Balkan Holidays, can anyone help?

mikeyandsheila

Hi Guys,
we went to Bulgaria on the 15th of last month with Balkan holiday. We booked in to the Varshava Hotel in Golden Sands. The hotel was like something out of the 30's! the bathroom was so small that the door opened up right under the shower, it was filthy with thick greenish blue limescale on the shower head, the sink was covered in rust, the room was so small you couldnt even swing a cat in it.
When we booked this holiday we asked if there was intenet in the hotel and were told that it did have, we work online so we needed to still have access, when we got there the internet access was a booth out on the street with three computers that were so slow. The milk at breakfast was watered down, ect, i could go on buy it would take forever. Anyway, we complained to the rep and were told that we would have to pay an extra £400 to get moved to another hotel so we decided to find our own one.
we were told that we could claim the money back fro the hotel when we arrived home by sending in a complaint form.
We are now back and have sent the form off with a letter explaining what went wrong, we even have photos of the state of the room, only to get a letter back saying that they think that the hotel is fine and that they are sorry that we didnt.
what can we do now?
sorry for the long post.
Cheers
Sheila

maninthestreet

How much did you pay for this holiday?

hollydays

A little bit of searching would have revealed that standards in hotels in places like croatia or Bulgaria can be lower. I was told it was more like the fifties by my travel agent.,who used Balkan Holidays. If you had googled "varshava hotel tripadviser "you could have read the reviews yourself. We decided to go self catering after coming to the conclusion that food in the hotels was dire, and the facilities were a two ring hob,no food preparation space other than the tiny draining board, a fridge and no cupboard space for food,but we were well aware of this because we checked it out first.It was a good cheap holiday. As for breakfast,we found croatian restaurants didnt really do it,just a pastry and coffee really,and sometimes they ran out of pastries.Its all part of travel!

Re the internet,their facilities do state "internet access",which is a bit of misrepresentation,maybe?Surely this would be your only complaint,and not your main one by the sound of it. It was slow? You might have expected that.THey belong to abta though so if you wished to make issue of lack of the internet,you could ask abta for advice.

michjoe

It would be very interesting to know how much you paid, we went to Bulgaria a couple of years ago and most of the hotels were immaculate and brand new.

Dave_Brooker

mikeyandsheila wrote: »

what can we do now?

Keep away from el-cheepo package holidays in thirdworld war zones?

olly300

One thing I've learnt about booking holidays is to do your own research first as reps selling the holiday offered don't have a clue about the actual resort because they offered haven't been there.

The Varshava Hotel is widely advertised on the internet (just do a search ) of having no internet access. It is also a 2 star hotel.

As I've been to Bulgaria a few times and have stayed in different priced accommodation I'm not surprised your accommodation was so basic. (Best deal was a few years ago for a week for £170 the plane journey was scary I actually paid attention to the emergency procedure. )

Bulgarian accommodation consists of older basic accommodation left over from communist times which you get if you go on a cheap holiday or book at the last minute, and more expensive newer accommodation up to UK standards.

The food is always horrible in most of the hotels I've stayed in around the world as they are catering for a mass load of people on a budget which is why I never go full board. In fact I only think in the US and the UK have I ever had a decent breakfast in a hotel.