous. The staff obviously weren't willing to take my complaint about a member of staff seriously in any way. Not many of the staff speak English either (including the manager), so making such a complaint was made all the more difficult. Thank goodness for the helpful holiday rep who is in the process of filing a formal report on the matter.

The Hotel Perun has had some mixed reviews, but looks like it is trying to improve. The quality of accomodation was very good with excellent rooms with good clothes hanging space, although limited drawer storage space. Each room has an combination safe which always makes life easier. The walls are pretty thin, so noisy neighbours would be a problem. Quality of spoken English at the front desk was very good although still a bit hit and miss elsewhere. The buffet for breakfast is OK but the restaurant only opens at eight o'clock which leaves very little time to get to the gondala queue - it needs to open at seven. The food was fine and if you had the time, you could have egg and bacon or omelette, but there was always a queue for this as it was freshly cooked and we didn't have the time to wait. The dinner buffet now changes each day and the food is reasonable. Not quite the quality you would expect from a four star hotel, but perfectly acceptable. There was one day when a vegetarian would have been restricted to tomato and cucumber, but most days there was something for everyone. The lesiure facilities are fine - great steam room, sauna and plunge pool facilities plus a hot tub. Be warned - the tiling round the indoor pool is extremely slippery and the pool is not suitable for non-swimmers as it is around 6ft deep all along. However, both the indoor and outdoor pools are pleasently heated and a great way to relax in the late afternoon. Overall the hotel was fine and we enjoyed it, but it is more 3+ star than 4 star and if you have very high expectations, you may struggle a little.

As part of a family of seven we booked three rooms via Crystal from 20-26 Jan 2007. Arrived in middle fo the night - a packed lunch-style snack was waiting for us. Not cordon bleu but much appreciated. The hotel is well positioned within a 10 min walk of the Gondola Station and several bars (in.c the fab Friendly Bar) close by. The is a significant amount of development taking palce around the Perun as there is all around Bansko. However, we didn't suffer from any noise whilst we were there. The hotel is pretty new by the looks of things - no signs of grubby wear and tear that I saw. The rooms remeinded me of a good standard UK hotel with daily maid service making up beds, tidying up :) and providing new towels. Small bathroom/toilet with bath/shower plus nice touches provided with bath robes, shampoo/conditioner, shower caps, hairdryer and shoe shine etc. - there is no iron. There is a safety deposit box in the wardrobe for use at no extra cost. TV wasn't of interest to us (but our older daughters used theirs for a music channel) and we raised the well stocked mini-bar - more expensive than the bar but convenient when the urge to have a quick beer / short in the room took our fancy. Twin beds with duvets were fine as was the camp-style bed for our 9 year old. There was a small accessible balcony too. The facilities in the hotel were very good. On site ski hire and equipment shop, weather forecast board plus a frequent mini-bus to the gondola. Theere were two bar areas (one above the restaurant) and the main bar which offered waitress service from friendly staff. A word about the staff. I have read other reports to say they found the people "unfriendly". We didn't find this. The front desk staff had a reasonable grasp of English (and certainly much better than my Bulgarian). I found a smile did help when seeking info or assistance. E.g. our safe wouldn't open. I reported it to reception and there was an immediate response with the bell-boy checking it out. When he couldn't sort it, he asked the manager to attend, which he did within 5 mins along with the master key to open it - he apologised and all sorted within 10 mins of asking for help. No fuss - just got it sorted quickly. The facilities also included an 4 PC internet room (2 levs per hour ! Bargain), a games room (air hockey, table tennis - all for small charge) plus a small gym (weights, aerobic machine and treadmill). The best was, however, the pool, sauna and steam room. The pool was 18m in lenghth and had one depth of 1.5m. Plenty of reclainers surrounded the pool and flat screen TVs too usually with a music channel showing. The sauna x 2, steam room x 2 and plunge pool were all included - no extra charge. Be aware though - the slippers the hotel provides are v. slippy on the wet floors. The outside pool is very toastie - lovely and warm. The jacuzzi was popular too. Spa facilities (eg massage , solarium) are availabel at extra cost. I even had my hair cut in the hair salon! The Hotel does only have two temperatures though - red hot and furance! In the rooms there are thermostatic controls on the radiators (find them behind the curtains near the balcony door and underneath the sink area) - plus we opened the balcony door at night (it can be locked open). The bar area too is roasting, so take plenty of t-shirts. The open fire is a nice touch but we didn't go too near it as we were warm enough! In fact, all the bars, restaurant's we went to were blooin' hot! Food. Wouldn't win a Michelin star but we all found enough to satisfy us. A tip woul dbe to get to the meal times early on so as to have as much choice as possible. The popular dishes can run out. We did eat out a couple of times - search around (we asked the taxi driver who took us to a brialliant mehana near the church in the old town - great value for a two course meal plus 4 bottles of wine at just over £10 per head. Breakfast would have been better at 0730 rather than 0800 to help with getting to the gondola earlier to make ski school. Cash machine on site plus a small shop. Our 9 year old enjoyed being able to safely roam around whilst we were erm, in the bar! Cleanliness - it was spotless with armies of maids cleaning, sweeping etc In summary - very pleased with the Hotel, service and facilities - very good value for money and puts a few (alledged) 4-star hotels I've stayed in in the UK to shame - The Thistle in Cardiff and Brighton to name a couple (in my opinion!).

Have just come back from 1 weeks skiing in Bansko and stayed at the Perun Hotel. The Hotel was lovely, cleaned daily, the facilities were great, good to relax after a day on the slopes. The main problem was the food it was awful, so we had to eat out daily. The breakfasts didn't start until 8.00am but we had to be on the gondola for 8.40am to start our skiing for 9ish. The rooms were twin rooms and very hot during the night with no control to turn it down. The Hotel needs to pick up on these issues to keep the star rating that it has.

This is a four start hotel, however, all hotels seem to be four star in Bansko, realistically I would class this as a run of the mill three star hotel with good facilities. The hotel is stiflingly hot as seem to be all pubs, clubs, restaurants and coaches in the area. Don’t be fooled by any pictures of the hotel either, it is bang in the middle of a massive building site of hotels, the skyline is littered by cranes and part finished hotels, the whole area is covered in dust, there are very few finished roads and pavements and practically no shops, restaurants etc until you get to the finished bits. The hotel has an indoor and outdoor pool as well as an outdoor hot tub, attached to the indoor pool is a small gym, all free to use on production of your key card. In the entrance to the hotel is a room for skis, boards, boots etc with very helpful staff. There are a couple of bars; lobby and piano bar and the drinks are, in general, quite cheap, the service was quite good but very lacking in smiles. We were told that it was an English speaking hotel; a few staff may speak English but very few understood English so it turned out to be quite difficult to talk to anyone but the rep. We booked a double room with a balcony and view, we got a twin room, no balcony and no view as we were on the first floor of the accommodation level which is below the road level; the only view was for the people walking by above our room. The room it’s self was adequate and, although only two years old, was very old fashioned with heavy dark wooden furniture. The heating in the room was uncontrollable and we ended up most nights sleeping with the windows open to reduce the room’s temperature. Don’t use the mini bar as the prices are way over the top, you even have to pay for the tea or coffee. The room is cleaned and changed every day. As we signed up for half board we were restricted to the first half of the restaurant setup as a food hall, whilst the second half of the restaurant, where you had to pay for your meal, had individually laid tables with candles etc etc. They seem to have forgotten that us half boarders had already paid for our meals and that we were not second class citizens. We had very small plates as opposed to the normal sized plates used by the ‘paying’ guests but we all had to collect our food from the usual buffet style servery. All of this did not really matter as the food sucked. It was cooked okay but it was practically the same every evening; maybe one dish a night changed. Our Gala Christmas Dinner was the same old stuff but with an additional choice of turkey (no accompanying veg etc) and a free half bottle of wine per person. The restaurant would be lucky to earn 2 stars and would have been the last place that we would have eaten at were we not half board. So, not particularly impressed. If the Perun does not improve drastically in the future I’m sure it will soon be at the bottom of the pile as the new hotels, and there are loads of them, are finished and open up.

Just returned from The Peru for a week skiing. The hotel was above average and good value. Great outdoor pool and hot tub, and good sauna, steam room, pool, etc. The room was a good size twin (no doubles!) with a small balcony facing a part built hotel. Bathroom was good. Not many english TV channels. Walls very thin and it can be noisy at night. The buffet was good but gets a bit boring as it's the same every night. The bar is well stocked and quite cheap (isn't everywhere in Bulgaria though!) with a giant log fire and sofas. Great location - walkking distance from the gondola. The staff had a reputation of being rude but they were OK considering they didn't speak much English. The skiing was good for beginners and intermediates and the pistes were well maintainbed with snow cannons. Bansko will be great in a few years when it's less of a building site but for now it's good value and I'd recommend this hotel.

Apart from the pool which was fab this hotel was the worst of any i have ever stayed in anywhere in the world. Staff were incredibly rude, particularly the manager, it was very difficult to complain because of the language barrier. Food dreadful, cold and the same buffet every single day.....yuk. Couldnt wait to leave....................

Stayed at this hotel last year and am currently looking to book exactly the same for Jan. I was a little wary about going to Bulgaria I didn't think I’d like the food and was certain that although the brochure said that it was 4* it wouldn't be my definition of 4*. I can tell you I was very pleasantly surprised the hotel was fantastic as was the facilities. The cost in Bulgaria is incredible; it's the only place I've been where I wasn't scared to take something from the mini bar. I think the whole contents would have cost in the region of £25.00 can you imagine doing that in a London hotel. The food was good, but you need to bear in mind that the Bulgarians eat there food very tepid in fact almost cold, but I believe that the hotel were going to install a microwave in the dining room for those that prefer their soup hot. Overall the quality of the food is good and at breakfast you can get a freshly cooked omelette with a chose of filings. Please try out their wines that are good and very reasonably priced. The ski runs were great for beginners and intermediates, I don't know about advanced skiing as I'm not that good, so unfortunately I can't give an opinion about that. There is an excellent mountain passage, which takes about 15/20 mins to complete, so it's a great way to round of your ski day. I would definitely recommend this hotel to anyone thinking of going to Bulgaria. The only drag is the transfer time from the airport, because it's all mountain roads and can take in excess of 3 hours, but you soon forgot about that once your there, whizzing down the mountain with the beautiful scenery

This Hotel is one that provided good quality local cuisine at a very good price, some of it was gorgeous.(The tripe soup benefitted by adding the seasoning provided but was not my favourite meal ever!). The service was good and honest. Bansko is developing especially around the base station for the Gondola, but the building has pretty much ceased for the Skiing season. The ski area was not the biggest I've been to, nor does it pretend to be, the lifts are the most modern in Bulgaria and the queues weren't at all like I've seen in other european resorts, they're really short. Luckily we dropped on a brilliant week for snow, but, guess what, it was cold up there!! (Quite odd for a winter hol - not). The only thing I would recomend for the future would be to develop the kids facilities, but then again, this was our first winter holiday with our daughter who was only 18 months old at the time. Perhaps my expectations were a little unrealistic on this front.

My husband and I have just returned from a six day skiing trip to Bansko. Having travelled five hours by coach from Plovdiv to Bansko (we were informed that the quick route was shut due to poor weather conditions), we arrived at Hotel Perun. Hotel Perun is a 4* hotel which certainly has all the amenities for a 4* hotel - a great spa, pool, bars etc and also a great location only a 10 minute walk from the gondola station. Hotel Perun also offers a shuttle bus service to the gondola station which was very convenient. The hotel is extremely clean. We stayed on a half board basis with Balkan Holidays (which I would certainly not recommend). The dinner is on an a buffet basis and is served in the main restaurant which is characterless and atmosphere less. The food is terrible - dry and tasteless pieces of chicken, beef and pork every night with no sauce - just cucumber or tomatoes. So we instead walked to the old Bankso town and enjoyed the food in the many traditional Bulgarian restaurants which were extremely atmospheric with live music and roaring fires. Hotel Perun had very few English speaking staff. Even at reception, we struggled to ask for a wake up call or at the restaurant asking for a cheese and onion sandwich was impossible. The main dissapointment with Bansko was the resort itself. Due to high winds, the resort was closed for two days (the lifts were out of action for health and safety reasons) and hence we could not ski for 2 out of the 6 days we were in Bansko. There was no alternative method to reach the slopes as the gondola takes you from the resort to the lower slopes so we were extremely dissapointed and ended up wandering the streets of the old town looking for sights. No locals seemed to know where the musuems were so we ended up walking back to our hotel and playing cards - very dissapointing. Bansko obviously used to be an extremely pretty small mountain town (the cobbled streets in the old town are well worth a visit). The smell of burning log fires fills the air and each local restaurant in the old town in fantastically decorated with local produce. However, the growth and expansion of tourism is ruining the town - from our hotel room at Hotel Perun we looked out upon a building site and cranes. The resort near the gondola station is atmosphereless and ugly with modern buildings being erected everywhere. Perhaps in 5-10 years this resort will be on par with other ski resorts but for now, it certainly didn't make the grade with us.