Borovets Ski Resort, Sofia Region, Bulgaria

5Whitterz67 5:00 PM Jan 1, 2020

Great ski resort
We visited as a family of 6 adults (4 in our late 40’s/early 50’s and 2 in late 20’s). Two of our party were intermediate skiers, two had skied quite a while ago and considered ourselves beginners and two had never skied before. The ski resort offers a variety of runs to suit all abilities, although my son (who’s an intermediate) thought they could’ve managed the slopes a bit better on the snowy days). We had 5 days skiing, with two mornings of ski school for us beginners. We booked our lessons and equipment through Snow Masters, who were fantastic. The manageress Daffy was very helpful and accommodating, the hire was extremely well priced and we had a very patient and gentle ski instructor. The great thing about Snow Masters is it’s only a 3 minute walk from shop to slope through the rear of Hotel Rila and you can store your equipment there each night, making it much quicker and easier to get the apres ski started! It snowed on three of the five days and the gondola was shut because of high winds on two of the days we were there. This meant the lower slopes were really busy with quite long waits for the drag lifts. We took the gondola one of the days and experienced a white out at the top which was quite an experience! But there’s a beginners slope at the top which was very quiet and allowed us to practice our newly found skills for a couple of hours before descending. Things got less crowded when the sun came out and we were able to ski for our last day from the new 6 person chair lift, which was exhilarating for a newbie and offered stunning views. The resort itself was extremely picturesque in its Christmas glory, especially the area around Hotel Rila. We found the restaurants and bars very reasonably priced and the standard of food was generally good. We particularly enjoyed BJ’s and The Red Lion, Mamma Mia’s on NYE was awesome (we hadn’t booked but they managed to squeeze us in and the service was amazing. Our host (Vlad the Lad) was hilarious, had excellent English, picked up on us being Welsh immediately and even chucked in a few Welsh phrases too. And we had a great meal on New Year’s Day at Restaurant Balkani. We did a skidoo safari (also organised through Snow Masters) on New Year’s Day which was great fun. We stayed at Chamkoria chalets and apartments about 5km outside the resort (see separate review) and benefitted from the free shuttle bus to and from there daily. The resort has no airs and graces, is great for all abilities and to my mind offers excellent value of money. We are already planning to return in 2021.

4MJ 5:00 PM Feb 4, 2023

Little better than I expected!
Overall, I have to give this resort 4 stars. Just over an hour or so transfer from Sofia, nice easy drive and you have everything you need in the resort itself. Loads of bars and restaurants with excellent menu choices almost everywhere you go. Not cheap cheap but very cost effective compared to France/Switzerland. There’s other excursions to do also but don’t get sucked into the “natural” hit spa afternoon. It’s literally an open air swimming baths, just with various pools, and it’s stinks of rotten eggs! That was a day wasted for us. The quad biking is worth doing. If you’re an advanced skier, this may not be the resort for you as it’s almost all blue/green and little bit of reds/black. But, if you like nice flowy pistes through the forest, it’s great. It was too busy for me at times and waiting at the lifts was boring at certain times but I think it was because there was a Bulgarian school holiday at the end of Jan, which didn’t help (full of ski school kids in your way). The biggest downside for me is many of the locals can be unfriendly and not welcoming at all. Avoid the Balkani restaurant at all costs as they are only interested in your money and offer aggressive and poor service when you complain. Best restaurant is Victorias (I love sushi). So, it’s well worth a visit here overall and we will come back sometime for sure (despite some of the locals attitudes)