Arabella Hotel

It is a great hotel, close to the beach, fantastic animation team, very good AI. One minor inconvenience is that you have to get up early to get a sunbed, but the beach is close. There are not many places for children, but the animation team is great and you have great shows for children each evening. There is also the kindergarten during the day. The service is ok, parking zone is rather small. Generally, it is a great place for a vacation.

This hotel is set right in the resort so access to the town is easy but there is about a 10-15 minute walk to the beach (which is huge!). The hotel itself has everything situated in one big block which means that if your at the top you have a lot of travelling to get to any of the facilities. There is a main restaurant and an outside restaurant (which you need to book in advance to use). The main restaurant's layout is pretty good so your not bumping into people to get food, which is varied and very nice. There are two bars, one by the pool and one downstairs in a lounge area. There are also beer pumps and soft drinks machines by the pool which are used in a self-service manner - so no waiting for the bar to open! The kids facilities are excellent with daily activities to keep them occupied. Even though there are mainly Russians or other Eastern Bloc tourists there, all information and announcements are made in different languages so you know exactly what is going on. The evening entertainment is held in the lounge downstairs and includes traditional dancing, magic shows etc followed by a disco. I would highly recommend this to anyone.

I never considered spending the 1st of May at the seaside, much less in Bulgaria, but this year I did, as all my friends were going, and I am glad I joined them. I enjoyed our stay at this hotel; great conditions, very clean, quiet, fit for families with children as well as for young people, excelent food - fresh and very tasty. Very welcoming personnel, real professionists, well organized and very preocuppied to make us feel welcome and well treated. I would highly recommend this hotel to anyone who wants to have a nice holiday at the seaside, and I would also recommend the Romanians to learn a lesson from them because in terms of services quality and prices, Bulgaria is very far in front of Romania. Thanx to everyone at Arabella and keep up the good work!

After reading reviews we expected at least a four star qualility hotel but we were a bit disapointed with our holiday, rooms up to standard and as good as any 4 star hotel we have been to, the all inclusive , the drinks we feel were not up to four star standard, we spoke to a few English people who felt the same, the food, i feel was below 4 star quality ( are in Bulgaria )but acceptable, we always found things to eat, breakfast ok, lunch ok we only found but staff 100%, never had to wait to be served with a drink. the main bar has a smoking and a no smoking section, but being a closed in area we found it too smokey to sit in in the evening for a drink, never had a problem with sunbeds even after 9am, overall view, we think its more of a 3 star plus hotel but considering the cost, it is worth consideration, the staff cant do enough for you .

The hotel kindly surprised us. The food was super-delicious. The room very clean and the description about the hotel in the catalog was extremely correct. We were very satisfied with all performances and all members of staff are very friendly and helpful. We can definitely further recommend it. An overall beautiful vacation.

just returned from a 2 week stay at the arabella. I had read the reviews so felt confident. After all, it had been a riu hotel and had only fairly recently been taken over - having spent a week in may at another riu, i had high hopes. Wrong!!! All photos and videos promoting the hotel must have been taken from very careful angles! On arrival, the coach cant get to the front of the hotel due to cars that could never pass an mot blocking the entrance ,so you trail down to a very bland, tired and uninspiring reception area with your case. No complaints about the room but, having arrived at about 11pm, we went downstairs to get a drink to find all the outside area in total darkness, no balcony lights on outside any of the rooms, and the barman telling us the bar would shut shortly. Not a good start. The following day we began to exlore the hotel and found it to be very tired looking, in desperate need of maintenance, tiles missing etc and, to our horror, found that the nightly ritual of plunging you into darkness any time between 11pm and 11.30 was the norm. I complained to the Manager who told me that all the balcony lights were turned off at that time so families could get their children to sleep! What about the rest of us? You were unable to even sit and read a book or play cards because "lights out" occured like a school dorm or prison!! I haven't mentioned the banging continual music from a bar on the beach which started every morning about 7.30 am and was still going long after we got sent to bed! How about that keeping kids awake? More likely than an inoffensive balcony light. After complaining about this, the Manager agreed to keep some of the downstairs lights on until midnight but this didnt happen until well into the second week of our holiday. Anyway, food is perfectly fine, staff pleasant and weather great but dont expect too much from the surroundings and the entertainment is, on the whole, dire with the exeption of 2 of the 14 nights. The maintenance problem reared its head week 2 when BOTH sets of steps in and out of the smaller of the 2 pools broke and were not replaced until the end of the week. The resort is loud, overcrowded and the beach is packed with hardly any space between people. Ok for youngsters maybe but my husband and i went with our 16 year old son and there is NOTHING for teenagers to do at night. I managed to persuade the management to move the table tennis table inside at night for them to use, which they obliged with, but that is all there was. If you have very young children and enjoy the nightly mini disco rammed down your throat with obligatory photos with Mickey Mouse or Spiderman then fine; or having the "Good Morning, good morning to you" song played at full volume EVERY morning at 10am along with the manic hotel theme song, and the day's animation events programme in at least 5 different languages, then great. If you are an older couple with teenage kids, steer clear. Most certainly would never return.

Bad start to holiday, arrived 5 minutes after midnight and the bars were closed, refused a drink and complained to the reception, they said they should have served us but by then the bar staff had gone!! checked in to find only 2 beds made up for 3 of us and the air con.was not working, managed to mend it and my Son slept in my parents room. Please beware, if you order a large beer at the bar at the top of the drive you will get a LARGE beer phew. After the poor start everything was great, the food is lovely, the beer is nice, and rooms are kept spotless, this was our first trip to Bulgaria and on the whole they are very friendly, around the resort the prices are higher than we were led to believe but with our party being all inclusive we only had to buy the bucket of beer mentioned above. All in all I would recommend the Arabella but please don't splash any of the older people around the smaller of the 2 pools as you may be locked in an iron maiden for the remander of your holiday, just joking!! The water park is a great day out for around a tenner, the food prices there are around what you would expect at your local macdonalds.

spent a week there sept 6th to sept 13th and was well impressed with the hotel in general and the resort . only downside was the food which was repetitive, most of them are, its not a problem though as its so cheap to eat out. weather was excellent. sept 06 bapas. tyne wear

I stayed at the Riu Arabella on 9th August through to 23rd August 2006. The hotel was absolutley fantastic. The staff were extremly friendly and exeptionally helpful. The animation team were very entertaining with their excellent selection of shows every night and my 1 year old really enjoyed the 'mini disco' . The food was also really good, a different theme every night and also lots of different foods to choose from. Aqua gym was a great experience especially as 'sexy Styko' (one of the animation team) was the instructor. The housekeepers were extremly thorougher and although didn't spead a lot of English were very polite. Overall i had a brilliant holiday in one of the best hotels i have stayed in. I will be returning to Bulgaria in the near future and i would most definatly stay in the Riu Arabella. Anon Swansea

Two weeks ago I came back from a trip to the GOLDEN SANDS, I stayed there for a week. I was at the RIU ARABELLA, and I tell you, WOW, A GREAT HOTEL!!! The staff, at the reception, in the bars, the animation team,... well, all were very nice, simply lovely people. Nearly all of them speak frequently english, a great part of them also german. The whole complex of the hotel is very clean, beautiful swimmingpools and jacuzzi...There is buffet for eating, even if it is not for royals, you wll ever find something to fill your stomach.The GOLDENSANDS is very secure region, there are a lot of policmen around or security agents in the near suburbs of the hotels. I am a young woman who travelled alone, and I can tell you, I had no problem in making a little walk outside the hotel, even in the evenings. I can really recommand the RIU ARABELLA, also good for families, but I can also give you a little advice : when you need calm nights to sleep, ask for a bedroom with view on the sea and their swimming pools. Have a nice stay and great holiday, bye