Lucky Bansko

We went to Bansko over the New Year week 2007/2008, booked last minute with Neilson through an agent called bookableski.com. If you like skiing or snowboarding then I wouldn't bother, however if you like standing in a queue for a hour and a half every morning then Bansko is for you.
The biggest problem about Bansko is there is only ONE lift which provides the sole means of getting from the town up on to the mountain. Our experience was one of queuing for over an hour every day at the side of the totally gridlocked car park, where the hotel minibuses drop-off, whilst Russians and Bulgarians push in at the front. It was that busy that the hire depot ran out of equipment before some of the Neilson customers had got skis so those people just sat around at the hotel all week. Once you got to the entrance to get in the door of the gondola building all these people surging forward results in a chaotic crowd crush as you are 'carried' up the stairs to the lift. Children too, get crushed and by the time you get to the slopes you are in a generally pissed off, bad mood - not what a skiing holiday should be!
One of the days we even resorted to getting a taxi up but the road to the top of the gondola was thin and as you got within 2km of the top people parking at the side of the road meant that it was not possible for 2 way traffic to move therefore that was gridlocked too. We had a 15-20 minute yomp up the hill before we saw a chair lift through the trees and managed to get on.
My boyfriend had his first ski lessons. Every day we were at the gondola station for the first lift and not once did we make it up to the hideously overcrowded nursery slope in time for the start of the lesson . As a flying instructor by trade he found the ski instruction abysmal, i.e. random and inconsistent and by the end of the week he could barely do a snowplough turn. Verdict - a waste of money.
The chair lifts were old and slow and again, the resort staff did not do anything to regulate the queues. It was a total bun-fight just to get on the lift, with russian skiers constantly pushing, even shuffling over the back of my board to get closer to the front (which made me v.angry!).
Another weird thing was that the resort staff were content with snowboarders getting on and off the chair lifts carrying their boards in hand! (surely an embarassment to the sport - riding off a chair isn't that difficult!) This meant the lifts were constantly starting and stopping and became more than irritating.
I found the ski area as a whole rather confined and overcrowded. The pistes were poorly groomed - if groomed at all. The only saving grace there was a decent snowfall mid-week and therefore some good powder for a day or two but after that it was disappointing.
There were only 2 black runs in the whole resort. One high up on the mountain was ok but the second one should have been closed but there was nothing to tell you that at the top. It was only ok for the first 50 metres but once you'd passed the point of no return it was covered in debris with a broken icy crust on top - completly unrideable but yet again, the resort staff had done nothing about it. Indeed there were actually snow cannons on there making fresh snow but it had just left to pile up in mounds.
There was a single long blue to get back to the town which was the most tideous, soul destroying ski run I've ever riden a board down and when you get back to bottom it's a case of waiting for your hotel minibus to get in to the gridlocked car park - a simple one way system would solve it but the resort just doesn't seem bothered about regulating it. Result - you're pissed off again by the time you get back.
GOOD POINTS...
Its cheap so your buck goes a long way. For New Years Eve we went for the hotel organised banquet at a local tavern - best New Years Eve I've ever had.
We could afford a 4 star hotel with a huge room including a seperate living room and 2x massive TVs for the same price as a pokey bunk bed in other parts of Europe (it was around £400 inc flights and ski pass). The Hotel Lucky Bansko had only opened about a month before and I was expecting maybe a few teething troubles but I was pleasantly surprised. The rooms were chic, spacious and everything worked! The 24hr bar, reception and dining room were very stylish and there was free internet in the bar too, the staff were switched on and there was a very nice pool and sauna. Thumbs up for the Lucky Bansko.
The old town was FANTASTIC and only a 5 minute walk from the hotel. We ate out and drank merrily every night and it was great value for money. There are dozens and dozens of old-school traditional taverns providing a cosy log fire, interesting tasty dishes - providing you like meat and lots of it - good wine and beer and usually some traditional music performances. It was well worth exploring and asking the locals to recommend places because from the outside some of these great places seem very quiet, even closed!
CONCLUSION
The apres was awesome, overall the holiday was great value (especially considering in was New Year week) but the skiing infrastructure badly needs to catch up with the accommodation development in town because it was just totally overwhelmed by the numbers of visitors which spoilt the holiday for me.
AND ANOTHER THING! I found the service from bookableholidays.com very unsatisfactory. They almost didn't get my tickets to me on time despite having 4 weeks to sort it out. They made no anticipation of the disruption caused by the Christmas post. When you ring their helpline number a recorded message starts playing which never ends - at least for the 10 minutes I bothered to listen to. I had to pester them by email in the end which took days for them to respond to. The price I was quoted on the phone when I booked, did not match up with the charges stated in the confirmation letter I eventually received. Spefically, the proportion of the total price which made up their booking fee ended up being greater and the letter never stated in black and white that the price I'd paid included lots of additional extras I had bought. I will never be booking a holiday through them again.