Royal Bay Elenite Hotel – Elenite – Bulgaria

We arrived at the Royal Bay hotel at 6am Bulgaria time, so we were very tired. We got given room 208 (make a mental note of this room number). There were no blackout curtains & what curtains there were didn’t cover the window, we had damaged skirting boards, broken glass in the toilet and no cot for our 18 month daughter as we requested.

The patio door wouldn’t lock, teh room stank of stale food and it overlooked the bins & back of the kitchens so there was plenty of noise from the kitchen staff. Then there was a door missing from the wardrobe and the TV didn’t work. This was by far the worst room I have ever stayed in on holiday.

I complained the following morning to hotel reception but I might as well have been talking Martian for the good it did me, so I complained to our rep at the Welcome Meeting. The options we were given was to stay put or pay extra for a seaview room that was fit for humans, so that was what we had to do as it just wasn’t safe for small children & certainly wasn’t a so called 4 star room.

It turned out that quite a few others were pushed into room 208 (and 202 by the lift shaft) during the course of our holidays & every single one rejected it & had to pay for an upgrade. It’s a con, they know you will reject it & therefore they have a nice little earner going, dare you risk it & be given one of these terrible rooms?

Now then let’s try & be positive. The beach at Elenite is nice but you need to be near the volleyball pitch as nearer the Royal Bay it’s rocky but the hotel has a nice pool although it’s not the warmest. You have to queue for drinks & they have a habit of shutting early plus the main barman was surly at best. A top tip: get a big tankard (pint+) & keep hold of it, it seems to annoy him immensely.

Food was very samey and things like chicken & lamb looked more like roadkill. I tended to stick to the kid’s processed food. If you want a beer with your food expect a long wait. Lots of the tables were dirty so it was quite a feat to find a clean one that was set. The high chair was falling to bits.

If you want to watch sports, the best bet is Paco’s bar out of the complex, where you have to pay but it’s two Lev for a pint so cheap.

Formation towel bombing raids at 7am & not just by the usual suspects. Quite a few wasps about, especially where folk have knocked over sweet drinks of course. Nice touch was the bins had lids otherwise it would have been unbearable.

We were chucked out of room at noon, even though we weren’t leaving until following morning at 2am.