Iberostar Obzor Beach Hotel

The hotel was the cleanest hotel I have ever stayed in. Our room was kept in perfect condition from the date of our arrival until the date of our departure.
The maid even used to make different designs with our towels and bed sheets (i.e. arrange them so they looked like flowers, bows e.t.c). Our room was very spacious and the decor was of a pretty high standard. The balcony was large too. We were side facing but still had a great sea view.
The hotel staff were polite and helpful. The hotel is about 3 mins walk to the bars, restaurants e.t.c. But it is quite easy to be walking for over 45 mins to get to certain places.
The food in the hotel was ok, I wouldn’t rave about it and say it was great, but to be fair I am a rather picky eater. I do wish that my partner and I had gone self catering as the food in the restaurants was cheap and you had a selection. There were not many English people at the resort when we visited. My partner and I had been in Bulgaria 3 days before we met anyone English.
It was somewhat difficult to get a space around the side of our hotel pool so we chose to visit one of the many private pools that are available. It is quite normal that they will charge you to use the sun loungers, but please be aware that some of the private pools charge you even for going in the pool!!
You will also get charged throughout Bulgaria to visit the toilet (50 lev) this isn’t a problem as long as the toilets you are visiting are clean.
One good thing about the holiday was I didn’t see many creepy crawlies, although watch out for the jellyfish, my partner had a lucky escape.

Overall, the holiday was enjoyable, I would recommend the hotel to anyone visiting Bulgaria, although I am not so sure I will be visiting Bulgaria myself again, the same goes for my partner.

We spent a fortnight at this hotel back in the summer of 2005 and haven't been to a better hotel since.
When my wife and I went, our three girls were 13, 8 and 4.
Our rooms were at the back of the hotel (the German tour companies block booked the sea view rooms) but they were clean and comfortable. Most of the tourists at this hotel were German, so the few loungers around the pool were "towelled" by early morning!
All the hotel staff were very friendly and many made a fantastic effort to speak English. (Our Bulgarian was non-existent!).
The restaurant was excellent, cafeteria style with a wide choice each evening. Our youngest wanted chips every night, however, and was a little bit disappointed when they weren't on offer!
The evening entertainment in the hotel was excellent for our girls, put on by the hotel's own "Animation" team, who also ran clubs for the children throughout the day.
As for the resort, it's quite restricted in terms of evening entertainment for young families. We looked for alternatives to the hotel out of curiosity but never found anything (not a patch on Lanzarote or even Ibiza for kids in terms of entertainment).
The beach is bang opposite the hotel, literally less than 60 seconds away. The sea could be quite rough some days and there's no late evening sun on the beach as the shadows from the tall hotels falls across the sands by late afternoon (approx. 5pm). As everywhere abroad sunbeds and parasols cost about £10 for a family for a day.
There are many small shops and stalls selling everything from ice cream to fake perfumes, just like most places, all along the promenade which is over a mile long.
The hotel is towards the north end of the promenade and can be a fair walk for a young child on hot summer's day! (If you have small ones take a buggy!)

One word of warning: if you do have children don't take them to Varna. Unfortunately the best trip of the fortnight was to the Dolphinarium on the edge of Varna, which in itself was entertaining for the girls, but after the dolphin show we were allowed to explore the city centre and it's an horrible experience. We were warned about pickpockets so were very cautious, but the city centre was full of beggars wherever you looked and over-zealous taxi drivers wanting fares. Unfortunately the bad memories we had in Varna cloud our recollection of what was otherwise a very pleasant holiday.

Just returned from this hotel and we were pleasantly surprised at the quality/quantity of food this large hotel supplied. It was extremely clean and well looked after and certainly deserves 4 star rating.
Instead of using the tours that were on offer we approached the iberostar taxi driver-called Sven for a daily rate approx 170 levs. This was amazing day trips to places not just for the tourists, his English was very good and he made the trips more interesting because he is local and knows all the history. It made for a completely enjoyable holiday.