2) It's close to the sea, the sea is simply wonderful
3) The food at the hotel is varied, for every taste. No one will be hungry for sure. The snack bar with ice cream is also wonderful
4) Animation +-. It was annoying that the same music played in the evenings
But overall everything is just wonderful. I definitely recommend it
Tour operator - Join Up, host company - Solvex.
We were checked into the room immediately upon arrival (around 12:00).
The room is quite spacious for three people.
The windows overlooked the alley near the main entrance.
Since the sound insulation is weak, in my opinion, it does not matter which way the windows face - the sounds of nightlife will be heard everywhere, and if the windows overlook the pool, then it will be noisy in the room during the day.
There is a balcony with two chairs and a table and a clothes dryer.
One double bed + folding chair-bed.
The bed is large and the mattress is comfortable. Bed linen is clean and fresh.
There are two towels per person in the room. If you put them on the floor, they will definitely change during cleaning.
From cosmetics - only soap in two dispensers. Bring your own shampoo or buy it locally.
Bathroom combined. Medium size. Shower cabin.
Plumbing is not new, but works well. Large mirror. Fen.
There is also a small refrigerator in the room (every day they put a bottle of 0.5 liters of water without gas in it), a wardrobe with a lot of clothes hangers and several bedside tables.
There are enough sockets to charge three or four devices at the same time.
The TV is small (diagonal about 20 inches). More than 40 channels, including several Russian-language ones (ORT, NTV, RTR planet and others).
The air conditioning in the room worked well and the temperature was very easy to control.
Cleaning was carried out every day between 10 am and 12 pm, but not very carefully.
After reading the reviews, we took a fumigator with us. But they didn't have to use it. There is a protective net on the balcony - for the entire period only one mosquito flew into the room.
By the way, on the street in general, mosquitoes were not noticed.
The pool is clean. It is obvious that he is being taken care of.
The water is quite cool in the morning, gradually warming up in the evening. Depth 1.2 - 1.6 meters.
There is a small pool with a slide for children.
When the hotel is full, there are not enough sunbeds for everyone.
Places start to take up very early (the impression is that from 6 o'clock in the morning). At 10:00 to find a free seat is very problematic.
Sunbeds are plastic, battered.
There are several umbrellas that protect quite well from the sun.
Medium sized beach towels. Mostly old and worn out. But sometimes there are completely new ones.
If necessary, towels can be changed at least several times a day.
Food for a hotel of this level is tasty and varied.
There is always fresh fruit for lunch and dinner. As far as I understand, the range depends on the season. We had watermelons, melons, nectarines, peaches, two types of grapes, apples. A couple of times there were pears.
In addition to fruit, always at least three types of meat (pork and veal - all the time, rabbit and lamb - sometimes), various soups, several side dishes, cheeses, vegetables. Fish and seafood - rare.
For breakfast, scrambled eggs, pancakes, cereals, canned fruits (peaches, strawberries), cheeses, vegetables.
Large assortment of sweets. they are different in appearance but very similar in taste and mostly buttercream.
In general, the hotel is very difficult to stay hungry.
As soon as the main restaurant closes, a snack bar opens by the pool. There is a large assortment of fast food: french fries, waffle fritters, pizza, nuggets, etc.
Constantly and in the main restaurant, and in the snack bar there are several types of ice cream.
The quality of drinks is much inferior to the quality of food. Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks are mostly local, only vaguely reminiscent of well-known world brands in taste.
Juices are simply diluted powdered concentrate.
Cocktails are also made using concentrate from bags.
To get some original cocktail, you need to leave a tip to the bartender.
Coffee from coffee machines is quite tasty. I recommend trying cocoa.
Large selection of tea bags.
After 23:00 you have to pay for drinks. For example, a glass of cola is 2 leva.
A huge disadvantage of restaurants is that they wash dishes very poorly. Be careful when choosing a plate.
The hotel area is very small. In addition to the pool and sun loungers around it, there is also a stage with several rows of chairs for spectators, a tent where children's competitions are held, two tennis tables, a mini-mini-golf course and a few simple exercise machines.
Tennis rackets and golf clubs can be obtained from the animators, leaving a deposit of 20 leva.
There are many animators. Everyone is responsible for their part of the work. Girls work mainly with children (drawing, contests, entertainment, etc. during the day).
), boys - hold sports competitions.
The program is rich, you will not be bored.
In the evening - necessarily thematic concert.
A little about the additional service.
Safes are located on the first floor. Mostly small. You can leave only documents, money, jewelry. There are slightly larger safes in the bottom row. The cost is 5 leva per day.
Car parking near the hotel - 20 leva per day. At 50 meters from the Kalina Garden, between the Iberostar hotel and the nightclub, parking with video surveillance costs 10 BGN per day.
Wi-Fi is available throughout the hotel. Even in the rooms. Unfortunately, the signal is very unstable - sometimes you can watch movies, and sometimes messages in Viber do not go away for several minutes.
To the sea about 7 minutes walking distance. Given the randomness of the development, it turns out that the hotel is not on the second, but on the third, or even on the fourth line.
At the same time, the rescuers took this calmly and did not demand to return, even when the sea was rough.
The hotel is located very close to all kinds of entertainment - discos, nightclubs, "luna park". There are a lot of young people walking around until the morning and screaming loudly.
Sometimes it can be very difficult to fall asleep even with the windows closed.
There are a lot of souvenir shops nearby. The assortment of all is approximately the same, but the prices can vary significantly.
Shopping is best away from the main streets.
The best prices for groceries (including rose petal jam) and household goods in the Mladost store. It is approximately 20 minutes walk from the hotel. You need to go out to the main street (the road connecting Nessebar and Varna), turn left, walk to the Vanya store and turn right. After that, walk for about 150 meters and turn right again.
It is best to change money in a bank.
For comparison, the exchange rate is 1.905 leva per euro, and in Postbank - 1.947 leva per euro.
The nearest Postbank branch is a 5-minute walk from the hotel. Need to get out
to the main street, turn left and walk about 200 meters.
You can rent a car at one of the many rental points. Price from 28 euros for a small car with a manual transmission.
We took a Citroen C1 with an automatic transmission for 33 euros (a deposit of 50 euros is returned upon delivery of the car).
From the sights you can see the old Nessebar. Bus number 1 leaves every 15 minutes from a stop located on the main road. Exit the hotel and cross the road. The cost is 1.3 leva.
The city is very beautiful, but the impression is spoiled by a huge number of souvenir shops.
We also traveled by car to Varna, Balchik (the residence of the Romanian queen), Shumen and Madara. The road is long. Impressions, except for the residence of the queen, were much lower than expected.
Wouldn't go a second time. In Balchik, you need to pay first for the entrance to the botanical garden (8 levs for an adult ticket, 3 levs for a child), and then for the entrance to the residence (11 levs - a "family" ticket - two adults, two children).
In my opinion, the hotel, with the exception of a few points (described above), corresponds to the declared class, and judging by the reviews, it is one of the best in Sunny Beach in terms of price-quality combination
quality food
Clean spacious rooms
Lots of families with children. Good animation.
But they didn't regret it at all! We arrived at 9 am, at 10-00 we were already settled! Although it is supposed to be at 12-00. The rooms are spacious, clean, cleaned every day, towels changed every day, bedding every three days. Everything is snow white. There are no complaints about the room, though we don’t always have good Internet speed on the 6th floor, and my daughter lived on the 5th even watched videos on YouTube.
The food is varied and tasty. Fruits in assortment: apples, pears, kiwi, citrus fruits, peaches, apricots, melons, cherries. Ice cream and confectionery too.
Bar in the lobby and snack bar by the pool. In general, the stomach works all day if you are on the territory! : ) It's better to run early to the beach if you're afraid of extra pounds.
There is animation, it's fun.
To the sea 5-7 minutes if you do not look anywhere. I recommend. Don't hesitate to go back there.
My daughter was very worried about nowhere to spend the leva, in the sense of food and drinks too, well, maybe just somewhere to try some elite : )
Room cleaning daily. Soap, shampoo, towels new daily, bed linen changed on the third day. Cleaning is perfect. The maid hung all the scattered things on a coat hanger in the closet. Very comfortably. By the way, don't forget to tip! We are daily leaving. left in the room 2-3 leva. Tipping is very logical: the maids should have an incentive to work well and better.
The kitchen is excellent. For 10 days, the menu has never been repeated. There are a lot of cheeses, both soft, such as feta cheese, and hard. Almost always in the assortment there was fish in different versions, chicken. Beef replaced pork, pork was replaced by lamb. Daily delicious Bulgarian grapes, plums, watermelons. But the Bulgarian melons did not impress. Lots of pastries and sweets every day. There is always beer, white and red wine for an aperitif. Large selection of ice cream.
The daughter of 4 years old was constantly engaged in animators. My 10 year old son and my wife and I took part in adult prank sports run by adult animators. It was a lot of fun. Children's disco at 19:00. And at 20 o'clock in the amphitheater every day some new show: national Bulgarian dances, salsa, magic tricks, performances in the style of Queen, Michael Jackson, Lord of Dance. In the evening, having put the children to bed, I sat down with my wife by the pool and admired the full moon in the sky, enjoyed the music from the bar on a summer evening. Or they went to the Promenade, where the evening life was seething. The location of the hotel is simply wonderful: 30 steps in any direction and you are on holiday, and there is no rumble and noise in the hotel itself. Excellent family hotel.
The hotel staff is very friendly, always with a smile. Bulgarians are generally remembered as a very friendly people. Good attitude everywhere. Preparing for the train, we read different reviews about different hotels and sometimes came across entries about a biased attitude towards Russian speakers. It is not true. Everywhere we spoke only Russian and everywhere we met a benevolent attitude. It all depends on how we are treated. Be positive and the world around you will change! If you don't get treated the way you want, it's up to you.
And, in general, I wish everyone a good rest in a wonderful place Sunny Beach. Kalina Garden is a great hotel in a beautiful resort! Good luck!
Different ice creams and fruits and vegetables are not allowed to be taken out of the restaurant, but, as far as I know, in almost all hotels. It's just that they're a bit more strict about it.
The lift in the hotel was very annoying. There are 2 of them and each has a carrying capacity of 630 kg (8 people), but in fact - the elevator did not always want to carry 3 adults. Taking into account the large influx of tourists in the season, I had to wait for the elevator for 5 minutes. When I had to go up myself, I scored and walked on foot, but with children and strollers we stood and waited (although there were also such that we climbed with small ones in our arms) .
I was unpleasantly surprised by the policy of the hotel administration regarding guests - guests who are not hotel guests are NOT allowed to enter the room (although there is not a word about this in the hotel rules - purely from the words and actions of the administrator). This should be borne in mind by those who travel in a large company, but settled in different hotels (due to different budget possibilities and other preferences) - you will not bring guests to Kalina.
Still not very clear was the situation with the safes. They are not in the rooms, but they are at the reception and there they are paid. Here the situation is twofold - it seems that you can pay for the rent, put valuables in a safe and not be afraid for them, but on the other hand, what should be considered valuable things: money, documents and electronics? It was because of the latter that we refused to rent a safe. We had a laptop, and a tablet, and phones, as well as video and cameras. And almost all of this was periodically used, put on charge or taken with you to the street. And constantly going down from the 5th floor to report something or take something is unrealistic (+ remember the excellent work of the elevator).
In general, we managed without a safe and, thanks to the honest staff, nothing was missing from the room.
In general, there were no special complaints about the staff - they tried as best they could. Because when we were a year old, we didn’t have so many teeth yet, so we brought a blender with us and the chefs in the restaurant prepared mashed vegetables, meat (and what we ourselves would do) without any problems. The waiters, when they saw that they were with small children, tried to help find a table or took the small one in their arms when we scooped up food. The room was cleaned every day, towels were changed every day and the bed was changed about 2 times a week. The TV was never turned on, but they said that there were Russian-language channels.
Of course, you can forget about calm and quiet nights in the high season - the hotel is located in the very center of the resort on one of the main streets, and if the windows of the room overlook the pool (on the main street), then until 3 am you can enjoy the screams and chants of drunk teenagers who travel from club to club and from bar to bar.
Animation for children seemed to be on the territory, but somehow our elder was not interested. But those who are 5 years old and older seem to like it.
And, a couple of words about Wi-Fi. It is there and even free, but the speed in 90% of cases when I tried to get there was about 30-40 Kb / s, which, in other matters, was enough for Skype with video. Apparently, this is still the same problem of a large number of guests. Although, at times, it happened that it broke through up to several megabits and it was already possible to turn on small cartoons from YouTube normally.
The hotel would probably be perfect for young people who want to hang out and buzz until the morning. The location of the hotel will be a big plus for them, because. all the green and party places are within a 10-15 minute walk.