Iberostar Festa Panorama Hotel

1 reader found this review helpful

I for one was not looking forward to this holiday, it was chosen by my current wife and sister in law, it was in New Nessebar. I don't know why i wasn't, we got their at stupidoclock about 2.30am. The next morning before breakfast i stood on our balcony and was amazed with the view, it was amazing, we could see around the bay, taking in Sunny Beach all the way around to Vlas, about 6 miles i would think, and of course with the sun shining it looked great, all of my fears were slowly decreasing. We went for breakfast, which was uninspiring as was all of the food, bland, and if you like Brussel sprouts and mixed veg with your fried eggs and spam!!Later that day, after a session by the pool and a couple of swift sherberts we decided to go for a walk......Wow,it like a council estate with shops a handful of restaurants but only one bar that you could call a bar. Walk into Old Nessebar took about 15 minutes by the means of the main road or the promenade, and it was unbelievable, quaint shops, churches, cobbled stone streets, wonderful architecture, catch a bus the other way to Sunny Beach the No1 cost 1Lev (50p)it takes about 15 minutes, or walk around the beach to it, abot one hr. The reason i have marked the hotel so high is because of the staff, they were amazing, friendly, everything i didn't expect, particularly Nevina a really beautiful person in every way, and Haffi the egg lady, who must cook 200 eggs a day, omlette, sunny side up, over easy, she is Turkish who trained as a chemist.The waiters were really good except for one miserable one, but less said. To go here is fairly weird, a lot of the older Bulgarians who still liked the Communist existence they led, and then the vibrant younger people, but still respected their elders. A few words of caution, there are a lot of stalls selling news, water, alcohol, some of them are less than honest, one big guy served mt to a bottle of water which was 0.70 lev, i gave him 5 Lev, he gave me change for 1 Lev, i was lucky i wuestioned him, and he threw the 4 Lev on the counter, and random people will come up to you and ask he you have any English currency and offer you 2.5 Lev, our exchange rate is about 2.2 Lev, the issue is they give you Estonian currency which is worth zilch, and lot's of Russians with big cars, people say they run Sunny Beach. Don't let it put you off, once you get your head around that the food ain't that brilliant, the local beer blows you up and the whole place was randomly dropped by a spacecraft in between Old Nessebar and Sunny Beach you should enjoy it's identity, very Bulgarian and proud