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We have just returned from a trip to Bulgaria and decided to write about our impressions of our vacation. I thought about where to start, I decided that it is best to start over.
After much thought and review of the political situation in the world and on the nearest sea coasts, our choice fell on Bulgaria. Moreover, we considered that we did not want to be completely tied to the hotel, as in the more popular resorts of Egypt and Turkey, and the situation outside the walls of the hotels there sometimes began to go beyond calm, which worried us a little, and we they wanted not only portions of bleach, but also fresh sea air, free walks along the coast and independent movement to nearby resorts. No, of course, it was possible to go to Spain or Greece and somewhere else and further, but we decided that Bulgaria, close to Belarusians born in the USSR in spirit and mentality (which is an erroneous judgment), would be just right.
Like many, having climbed a huge number of sites and read a bunch of reviews, we opted for a small resort of St. Konstantin and Elena because of its close location to the airport of arrival "Varna", a quiet family vacation without club hotels, night discos and parties. Just right for families with small children. The only thing left was to choose a hotel. There were many criteria here: food, accommodation (required two rooms in a room), category (not less than ****), naturally, proximity to the sea, entertainment for children (according to their age), etc.

So, having read all the possible reviews about hotels, and having made some conclusions for ourselves (choose a few hotels from our favorites), at the end of March we applied to a travel agency. For ourselves, we have identified the following hotels: a group of hotels Grand Hotel Varna Complex, Azalea, Sirius Beach, AquaAzur, Estreya. There our choice was approved, but they advised us not to take an “all inclusive” package for the first time, but to limit ourselves to breakfasts or half board, which later on I was not happy and grateful for the advice (do not immediately think about the bad - it’s completely in other, but more on that later). Friends last year rested at the Dolphin Hotel and were highly recommended to us in terms of children's recreation.
Alas, the end of March was not slow to remind of itself by the lack of places in most of the hotels indicated according to our criteria. Estreya Palace, AquaAzur and a group of hotels Grand Hotel Varna Complex (Dolphin, Swan, Rubin) remained from the offer. Unfortunately, the “group of hotels” only had offers with “all inclusive” conditions and at a price slightly higher than we planned. The travel agency gently and delicately hinted not to consider the proposals of the AquaAzur hotel, especially since the rooms there remained only one-room triples with extra. seat or quadruple. So, our family of 4 people, including two children aged 8 and 4, became the happy owners of a voucher from 20 to 29.07. 2014 for a vacation in Bulgaria, the resort of St. Konstantin and Elena, Hotel Estreya Palace (****), two-room apartment.
By the way, we previously visited the website of the above hotel, where in 4 languages ​ ​ (Bulgarian, German, Russian and English) it was described in detail about all the services at the hotel (paid and free), hotel rooms with photos and their equipment ( http://www.hotelestreya.com/ru/rooms.html). By the way, the complex consists of two hotels: Estreya Palace and Estreya Residence. It was a little disappointing that in the Estreya Palace apartments, unlike the Residence, there is no mini-kitchen: there is no kettle and refrigerator, but there is a minibar, the refrigerator of which is asked to be used exclusively for its intended purpose. After some thought, we decided that this was not a problem. Having traveled on business trips around Belarus and Russia, I was convinced that not all hotels have a kettle in the rooms or, at worst, a water cooler in the corridors. And in this case, one of the best inventions of mankind, the boiler, becomes indispensable. This device always accompanies me on all my trips. Well, a grocery refrigerator and a safe can be taken for an additional fee and are relatively inexpensive (the safe cost us 30 lev for 10 days, and the refrigerator on the site is offered for 5 lev per day). By the way, there is a lot of useful information on the hotel website and I recommend that everyone who goes on vacation should definitely familiarize themselves with it in order to avoid nervous breakdowns and misunderstandings during the rest.
( http://www.hotelestreya.com/ru/%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%BB%D0%B5%D0%B7%D0%BD%D0%B0-%D0%B8%D0%BD %D1%84%D0%BE%D1%80%D0%BC%D0%B0%D1%86%D0%B8%D1%8F.html ).

We took off from Minsk and landed at the airport of Varna at about 17.00. We, as befits, were met by the host with a smile on their face and, kissing us with joy, quickly put us on the bus, which followed the route Varna - St. Konstantin - ZP - Albena. By the way, the host company was called Good Day. On the way, we were told a lot of interesting and informative things about Bulgaria and were the first to be dropped off right at the hotel, escorted to the reception, handed over to the receptionist with all the personal belongings, promising to hold an information meeting in the evening of the second day, which turned out to be very useful. Digress from the description of the hotel. At the information meeting, we received all the information of interest about excursions, the location of the best exchangers, the best beaches, the order of eviction and delivery to the airport. By the way, a few days before departure, I came across a family in a hotel with whom they flew on the same flight, but the host companies were different. So, the host company did not hold a consultation evening with them and I was simply tortured by them with questions about the flight, and this was all to the detriment of my time spent on the Internet (before the start of the children's disco, to which I promised to take my daughters).
They settled us within 5 minutes, we gave our passports to the reception and immediately received the key to the room. Immediately asked at the reception a question about the refrigerator. In response, they goggled their eyes and asked the hell you have one more if the room has a minibar refrigerator. I did not go into the details of the information posted on the hotel website, but took note of the answer. But for the rent of the safe had to pay for 10 days. They have whole tariff plans for the safe there: 7.9, 12.14 days (I'm not sure about 12), regardless of your time in the hotel.
The porter girl, who, by the way, speaks Russian, like all the other porters, called the guy who “loaded” our suitcases on himself, and they turned out to be quite heavy (they brought all sorts of junk, including my wife’s three evening dresses and my best tuxedo, so that I could to match her appearance), dragged them to our room. I had to thank him a little with the smallest bill that I had at that time, $ 5, a bit much, of course, but there was no less, and it was inconvenient not to give. Feel free to tip, tips in Bulgaria do wonders (this is the fallacy of the opinion about the similarity of mentality and Slavic unity): they make people give you smiles, wish you a pleasant pastime (at least not wish bad), and also removes the language barrier because CAPITAL rules the world. In principle, 2-3 leva is enough for a maid, 10-15% for a waiter in a restaurant, do not take change from the bartender, so try to always have small bills to round up to a round value (0.5-1 lev). The smallest banknote in Bulgaria is 2 leva, and the largest coin is 1 lev. 100 cents equals 1 lev. On the first day on the beach, a curious incident happened to me. Paying at the beach bar, I mistakenly gave the bartender 10 euros instead of 10 levs (I also scored 10 levs). The boy's eyes were already fading, but looking at me, he suspected something was wrong (well, there can be no miracles in our life, especially from such a client), so with hope in his eyes he asked me about 10 euros. And then it dawned on me that I messed up, but I feel sorry for the guy, and even more than 10 euros. I had to take it away, give 10 lev, plus a comforting 2 lev in excess (conscience would not allow less, after all, it already encouraged a person). Well, in general, after that, we became friends with him. I always left 0.5-1 lev there, and sometimes 1.5-2 (if the order was wider). But, they remembered me and already knew that first of all, when I came to the beach, I always take two espressos, then at regular intervals beer and Cosmopolitan, and before leaving for lunch I always ordered two sex on the beach (in the sense of a cocktail).
We got apartments 7a on the ground floor with a separate entrance from the inside of the hotel and our own small terrace, on which there were a table and chairs (pictured). There were about nine such numbers. As we noticed, there were also dryers on the other terraces. After dinner, we informed the receptionist about her absence, he was very surprised and promised that this issue would be resolved in the morning.

In the first room there was a soft corner (a sofa and two armchairs), a bunk bed for children, a wall hanger, a long table-cabinet, inside of which there was a minibar (refrigerator), various drawers and doors. The ceiling air conditioner was above the children's bed itself. As it was in all the reviews, he pulled so-so. Fortunately, the room was on the ground floor, on all sides of the room (from the front of the building and inside) there were many empty deep arches and a large amount of greenery and trees, from which the room was always in the shade. And even in the midday heat, it was quite comfortable in it without air conditioning, so we practically did not turn it on. But there was one drawback. The constant shade did not allow to quickly dry linen, swimwear and towels after the beach or pool (it took at least a day at a temperature of about 30 ° C). But, we had everything in several copies, so we calmly survived this trouble. The second room had a large double bed, a three-door wardrobe, bedside tables and a dressing table with a TV set on it. From the same room there was a door leading to a combined bathroom with a shower (photo). In general, the hotel was reconstructed in 2004, and in some places it already becomes noticeable if you look closely, but everything was neat.
Lighting in the room is really weak, but depending on what. If for writing a scientific treatise and conducting laboratory experiments related to the study of the electron flow emitted by an incandescent filament, then it is not enough. If, in order to come to the room to sleep, well, rest a little, change clothes - that's enough. Yes, there is plenty of daylight during the day. The lighting in the bathroom was excellent. What else to do there, I can’t imagine that light was needed. I always read on the street on my terrace, even in the evening - there was enough illumination of the hotel courtyard and my own terrace.
The Estreya complex has two restaurants with seating both inside and outside on the terraces, bars attached to them, as well as a pool bar. Meals are built on the "buffet" principle and are quite varied (breakfasts are less, dinners are more varied). I want to say right away that it is silly to demand from a large hotel complex and a buffet some frills or offers to taste dishes of national cuisine. Some statements about the quality of alcoholic beverages are striking. Do you really think that for such a price you will be offered expensive vintage wines, prestigious whiskey and cognac. The “all inclusive” offer will include the cheapest booze and beer, otherwise, either the client will not pay the cost of the tour, or the hotel business will be covered with a copper basin. And for everything good you have to pay and it costs accordingly.
For breakfast, we were offered egg dishes in all possible forms (omelettes, fried, boiled, baked), there were always fried sausages and sausages, raw sausages and ham, cheeses, cheese, vegetables (peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, cabbage), olives, olives, pasta or french fries, stewed vegetables, necessarily some kind of porridge, more often oatmeal, was rice (I didn’t pay much attention to them), pancakes and fried eggs with bacon, which were made right in front of you (but you had to stand in the queue and it happened that for a long time - 20 or even 30 minutes), pastries for every taste (bread, rolls, croissants, cakes, muffins, cakes), tea, coffee, juices, various cereals, milk. My children ate pancakes (the eldest got up early herself and went to take a queue), cereal, sandwiches, pasta. There were always highchairs for toddlers. There were many kids, mostly 3-4 years old, but there were also smaller ones.

Dinner was always varied with meat - always different (I won’t enumerate - I’m tired of describing breakfast), fish, mainly in the form of cutlets and fish sticks, was poached a couple of times. Spa getty and potatoes have always been the basis of side dishes, but vegetable side dishes were interesting and varied each time, salads were also rarely repeated, of course, the main one was tomatoes and cucumbers with cheese. For dessert, fruits: watermelons, melons, apples, peaches - alternated. Ice cream every day and also alternated (in color and taste, but always 4 types). It was possible to take wine or beer, but we preferred not to take it there, but to buy it in the appropriate places. But most importantly, not only was it all edible, it was delicious. The guests calmly carried fruits and ice cream out of the restaurant, and my neighbors took them on a plate and calmly went to their room. Looking at all this, we also began to sin with this. Moreover, my youngest, having intercepted between meals, did not always eat as expected. And we had to take ham and cheese, or croissants, from the restaurant with us, because, as luck would have it, after an hour or two, when she was hungry, she could demand something to eat. At the same time, the staff took this calmly and did not arrange a tragedy, and did not throw tantrums.
And here it is necessary to recall why I reacted negatively to the "all inclusive" proposal. The resort has a sufficient number of restaurants and cafes offering a variety of cuisines, unlike hotel buffets, while inexpensive. We chose one of them, simply "Paradise" (the sign and the price tag are shown in the photo). Pretty cozy, located on the road from the Estreya hotel to the Azalea beach with a fairly large assortment of Bulgarian dishes. The portions themselves were very large. I was especially pleased with the attitude of the waitress (she is alone there, while she manages everything), it seems her name was Didi, at least something like that was written on the badge. Always try something new from the menu. To my great chagrin, we were not able to cover the entire menu in such a short time. But the cuisine there is magnificent, varied and conveys the Bulgarian flavor. Prices for salads there range from 3 to 6 lev, soups (small selection) from 2.5 to 3 lev, meat dishes from 5.5 and above, fish - from 12 and above, rakia up to 2 lev for 50 gr. , as well as a large selection of desserts. And if I agreed “all inclusive”, now I would write another mournful review, full of bitterness and tears, and whine about the monotonous dinners in the hotel restaurant and the lack of Bulgarian flavor of the dishes.
The room was cleaned daily. As I said, three leva helped the maid to perform her duties at a higher level. By the way, the next day, returning from the beach, we found a dryer on our terrace, which the porter promised us. I must say that on the evening of the day of arrival, I had to wash the linen and socks a little. Due to the lack of a dryer, we hung it all on the armrests of the chairs on our terrace. But when we returned from the sea, everything was hung on the dryer by the caring hands of our "Cinderella", even my socks. We changed our towels every day. By the way, there were two maids. Children constantly made a mess of their things, leaving a mess on the coffee table, where albums, pencils, books and other children's belongings were constantly lying around. So one maid devoted more time to putting things in order among the mess of scattered things, and when we returned to the room, all things were laid out with amazing pedantry in piles, even the shoes were arranged in a row. The second maid paid more attention to creating simple decorations from towels, but less to order among the scattered things. I was more satisfied with the work of the first maid.
After reading the reviews, we realized that there was nothing to go to Estreya beach. After talking with the neighbors, they advised us to go to the beaches to Azalea. A bit far from the hotel - about 15 minutes slowly. We went to Sahara Beach. We liked it more than Azalea Beach. Azalea Beach seemed narrower to me, probably after erosion. In addition, Sahara Beach turned out to be cheaper, but don't think that's not the reason. Azalea's price tag, I accidentally found out a couple of days before departure. For comparison, sun loungers on Sahara Beach are 5 levs, on Azalea - 10 levs, an umbrella on Sahara Beach - 6 levs, Azalea - 20 levs. For the guests of Azalea, in my opinion, the sun loungers were free. The bottom of the Azalea beach was a bit strewn with small pebbles. On the right, the Sahara beach is very shallow, with my height of 178, I was waist-deep there. There were always a lot of people in this part, including children. There was no mud in this part of the beach. The left part is deeper, there were always algae in the water. Mostly Russians and Bulgarians rested on the beach, and after July 25, there were just a lot of Bulgarians. Smoking is allowed everywhere. It was not very pleasant when next to your children, smoke was blowing from all sides. Moreover, I did not often see smoking men, but Bulgarian women are almost 70% smokers. They are not even embarrassed by the fact that their own small peanuts are spinning around them. Also, many Bulgarians are not embarrassed to sunbathe topless. At first it made me smirk, then disgust. Moreover, their age does not matter for tanning - it can be either a 16-year-old girl or a 40-year-old lady. At the same time, in my opinion, not all of them had something to brag about. The price tag in the beach bar was almost twice as different from the prices in the store, although I think this is normal for a bar. A cocktail could be bought for 4.5 leva, bottled - 5.5 leva, draft beer - 2.5 leva, bottled - 4 leva, mineral-kale - 1.5 leva, coffee - 2.5 leva, the rest was taken Not often, so I don't remember.

The pool at the hotel was mostly occupied by the Germans (the Russians went to the beach at least before lunch, the Germans less often). Pools are located on the territory between the two hotels. Two swimming pools and a children's paddling pool. For disinfection, bleach is used, which is felt. Another pool with mineral water is located in the SPA center of Estreya Residence Hotel (free of charge), but it is also disinfected with bleach. There are few sun loungers near the pools, but there is enough space for everyone. We used to go to the pools after dinner just because the kids wanted to. What they liked there, I don't know, but they played whole concerts if for some reason we couldn't go there. I had to drag myself there with them, sit in a sun lounger and quietly “bang” my smartphone. I myself swam in the pool twice only to teach the elder to swim.
Wi-fi in Estreya Palace is a whole story, or rather its absence. As such, the site indicates that the Wi-fi zone in Estreya Palace is located in the lobby bar. However, the signal level is not very good, for several days my device stupidly could not get an IP from the router. Sometimes the signal could just disappear. It was also necessary to look for a place where it was possible to find an access point. By the end of the holiday, the situation improved somewhat and the signal was quite confident. In the "Residence" the situation with Internet access was somewhat better. Near the pool, I caught the Residence signal, weak, but more or less stable. I think that this is the most significant drawback in the entire range of services of Estreya Palace hotels.
The hotel is of course more designed for couples, more elderly. For children there was a small playground with two swings and a small slide. On the first evening we went for a walk along the sea and got to the Dolphin Hotel. There, before our eyes, a large children's playground appeared, where children had fun in all possible languages. Of course, this was not the case in Estreya Pallas. Animation at Estreya Palace was done by two girls Yulia (Russian-speaking) and Mikhaella (she did not speak Russian). Very good girls, very fond of children, a games room was open from 16.00 to 17.30, or water polo was arranged near the pool. In the evening from 20.30 to 21.00 a mini disco was organized. My girls just fell in love with Yulia and were ready to spend all the time with her. And we tried to use this time to our advantage. Estreya Residence had a small gym with several exercise machines. But we were more interested in the tennis table, where we could play during the day.
At the resort itself there were children's attractions, various trampolines, bungee rides, carousels, cars, etc. For those who did not sit in hotels, classes could be found.

And for those who can not sit still, you can go on various excursions, up to a few days. With children, you can go to the water park in Golden Sands. It's 20 km. Works from 10.00 to 18.00. You can get there by bus number 9 and 409. The stop is located near the St. Helena. You can go to Varna to the dolphinarium. It is located in Seaside Park. You can get there by bus number 8 from a stop located near Estreya Palace. Taxi back cost us 17 leva.
Well, that's about all I wanted to talk about. I don’t know how people will read this, but I’m definitely tired of writing.
But in the end, I would like to say and advise. You can, of course, constantly moan and whine that they didn’t blow me in time in one place, they somehow looked, just not the way I wanted, they refused something, but they should have kissed my feet. I just don’t know where people get such thoughts about their exclusivity. And you can extract only positive moments from everything and enjoy the rest as it is. And most importantly: we make our own rest, and what it will be depends only on us. As for me, my rest suited me with everything. At least, the desire to come to Estreya Palace has not yet disappeared from me.