Rila Hotel & Studios

3 readers found this review helpful

Well, what can I say? Probably the worst week of my life. If you've already booked, CANCEL NOW. The Rila is a DUMP. I stayed last week. There was an electrical fire outside the restaurant and the whole place filled with smoke. For those people who tried to get out, the fire exit was locked. The whole resort STINKS of cigarettes and everybody seems to be puffing away so if you're a non-smoker it's pretty unbearable. You can't set foot outside the hotel without vagrants begging for money or trying to coax you into the smoke-filled bars. This place is Benidorm on Ice. There are lots of strip-joints and posters of naked girls pinned up on the trees - and this is advertised as a family holiday.

THE ROOM.
Yes, it's clean (although the smell of cigarettes remains.) Every time you turned the shower on, it flooded the bathroom. The TV channels are all in Bulgarian which considering how many Brits are there, is pretty stupid.

THE FOOD
The food in the Rila is practically inedible so don't bother going half board. It's all cold and you wouldn't feed it to the dogs, although there are a few dogs waiting on the tables who just scowl at everyone. Nice. At every oppportunity the Bulgarians will try and see you off. Even ordering a hot dog, we were called "[--]". Lovely.

ACTIVITIES

We decided to do the Sofia trip on the last day, simply because we couldn't stand another minute in Borovets. DON'T BOTHER! The guide we had was the most ignorant and rude cretin. He could barely string a sentence together. He marched us around a church and then dumped everyone off at the shopping centre for 5 hours. 25 lev for a transfer we'd already paid for and a 30 minute walk around Sofia. Another rip off. The shopping mall was overcrowded, smoke-filled and London prices.

SKIING.
Well, it didn't snow all week. You could see grass coming up through the snow at 3000m. The instructor tried to flog us a trip that was cheaper through the rep and they've obviously hooked up with certain snack huts so they get free food while we're all charged through the nose. When we mentioned it was a bit pricey, he kicked off about how it's no more expensive than the rest of Europe. What a charmer.

CONCLUSION.

Avoid this place like the plague. It's a dump. Thomson should be ashamed marketing this place as a family friendly resort with 4T.

4 readers found this review helpful

after having read these reviews before i went, i went with extremely low expectations of what i could expect from the Rila.
We arrived at our hotel at 8.30pm on a Saturday night, because of all new arrivals the restaurant was open til 11pm that evening, the food was good and plenty of choice infact prob the hardest decisions were made in the restaurant. My advice is too try and sample some of their home dishes because although they looked crap they were delicious.
Skiing in borovets is good providing there is ample snow, it had not snowed for 1 week and we only got home 7/2/09 however the higher you go the better the conditions.
I managed to secure private lessons through neilson at £40 for 3 hours and it was well worth it, i then did a deal with the instructor at a lot cheaper the next day.
Nightlife is fab! We found a bar called Chilli Peppers and football is always on. chris the manager is a nutter! Silvia is a waitress and brill. Many apres ski nights were in here and happy hour is 10 -12 !!!!! Becareful of coffee in borovets they have no clue how to make it - Go to Chilli's i showed them how to make english coffee and you can get this for 300 Lev.
HAPPY SKIING!

6 readers found this review helpful

03-10 Jan 2009 Hotel Rila, Borovets HB 4adults 4 children.
Had to write a review as I previously checked out this website prior to going and was dreading how bad it may have been. Can I just put your minds at rest for those travelling with children (ours ranged from 6 - 11 yrs), this holiday was the best action packed week we have had. The hotel was lovely, warm, clean, friendly staff, everyday room cleaning, large selection of buffet available from meats/fish/salads to kids pizzas, spag bol and the best for the children was the pancakes for breakfast! Pool was a bit chilly for me, but the spa baths made up for that, would recommend you take flip flops as floor is very wet and no shoes allowed in. Also towels are given to you, so dont need to pack those!
Sking school was superb, our children had a lovely instructor, Christine, we dropped them off at 10am and then met them at 3pm. Our youngest went to the kindergarten for 2 days, again the staff were very good and they had an hr in the morning and afternoon out in the snow. (cost 54 levs for day inc lunch at nursery)
Ski slopes were great, plenty to choose from, only wished we had gone on the pistes up on the gondola a bit sooner, as its amazing how quick the week goes and most of the lifts stop around 4pm. (queue is long after 10am!- catch taxi to half way gondola stop and from there not much queue. cost: 15lev)
The staff at the Crown Pub were great, the chap that guides/welcomes you in and out past the ski pole (on the left of piste outside hotel) is lovely, he made us really welcome, sitting by an open fire with warm wine or hot chocolate was great and the food was super. Also Mamma Mia pub was welcoming and their shots warmed the right spots! Didn't venture into the Karoake Bar next door but on way home, we heard that that was a good pub too.
For those flying with Balkan Holidays, do take sandwiches/food as their inflight snack isn't worth bothering with! We had half hr delay on way out and 1hr and half delay on way back - this was the only complaint we can say we had throughout the whole week. Our Balkan Rep at the hotel, Rubina, was very helpful.
Wish I had taken more socks, especially pop socks. Supermarkets seem to sell postcards but no stamps?!?
Would definately go back again - our friends are going back next month! We were very lucky with the weather - it had snowed prior to our arrival and again whilst out their.

2 readers found this review helpful

Hey just came back yesterday from a weeks skiing in Borrovets and decided to write a review as I found it useful to read up before I went away.
Stayed in the hotel Rila on half board basis for a week with my girlfriend i'm 26 & shes 24, we both found the hotel clean and comfortable. The food is very bland but you wont go hungry, by the end of the week we were feed up of eating processed meat though. For breakfast they have a variety of cereal, fruit & hot buffet breakfast (fried eggs,scambled eggs, frankfurter type sausage, baked beans & toast). Evening meal changed everyday and was bulgarian type food which was hit or miss but as a fail safe option they had fresh pizza & salad available every night which was as good as any resturant in the resort.
We ate out on a lunch time and found the best places to eat were Frankos, Chilli Peppers & the Alpina bar (opposite Flora hotel) which has a web cam & the coolest bulgarian bar man 'Bobby', the link is www.skidvd.com.
The apri ski was quiet but nice & relaxed, apparantly doesnt get busy till late jan/feb. Price of beer ranged from 2.5 - 4 Lev for a small beer & 3.5-5 Lev for a large, everywhere offers Happy Hour and it is genuine!!
The skiing was brilliant with a variety of runs for all levels, and the lifts generally aren't to busy the only 1 which was is the main enclosed lift to the very top of the mountain. We found it was best to do this 1 first thing in the morning!
Borrovets is a very small resort and a week is defiantly enough as apart from drinking theres not much else to do!
The only downside to the whole holiday was that as soon as people knew it was your last day they where only interested in one thing, squezzing every last lev out of you which was really disappointing because on whole we found the Bulgarian people to be very polite & friendly. We got over charged big time in the 'Napoli Pizza' resturant and ended up arguing with the owners until they came clean & changed the bill. The food was shocking aswell I ordered Lasagne and its was made with processed ham instead of mince, it was disgusting defiantly steer clear of this establishment!!!!!!!!
Anyway on hole had a brilliant week & would recommend to everyone to at least experience this resort once.

1 reader found this review helpful

I spent xmas 2009 in the Hotel Rila, the hotel was nice , clean and always warm, the maid service for the rooms was spot on, the food was fine although nice to eat out sometimes, the Xmas gala food wasn't great but I hear a place down the road does an english real Xmas dinner which is where I wound go next time. The pool area was nice and clean but the pool a little cold for me the spa pools were warm if you did'nt stay in too long and the bubbles didn't work.The sking was great, I have only been to Andorra to compair but as an interskier I liked it here better. There was a group of us kids age 6-15 and young adults 18-22 and adults 40+ and it was great for all. The ski schools were great and our instructor was Bobby he took us all over we started with blue runs and was doing black at the end.I would go here again although i'm looking for somewhere different to go this Xmas but am finding it hard to find anywhere that has all this at these prices it was great value.

1 reader found this review helpful

This was my first time skiing and my first time in Borovets. I found that the hotel was pleasant enough; I was in a studio apartment with 3 of us sharing. The room was very warm all the time which is nice when you have been skiing all day up the cold mountain. The food in the restaurant was a bit naff sometime... but they have such a choice they cater for everyone.
There is loads of great bars and other restaurants to eat out, if you don’t fancy the hotels, the best my far was the chili bar!! Really lively fun with all ages enjoying the music. They serve food during the early part of the evening and then have a happy hour with buy one get one free on most drinks. I had a couple of lesions with a skiing instructor Dan the man, he was very patient with our small group of learners and found he always gave the slower people more advice- really found him helpful.
I did find that it is not a good idea to purchase the ski lifts before you get there, as on 2 days of our holiday it was really snowing, so much so that the actual ski lift was shut! so we would have wasted our money. There are a few shops down stairs in the hotel which i did buy a pair of shoes and a handbag.. both bargains!! for gifts i went to a shop just outside the hotel if you go down stairs and past all the shops and go out the doors next to the mini super market, you will find a few clothes shops that sell jumpers for next to nothing, all really good quality and makes so don’t miss out. The last thing i found that was very nice was the swimming pool in the hotel, very clean, warm and no one ever in there!! it was great. I will be looking to go back to the Rila hotel next year 09 with the hopes of finally going down a black run!! i was too much of a bambi on ice last time according to friends.

1 reader found this review helpful

Hold it a second, you have to be fair to Borovets, the same holiday in france will cost you three times as much.
Borovets IS extremely good value for money.
Rila Hotel was fine, location was perfect situated at the bottom of the slopes.
The food funnily enough was Bulgarian which is going to be different. It will never get a michelin star, however, it was interesting trying different things. My wife is quite fussy about her food and was very happy with the variety.
We ate in the restaurant 4 nights of the week. Because you do not pay much for the holiday you can afford to eat out if you wish.
I have stayed in many ski resorts and unless you pay a fortune most of the rooms in Ski hotels/chalets in europe are adequate for what you should expect. You should not be disappointed with the accomodation in the Rila.
If you have kids the kindergarten down stairs in the Rila is great and there is an English lady there all day to help but all the Ladies are super.
The pool is wonderful after being on the slopes all day and when you jump into the 36 degree hot tubs it feels wonderful.
From a seasoned skiier I was not disappointed with the ski field albeit not huge. It is not the Espace Killy in France but ample for a weeks skiing. Don't be late for the Gondola otherwise you will queue Disney style.
Go there, experience the value, and make your own judgement.
I will venture back, I like saving £2000 (2 adults and a 3 year old)
Pants.

2 readers found this review helpful

Initially i would like to comment that i am a first time snowboarder and consequently i have no point of reference for comparison on snowboarding. However, having visited borovets and the Rila apartments i have no wish to ever try snowboarding again. I knew my holiday was going to be long and tiresome when i saw the transport to the hotel which was a bus that looked like it had just taken a detour down the Gaza Strip. To be fair there is a lot to see on the way to the hotel and the picturesk views are something to behold, although we did not get chance to fully appreciate them due to being mythered by the tour guides incesant stories of drunkeness in borovets.
Due to our flight being delayed we did not reach the Rila apartments until 2am where we were greeted with a smoggy lobby filled with loud, lewd stag do parties and other large groups of males just generally making a scene. We had not eaten for roughly 4 hours and were promised a meal on arrival but unfortunately we all got a plastic bag consisting of three soggy sandwiches and and very bruised apple. To be fair that was the best meal of the holiday as it was the only food we ate that did not have some form of stuffed hog in it. The room service menu itself had a total of eight dishes, 5 of these containing some combination of yellow cheese and sausage meat and the buffet style resteraunt was like a cattle market. Outside of the hotel the other eating establishments are geared towards making as much money as possible and you are constantly being pesetered to come in. A good meal in Borovets is as difficult to find as a pleasant staff member in the Rila apartments.
The rest of the hotels amenities follow suit with the hotel food and are absolutely appauling. Due to the vast number of people staying in the Rila the swimming pool is like a sardine tin in the evenings and trying to get a few lengths in becomes like a ride on the dodgems. Furthermore there are no cubicals and the changing rooms are slightly smaller than the average closet. The rooms themselves were probably the biggest dissapointment, we very stunned at the conditions on arrival. Due to us having a slightly larger party our requirement was for 2 rooms sleeping 8 people with around 16 items of luggage in total. Rila's answer to this problem was to use a bunk bed system cramming two full sized adults in them and Placing a double bed in the corner for the others. The fittings and trimmings of the room were, for want of a better word, Dangerous. One member of our party tried to turn double bed lamp on and the entire fitting fell off the wall, which was no surprise as the walls looked and sounded like they were made from popadoms. The final dissapointment with the room was the implied sky television we were all supposed to have access to. The bold truth was we had two music channels and the rest was a jumble sale of channels picked up from whatever networks were free. I have learnt more about the german language this holiday than i have about snowboarding.
The snowboarding itself was pretty good if you venture high up into the slopes, but the instructors are so unhelpful no one really has any confidence to go. For an advanced snowboarder this may have been different but with no point of reference for that i would find it difficult to comment. At this point i will have to wrap up this discourse as i am currently in Borovets about to be turfed off a slightly obsolete machine. So in summary if i had the choice next year i would rather spend my time self catering in Baghdad.
Yours Truly
A very angry boarder

2 readers found this review helpful

Borovets - Third World Skiing.
I was staying at the hotel RILA. Until I moved out. I'm fere now at a different hotel -the Ela, much nicer. I moved out because 4 of us were sharing a 'studio' and it was way too cramped. A 'studio' is a standard size hotel room with a set of bunk beds shoehorned in. When I explained this to the (Nilson) rep his best efforts from the RIlA amounted to an offer of a room for 5 nights for 375 pounds (thats about 550 euros). They did get me into the Ela for 25 pounds a night, and although its 200 yards down the road its MUCH nicer than the RILA which gets by on a reputation for 4 stars, although I can't see why. It's one of those hotels where you hear every chair scrape and toilet flush, and 2 out of 4 lifts don't work. Oh, and its smoky all the time in the public areas.
The food is passable - just.
The Boro ski school is a joke. The ski instructors are not that at all. They are local lads who make good money in the winter by donning a ski instructor outfit. They do little more than take you on the chairlifts. At my daughters snowboard school the guy stands around smoking while the class does virtually nothing.
The ski class started on the first day as usual with the grading into groups. Except that the instructors didn't watch me - they asked me howe many times I have been skiing, and on the basis of my answer (3) they put me in an upper intermediate group. We went straight up to the top of the mountain and down - fast - a very hard red. I fell and tore a rotator cuff and tendon insertion in my shoulder. After a 2 hour walk down I went to see the instructor. He laughed and bid me join them for lunch. I declined and went ot the medical center where I was relieved of 50 pounds for what was very good treatment. Seems like they are used to injuries?
The 4 hour lesson (nothing more than repeated chairlifts to the top of the mountain and a hard and boring ski down a narrow, icy tree-lined 'run') is broken by lunch at a restaurant. This is so that the instructor can get a commission from the retaurant. Lunch costs about 15 pounds sterling and is mediocre. I had chicken that was red and bloody in the middle and fried potatoes. With a coke it came to 15 pounds. The ski instructor gets something that does not seem to be on the menu and is free.
Skiing on the slopes is a free for all. There is no attention to safety, and the locals send people flying all over the place. The reality is it's downright unpleasant most of the time. If you are a beginner, watch out.
In Borovets, you are constantly hounded in the street to go into restaurants and bars. There are beggars on the street and in the hotel. It is not family friendly. I'm with my teenage daughters, and there are 2 unavoidable girly bars, and an 'erotik' show next door. Prostitutes populate the bars and public areas in the hotel RILA after about 10.30pm.
My advice? Don't even think about Borovets. The runs are narrow, icy and dangerous, the locals are out to squeeze every last penny off you, and the hotels and service are derisory. In short, its horrible.
Robert

1 reader found this review helpful

The resort is good but the hotel poor. Food in hotel is of a poor standard, as are the rooms. Health and Safety standards are minimal - take care!
The lifts are scary as they are so old; I was told that they were bought from a resort in France in the 80's when the French resort updated them. They often grind to a halt for a couple of hours with people stuck in them!
Lots to do at night if you enjoy drinking!