The Lodge Hotel

We stayed here year before last, so knew what to expect. The position is fab, literally 50 yards from the gondola, and a 5/10 min walk to the other lifts. Breakfast better than last year, good coffee, hot and cold offerings. Doesn’t start till 8am, which we found a bit late. However, we managed. Lovely open fire in the main lounge area where the bar is. Excellent pool, sauna, steam room, jacuzzi, which we all used after a day on the slopes. I used the gym a few times too. They provide all toiletries, hairdryer, robe, slippers (we used these every day to/from the pool, as they didn’t appear to provide pool towels), kettle, mini bar fridge, in-room safe. We used Rilski ski and snowboard school for our ski and board hire, and for lessons and private mini bus from/to airport too (takes about 1 hour 15 mins). They were excellent. Would highly recommend. They are literally 30 yards from the hotel, and you walk past them to get to the gondola. They were 100% better than the company we used last time. We ate at many of the local restaurants. Didn’t have one bad meal. Really liked Hunters, and also the Mexican, Mamacitas. They have live music and the two nights we went, music was very good. You must try White Magic which is owned by a former Bulgarian Downhill Olympic skier, Christo. What a character. He is front of house and his wife does all the cooking. Best meal for me was there. Do remember a lot of the restaurants are family run, with not a lot of workers, so you might have to wait a bit for your food, and it might not come out all at once. We usually ordered for the kids first, and then put our order in after. We tried Vicky’s Pizza and Bobby’s Bar too. Please note, do NOT use the yellow/blue cash machines. Their exchange rates are diabolical!! Use the one in the bank if you have to. We took Lev, and then some Sterling too, and changed that up in the bureau de change shops there. Better rate than we got in the UK. Also, a lot of the smaller restaurants don’t take cards. We tried to booked The Lodge for next half term whilst we were there, but already fully booked! That says it all really. We will just have to come back another time.

Every year since 2017 i visit The Lodge and it was amazing. BUT this year was the last time i visit the hotel. There is a new manager I believe, and she is very unprofessional. While she was accomodating us she was smoking in the hotel. I think her name was Malina. We were waiting like 3 hours at Sofia Airport till our bus from the hotel arrive. The water in the pool was cold like the Black Sea in December. Terrible manager at all. We had to pay to leave our ski equippment in the ski wardrobe, never done that before in any hotel. Also we were taxed for leaving our bags in the room. Never again!