Your rating of this hotel:
6.0
from 10
Hotel ratings by criteria:
Rooms:
5.0
Service:
6.0
Cleanliness:
9.0
Food:
9.0
Was in this hotel in the first half of September 2009. I'll start right away with the negative. 1. There are NO air conditioners in the rooms! More precisely, almost none. If you scrupulously calculate, then a dozen rooms with air conditioners will be typed, they can be seen from the blocks of air conditioners located on the outer walls of the building. But what gives this ten against the background of almost three hundred rooms in the hotel! Do not believe the fairy tales about “centralized air conditioning”, the construction project of the hotel is very old and “soviet”, and there was no reconstruction in Dobruja. Good thing I was there in September and not in July. I can't imagine being there in July without air conditioning. 2. At the reception, they systematically rude and deceive. 3. It is impossible to sleep in the evenings, because the hotel has an open restaurant with VERY loud "live" music, which sounds until 23.30 (I spotted). Tightly closed windows do not help, because they are very poor.
The music is especially annoying for the guests of the "cool" rooms with a balcony and a sea view. The rooms without a balcony, located at the back of the building, without a sea view, are quieter. 4. The rooms are VERY, VERY old and dirty. The rooms are small, especially those that do not have a balcony, they do not even have a built-in wardrobe in the hallway, here the wardrobe is right in the room. The furniture is falling apart. The windows do not close tightly, with heavy rain water leaks through the windows onto the windowsill. Plumbing in almost all rooms with defects, especially toilets (2 of the three I saw did not work or flowed). I declare this with full responsibility, because I "lived" in three rooms of this hotel. There are no safes in the rooms, a safe can be rented at the reception, for 2 weeks the price is 29 leva (about 15 euros).
I will describe my stay in this hotel. I want to note that I booked a room with a balcony (and a sea view), which is written in black and white on the voucher.
So, after filling out the standard questionnaire, I receive a key at the reception and ...I carry my things to the room myself, since there are no porters specially trained for such cases as a class. I go into the room and see ...the absence of a balcony, and, accordingly, a view of the sea. I go to the reception and say politely: “You must have made a mistake, they gave me the wrong number, look at my voucher, it says a room with a balcony. ” To which, without any apology, I get: "we have few rooms with a balcony. " After that, the receptionist switches his attention from me. I had to once again pay attention to my problem, to which the answer was received: "when there is such a number, we will relocate. " Well, what can you do, I thought. There are overlays. Then I was convinced that I was being deceived, saying that there were no numbers. There were rooms, but they were kept for tourists who came "from the street" and brought real money, not a voucher. In addition, a room with a balcony is more expensive than a room without a balcony.
So, I go back to my room and start unpacking things. I sniff and smell...The search for the source of the smell led me to the bathroom to the toilet, carefully closed with a lid. I lift the lid of the toilet bowl and see the source of the smell. This is called human feces (feces). On the machine, I try to correct the situation - to drain the water and wash off other people's feces. No matter how! The toilet is not working. There is not a drop of water in it. What does this situation mean? Apparently, it was like this: someone (the producer of faeces) settled in the hotel a little earlier than me. Arriving at the room, the first thing he (or she) decided to go "in a big way", which he quite successfully implemented. After that, realizing that the toilet was not working, he left the room, probably getting another one. Then the receptionists, KNOWING that the room is not ready to receive a visitor, and probably knowing about the feces in the toilet, give me this number. What is this action on the part of hotel employees called? This is called rudeness.
Then I rushed back to the reception and asked to change my number. To which I was LIED that they do not have other numbers. LIE, because after some time, which I spent arguing with the reception staff, a free room appeared. So, they gave me another room again without a balcony, but with a working toilet, and I was already glad of this. Of the oddities in the second issue, I noticed that one of the towels was not in the bathroom, but was lying on the window sill by the window, and wet and dirty. Then I realized that it was to collect rainwater that flows through the window. For the Dobruja hotel, this is a trifle. I spent one night in this room. The next morning I met with a representative of my tour operator, complained to him, and they immediately found a room with a balcony for me. This was my third room in this hotel.
To be honest, I later regretted that I moved from the second room to the third, because the room with a balcony (and sea view) turned out to be much noisier in the evenings, and I could not fall asleep before the restaurant with "live music" closed until 23.30 . But pride no longer allowed to ask back. Yes, and beach accessories in a room without a balcony to dry nowhere. And here was some kind of self-made rope on the balcony, where I quite successfully dried swimming trunks and towels with the help of my own clothespins. Again, in the evenings, it’s nice to sit on the balcony and admire the sea, you see. About the sea view. From 6-7 and lower floors, the sea is poorly visible.
Well, there is nothing good in the Dobruja hotel? No, why is there. There is a large (25 meters) indoor swimming pool with heated chlorinated water. Too bad it closes early. There is an inexpensive restaurant.
It is the restaurant that has 4 stars, while the hotel itself has 3 stars, as there is a corresponding sign at the entrance. Someone in the review wrote that during breakfast it was tight with tea leaves, and so I did not notice this. Lunches and dinners, if they are not included in the ticket, can be bought on the spot. Lunch costs 10 leva (about 5 euros), dinner 12 leva (about 6 euros). For lunch and dinner, all drinks are subject to an additional charge. Juice (from the package), water costs 1-1.5 leva, wine, brandy 3-4 leva. But still, it is profitable to have lunch and dinner here by the standards of dear Albena. The food is generally good. You can go to a restaurant without paying, inspect the current diet, and only after that decide whether to stay and pay or leave. The restaurant has friendly waiters, mostly elderly, who speak excellent Russian. It should be noted here that almost all Bulgarians over 30-40 years old speak Russian well. Young people do not know Russian, but you can communicate with them in English.
The most important and the only pleasant thing for which many people come to Albena is the sea, or rather, the beach. Yes, indeed, the beach in Albena is wonderful! Wide, spacious, comfortable, excellent soft sand. There are plenty of shower points, changing cabins, trash cans. The beach is cleaned in the evenings, so it is quite clean, although cigarette butts and small debris are present (but this is already nit-picking). From the exit from the hotel to the sea about 400 meters along the shortest path. Renting a sunbed and a mattress under an umbrella costs 15 leva per day, so they are almost all empty, and competent vacationers are located on the sand, since there is plenty of free space. Near the beach, I bought a mat for 6 leva and an umbrella (small) for 10. A large one costs 18 leva. Everyone does it, don't be ashamed of it. Then I brought this umbrella home. He did not fit into the suitcase, but at the airport they separately glued a tag to him, and he flew perfectly.
From Bulgaria, in general, a lot of passengers brought umbrellas, you can mix it up. Experienced and fly there with their umbrellas.
The advantage of Albena is that of the Russian tourists here, mostly pensioners and mothers with small children. There are no youth, but there are no bydlots either. All the Russians I met there were quite decent people.
Albena also has good air.
About internet access. Almost every hotel has a room with computers and Internet access. It all works on cards. You can buy a card at the reception. It's nice that the cards are universal, that is, bought in one hotel in Albena, it works in all hotels. Working with these computers is somewhat unusual, but quite convenient. The fact is that they do not have the familiar Windows users. All the user can do is run a few of the most commonly used programs. Among them are Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, ICQ, Skype….
I successfully used Skype, so calls to my homeland cost me a penny. True, microphones working for them are in short supply. But there are always computers with working microphones at their central point - where their computer engineer on duty sits (the hotel is on the way to the sea from Dobruja, I don’t remember the name).
I did not find more positive things in Albena. Prices here are high compared to neighboring places. Boring, young people are few. Almost no entertainment. There is a promenade of 500 meters with all sorts of shops and stalls. There are several restaurants with "live music" that disturbs the sleep of hotel guests rather than entertains visitors. There is a disco, but in September there were no people (and there was loud music). Only a couple of hotels in the most extreme corners of the bay, and some of the hotels of the third line, do not suffer from music. But the third line is only for the young and vigorous. Third line on the mountain, climb about 200 steps!
I think that loud music is played until 23.30 on purpose to disturb the client's sleep. The client is sleeping, trading is not going on. Vacationers are deliberately kept awake so that they go shopping and restaurants. Nothing else to do in the evening. Time is wasted, it's a shame. Although somewhere I saw a mention of a certain “Albena law on silence”, which says that loud music should not be much earlier than 23.30. All hotels in the resort complex Albena, and the entire resort complex Albena belong to one company. And it's not a secret. Therefore, there is no competition between hotels, hence the disgusting service. Moreover, this company uses the Albena brand, raises prices unreasonably, but does not invest enough in the resort complex. I personally don’t understand what they think about their future there, because a normal person, having once been in a mess called Albena, will never go there again.
Well, except perhaps well-to-do elderly Russians who do not speak foreign languages, are afraid of Turkey, and even decently deaf. Scoop, soviet service! Lots of deception. For example, all taxis have price tags with a fixed price per kilometer, but they do not travel at this price. Just like with a private trader in Russia, you need to bargain with these “taxi drivers” and agree on the price of the trip in advance. Moreover, the price of the trip will be more expensive than in Moscow! There is also a "supermarket" "LIDI" in the vicinity of the bus station - the largest grocery store in Albena. There they constantly tried to cheat me.
That's what works in Albena clearly and without deceit, so it's a bus station. Buses and comfortable minibuses like our minibuses go from here regularly and strictly according to the schedule to Varna (via Kranevo and Golden Sands), Dobrich, Balchik. There are routes to Cape Kaliakra twice a day. Ticket prices are quite moderate.
But even here it was not without a fly in the ointment. All routes stop working quite early, so you will have to go, for example, to Golden Sands to a disco at 7 pm, later only a taxi is very expensive. Returning from somewhere after 20.00 will have the same only by taxi. Kranevo and Balchik can be reached on foot along the sea. To Kranevo from the last hotel of Albena along the beach is about a kilometer, to Balchik along the breakwater about 5 kilometers. If you stand facing the sea, Kranevo is on the right, Balchik is on the left. In Dobrich (the central city of the region, where Albena also belongs), I saw completely different Bulgarians than on the coast. There people are very decent, not spoiled by easy money from deceiving tourists. Fruit prices in Dobrich are at least 5 times cheaper than in Albena, etc.
As a summary, I can say that I have never had such a bad vacation abroad. After this "rest" I had to go on a real vacation to Thailand.
The music is especially annoying for the guests of the "cool" rooms with a balcony and a sea view. The rooms without a balcony, located at the back of the building, without a sea view, are quieter. 4. The rooms are VERY, VERY old and dirty. The rooms are small, especially those that do not have a balcony, they do not even have a built-in wardrobe in the hallway, here the wardrobe is right in the room. The furniture is falling apart. The windows do not close tightly, with heavy rain water leaks through the windows onto the windowsill. Plumbing in almost all rooms with defects, especially toilets (2 of the three I saw did not work or flowed). I declare this with full responsibility, because I "lived" in three rooms of this hotel. There are no safes in the rooms, a safe can be rented at the reception, for 2 weeks the price is 29 leva (about 15 euros).
I will describe my stay in this hotel. I want to note that I booked a room with a balcony (and a sea view), which is written in black and white on the voucher.
So, after filling out the standard questionnaire, I receive a key at the reception and ...I carry my things to the room myself, since there are no porters specially trained for such cases as a class. I go into the room and see ...the absence of a balcony, and, accordingly, a view of the sea. I go to the reception and say politely: “You must have made a mistake, they gave me the wrong number, look at my voucher, it says a room with a balcony. ” To which, without any apology, I get: "we have few rooms with a balcony. " After that, the receptionist switches his attention from me. I had to once again pay attention to my problem, to which the answer was received: "when there is such a number, we will relocate. " Well, what can you do, I thought. There are overlays. Then I was convinced that I was being deceived, saying that there were no numbers. There were rooms, but they were kept for tourists who came "from the street" and brought real money, not a voucher. In addition, a room with a balcony is more expensive than a room without a balcony.
So, I go back to my room and start unpacking things. I sniff and smell...The search for the source of the smell led me to the bathroom to the toilet, carefully closed with a lid. I lift the lid of the toilet bowl and see the source of the smell. This is called human feces (feces). On the machine, I try to correct the situation - to drain the water and wash off other people's feces. No matter how! The toilet is not working. There is not a drop of water in it. What does this situation mean? Apparently, it was like this: someone (the producer of faeces) settled in the hotel a little earlier than me. Arriving at the room, the first thing he (or she) decided to go "in a big way", which he quite successfully implemented. After that, realizing that the toilet was not working, he left the room, probably getting another one. Then the receptionists, KNOWING that the room is not ready to receive a visitor, and probably knowing about the feces in the toilet, give me this number. What is this action on the part of hotel employees called? This is called rudeness.
Then I rushed back to the reception and asked to change my number. To which I was LIED that they do not have other numbers. LIE, because after some time, which I spent arguing with the reception staff, a free room appeared. So, they gave me another room again without a balcony, but with a working toilet, and I was already glad of this. Of the oddities in the second issue, I noticed that one of the towels was not in the bathroom, but was lying on the window sill by the window, and wet and dirty. Then I realized that it was to collect rainwater that flows through the window. For the Dobruja hotel, this is a trifle. I spent one night in this room. The next morning I met with a representative of my tour operator, complained to him, and they immediately found a room with a balcony for me. This was my third room in this hotel.
To be honest, I later regretted that I moved from the second room to the third, because the room with a balcony (and sea view) turned out to be much noisier in the evenings, and I could not fall asleep before the restaurant with "live music" closed until 23.30 . But pride no longer allowed to ask back. Yes, and beach accessories in a room without a balcony to dry nowhere. And here was some kind of self-made rope on the balcony, where I quite successfully dried swimming trunks and towels with the help of my own clothespins. Again, in the evenings, it’s nice to sit on the balcony and admire the sea, you see. About the sea view. From 6-7 and lower floors, the sea is poorly visible.
Well, there is nothing good in the Dobruja hotel? No, why is there. There is a large (25 meters) indoor swimming pool with heated chlorinated water. Too bad it closes early. There is an inexpensive restaurant.
It is the restaurant that has 4 stars, while the hotel itself has 3 stars, as there is a corresponding sign at the entrance. Someone in the review wrote that during breakfast it was tight with tea leaves, and so I did not notice this. Lunches and dinners, if they are not included in the ticket, can be bought on the spot. Lunch costs 10 leva (about 5 euros), dinner 12 leva (about 6 euros). For lunch and dinner, all drinks are subject to an additional charge. Juice (from the package), water costs 1-1.5 leva, wine, brandy 3-4 leva. But still, it is profitable to have lunch and dinner here by the standards of dear Albena. The food is generally good. You can go to a restaurant without paying, inspect the current diet, and only after that decide whether to stay and pay or leave. The restaurant has friendly waiters, mostly elderly, who speak excellent Russian. It should be noted here that almost all Bulgarians over 30-40 years old speak Russian well. Young people do not know Russian, but you can communicate with them in English.
The most important and the only pleasant thing for which many people come to Albena is the sea, or rather, the beach. Yes, indeed, the beach in Albena is wonderful! Wide, spacious, comfortable, excellent soft sand. There are plenty of shower points, changing cabins, trash cans. The beach is cleaned in the evenings, so it is quite clean, although cigarette butts and small debris are present (but this is already nit-picking). From the exit from the hotel to the sea about 400 meters along the shortest path. Renting a sunbed and a mattress under an umbrella costs 15 leva per day, so they are almost all empty, and competent vacationers are located on the sand, since there is plenty of free space. Near the beach, I bought a mat for 6 leva and an umbrella (small) for 10. A large one costs 18 leva. Everyone does it, don't be ashamed of it. Then I brought this umbrella home. He did not fit into the suitcase, but at the airport they separately glued a tag to him, and he flew perfectly.
From Bulgaria, in general, a lot of passengers brought umbrellas, you can mix it up. Experienced and fly there with their umbrellas.
The advantage of Albena is that of the Russian tourists here, mostly pensioners and mothers with small children. There are no youth, but there are no bydlots either. All the Russians I met there were quite decent people.
Albena also has good air.
About internet access. Almost every hotel has a room with computers and Internet access. It all works on cards. You can buy a card at the reception. It's nice that the cards are universal, that is, bought in one hotel in Albena, it works in all hotels. Working with these computers is somewhat unusual, but quite convenient. The fact is that they do not have the familiar Windows users. All the user can do is run a few of the most commonly used programs. Among them are Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, ICQ, Skype….
I successfully used Skype, so calls to my homeland cost me a penny. True, microphones working for them are in short supply. But there are always computers with working microphones at their central point - where their computer engineer on duty sits (the hotel is on the way to the sea from Dobruja, I don’t remember the name).
I did not find more positive things in Albena. Prices here are high compared to neighboring places. Boring, young people are few. Almost no entertainment. There is a promenade of 500 meters with all sorts of shops and stalls. There are several restaurants with "live music" that disturbs the sleep of hotel guests rather than entertains visitors. There is a disco, but in September there were no people (and there was loud music). Only a couple of hotels in the most extreme corners of the bay, and some of the hotels of the third line, do not suffer from music. But the third line is only for the young and vigorous. Third line on the mountain, climb about 200 steps!
I think that loud music is played until 23.30 on purpose to disturb the client's sleep. The client is sleeping, trading is not going on. Vacationers are deliberately kept awake so that they go shopping and restaurants. Nothing else to do in the evening. Time is wasted, it's a shame. Although somewhere I saw a mention of a certain “Albena law on silence”, which says that loud music should not be much earlier than 23.30. All hotels in the resort complex Albena, and the entire resort complex Albena belong to one company. And it's not a secret. Therefore, there is no competition between hotels, hence the disgusting service. Moreover, this company uses the Albena brand, raises prices unreasonably, but does not invest enough in the resort complex. I personally don’t understand what they think about their future there, because a normal person, having once been in a mess called Albena, will never go there again.
Well, except perhaps well-to-do elderly Russians who do not speak foreign languages, are afraid of Turkey, and even decently deaf. Scoop, soviet service! Lots of deception. For example, all taxis have price tags with a fixed price per kilometer, but they do not travel at this price. Just like with a private trader in Russia, you need to bargain with these “taxi drivers” and agree on the price of the trip in advance. Moreover, the price of the trip will be more expensive than in Moscow! There is also a "supermarket" "LIDI" in the vicinity of the bus station - the largest grocery store in Albena. There they constantly tried to cheat me.
That's what works in Albena clearly and without deceit, so it's a bus station. Buses and comfortable minibuses like our minibuses go from here regularly and strictly according to the schedule to Varna (via Kranevo and Golden Sands), Dobrich, Balchik. There are routes to Cape Kaliakra twice a day. Ticket prices are quite moderate.
But even here it was not without a fly in the ointment. All routes stop working quite early, so you will have to go, for example, to Golden Sands to a disco at 7 pm, later only a taxi is very expensive. Returning from somewhere after 20.00 will have the same only by taxi. Kranevo and Balchik can be reached on foot along the sea. To Kranevo from the last hotel of Albena along the beach is about a kilometer, to Balchik along the breakwater about 5 kilometers. If you stand facing the sea, Kranevo is on the right, Balchik is on the left. In Dobrich (the central city of the region, where Albena also belongs), I saw completely different Bulgarians than on the coast. There people are very decent, not spoiled by easy money from deceiving tourists. Fruit prices in Dobrich are at least 5 times cheaper than in Albena, etc.
As a summary, I can say that I have never had such a bad vacation abroad. After this "rest" I had to go on a real vacation to Thailand.
Translated automatically from Russian. View original
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