Helios Spa & Resort Hotel

A party of 3 arrived at 1am on the 12th June to find 2 single beds and one sofa which wasn't made up to sleep in. Reception put the 3rd person in to this room for the 3rd night. However I do not think a sofa bed should be part of a 4 star hotel! We were then offered a camp bed!
The rep was new and didn't really know how to help, her manager was there guiding her, a local Bulgarian chap. He spoke with the hotel who wanted €300 for a single room for the week. No way Jose.
I left my discussions with the rep and spoke with the Head Receptionist who eventually moved us to a larger room with no extra charge and a double pull out proper sofa bed.
The hotel was lovely, the spa treatments are fantastic, the pool area was very nice and staff were so friendly at the snack bar. The snacks were tasty; they could offer a bit more choice.
The games the entertainment staff did in the afternoon were great to get you off your backside, water polo etc. The breakfasts offered a wide variety of food - the freshly cooked bread was to die for!
If I was going back to Bulgaria I would go to Albana as I really enjoyed the evening in there - the restaurant Poco Lock (I think) was very nice and they do good steaks.
Disappointing points about Bulgaria were mainly the food and some Bulgarians lack politeness and I'm not sure if they actually want tourists in their country! Was served up partially cooked chicken in a restaurant at the end of the main strip just before you cross over to the beach. When I sent it back I could see the chef behind going mental behind me!
The food was never hot and I agree with another person's comment that they don't care if you leave all the food on your plate. No offer to not charge you or a complimentary drink, nothing!
Also be careful when you’re ordering steak. Most of it is veal. Did find a nice restaurant down past the Indian restaurant nears the beach, it's a big white place. A little bit pricier but they have the best wine, best waiters and best garlic bread in all of Golden Sands!
Recommend a trip to Albana also, just 20 mins by taxi and much quainter and quieter than Golden Sands.
Weather was unpredictable in June, a few days with grey cloud coming in around 3ish and then thunderstorms but Bulgarians can do nothing about the weather!
The Germans do seem to like this Hotel and Golden sands ... it must be really cheap for them to get there!

First of all - you have to know that this hotel complex is really 2 hotels: Helios Spa and Helios Park. Although they use the same phone number, same address in advertising, same swim pools. They are really two separate creatures.
My two teenage sons and I stayed in the Helios Park Hotel for 5 nights at the end of our family homeland heritage tour of Bulgaria. So this is really a review of the Helios Park Hotel in the Helios Spa Complex.
Our room was spacious.
We had a cement balcony, with one broken plastic chair.
The double bed was adequate for two.
Included breakfast was adequate, lots of German things, pickled herring, hot dogs, some cheeses and hard boiled eggs, instant coffee and hot water machines - stale bread, fruit flavored juice water, plums and fruit cocktail.
It did have air conditioning. That was a relief.
The 3 pools were great. Except that all deck chairs were taken by 9am, and the pools closed early evening.
Entertainment was interesting. One night was the hotel daycare kids singing songs. There was an Elvis impersonator night. Karaoke one night. A fashion show. One night was a lip synched dance show by the staff. And a movie in English, with Bulgarian subtitles.
Most of the staff spoke English. Out of the entire staff: One bellhop was helpful and friendly, and showed my 16 year old son all around. One female desk clerk was friendly and helpful.
Bad Points
Our taxi did not even know there was a difference in hotels. He let us off at the Spa Hotel desk. They did not have our reservations and did not offer to help us in any way. Finally, with noses in the air, they moved us off to one side and called for a bellboy from the Park Hotel to escort us down the hill and through a maze of hallways to the Park reception desk. All without a word of explanation or help.
We booked this room far in advance, through a Bulgarian friend who used a Bulgarian travel agency. We provided the same information as we did for our stay in several other 3 star Bulgarian hotels across the country. Let me tell you.... what a difference. This hotel cost at least double what the others did... and was far, far inferior. Plus after we got there they told us that they hadn't charged us enough and wanted more money!
Our room was moldy and mildewy. In fact the first day we returned to the room midday to find a worker, unannounced, scraping paint onto our toilet kits in the bathroom and painting, while we had rented the room! The room smelled of paint for the rest of our stay!
Access was easily gained by anyone coming down the crowded public stairway via our "balcony" and in fact my sons got into the room that way once when they did not have a key.
The people in the room next door were very noisy till all hours of the night, although one of them did quiet down when we said something. Found out later that they were staff in the hotel.
The room was for 3 people. The double bed was adequate for two, but the fold out bed for the third was a joke. It was too narrow for anyone, a child would fall out, and it was too small for a teen.
The elevators in the Park Hotel were downright scary. The were tiny, hot, and stopped between floors, jerking up and down, and sometimes missing floors altogether even though the button was pushed.
Other meals, forget it if you are not on the all-inclusive plan. They aren't set up to take money. even getting a snack at the pool bars proved difficult and time consuming.
Most of the staff spoke English but for some reason communication with them still was very difficult. It was hard to get information out of them and then most of the time it turned out to be wrong information. It was even difficult to get a taxi or pre-arrange anything through the desk. We left tips for staff, food service people, housekeeping... but that did not seem to make any difference in the level of service.
We had a Bulgarian friend trying to call us, and when she asked for our room number she kept getting the same room number in the SPA hotel, but no one at the hotel desk would help her get the right room. Another friend could not get directions how to get down to the desk at the Park Hotel, and we ended up having to hike up the hill, through the maze to the Spa Hotel desk.
General Comments
I would never stay in this hotel again. Unfortunate to end our stay in a wonderful country like Bulgaria with this as the finale.

We have just returned from a week at the Helios resort and had a great time. 18 of us all with children stayed here and found the hotel very good.
The food although repetitive had a huge choice so you could eat different every night. Out of the 18 of us only 1 of us had any stomach upset. The All Inclusive drinks were slightly limited as only included the local coke for example that tasted like syrup but soon found an alternative!
The staff were friendly enough and didn’t favour non all inclusive guests as a lot of people have written.
The entertainment was ok and the children loved it (so that is the main thing). It was a shame though on an evening to watch the entertainment we had to sit around on sun beds by the pool as there were no tables and chairs.
My only complaint about the hotel would be the slippery floor around the pool area, I saw at least 3 guests on crutches by the end of the week and lots fall over. This caused a problem for my 17 month old as he couldn’t walk around by the pool at all due to it being like an ice rink for him.
We paid approx £180 for the week to upgrade to a suite and this was definitely worth the money for us, we had a huge room with excellent facilities. I would go back to this hotel.

When we arrived after a very stressful time at Varna's tiny airport our bags were taken to our room where we were asked for a tip! We attended the welcome meeting in the a l'a carte restaurant as instructed. The Rep was late and having found the rep we were then advised it was now in the main restaurant. When we got to the main restaurant we were informed it was now back in the a l'a carte!
The Rep was new having only been there a week herself, however there was basic information that she should have known and did not give.
The reception staff were rude and unhelpful and would continue to chat amongst themselves when you were waiting, with the exception of Thomir. The Animation team were very friendly and worked extremely hard.
The breakfast had a good selection, we only ate an evening meal once in hotel restaurant because it was raining and this consisted of pink chicken and no selection for children.
The hotel had good facilities and entertainment however the pool was dirty and very cold. The Spa facilities and treatments were very good and what should have been an enjoyable pamper was spoilt by the manner of the staff.
After taking the long way to the beach we found the short cut which consisted of 115 very steep steps! This is definitely not for the elderly or infirm! There is a train which takes you to the "Riviera" but this turned out to be another hotel quite a way from the beach! and on one occasion it decided to leave before its allotted time!
The quality of the food in the restaurants was very poor, however there were a few restaurants towards the top end of the resort which were acceptable, although being vegetarian was a challenge and I never want to see another pizza! The pancake stand opposite the Admiral hotel was friendly and very yummy of which we par-took every night!
A couple of restaurants we went to did not seem to care whether we liked and ate the food or not, our starters and main courses were brought together and when we asked for the main to be re-heated it was a massive effort.
The beach was fairly good but the sea contained a lot of sea weed and jelly fish.
The weather was unpredictable, mixed between hot sun and thick cloud and most evenings were chilly.
If you like jewelry then Diana the bead shop was excellent, some of the pottery was nice but there were also a lot of tacky stalls.
The Forest Fiesta trip is well worth the money but there appeared to be little other worthy trips. We did Varna on our own by a taxi as the one we had booked and paid for was cancelled 5 minutes before we were due to leave!
Return flights were recommended to pre-book the seats which we did, on arrival at Varna airport we found one member of our party was seated 4 rows behind and when First Choice rep at the airport was questioned they stated we had to get a refund from the person we had booked the tickets with! (This was back at the resort!). This turned out to be a blessing in disguise for Tina as once again we had a noisy flight with 20 kids screaming and shouting!
There were not many English people compared to the amount of German holiday makers who were popular with the Bulgarians due to their ability to tip even with poor service.
Over all we made the best of our holiday.
Would we return to Bulgaria not alone the Helios Spa we hear you say?
Not in this life time! - They need to get to grips that they are now in the tourist industry!

I have just come back and would definitely not go back to this hotel again. We were all inclusive but nearly everyone we saw was and the food was terrible. Grilled meats, sometimes still pink (especially chicken) and even the salads had meat in. The meals at lunch time were nearly the same as the evening meal so there wasn't much to choose from.
There are so many Germans at this hotel they get treated with respect from the staff and on a few occasions we heard English people complaining about the way they were treated at reception. The reception staff struggled to understand us and often left us standing while they chatted amongst themselves.
The hotel is on a hill and you have to walk down over 100 steps to get to the beach or resort centre. There is a short cut through the sister hotel next door where you can use their lift which takes you down 7 floors so you can imagine how many steps there are!
We heard the reception accusing an English lady of taking some of the towels when she checked out and they wanted her to pay for them so we told her about the reviews people have left on this site where they were also accused of stealing towels. It was so busy when we checked out they didn't have time to accuse us.
Every evening we went out for our evening meal to the Happy Bar & Grill in the centre of the resort, the staff were so friendly and welcoming and they always put your national flag in the middle of your table.
There is a water park 2 mins from the hotel which was great and we also had a trip to a dolphinarium which the kids loved, but I don't think we will go to Bulgaria again, its too German for us.

Lovely new/clean hotel in which we stayed for a week on a B&B basis (which is probably the best choice as I think all inclusive in this type of hotel would be boring and a waste of money). There are two very nice outside pools and a nice indoor pool (incase the weather isn't great).
It is only a very short from the hotel to the nearest bars/restaurants - Golden Sands itself is a great resort with lots of choices for places to eat and drink. The food was pretty cheap and a good enough choice. The drinks were very cheap and very good (especially the wine!).
The people were really friendly and generally all spoke really good English.
I would definitely go back to this resort and hotel but probably in June rather than May as the weather was fairly unsettled and we had several quite cold evenings.

1 reader found this review helpful

This was our first holiday abroad for 3 years and boy did we need it. We arrived at the Hotel at 12.00 (midnight) and booked in (very quickly) and went for a relaxing drink in the 24 hour lobby bar. The girls that bought your drinks to your table (not available on all inclusive), were very helpful and always wanted to make sure you were looked after.
The Hotel was very good, 2 big outdoor pools and one heated indoor pool, with a very good wellness spa. The food was not bad (although people who were all inclusive got a bit bored with it). The hotel was spotlessly cleaned by very efficient cleaners. The only down side to the hotel was that a few people claimed they were being charged for stolen towels when they left the hotel.
The Resort of Golden Sands was good (very cheap - a beer was around 50p and a 3 course meal around £5.00). It is ideal for people who like things cheap and sometimes a little tacky (although you find that everywhere).
Please be aware that there are about 140 steps from the back of the hotel to the resort centre, so not ideal for elderly or people who have difficulty in walking.
Would I go back, yes, but not until next year.

This was a two week holiday with my husband and some other friends(adults) which overall was a fantastic experience. I could not find any fault with the hotel (helios spa) which I thought was as good if not better than 4 star hotels in UK. The resort was beautiful, clean, green and the people very very friendly. The hotel staff were excellent and our room was spacious and well equipped.
We did not book an all inclusive holiday as I had read bad reports about the level of service and poor choices and people saying that they felt like 'second class citizens'. I think we did make the right choice as during our holiday all inclusive holiday makers were not happy. Eating out is so cheap and there is a wide choice of restaurants which I feel adds some variety to the holiday.
We went on a bus trip to nessibar which was great and a friend went on the pirate ship trip which turned into a nightmare due to thunder and lightening!
The resort was very busy at night time and British holiday makers seemed to be in the minority, although everyone Bulgarian that we met spoke good enough English to get by!
The level of poverty in this country is quite shocking, hotel staff were poorly paid and it made me feel a bit guilty spending the equivalent of their months wages on a night out.
It also saddened me to see prostitutes approaching men on the streets and standing at bus stops on the main driving routes.
Taking everything into account though I loved this resort and would consider going again in the future. It is of much higher quality of other med. resorts I have been to.
Now to the horrible bit! To be fair readers should take account of the fact that I hate flying. I had heard that Balcan Air was a nightmare and unfortunately this was not a vicious rumour.....this was TRUE.
The plane for the outward journey was like some old war plane from a museum, the seats were not bolted down, the walls were whitewashed and a mess. We sat for a while after boarding and the plane was roasting hot, and there were flies on board (i have never seen this on a flight before).
As we approached the resort it was thundering and lightening, the man sat behind me had a soaking wet foot from water dripping in from the roof (I had to convince myself it was condensation), the air hostesses looked out of the window then ran to their seats for landing (no pilot announcement was made for descent or landing). When the plane landed steam/smoke was coming through the ceiling. Not a good flying experience! I was terrified for the return journey so to calm my raging fear I drank large amounts of bailey’s, needn't have worried though return plane looked spanking brand new.
If I was to return I would not fly with Balkan air, for the fear of getting the old bone shaker army plane again. I’m sure this plane has done many years service and could be seriously metal fatigued.

The hotel was lovely and clean and was in a good location to get to the bars and shops. The pools were lovely and there are plenty of sun loungers although the Germans still felt the need to get up extra early to put there towels on specific ones.
The food left a lot to be desired and was very repetitive. Most staff spoke very limited English and didn’t seem like they really cared whether they could help you or not unless of course you gave them a tip. The cleaners were lovely and cleaned the rooms to a very high standard. The only thing I could find fault with in the room was the ants. The bathroom was absolutely infested with them so by the end of the holiday I had a couple of huge bites.
The hotel was inhabited mostly by Germans, most of which were extremely rude. There was little entertainment and the little that there was they still expected you to pay for.
Me and my boyfriend ended up with a severe stomach bug which meant we had to stay in bed for 2 days and are still recovering now 6 days later.
I would not go back to this hotel again and if anyone is going to go to Bulgaria it’s cheap enough to go s/c or b/b. All inclusive is a waste of time as it doesn’t seem to mean all inclusive whilst you are there. They seem to make up the rules as they
go along about times and what you can and can’t have on all inclusive. The drinks were very limited and consisted of gin, vodka, brandy, whisky and rum. All of which are the local ones and are disgusting. I mostly drank coke and when we wanted a proper drink we tended to go out to the bars which were really friendly and helpful.
The only downside of the bars is that you can’t walk along the street at night without someone trying to drag you into their bar or restaurant. Overall a reasonably holiday but not an experience I would like to repeat.

This was my first holiday abroad with my partner and i was really looking forward to it.
We went all-inclusive hoping to be pampered and to be fully relaxed and the holiday seemed to be really hard work at times. The hotel was very clean and well presented and the cleaners and maids deserve a medal as they always worked really hard and were extremely pleasant and polite. The older staff however were miserable ninety percent of the time and treated you like you were always in their way. There was nothing to do in the hotel if the weather was bad and the facilities they do have are either broken or in bad condition.
The food was not that great as there was no variety and you couldn’t get a cup of tea after breakfast as they do not put out tea bags or milk. The meat was always over cooked and dinnertime food was often warmed up and used for teatime meals. However i cannot fault our rep Jacky who was extremely friendly and always very helpful she was an excellent guide and very considerate towards her customers.
I would not recommend this hotel as there is no entertainment nothing for children or adults to do and they only cater the food for Germans, there is no English food apart from chips and rice which is basically what i lived on for two weeks. I would say it is more like a two star hotel.